charter schools

An Andover lawmaker has filed legislation that would lift the charter-school cap on the state's 30 lowest-performing school districts, including Lowell, Gardner, and Fitchburg, a move praised as creating more options for nontraditional education and criticized for taking state dollars away from the public system.

Parents at 24th Street Elementary School have overwhelmingly chosen a partnership between the Los Angeles Unified School District and a charter operator to run the persistently low-performing Jefferson Park campus.

The School Committee for the brand-new $133 million Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical High School is moving to hire the school’s first superintendent-director by July 1, if not sooner.

Before moving our family back to central Maine, my husband and I began the search for quality elementary school options for our children. In our community where we used to live, we were fortunate to have an abundance of public charter school options. As a former teacher, I appreciated the innovative curriculums and hands-on experiential learning opportunities that many of the charter school alternatives offered.

Gov. Rick Snyder got some hands-on experience Tuesday with the type of cyber charter school program that will be expanding next fall under a new Michigan law when he read to a class of children who watched and listened online through the Michigan Virtual Charter Academy. The children could see Snyder, but he couldn’t see them.

Waiting list totals can count students more than once, a review of state data found.

A Miami charter school which serves inner-city kids has received notice from the Archdiocese of Miami that it will be shut down in August. At a time when Pope Francis said the Catholic church needs to do a better job of reaching out to the poor and underprivileged, Miami’s River Cities middle school received a letter from the Archdiocese addressed to “Whom it May Concern” advising them of the closure.

The House on Tuesday passed a charter schools bill 62-56 with, oddly, no debate or questions on House Bill 369, the "Charter Schools Act of 2013."

The state takeover of public schools in New Jersey’s poorest city, Camden, last week is a move long overdue and presents a new opportunity for the local educational system to reinvent itself.

The charter school movement has former Sens. Jim Horne and Al Lawson making the rounds in the Capitol. But its most effective lobbyists may be the 300 or so students in Tallahassee on Tuesday.