By Jeanne Allen
Huffington Post
October 4, 2011
One of several path-breaking movies to hit the mainstream theatres last year, Waiting for Superman educated thousands about the plight of U.S. schools. It conveyed the urgency of the problem, clarified the crisis, and sought to engage a nation. Most who saw it were shocked, and many made a silent vow to fight to eradicate the causes of such dismal failure in schools. But despite the push, the reality and the passion it engaged in us, for too many, when the movie was over, it was back to business as usual. For too many children, there is more waiting.
Too many state leaders are still failing to do what they can to put laws to work in the best interest of kids. They boast of “sound processes,” “collaboration,” and various interpretations of law. They avoid the “fierce urgency of now” when making decisions.
Take the decision by the NJ State Department of Education this week to approve only 4 of 58 charter school applications to open these new independent public schools to provide hope for upwards of 2,000 children who are currently without quality options. What of the thousands more children whose lives remain compromised by school buildings that have little but noise happening every day? Had the charter school movement begun in 1991 with the same adherence to process and so-called qualitative review, there might be barely a few hundred schools open today in perhaps a fraction of states. Like any movement, the early pioneers of this one were willing to take risks and, with Toquevillesque resolve, engage more citizens in the act of educating well our youth outside of conventional organizations that had been set up — and since begun to fail — to do so.
New York charter schools, while on the rise,
