Jim Barksdale – For-profit charter schools not the answer
I am a staunch proponent for good charter schools. I have worked on this issue over the past two decades, beginning in California in the 1990s before I moved to Mississippi in 2000. Good charter schools can provide a path out of lousy schools where the community hasn’t stepped up. Let’s get a good charter bill passed here in Mississippi and get to work.
As with all complicated issues, however, the devil is in the details, and we have to be careful that in our efforts to improve schools we don’t do unintentional harm. I am concerned that the bills wending through the Legislature could do this in that they allow charters to be managed on a for-profit basis, with taxpayer dollars comprising those profits.
Jim Barksdale
Clarion Ledger
1/22/13
Magnolia Tribune
