Charter school facilities? What facilities?

Charter schools across the country share the problem of inadequate facilities. Some districts, such as Denver Public Schools, have begun co-locating charter schools in underutilized buildings and charging charter schools the cost of operating the building. Academy School District 20 did something similar when The Classical Academy in Colorado Springs needed temporary space.

In our nation's capitol, they sell the open schools for condominium conversions. In an oped piece for The Washington Examiner, Robert Crane describes the situation. Surely at a time when our President supports charter schools and has even tied federal funding to the expansion of charter schools, the decision about how to use existng facilities should be easy.

The doctrine of separate and unequal must stop. DPS has realized it as they have developed their portfolio model, which purposely includes charter schools. When will districts and legislators across the country realize that he educational landscape must change--that the outdated educational structure must accommodate change or itself be radically reconstructed. It seems so simple to allow children to move from a converted grocery store or warehouse to an existing school building rather than to let that school building vanish as if it were never there.