Here's a selection of recent headlines from around the country:
"Charter schools see boom in sign-ups" (Detroit News, Dec. 19)
"DPS expects $22.5 million budget shortage" (Rocky Mountain News, Dec. 18)
"Charter schools sue over facilities" (San Diego Union Tribune, Dec. 15)
"Charter schools booming" (Deseret Morning News, Dec. 13)
"Ninth charter school called too much" (Times Union, Dec. 13)

And there you have the twin themes of the charter school movement today: vigorous growth, and considerable growing pains...particularly in terms of the relationship between charters and what now tend to be called "regular" or "traditional" public schools.

I'm a little bit nostalgic for the days when everyone knew what the words public school meant, no qualifiers required, but the headlines above make it pretty clear that those days are gone: charters are here to stay. And like an older sibling suddenly shoved aside by the arrival of an attention-grabbing new baby, plain-vanilla public schools are struggling with this new reality.

In San Diego, two charters are suing because the school district, they believe, is failing to live up to a voter-approved proposition that mandates school districts to share public school facilities fairly among all public school students, including those in charters. In Albany, school district officials are urging the SUNY Board of Trustees, the distric chartering authority, to turn down an application for the city's ninth charter school. The district argues that charters are crippling Albany schools by draining away millions of dollars each year.

And in Denver, school officials blame a projected $22.5 million budget gap on the rapid growth of charter schools in the city.

It may be too much to ask, but one of my New Year's wishes is for the emergence of a healthier sibling relationship between charters and regular public schools, where the expertise of long-established schools can inform the efforts of the upstarts, and where the experimental curricula and innovative approaches of the newcomers can help generate innovations across entire districts.

Dream on...