Three months into the school year, students at the new Locke High School, now under charter school operator Green Dot’s management, report that teachers care more for them this year than before. Student attendance for September and October averaged 92%, and violence at the school is down. The Los Angeles Times staff continues coverage of the school and its progress in this editorial.

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A series of bills attempting to address Michigan's urban education crisis focus on turning around failing schools by increasing accountability measures and bringing in successful education management companies. This Detroit News opinion calls for a more comprehensive plan that will also lift the state cap on charter school growth.

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Last year, the Ohio Legislature set high standards for charter school authorizers and broadened the Department of Education's ability to take necessary steps toward eliminating mismanaged and failing schools. The Columbus Dispatch writes in this editorial that Ohio children now need Governor Strickland to ensure that these accountability measures are given a chance to work without placing a moratorium or other limitation on the growth of high-quality charter schools.

The Orfields are at it again. This time brother Myron has taken a hatchet to Twin Cities charters - and specifically, to the African-American parents who choose them – for allegedly “re-segregating” public education.

Big economic drops keep on coming just in time for the holidays, and this season's charitable gifts to charter schools are likely to be smaller as a result. Wall Street Journal reporters Mark Spector and Shelly Banjo write here that Geoffrey Canada's Harlem Children's Zone, which recently received $25 million from a former AIG chief executive, will need to cut 10% of the staff to cope with the loss of funding sources.   

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The Texas State Board of Education awarded the last eight public charter school charters allowable under the state's current cap of 215. Jennifer Radcliff of the Houston Chronicle writes that the move puts pressure on legislators to lift the cap and on the School Board to close down schools that aren't performing here.

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Failing schools in Michigan would be contractually obligated to turn operations and funding over to new management for five years if a new bill introduced on Wednesday by representative Tim Melton, D-Auburn Hills is passed.

Florida State football star Myron Rolle is not only a potential Rhodes Scholar and the focal point of this New York Times article by Pete Thamel. Rolle is also the creator and founder of Our Way to Health, a healthy lifestyle awareness program for fifth grade students at Pemayetv Emahakv Charter School in Okeechobee, Florida. Among his many accomplishments, Rolle points to his work with the Seminole Indian students at the charter school as an achievement of which he is particularly proud.

Prominent Illinois political, business, and education leaders including former Governor Jim Edgar, former U.S. Commerce Secretary Bill Daley, and former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert have formed a group committed to improving public education in Illinois. The Chicago Tribune staff reports that the group, called Advance Illinois, yesterday released a study showing that only 29% of Illinois students meet proficiency standards on national assessment tests here.

Three years ago, Gabriella's Place, a dance studio serving the largely immigrant community of Pico Union, was forced to close. While the neighborhood hoped for it to return, the list of would be dancers grew to 2,300 names long.

Hyde Leadership Public Charter School's all-African-American high school rugby team is probably the nation's first of its kind. Now in its eighth year, the program is doing more than giving students a new game to play. Will Bardenwerper of the New York Times writes this article on how rugby is exposing Hyde students to international experiences and opportunities.

Pennsylvania's charter schools have become an integral part of the state's education system with more than 131 schools educating 70,000 students. Lawrence Jones Jr. president of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Charter Schools describes the many ways charter schools are proving successful across the state in this Philadelphia Inquirer opinion.

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Congrats to the students and faculty at Roxbury Preparatory Charter School in Boston! They are being honored today with the Education Trust's "Disspelling the Myth" award. Along with Roxbury, the award is being presented to three other U.S. schools for their extraordinary efforts in helping students of color and low-income students achieve outstanding academic success.

Students in Chicago Public Schools are speaking up for education reform. More than 50 students from 15 area high schools have teamed up to try and figure out a way to raise the city's 55% graduation rate. Rosalind Rossi of the Chicago Sun-Times describes how the program, Voices of Youth Changing Education or VOYCE, allowed students to look at best practices in charter and traditional public schools nationwide and bring recommendations home to their district here.

When it comes to raising academic achievement for students living in low-income households, California charter schools are leading their traditional district school neighbors. The report released today by the California Charter Schools Association looks at more than 3,000 public schools where at least 70% of the student body qualifies for free and reduced price lunches  and finds that 12 of the top 15 public schools serving low-income student populations are charter schools.

The King Center Charter School in Buffalo, NY knows the importance of reading to children before they turn three. Charity Vogel and Peter Simon of The Buffalo News write that children who know the alphabet before entering kindergarten are three times more likely to read by the end of first grade than those who do not have the alphabet down.

CO - Hundreds of charter school advocates gathering for the Colorado League of Charter Schools' annual conference in Aurora spoke excitedly about President-elect Barack Obama's pledge to double federal funding for charter schools. Read Nancy Mitchell's story in today's Rocky Mountain News here.

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Twelve of California's 15 highest performing public schools serving children from low-income families are charter schools. The study conducted by California Charter Schools Association will be released on Monday. Watch the ABC7 news report out of San Francisco on what this success of public charter schools might mean for the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind here.

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A lot to mull over, and be astonished by, in Tuesday’s election results, but let’s make one emphatic point. Charter schools are pulling support from both sides of the aisle, and to an extent folks may not appreciate.

Sure we have to deal with irreconcilables like Ohio Governor Ted Strickland (who got one legislative chamber closer to his goal of a charter moratorium), but consider the following:

Until three years ago, Gompers Middle School in San Diego was known for having poor test scores and low graduation rates. But change came to Gompers when it converted into a charter middle school in 2005, and now the school boasts improved test scores and a rigorous college preparatory curriculum. Sand Diego Union-Tribune staff writers describe how more than 800 Gompers students, 97% of them minorities, celebrated change in a new way  after the election of Sen. Barack Obama as President of the United States here.