NOBODY EVER BATTED 1.000
I think Chester Finn (the Education Gadfly) is a terific reformer with great ideas. Usually. This week he struck out swinging with his column on charter schools. Finn proposes allowing churches to start charter schools.
Let religious schools become part of the charter system so long as they’re willing to abide by the results-based accountability arrangements that other charter schools must accept, namely state academic standards and tests. And allow churches to found new charter schools without shedding their sectarianism.
This is a singularly bad idea and almost assuredly unconstitutional. Charter schools are public schools. Are we really prepared to allow the government to pick which churches can start a charter school? How likely is it that a Moslem group could get approval to form a charter in, say, OK? Or Baptists in Utah? Zelman allows for parents to take voucher money and use it at a religious school. That is a far cry from the government “owning” a church school. No, this idea is DOA.