Scholar Advocates 'Brand Name' Charter School Networks.

Changes in charter school regulations and funding formulas could make it more feasible for "brand name" networks of the independent public schools to expand, according to a paper commissioned by the Brookings Institution and discussed at an annual conference here last week. Such systems of schools, overseen by organizations such as the for-profit, Edison Schools Inc., and guided by nonprofit models like the KIPP Academies, show promise in raising student achievement, said Steven F. Wilson, a senior fellow at the Center for Business and Government at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, who wrote the paper.