CN2's Ryan Alessi interviewed Kentucky State Representative Brad Montell on Pure Politics last week. Montell is the leading advocate for charter schools in the General Assembly, and after several years of trying finally got a hearing in the House Education committee last year, though his bill lacked enough support for an official vote. Montell vowed to continue his fight for public charters next year.
Rep. Montell did a fine job explaining why charter schools will be good for Kentucky (one of only nine states in the U.S. that currently forbid them). In particular, he responded to the allegation that charter schools drain money from traditional public schools, and they will enroll only the top students. In response to other concerns often voiced by educators, Montell emphasized that teachers in charter schools (who typically report high levels of job satisfaction) are still eligible to unionize and initiate collective bargaining, and explained how sensible value-added measures can be used to evaluate teacher peformance (rather than simplistic test-score based measures, which some people fear will be the norm in charter schools).
The strength of Montell's ideas lies in the great specificity of his proposed charter school legislation, which sets clear and high expectations for how charters can be initiated and how they'll be managed and evaluated.
See the complete CN2 interview here:
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