Education Next – Daniela Doyle, Christen Holly and Bryan Hassel
“Over the past 25 years, charter schools have grown from a ragtag insurgency into a serious force in U.S. K–12 education. According to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, charters serve nearly three million children across the country and enroll more than 20 percent of students in several dozen cities. In most places, urban school districts aim to contain charters, but in a small but growing number of cities, the charter sector has become a serious educational player, too large and influential for the prevailing power to ignore. In such cities, districts and charters have sometimes responded by “engaging” with one another—that is, by collaborating or coordinating in pursuit of a common goal or to address practical challenges.”(more)