5.5 Charter Schools
Charter schools are public schools with loosely-defined attendance areas. Charter schools are associated with (and usually overseen by) a public school district or county board of education; anyone who lives within the sponsoring district may attend. If there are not enough seats available, charter schools use a lottery process to govern admissions, a process made famous in the movie Waiting for Superman.
Charter schools operate under a contract (a “charter”) that obligates them to provide specific services and to achieve specific results. If the school fails to deliver, the charter is revoked.
In return for these risks, charter schools operate under reduced regulation compared to other public schools. For example, charter schools are not bound by laws about class sizes, hours of operation and the like. Charter schools are also free to employ teachers without union representation. About two-thirds of California charter schools are not unionized.
From the establishment of the first charter schools in California in the early 1990s, enrollment grew quickly to more than 4% of California’s student body in 2010. (Data and graph courtesy of EdSource.)
Partly in response to charter schools, districts have increasingly incorporated parent preference as a factor in the determination of school assignment for ordinary schools. In doing so, they are softening or discarding rigid attendance boundaries and implementing “school choice” systems that include more and more of their schools.
Charter school advocates put forward two main theories for how charter schools can improve educational outcomes broadly. First, they argue that charter schools are more likely than ordinary schools to drive change because they are less bound by red tape.
Second, they argue that offering families a choice for their children’s education creates a market for success. If the school down the street doesn’t measure up, it makes sense for that school to lose enrollment.
In practice, charter school results are mixed, and advocates on all sides find facts to support their point of view. In 2009, EdSource published a rigorous evaluation of overall charter school results. It concluded that the performance spread of charter schools is broadly similar to that of district schools. There are some great charter schools – and also some terrible ones, and also quite a lot of ordinary ones. Those who hoped that a charter school movement would quickly catalyze astounding results on a widespread basis have had to moderate their hopes.
Charter schools have become a very important part of the dialogue about school change and school turnarounds. Not all charter schools are created from scratch, and an increasing number of charter schools are created through “conversion” from ordinary schools. In 2010, California legislation empowered parents of students in schools with very low test scores to force conversion to charter status by a petition of 51% of the parents.
This “parent trigger” policy was spearheaded by parents frustrated with underperforming schools in Los Angeles Unified. The largest charter school organization in the area, Green Dot Schools, was important to the development of the parent trigger policy.
California’s taxes pay for the education of California’s children. Whether a child enrolls in a public district school or a public charter school, funding follows the child. A family’s choice about where that child will attend school, therefore, is a matter of financial consequence. When families choose not to enroll their children in a district school, the district has less money to hire teachers, run programs, and support administrative costs.
Supporters of charter schools argue that competitive pressure is not a bad thing, and that no one should mourn the closure of an ineffective school. Opponents counter that this argument rings hollow if the new school is no better than the old one, and that the work of shrinking or closing district schools is a distraction from the real work of educating students. Better, they argue, to improve the schools we have than to roll the dice that a new school will be better.
Is it any surprise that proposals to establish or support charter schools are usually contentious? School districts generally oppose charter school formation, and teacher unions almost invariably do so. Union opposition to charter schools can be extraordinarily strong. In 2010 the Oakland Educators Association withheld its support for a local ballot measure to provide funding for K-12 education in Oakland. The measure would have benefited children in charter schools as well as district schools. Lacking union support, it failed, forcing layoffs, furlough days and wage cuts.
The Parent Trigger is not necessarily about charter schools. It is about giving power to the only people who only care about kids: parents. We don’t see it as a new law, we see it as a new paradigm; an entirely new way of thinking about public education. It’s not about charters vs. district schools; it’s not about reformers vs. teachers unions. It’s simply about giving parents power over the education of their own children.
The charter vs. non-charter school debate has largely clouded and confused the fundamental issue that all parents want great schools. That debate has taken time and resources away from the “fixing” of our schools. In fact, one could argue, that by pitting education advocates against each other, there is no chance for school improvement.
Large urban school districts are tough to run and require an investment of time, energy and resources of the entire community. Giving parents a choice between bad and good isn’t what we want. We want all of the schools to provide an excellent environment for learning for all kids. Leaving kids in a “failing” school is unacceptable.
Charter schools educate less than 10% of the California children, and as you pointed out, they vary. They remind me of hedge funds – some well intentioned, well managed and show great returns – and some are ponzi schemes.
So, let’s focus on the bigger picture and not get mired in the details of the name “charter”. Parents don’t care what you call their child’s school (public, private, charter, magnet) as long as you can call it GOOD.
Thanks, Crystal. Charter schools educate about 4% of California’s students statewide, but the percentage varies significantly. For example, about 15% of students in Oakland attend charter schools. These schools provide an alternative for families that want to stay in Oakland but that will not wait for the schools to improve to a level that makes them comfortable. Oakland’s schools have improved dramatically in the last five years, but some Oakland schools remain among California’s most troubled. A significant (but unmeasurable) number of Oakland families also find ways to claim residency in Alameda, Berkeley or other areas in order to enroll their children there.
Crystal is a leader of EducateOurState, which is organizing a statewide “Wake-up Call” day of action in support of education funding in California on May 24. (A planning call is imminent for those interested in taking a leadership role.)
When charter schools first started to spring up – one of the main selling points was that they were to be incubators for great ideas/reforms that could then be shared with the whole education system – I have not seen this happen. Some are good and some are not. I am concerned that funders with not much idea of real school reform think that charters are the only game in town and that is plain wrong. Charters are a good reminder to school districts to be more responsive to parents and to communities.
Thanks for this submission on charter schools, Jeff, and for the thoughtful replies.
I would agree that charter public schools and district public schools have been in somewhat separate universes until recently. One of the wonderful things about the 2008 Prop A parcel tax in San Francisco was that it allowed charter schools and district schools to cooperate not just in the passage of the proposition, but in its implementation. An excellent model of cooperation between district and charters.
Now we have even more promising signs: This year, Los Angeles Unified School District unanimously passed a Charter/District Compact to cooperate with charter schools. Read more below.
Many districts in the Bay Area are also working on their own charter district compacts, and we expect to have more news about sharing of best practices and other forms of cooperation.
http://notebook.lausd.net/pls/ptl/docs/PAGE/CA_LAUSD/FLDR_LAUSD_NEWS/FLDR_PRESS_RELEASES/CHARTERCOMPACT%20UPDATED%2012-6-10.PDF
These cooperative initiatives can in turn lead to more funding for all public schools.
Great “Charters 101″ entry. I agree with Crystal that the charters v district schools debate is a red herring. We need to look at the practices of the very best charter AND district schools and make it more likely that these practices will be adopted broadly. One of the pieces often missing from that conversation is the idea that charters have demonstrated that wide swaths of regulation unnecessarily hamper the educators and by extension, the parents, in their efforts to provide a world class education to all children. By itself, sweeping aside these regulations will not make a great school… but as the best charters have shown, it gives educators the running room they need.