James Piscura: Interpreting School Choice

Figure 1 (Zukoski)

Figure 2 (Cragin): http://californiawatch.org/k-12/graphic-californias-new-charter-schools-4709

For decades, policy-makers, teachers, and parents have been wrestling over Education reform. While the testing standards of the 2000s and George Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” policy have lost favor in court of public opinion, reform remains an issue of utmost importance to parents and politicians. As officials search for a cure-all in the race for national educational excellence, charter schooling has garnered attention from media groups and political figures. Recently, President Obama’s administration announced the intention to support charter schools with the Race to the Top program. While politicians rush to hail charter schools the savior of the education system, parents are being left in the dark. Many parents remain blamelessly ignorant as to the complicated inner workings of charter school politics. In an age where school choice allows parents the option of charter or public schools, citizens must be made aware of the benefits and dangers associated with sending a child to a charter. While school choice is meant to spur innovation in the classroom, even Kurt Davis, president of the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools, said that the charter movement has “" numerous examples of excellence and, in some cases, a need to improve" (Kossan). Clearly demonstrated by figure 1, these charter schools have been growing at a remarkable rate across the country, pushing the issue of school choice to the forefront of the national political discussion (Zukoski). It is important that citizens expecting to send children to American public schools take note of the complicated issues confronting the education system in the 21^st century.

Charter schools are misunderstood educational options confronting parents unfamiliar with the foreign system of school choice. The charter school is based on the idea of school choice, where “market-style mechanisms” are utilized in an attempt to “encourage diverse and innovative approaches for increasing achievement” (Lubienski 396). In inserting competition into the schools, school choice advocates hope to upset the static public school system, a system they perceive to be a stagnant beast of bureaucracy. Thanks to a decreased level of input from oversight agencies, the charter school is able to experiment with “innovation”. Schools often utilize “student uniforms, a longer day and academic year, frequent testing to measure learning, and tutoring for students who fall behind” (Gabriel). While public schools have to adhere to the rules cast down by a huge bureaucracy, charter schools utilizing these approaches to education “experiment” with ease. Charters are meant to “operate with freedom from many of the regulations that apply to traditional public schools” ("Overview."). When implemented properly, charter schools champion “choice and competition to foster educational innovations” (Lubienski 395). In better understanding the goals of the charter school, parents better understand whether or not the option is right for their child.

When clarified properly, discussion of charter school funding can influence a parent’s choice of where to send his or her child to school. Charter schools, regulated minimally from state to state, finance their activities depending on state law. Regardless of whether or not they are tied to mandates applying to most public schools, charter schools are still, “public schools that receive public funding” ("Becoming a Charter…”). These alternative public schools can be “funded by a per-person fee for each student they attract,” while receiving “state and federal aid associated with disabled and other high-need students they enroll” (Hoxby i). In supplying aid to students with disabilities, parents of these students maintain the option of charters when deciding which system to choose. While charters “cannot charge tuition,” they can “collect fees for books and other materials” (Hoxby 8). In some states, it is also necessary for those running the charter school to find donors that will fund the building in which the school will operate.

When establishing a charter school, officials must abide by a set of guidelines agreed upon by state officials. Depending on the state and officials running the school, teachers may either be required to have mastered in education, or may not even need to have obtained a college degree. Charter schools, when founded in the state of Kansas, must meet “at least one of five purposes specified” by the “charter school law…but are not required to meet all of these purposes” ("Petition to Establish…”). Among the purposes listed in the law are goals of improving or increasing student learning, creating opportunities for students “in special areas of emphasis”, stimulating “creative and unconventional…techniques” in teachers, and creating “new professional vistas for teachers” ("Petition to Establish…”). These loose guidelines make it easy for driven groups of parents, teachers, or concerned investors to establish a charter. According to figure 2, California alone will add almost 90 charter schools in the year 2010 (Cragin). With occasionally lax guidelines for the formation of charters, it is important for parents to be vigilant as to the academic success rates within these schools.

