Jersey Jazzman recently engaged in a lively exchange with Dmitri Mehlhorn, a leading advocate for charter schools.

 

There are six installments. In the first one, JJ explains who DM is and explains the reason for the exchange:

 

Dmitri Mehlhorn is a venture capitalist and school “reform” advocate. He was the COO of StudentsFirst, Michelle Rhee’s education “reform” lobbying group, and he maintains a regular presence in both traditional and social media as an advocate for charter school proliferation, the revocation of teacher tenure as it is currently constituted, and other similar “reform” policies.

 

I have had several Twitter back-and-forths with Mehlhorn, and I’ve found them extremely unsatisfying. To be clear, that’s not his fault, nor is it mine: it’s the inherent limitations of 140 characters that have kept us from having a substantive debate.

 

The funny thing is that I enjoy our exchanges. I think Mehlhorn is a sincere advocate for policies he believes will genuinely help America’s students. I also believe, however, that he’s wrong about nearly everything when it comes to education — particularly when it comes to charter schools.

 

At Dmitri’s suggestion, we are going to have a dialog about charters here on my blog. I promised him that I would let his words stand here free of any editing on my part [I have added a few links in the text, but that’s all], and that I would make my opposing case in separate posts.

 

I don’t know how long our exchange will go, but I will respond to what Mehlhorn wrote below in a couple of days. I hope he’ll reply back; this dialog about charter schools could be very helpful in clarifying one of the key issues in education “reform.”

 

This is a worthy and informative discussion of charters. Please read all six pieces.