Back to Failing Schools

This captures perfectly why it's critical that there be charter school authorizers other than local school districts, which often do everything they can to deny charter school applications.

In June, the Atlanta school board spurned  an application from Ed Chang, a Teach for America alum who wanted to start a  charter that would target the low-income black children who tend to be relegated to the city's worst schools. Mr. Chang told us his goal was  "graduate every child" and so his enrollment model centered around not  accepting more kids than he would be able to educate properly. The board held  that against him, rejecting the application on grounds that it was too  "exclusionary." And so Atlanta's black teens will return to high schools that  have nearly twice as many freshmen as seniors.

---------------------

Back to Failing Schools
August 13, 2007; Page A14
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118696579249695591.html

In a couple of weeks, tens of thousands of underprivileged kids will head back to failing public schools in metro Atlanta. School choice proponents are eager to provide these students with alternatives, but the local school boards won't let them. Welcome to another sorry example of the education empire striking back against reformers.