Vincent Gray
D.C. Council Member representing Ward Seven & Former Mayor of Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C.
I'm a huge supporter of charters. I think it creates a competitive environment. It creates flexibility for the educators themselves in ways that they don't characteristically have—certainly a number of years ago they didn't characteristically have in the traditional public education system. Look at the sheer numbers. Again, we've gone from, back in 1996 virtually no charter schools, then in the last 10 years the numbers have grown exponentially in the charter system. The charters now serve about 44 or 45 percent of children in public education in the District of Columbia. Some of that is because parents have chosen never to send their children to traditional public education or they move them from traditional public education to a charter school because they felt like they would have a better chance of having a quality education. Frankly, I think a lot of parents feel that their children are safer. They look at charter schools as almost like private schools and feel that their children will be safer there.
