An Eye for Charter Quality

Jeb Bush, former Governor of Florida and President and Chairman of Foundation for Education Excellence (FEE), echoes Ronald Reagan when he talks about how “the Berlin Wall” in education is beginning to fall, allowing for more free market and enterprise solutions to shape the thinking of performance enhancement in the learning sector.
He recently spoke in Louisiana and gave support to Republican Governor Bobby Jindal, but then focused on charter school quality during a question and answer session. He’s absolutely right. States all over the country are now sharpening their assessments and searching for high-performing charter school organizations to help with turnarounds. He said that Florida is a great test case for this:

During the question-and-answer session, Bush noted that Florida had to keep a tighter rein on quality as it expanded school choice and made sure charter and private schools were financially stable. He urged avoiding such pitfalls because early problems make it easier for critics.
“They use the failure of one school to try to destroy school choice across the entire state,” Bush said.
He did note that the “Berlin Wall is cracking,” crediting President Barack Obama for pushing states like Louisiana to start measuring teacher performance, over the resistance of teacher unions.
“If you build a first-class educational system, a lot of the other problems you face will seem small in comparison,” Bush said. “People will come, investors will come, capital will come. People that want to be in creative communities will come, too.”