Learning curve

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Conservatives like Finn have long championed so-called "market" solutions to public education reform. But the charter movement has enlisted progressive Democrats as well, in Massachusetts and across the nation.

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Mark Roosevelt is managing director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education and as a state legislator was coauthor of the 1993 Education Reform Act, the landmark legislation that created MCAS and restructured the way the state manages and funds public schools. To Roosevelt, a liberal Democrat and a passionate advocate of standards-based education reform -- which he calls the most important civil rights movement of our time -- competition is an essential mechanism for highlighting success and weeding out failure in public education. "The long waiting-lists of kids [to attend charters] are very powerful things," he says. "If schools see themselves losing kids, this should tell them something."

To that end, says Roosevelt, charter schools must take the same cues. In his view, the closing of the Lynn Community Charter School, while disheartening, is proof the system works. Unlike regular public schools, charters have a built-in mechanism for accountability, he says. If they do not perform, they are shut down.

But Amy Stuart Wells, a professor of sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and editor of the 2002 book "Where Charter School Policy Fails," argues that there is a significant flaw inherent in this market model. While competition may work magnificently in the business world, she says, where in corporate America do fierce competitors ever work together to create innovation? "There is a fundamental contradiction in how proponents describe their model," says Wells. "Competition is antithetical to collaboration."

Even in cases where there are real innovations to share -- and where charter school leaders have the time and inclination to do so -- Wells points out that there is no established mechanism in the current state infrastructure to facilitate the transfer of new ideas. "To the extent that it is happening," she says, "it is because individuals on the ground level are doing it. There is nothing in state policies about *how to share ideas. So, for the most part, it just doesn't happen."

In Massachusetts, however, this may be changing. Although there are no state-run programs or policies, the nonprofit Project for School Innovation (PSI), based in Dorchester, is one of the only organizations in the country whose explicit mission is to connect charter and district public school teachers in a two-way exchange of effective practices and innovations. Now in its fifth year, PSI is involved with educators from 55 charter and district public schools in Massachusetts. They work with schools to identify, research, and document their most effective practices, and then publish books and hold teacher-led workshops to share the information.

In the well-matched battle over charter schools, it's simply too early for either side to declare victory. But even the movement's critics see potential. "I have great respect for people at the ground level trying to start something new," said Wells. "But as a public policy, it simply is not equipped to transform the public educational system."

But in small arenas, Finn points out, change is happening. Schools like KIPP are opening up new worlds for students and providing options for families who traditionally had none.

In the town of Lynn, the 77 kids at the KIPP Academy sit in classrooms plastered with inspirational messages: "No shortcuts, no excuses," "Only you can change your attitude," "Success is measured by effort." But perhaps the most fitting is a small handwritten sign hung beside the school's main doors. "Be the change you want to see in the world," it reads. Most kids brush right by it as they rush out the door at the end of the day. But it's there for a reason.

Cara Feinberg is a writer living in Cambridge.