Challenges for Charter Schools

Read this important piece from AEI on Challenges for Charter Schools. Hess makes some good points about the challenge of scaling:
• Models that rely on heroic effort have inherent limits to scale (e.g., KIPP)
• The quality backlash and focus on ‘what works’ has driven innovation out of the charter sector
Rick suggests that the ‘clan’ model has been more successful than the ‘corporate’ model. However, the EMO (i,e., for profit) sector is now larger than the CMO sector. National Heritage (about 60 schools) and Mosica (77 schools) are both larger than KIPP and twice the size of leading CMO’s
The gigantic and critical global education gap is secondary education—high quality low cost connection to college and careers. Hybrid models that blend online and onsite learning will best address this gap. EMOs will play a critical role in meeting the needs of hundreds of millions of underserved students from urban America to rural China.