John Tierney: “I think we are having a healthy debate here, but I want to make a note that I sense that what is being said here is…”

“I think we are having a healthy debate here, but I want to make a note that I sense that what is being said here is there may be more than one purpose of this proposed bill. I think that there are apparently two purposes being put forward on this. One is apparently some desire to have this Congress impose upon States a necessity that they charge forward with a judgment that charter schools are already a raging success before they have had the opportunity to assess and measure the performance of their own experimental schools that have been started. I am not sure that that is a healthy aspect. I thought experimenting was about setting on a path, taking a very conscious and prudent evaluation and proceeding only after those types of measurements have been made. The other purpose, as I understand it in this particular statute, is to make sure that startup schools that currently say they do not have sufficient funding to start up can share in some additional funding, and that is why there is more money being put into the pie.”