Philadelphia district keeping charter schools from flexing their muscle

Naomi Johnson Booker

Is president of Philadelphia Charters for Excellence
Davis Guggenheim, director of An Inconvenient Truth, showed how the simple act of changing a light bulb could change the world. Now, he asks in his film Waiting for “Superman,” which opened Friday, why can’t we change public education?
We can. We are.
Philadelphia charter schools are succeeding where traditional schools fail. More than 70 percent of the city’s charters met the state’s Adequate Yearly Progress standard, but that is not the only measure to which we hold ourselves accountable. Nearly 100 percent of Philadelphia charter students go to school every day, excited to learn, excited about the possibilities their futures hold. In most of our high schools, 95 percent or more are graduating and going on to college.