And a follow-up, charters and their future in New Jersey's cities. Takeovers not out of the question.

As follow-up to the last post, I'd like to touch on charters in the cities versus the suburbs. During last week's panel comments were made that charter schools have been set-up to be, in part, agents of educational innovation in areas of educational need. In other words, lets test an idea on a small set of students before we roll it out on an entire school.

The more effective charter schools start small, usually with one grade in the first year, partly because they have limited funds and also because they need the opportunity to be sure of the capabilities as well as the collegiality of their teachers and administrators. An effective school grows an effective faculty, and an effective faculty allows the school to advance and welcome new students.

However, I am concerned about a practice that has happened outside my home state of New Jersey in cities such as Detroit and Los Angeles, which is to ask charter operators, among others, to "take over" existing schools from the public school district. This politicians may claim that they lowered educational costs, managed change, provided for better schools and rid citizens of bureaucratic waste.

One book: Stray Dogs, Saints and Saviors by journalist Alexander Russo helps to show what happens when a district, in this case Los Angeles Unified, transfers ownership of a public school to a charter operator, in this case Green Dot schools. Green Dot operates schools in multiple states, including most recently New York Coty, where its teachers will work under a union contract.

In the case of the school in this book, Locke High, Green Dot managed a transition from the old faculty to the new. Older students were taught by faculty that had been there before the transition while entering students were taught under the Green Dot Way. As the older classes graduated, a new ninth grade. New teachers would come into the school, though some of the faculty on-site would be asked to stay.

Russo tried to show that a transition like this could not be abrupt when it affects the same students. Locke was to be a charter school, but not a charter where students had to enter a lottery. This was the local school and the union and school system administration viewed the new operator with cynicism. This also happened system-wide when private firms tried to run schools in Hartford and Philadelphia, and failed.

My concern is that Newark, with the pledged $100 million from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, as well as the additional $43 million raised by Mayor Cory Booker, might be swayed in this direction while Chris Christie remains governor and while the state remains in control of the school system.

Such an aggressive act would be popular with suburban voters, not to mention Newarkers and their supporters who have supposedly asked the administration for any choice that would replace the existing schools and state control. Christie has already pushed for vouchers as one means of choice, though the existing public, private and parochial that are in a position to accommodate new students under the state's proposed tuition rates can take too few of them.

In addition to advocating vouchers, this governor keeps insisting that charter schools are better than the traditional public schools. So does the mayor. Both have little time to show results while neither cares about concensus and both want to lower costs. A push for takeovers fits well within such politics. But it may not lead to the overnight changes that parents want for their children.