Harvard education prof seems to favor Yoon charter-school plan

Not directly, of course. However, Thomas Kane, co-author of a study on Boston charter and pilot schools, went public today to say Mayor Menino is wrong to call for a blanket expansion of charter schools in Boston (Menino would convert under-performing BPS schools into charter schools):

Our report did not offer a blanket endorsement of charter schools. Indeed, our failure to find robust effects of the pilot schools (particularly in middle school grades) should be a warning that additional flexibility for schools does not ensure results for kids. Rather, we found that the particular charter schools in the Boston area (especially those that were part of the lottery study) seem to be having large impacts on student achievement. If the charter sector in Boston were to expand, those charter schools from our study, with a track record of success, should be the first in line for expansion and/or replication.

The cap should not be raised for just any charter school. Now that we've learned that several Boston-area charter schools are having a huge positive impact on kids, those schools should be allowed to replicate.

In his own charter-expansion plan, Yoon called for a "smart cap" system in which only charter schools that meet certain criteria for academic progress would be allowed to expand.