When run correctly, charter schools offer a realistic alternative to traditional public schools. According to Edison Schools chairman Benno Schmidt, the “choice and competition” students experience within charter schools breeds “innovation and better performance” (Lubienski 400). Business-minded officials diving into the venue of public education hope to utilize the same techniques applied to successful American businesses. According to these business figures running charter schools, “A rigidly structured environment is part of the formula the school believes produces success” (Gabriel). Parents and taxpayers disillusioned with the apparent failure of a stagnant public education system oftentimes find the fresh, often untested, ideas of the charter schools appealing in their innovational approach to education. Innovations in Illinois charter schools allow charters to “to establish their own missions and curricula, but they participate in the states accountability system” (Hoxby 7). A New York charter offers increased salaries for increased teacher responsibilities, including “a longer day and year” (Gootman). In “promising to paying teachers $125,000”, plus bonuses, the official running the charter school hopes to attract the brightest, most driven teachers available. Officials hope to encourage innovation by establishing charter schools that test hypothetical educational techniques. Furthermore, charter advocates feel that school choice provides “a system of accountability for results in public school” (“Overview”). In challenging the traditional public schools’ monopoly in the field of education, the charters prevent the “broken” system from dragging its feet further on potential reforms. Jonah Rockoff, economist at Columbia Business School, asserts his belief that charter schools fulfill a demand for standardization in urban schools, explaining that while suburban schools have been attempting to break from “standardized testing and want to get away from it,” urban schools prefer the rigidity of charter school standardization (Bialik). Therefore, charter school innovation fulfills the need of these urban schools.

However, some innovations in charter schools put students at risk, inadvertently subjecting the children of parents desperate for alternatives to educational experiments. Innovation in terms of teacher certification risks under-qualified teachers with minimal insight into child development taking the helm and steering children in the wrong direction. The innovations listed by charter schools acknowledge, “…charter schools are often exempt or partially exempt from regulations about teacher certification,” leaving opportunities open for driven, yet under-qualified parents to lead students down the wrong path (Hoxby 1). Even if an overqualified genius is placed at the helm of the classroom, in disregarding developmental and cognitive issues taught in teacher education classes, the students are at risk of being cognitively unable to comprehend information based on the presenter’s teaching style. For example, if abstract thought is expected of the middle schools students, they are cognitively unable to process such issues and therefore put at greater risk of failing.

One of the most compelling threats to the further development of charter schools is the realization that current charter schools walk a fine line between supplying “different education” and segregated education. Charter school researcher and UCLA education professor Amy Wells notes a chilling trend in charter school establishment. Wells finds that “Charter schools are more racially and socioeconomically homogenous than already highly segregated public schools” (Wells 15). Charter schools, while attempting to form communities of learners that promote competition, have been inadvertently reinstating the “separate but equal” education deemed unconstitutional in the case of Brown v. Board of Education. Researchers discovered that “charter schools were much less diverse than their surrounding school districts” (Wells 16). In upholding an educational system that divides students by race, the youth are robbed of the benefits of a multi-cultural upbringing. In a society where globalization has become a fact of life, retreating to homogenous school systems, although comfortable environments for some ethnic groups, sets students up for a culture shock upon graduation. In the study titled The Impact of Charter Schools on Student Achievement, researchers noted that when taken as a whole, charter schools appeared to have more minority students and poor students than most schools. However, the study looked closer and discovered in a case study, that “the three schools were not alike,” and that students at one school, Longwood, “were 99% black,” at Bucktown, “were 33% black and 54% Hispanic; and Prairie’s students were 55% black and 44% Hispanic” (Hoxby 9). It is clear that charter schools are establishing “minority schools” and “white schools”. Whether or not the distribution was purposeful, this action remains unconstitutional.

