The Charter School Solution

Usher out large scale, custodial care and usher in smaller learning communities for students.  In an article in Sunday's Albuquerque Journal, Think New Mexico--A New Mexico think tank published a report that recommends that the state cease the building of what they call "dropout factories" and start looking at smaller learning communities as a way to improve dropout rates.  

The report states that 27 percent of the state's public high schools qualify as "dropout factories," with less than 60 percent of 9th graders making it to graduation.  That's an alarming dropout rate of nearly 40%!  

The "warehouse approach" to building large schools where students get lost in anonymity is an outdated strategy that really promoted custodial care.  It's like the Wal-Mart model to education.  Fit as many products (in this case students) as you can in one space and offer everything at a discount.  The problem is your students' "discount" is their unrealized academic and social potential.  

Charter schools address this issue by providing smaller learning environments, where students actually know their teachers and administrators by name.  There has been a lot of debate about the "quality" of instruction and ancillary services provided by charter schools.  Also, people tend to get caught-up in misleading performance measures like schools meeting Annually Yearly Progress (AYP).  However, there is empirical evidence that supports young people perform better in smaller learning communities than they do in larger "dropout factories."  

So, the solution is right in front of us.  Stop building these "Wal-Mart schools" and start investing in smaller, charter schools that can meet the targeted socioeconomic and academic needs of our students.