Reflecting on the ensuing American Revolution, British political thinker Edmund Burke had this to say:
“We also reason and feel as you do on the invasion of your charters. Because the charters comprehend the essential forms by which you enjoy your liberties, we regard them as most sacred, and by no means to be taken away or altered without process, without examination, and without hearing, as they have lately been.”
Although stopping short of endorsing American independence, Burke believed that George III was unjustly suppressing the colonial forms of governance that had been created in response to the longstanding British tradition of ‘salutary neglect.’
Needless to say, Burke was referring to charters in a purely legal sense, but ‘charter’ has since obtained a unique connotation when discussing education in America today.
Stripped of its context, the above quotation applies perfectly to charter schools, and how their approved ‘charters’ are indeed, “the essential forms by which” school educators, parents and students, “enjoy their liberties.”
It is for this reason that lawmakers and education officials should “regard them as most sacred, and by no means to be taken away or altered without process, without examination, and without hearing, as they lately have been.”
To be sure, the connection is not perfect, and since it’s being examined devoid of context, this is not to say that those who seek to quash charter autonomy are British monarchy sympathizers. (The official teacher union position on sugar taxes and throwing tea into Boston Harbor is best left undetermined.)
But the principle of independence endures, and it presents an opportunity to highlight that charter school educators consider their freedom to innovate and deliver a quality education to be “most sacred.”
239 years ago, 56 brave men signed a document that extended freedom into every sphere of American society. It is this freedom and independence that has helped the United States earn its reputation as one of the greatest nations on Earth. 239 years later, we work to deliver that promise to education.
