Charter-izing "turnaround districts"

Here's Secretary Peyser on Boston Public Radio this week:

Currently, low-performing school districts can be taken over and operated as Horace Mann charter schools, meaning that teachers are still in the union, for example, but don't have the same protections as in district schools. It's a model Peyser says he'd like to expand to include other kinds of charters too.

"I would love to have the ability to use commonwealth charter schools, which are the ones that are totally free of district control—they don't have teachers in the union*—I'd love to see them have the same opportunity," he said.

Yes, that means he'd like Level 5 districts to be "charter-ized" like New Orleans has been. And how has that worked for New Orleans?

 Flooding New Orleans with charter schools has been disastrous.

Here's what the parents think:




Note that this would require a change in Mass General Law.

*Small correction: there are charter school teachers in Massachusetts that are unionized.