Paying Off or Adding to the Education Debt? Democracy, Charter Schools, and Public Accessibility

• In Event: 54.052 - School Choice Implementation: Finance, Access, and Leadership

Abstract

Charter schools are a growing part of the American education system. Many early advocates of charter reform argued that giving control over key school functions local stakeholders would restore the democratic function of schools (Lubienski & Weitzel, 2010). But as the charter sector has grown, a subsector has emerged with practices that make schools less accessible to all students (Lubienski & Weitzel, 2010). The purpose of this paper is to consider how trends in charter school accessibility hold up to a democratic theory of public education (Gutmann, 1999; Apple & Beane, 2007) that centers making up for our nation’s collective education debt (Ladson-Billings, 2006).

Author

• Wagma S. Mommandi, University of Colorado - Boulder