Submitted by Gideon, Sep 22, 2008 12:54

I hate to see charter schools get lost in the debate about the unions role in education reform. The fact that the UFT is actually running charter schools is telling, not to mention the fact that the presidential candidates for both parties support charter schools. Let's stop pretending charter schools are a partisan issue, and figure out what we need to do to create more great schools. I was especially pleased to see the proposal to allow charter schools to hire uncertified teachers. There is no reason to think that teacher certification somehow indicates quality in a teacher; after all, almost 100 percent of teachers in public schools today are certified and that has not led to high levels of achievement in our public school system. Just look at all of the successful parochial and private schools; they do great things without certified teachers. I see no harm in letting charter schools try to serve students with the teachers they think best need their needs; the only losers are the schools of education which have used credentialing programs as giant cash cows for their institutions.

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