"You should have a reason for increasing charter schools, and I haven't seen any rationale for doing that except for, 'Let's do it,'" said Gerald Bracey, an associate at the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation. With $100 billion in stimulus funding for education, including $4.35 billion in the competitive Race to the Top fund to improve education quality, Duncan has offered a stern warning to states: Embrace charters or risk losing stimulus dollars. "States that don't have charter laws or put artificial caps on the growth of charter schools will jeopardize their applications under the Race to the Top fund," Duncan told reporters last month. "Simply put, they put themselves at a competitive disadvantage for the largest pool of...