ABSTRACT
This chapter describes many conversations about charter schools with school boards, district leadership, state education agencies, legislatures, and national advocacy groups. Charter schools provide the backdrop for an ongoing debate about the aims of publicly supported education and the role of the individual in relation to the larger community. Much of the debate about the appropriate legal and regulatory framework for charter schools derives from the ideological differences. Liberals, progressives, conservatives, and libertarians are found both pressing for charter schools and opposing them, obviously with different points of focus and emphasis. Through gradual reform of social and welfare policies, progressives seek a democratic society that reduces inequality, poverty, and discrimination, which are viewed as negative by-products of capitalism. Clayton Christensen and his team suggest that the institution of public education no longer fits the social and economic context it is intended to serve.
