Heidi Alexander: “this week is the 13th annual National Charter Schools Week. On Tuesday, Senator Landrieu of Louisiana and I joined with…”

“this week is the 13th annual National Charter Schools Week. On Tuesday, Senator Landrieu of Louisiana and I joined with 10 other Senators in submitting a resolution praising teachers, administrators, parents, and students who are part of the charter school movement across our country. Let me begin by explaining exactly what a charter school is because sometimes we stand here in the Senate and start talking without explaining the subject. A charter school is the Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering. I visited there 4 years ago during spring break. Most of the students in Memphis were somewhere else, but not the students at the Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering. These were sophomores studying advanced placement biology. These were children who had been in other schools the year before that were deemed to be low- performing schools. In other words, these were among the students in Memphis considered least likely to succeed. But they were fortunate. They were allowed to go to this charter school. Their parents had chosen this charter school. Here is what was different about the school. The union rules, the State rules, and the Federal rules had been relaxed so that the teachers had the freedom to do what they thought those children needed in that school.…”