Is Gavin thinking about charters?

Today were learning about another wrinkle in the fabric of charter schools. As much as we like to criticize charter schools around here, they are a hard target to pin down. There is great variety in the ecology of charter schools. In New York the union is running their own charter schools. Various Ed schools run charters. In Indianapolis, apparently the mayor is getting into the act.

Well known Ed blogger Andrew Rotherham of eduwonk fame and David Harris, who lead the Indianapolis mayor's charter venture, have collaborated on this article, Get Mayors in the Schooling Game:

Mayors determined to reform education must either find ways of supporting school districts or take them over. Efforts to support school districts include building relationships with superintendents, advocating for resources, and publicizing successes. These efforts tend to keep mayors out of trouble (in other words, on the front page and off the op-ed pages) but with a few noteworthy exceptions, such efforts are low-impact in terms of improving outcomes for students.

Other mayors have assumed direct control over school systems, or sought control by supporting entire slates of school board candidates. But the prospects of truly reforming any large, entrenched institution are not good. Stanford’s Michael Kirst, who has extensively studied mayoral takeovers concludes that "it is difficult to link these governance shifts to improved instructional practices or outcomes."

But there is a third way that gives a mayor a way to truly impact education while sidestepping the treacherous politics and problems of takeovers: Mayors can open their own public schools. Doing so does not mean walking away from other struggling public schools, but it does mean providing more high quality seats for students and introducing healthy competition into the public sector.

This is an interesting twist for those of us who've been watching charters with a critical eye. It is doubly interesting to see it appear on Gavin Newsom's Act Locally SF blog. Is there something afoot at City Hall?