Until Arnold Schwarzenegger’s desperate attempt to get Race To The Top money in order to turn around schools with dismal scores on the latest 2009 once-a-year exam, charter schools were floating under most teachers’ radar.

Known as places where parents, upset with the curriculum in their child’s school, and public school reformers got together and set up their own school.  Sometimes it was back to basics that charged them up, sometimes free-wheeling ideas about children choosing their own curriculum.  Many mission statements have been drafted, some authorized.

After much wrangling between the proponents and, often, teacher’s unions, legislation for charter schools was established (see US Charter Schools website), and now in 2009 about 750 California schools with about 276,000 students are chartered.  Not many, considering there are well over 6 million students in California.

For reformed-minded educators like those in New Schools Venture Fund and the Broad Foundation, the biggest draw to charter schools is the freedom from excessive regulation and the opportunity to set up innovative curriculum, instruction, and internal accountability for student success.

In the U. S. Department of Education’s Innovation in Education series, one finds that the effective charter schools do everything effective public schools do.  None of it is extraordinary, except those campuses are governed by a local board, not a far off school district board.  So those board members can move quickly to make changes without waiting for bureaucratic district approval, a big plus for reformers.

The California Teacher’s Association (CTA) agrees that the effective charter school has strong community support, small classroom size, good oversight of its financial management, health and safety plans with substantial attendance improvement, and instructional quality.  Everything all public schools want.

So why is there antagonism?

Mostly, it’s that charter schools came into existence to get around heavy-duty collective bargaining contracts that give teachers endless time to dispute termination decisions, as described in Steve Brill’s article “The Rubber Room,” The New Yorker, August 31, 2009.   Especially in the takeover of a regular public school, the charter hires its own teachers and administrators, some of whom don’t have credentials and who displace tenured staff.

However, the latest rendition of charter high schools in Los Angeles, Green Dot Public Schools, incorporates unionized staff under agreement with the public school district that those who don’t want to stay in the charter school can be placed in other schools.  From Florida to Oregon, as at Chicago International Charter School, “dissatisfied with long hours, churning turnover and, in some cases, lower pay,” teachers are organizing.  See “As More Charter Schools Unionize, Educators Debate the Effect” by Sam Dillon, New York Times, July 27, 2009.

Why else is CTA discontented?

The U.S. Department of Education’s Race To The Top (RTTT) guidelines suggest the best bet is charter schools, even though studies show very mixed results on exams used to hold schools accountable, and other non-charter public schools have turned themselves around.

CTA finds itself one of the few education organizations to be concerned about how teacher compensation and evaluation in all schools, including charter schools, will be designed.  The current emphasis on one test to judge the whole school as in No Child Left Behind is a huge problem.

It’s difficult to turn a school around, assembling the curriculum and instruction plan, committed teaching staff, consistent assessment and analysis, good facilities, and extra resources to address the needs of students and families in low-performing public schools or charter schools.

Finally, amassing enough money to run the charter school is as big a conundrum as it is for any campus in a public school district.  How many silent auctions can a parent attend?

What is difficult to understand is why CTA isn’t pushing for legislation in California to reform school finance, well-known as the first step to turn every low-performing school around, the entire purpose for RTTT funds?

(By the way,  the TakeCare project is a tool to facilitate talk about ‘turn-around’ in the school community.)