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Charter Talk

From “New focus on DC public-charter collaboration” (02/02/2012) in the DC Schools Insider:

DCPS maintains a system of neighborhood schools with seats guaranteed to anyone within prescribed boundaries. The [Public Charter School Board] oversees schools open to all comers citywide. Decisions about openings, closings, program offerings and facilities have, more often than not, been made in isolation. Last week’s IFF report on school capacity is the latest sign that the silos are about to come down. [...]

While city officials stress that no final decisions will be made without careful discussion at the community level, IFF recommends that the city “coordinate the closure of DCPS schools with PCSB. As necessary, authorize a charter school within the same building or in the immediate vicinity before school closure. With cooperation and coordination between DCPS and PCSB, PCSB can use the buildings as incentives to recruit the highest performing charter school operators into the Top Ten priority neighborhood clusters.” [...]

“If we see that there are neighborhoods where there is a dearth of quality schools, we should try to focus quality charter operators to open there,” [Scott Pearson, the charter board's new executive director] said, especially if surplus DCPS buildings are available. [...] Pearson said he plans to look both locally and nationally for top charter organizations interested in locating in the neighborhoods targeted by IFF.

Several questions jumped out to me: how might this change the charter schools landscape in DC, do you think? Might we see an increase in (and increased relocation among) local charters, or an influx of national models? And could this in fact encourage the opening of new charters if spaces are more clearly and immediately available?

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