The socioeconomic distribution of students has also alarmed researchers, and concerned parents, forcing a reassessment on the benefits of charter schools. Coming from a state where charter schools are thriving, an Arizona State University study finds “Despite smaller classes on smaller campuses, charters are not improving academic achievement of needy students, who traditionally lag behind their wealthier peers” (Kossan). Despite the efforts of the charter schools, these needy students have continued to slip, oftentimes subject to failing, underfunded charters that supply short-term, sub-par educations. According to an article championing innovation and competition in education, “options may differ largely on a vertical scale of social of social segregation” (Lubienski 427). However, the question remains: is this social and racial segregation constitutional? When schools focus on “an Afrocentric curriculum” that offers “advantages for educating some students,” are they going beyond the innovation required of public charter schools and approaching issues of constitutionality (Lubienski 414)? Parents of students given the opportunity to apply for these schools must consider both the legality of the school’s public finances, as well as whether the educational approach is too close-minded for a globalized society.

Parents of students with disabilities must consider the recent, upsetting grievances aired against the charter school on behalf of special education students when deciding whether or not the charter system is right for their child. Without specialized, district-wide services for students with disabilities, parents must consider whether or not these schools have the capacity to care for the development of these children. The Louisiana charter schools in particular have had a most disturbing track record. An article unveiled that “schools have been turning away parents with disabled children,” and even more disturbing, schools were failing to “ensure that the special-needs students they do serve actually benefit from academic instruction” (Mock). In a blatant violation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, these schools have disregarded a necessity to provide equal education to students with disabilities in their state. Even when developmentally typical students were succeeding, leading to high performance on tests in some schools, these charters had “some of the lowest disabled-student enrollment figures in the city” (Mock). In disregarding the student with a disability’s right to inclusion in the classroom they are withheld the simple right to be treated as any developmentally typical student. Public schools in the United States are required to provide an education in the least restrictive environment to students with disabilities. Evidence in these articles brings into question whether charter schools are capable of adhering to sometimes-expensive mandates, and whether or not charter officials disregard the suggestions of special education experts.

Suspensions among students with disabilities in charter schools are disproportionally high in charter schools. According to an article on New Orleans charter schools, “At least four other RSD charters suspend their special-needs students at three to four times the rate that their general-education students are suspended” (Mock). The egregiously high rate at which students with emotional and behavioral disorders are prosecuted in charter schools could be seen as a more hard-line approach to misbehavior. However, when the suspensions impede upon the student’s right and ability to graduate, charter schools create additional hardships for individuals that already have physical or psychological barriers to overcome. The New Orleans charter school authority, the RFD, “suspended 26.8 percent of its students with disabilities” in a given year, while in that same year, a statistically similar school in terms of population, Baltimore, suspended only “13.5 % of disabled students” (Mock). In Baltimore, the public school system “graduated 24.2% of their special-ed students with a diploma,” while a fraction of the students in the New Orleans charter schools, a mere 6.4%, graduated in 2009 (Mock). Parents of students with disabilities must note the benefits of choosing a public school for their child, and the risk associated with choosing a charter school.

While advocating innovation, charter schools are leaving teacher professionalization by the wayside. While teacher professionalization is often characterized as an internal struggle to justify the existence of the educator profession, the true goal of professionalization is to ultimately deliver better education to the youth of America. In developing better and more professional educators the educated are placed in a better position to succeed. “Teachers” at charter schools “are often exempt or partially exempt from regulations about teacher certification” (Hoxby 1). In abandoning requirements for teacher licensure in charters schools, the schools abandon the legitimate struggle to improve the process of education. If an uncertified teacher arrives in a classroom unprepared, it is up to the parents to demand action to remove the unqualified educator.

