Now that California, one of many states, has raised the cap on the number of charter schools allowed to apply for licenses each year, it’s time to look again at the realities of the charter school controversy.
California elementary charter school
Why do some praise charter schools as the savior of education in the United States?
Why are others cautious, if not outright antagonistic?
The charter school movement came to life in 1988 in Minnesota with the idea to design schools with “renewable licenses to innovate, free of most school district rules.” (John Merrow, “When Roads Diverge…”edweek.org) In 1992 the first charter school opened in Minnesota, followed soon by California after passage of the Charter School Act of 1992 and which now is #2 in the list of schools chartered.
Still charter schools have not, so far, swept over the country. Let’s look at more numbers. There are 4000 charter schools in 40 states and DC with 1.3 million students. Minnesota has the most schools and California in 2009 has 700 charter schools out of 10,000 public schools with 4% of the 6.3 million students.
Even so, Michelle Rhee, superintendent of Washington DC schools, Antonio Villaraigosa, mayor of Los Angeles, and Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York, all are doing their best to restructure their school districts by closing low-performing schools and reopening with smaller charter schools, often in the same building.
Why so?
Money. State regulations for licensing charter schools have been revised in pursuit of federal Race to the Top funds geared mostly toward low-performing high schools, a desperate problem in large urban areas. Limited data available does show that charter high schools outperform similar traditional high schools. In addition, in California at least, charter high schools attract more disadvantaged Hispanic students, one of the groups the state must target for academic help.
Strong teachers and administrators who want to get away from the system of traditional public schools with union contracts that were needed for a long while, but now restrict change, love the idea of starting over with a new school.
In addition, high-performing charters are small schools (average 350 students) with longer school days and year, more time devoted to English language study, a clear academic mission, a moderate discipline policy. Those schools do well on the assessments to ensure a license renewal.
Top charters really have tried to innovate.
K-5 Conservatory Lab Charter School in the Boston area led by Diana Lam, long time administrator, uses a curricular model called Learning Through Music to support students who must improve their academic achievement. Teacher contract innovation also is a goal. A management team is designing the pay formula based on 5 levels of teacher performance, each level geared to identify a teacher as s/he becomes more experienced. In addition, the teachers collaborate, using the Cycle of Inquiry model to assess, analyze, and modify teaching strategies.
City Arts and Technology High School set in a working class San Francisco neighborhood is one of Envision Schools, a non-profit group of model charter high schools. The curriculum is rigorous, students collaborate on learning projects, and support is available to ensure all 365 students do well on state exams.
What’s wrong?
Nothing, except those exceptional schools are having difficulty being replicated across the country and time is of the essence. For instance, in California, elementary charter schools are less likely to serve minorities, English Language Learners, and low-income students. The schools are small, not reaching enough children. Studies of outcome data for many charter schools have not shown better results than traditional public schools.
Often said, the parent buyer must beware. Disinformation has been generated about charter schools, emphasizing their good qualities, denigrating perfectly good public schools, and hiding the fact that 14% of charter schools lose their licenses, just like traditional public schools fall into the low-performance abyss.
Finally, a number of professionals associated with the education field see charter schools as a way to privatize education, paid for with public money. Others who praise charter schools do so because they hope to drag down teachers’ unions that are accused of holding onto a fixed pay structure which offers no incentives to excel.
Looking again?
Teacher’s pay structure is being re-evaluated, but the public must support the thousands of public schools looking for a model to help students achieve, instead of antagonizing the very highly-qualified teachers needed to close the achievement gap.