Today Representative Jared Polis (D-Boulder), who serves on the House Education and Labor Committee, introduced one of the most important education reform bills of the 111th Congress, the “All Students Achieving Through Reform” or “All-STAR” Act.
Polis, the only member of Congress to have actually launched and run a charter school, has put together a strong package of school reforms that seeks to catalyze innovative approaches to education in the 21st century and bring to scale highly effective charter models that are showing success all over the country in providing children with new educational opportunities and narrowing achievement and graduation gaps.
Charter schools have been the cutting edge of creative and bold education reforms in the last decade, particularly in high-poverty, high-minority communities where previous efforts at reform have failed. In the best charter schools, there has been community buy-in and investment from day one. Parents have been empowered to overcome the “take it or leave it” approach to neighborhood schools. Achievement levels and graduation rates have soared.
No student who is on a charter school waiting list or who attends a persistently low-performing school should be denied the chance and the choice to get a high quality public education. The All-STAR bill would put in place the policies and resources necessary to expand opportunities for a quality education to hundreds of thousands more students across the country.
We are impressed with the bipartisan support the bill has received and with the range of endorsers, including civil rights groups and independent think tanks. We look forward to swift action on All-STAR when Congress takes up the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 2010.