Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson

This is a very insightful article from the latest issue of Education Next (a great publication!) on Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson and his charter school program.  They learned from others' experience and have built a great program.

One hard lesson of America’s experiment with public charter schools is that building a school from scratch is no small task. From recruiting faculty to implementing a curriculum to meeting the requirements of special education laws to applying for federal funds for extra literacy instruction to complying with health and safety codes to hundreds of other little boxes that need to be checked off, getting a school off the ground is a formidable undertaking. If your charter school fails, your name will be dragged through the mud. And the political fallout will be significant. States that have too easily greenlighted charter schools have seen a number of them flame out, publicly and embarrassingly.

 It is now widely understood that quality charter school authorizers are critical to charter school success. A strong charter school law makes it possible for parents to choose between the system and something else. A good chartering authority makes it far more likely that the alternative is going to be a worthy one. Mayor Peterson says, “I don’t hold myself out as the guy who has the answers. I hold the key to a process where smart people who know the answers can flourish.”

Entering the game 10 years after America’s first charter schools opened in Minnesota, the Indianapolis mayor’s office was in a good position to avoid certain mistakes. The most important thing they did right, everyone seems to agree, was insist on quality over quantity. In their first year they received 31 letters of intent and 21 applications for charters. Hassel says it was anything but a “rubber-stamp process.” Along with staff and consultants, the mayor himself was “hashing through applications.” Most of them, Hassel says, were “weak,” but “there were some real gems.” Just four charters were granted.

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Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson

By David Skinner, Education Next

The Peyton Manning of charter schools

http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/7558537.html

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 “I have never found much redeeming social value in Indianapolis outside of the St. Elmo steakhouse,” wrote political reporter Jack Germond a few years back. It would, indeed, take an exceptional town to live up to the pugnacious character of St. Elmo, where the steaks are plump and perfect and ruddy waiters stalk about an old, no-nonsense dining room with their sleeves rolled up.