Bill Thompson on charter schools and turning around failing schools

Working Families Party debate, July 2, 2009

“I do support charter schools, but they serve only about 25,000 students. That leaves more than one million who aren’t in charter schools.

.... When we look at what we did, a model called Chancellor’s schools; we capped the size of the school, created a rigorous curriculum, focused on teacher training, literacy, etc.. intensive teacher training and the schools improved. And we involved parents. We need to bring them in."

(He fails to mention the most important reform in the Chancellor's district -- a dramatic reduction in class size for grades K-5)

".... not everything is standardized tests. We must bring back art and music to schools and we create well-rounded students."