Enthusiasm Grows for NJ's Public School Choice Program

My most recent column at WHYY's Newsworks looks at the evolution of NJ's Interdistrict Public School Choice Program. In September, about 15% of NJ's school districts will take part.

Take over Camden Public Schools! Reform tenure and evaluate teachers and principals on student growth data! Strengthen and expand charter schools! Enact a school voucher bill!

Education reformers in New Jersey and elsewhere sure do love radical change, seven-league strides towards the imagined Bethlehem of high-achieving schools accessible to all children. We've no patience for baby-steps that gingerly transverse the mired ruts of the status quo, no time for triangulated compromises that slap a coat of paint on failing schools and call it an improvement.

But sometimes meaningful change does occur incrementally. This is hard to hear for die-hard reformers. But one particular Jersey-grown school reform measure argues for a gradual approach: the state's Interdistrict Public School Choice Program.

Read the rest here.