It's a busy time of the year in school buildings around the country, as students, educators, and parents alike get prepared for the new school year.

As one of two full-time Co-Directors with Our Education over the past twenty-four months, and as a serious follower of major happenings in education policy here in America, I've always looked on at this time with a mixture of excitement and jealousy. Excitement, because of all the new opportunities that the school year brings, and chances for us to do better by our children. And jealousy because for the past two years I've only been able to work with high school students from afar, operating as an outsider who seeks to effect indirect change through slow, steady social movement building.

This year is different. Effective in mid-August, I have stepped down from my permanent post as full-time director with Our Education and am now working with the project on a part-time basis. With my newfound time, I will be teaching 8th grade social studies at a new charter school start-up here in Saint Louis, MO called the Imagine Academy of Careers. As a brand new school, we have already faced (and will surely continue to face) a tremendous number of challenges, communication hiccups, and other logistical nightmares with school busses, scheduling, enrollment rushes, and more. But I can tell you already that in my time in school already just this month that it is an entirely different feeling being inside the system working for change.

I will be blogging regularly each week as I have over the past several months. You may notice a change in the content of some of my entries here on wiretap - there'll be less focus on policy-wonkish happenings in DC and other ed reform hot zones and more of a focus on the day-to-day situations that our students are facing, now that I have some better perspective here in Saint Louis.

In particular I'll be eager to report on my impressions of the charter-school trend in school reform, and how much different (and for better or worse) the legal structure of a charter school is than a traditional public school. For instance, I can tell you already that two observations that are commonly made about the charter school vs. traditional public school debate are true: 1.) for all the talk of competition, innovation, and choice, charter schools look quite similar to traditional public schools in the day-to-day look of what a student experiences; and 2.) there is indeed some degree of public school backlash against charter schools, though rumors of full-scale war between traditional school employees and charter school employees seem to be blown out of proportion. On this second front, for example, I can report that multiple parents whom I spoke with during our school's enrollment period were in fact employees of Saint Louis Public Schools, and when they heard about my school they were immediately upset and defensive. One parent who taught elementary school at a local city school even told me, "the last person I want to talk with is a teacher at your charter school!"

To be fair to this Saint Louis city teacher, I don't think there's anything wrong with placing the burden of proof on new school start ups like the Imagine Academy of Careers to show that they are indeed offering strong educational opportunities to children. But I would submit that the same burden be carried by the traditional schools as well!