In the modern discussion of education reform, one of the most misunderstood aspects of the discussion surrounds teacher unions. According to professor Diane Ravitch, misunderstandings surrounding teacher unions stem from an individual’s internal extrapolations based on “private sector experience, where management considers the union a barrier to its plans and where the proportion of unionized workers has steadily declined” ("Why Teachers’…”). Although not all misunderstandings are based on the assumption, many business-minded charter school advocates site the inability of public schools to fire bad teachers due to over powerful unions as a threat to achievement. While unions may blindly defend some teachers, it is up to parents to voice concerns to administrators in order to get appropriate action in public schools. In charter schools without unions, teacher are obviously pushed harder, working “12- or even 16-hour days” without the “job protections… unions provide” (Medina). These overworked teachers are at risk of quick burnout, resulting in a remarkably high turnover rate in charter schools for teachers. Teacher unions serve to protect educators from “fear of intimidation by uninformed, non-professional administrators” ("Why Teachers’…"). In preventing such intimidation, unions let teachers focus on improving lesson plans, allowing good teachers in public schools to maintain their positions as educators.

Despite various claims of innovation, charter schools have been unable to produce consistent results in the classroom. According to researchers at Stanford University, “fewer than one-fifth of charter schools nationally offered a better education than comparable local schools, almost half offered an equivalent education and more than a third, 37 percent, were ‘significantly worse’” (Gabriel). The claim of charter schools, that innovation and competition would breed success, has remained a claim. Although a fifth of those charter schools did improve, an unacceptable amount actually delivered an inferior form of education to unfortunate students that bought into the gimmick. Unfortunately, some parents refuse to give up on failing charter schools, and “even though the school did worse… than the average Cleveland public school, families did not flee” the failing charter school (Gabriel). When innovation means abandoning standards, some classroom teachers will slip up on the basics. One observer of charter schools noted competition and great time management in a Brooklyn charter school, while in a Cleveland charter, there was “no agenda to focus students” and the teacher was imprecise in timing lessons (Gabriel).

It is an unfortunate double standard in educational policy that allows for charter schools to experiment and produce mediocre results, while holding struggling traditional school to constantly increasing standards. Especially in Ohio, this mediocrity is evident. In 2007, “the state’s school report card gave more than half of Ohio’s 328 charter schools a D or an F” (Dillon). And yet this failure, in the spirit of experimentation, is considered somewhat more acceptable. Libertarian Margaret E. Raymond of the Hoover institution recently released a study that found “83 percent of charter schools are doing no better than local public schools” (Gabriel). When charter can’t deliver on their promises, parents must decide for themselves whether or not these schools are viable options. When resources poured into charter schools results in only 17% of these establishments seeing marked improvement, is the argument for charter schooling still validated? No consequences befall the failing charter school. The study under Professor Wells observes, “Even though most state charter laws require that charter schools administer state assessments, there does not yet appear to be any consequences for those charter schools that are not performing well academically” (Wells 11). Charter schools in Ohio, especially, seem to be nothing more than the “alternative” little brother of the traditional public school. According to the New York Times, “57% of [Ohio] charter schools…are in academic watch or emergency, compared with 43% of traditional public schools in Ohio’s big cities” (Dillon). As these statics communicate a clear achievement gap between charter schools and traditional public schools, it’s time for parents and teachers to decide the outcome of this experiment.

The growth of the school choice movement across the country forces parents to join in the debate regarding charter schools. While the good charter schools promise innovative approaches to learning for students, the failing charter schools serve as a shameful reminder as to just how badly an experiment has to go before eventually being abandoned. No one voice in the school choice movement wants to admit defeat, since both traditional public education advocates and charter school advocates have both brought innovative ideas to the table in order to move the American education system into the 21^st century. Perhaps the most important conclusion reached by the various studies conducted on charter schools pertains to parent involvement. One researcher suggests, “the schools’ educational approaches might not account for their success — instead they might be benefiting from the clustering of motivated parents and students in one school” (Bialik). Regardless, education reform demands the attention of concerned American parents; parents who want to give their children the chance to be the brightest generation of students the world has to offer.

Works Cited

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