The Progressive Policy Institute published a report highlighting the emergence of widespread teacher staffing shortages. It describes contemporary “autonomous” school initiatives, which all fall under the umbrella of positioning teachers with greater decision-making responsibilities and authority. It then suggests that such initiatives are effective strategies to remedy shortages because increased autonomy produces greater job satisfaction for teachers. However, supporting evidence for the claims in the report is thin and relies primarily not on empirical literature, but on popular contemporary readings and descriptive surveys. Policymakers and other readers should be aware that what is ignored in this report is far more important to informed policy than what it contains.

The Friedman Foundation recently published a report promoting Education Savings Accounts (ESAs). Like conventional vouchers, ESAs provide parents with public funds to purchase approved educational services, including private schools, online education, private tutors and higher education. The report presents ESAs as the optimal vehicle to bring Milton Friedman’s school voucher idea into the 21st century. While calling ESAs “the way of the future,” it lacks fundamental information to guide policymakers on their design, implementation, financing, and sustainability. These details ultimately determine the equity, efficiency and cost effectiveness of this proposal. For example, ESAs raise serious equity concerns: affluent parents could, if the policy allows, supplement their vouchers to purchase high quality educational services inaccessible to low-income families. This is indeed allowed in Arizona’s ESA program, the only existing ESA policy in the United States. Open to legal challenge, the report’s plan advocates using ESAs to sidestep prohibitions in state constitutions against supporting religious organizations with public funds. Unaddressed but relevant peer-reviewed evidence on school choice policies suggest that the claimed academic and economic benefits of ESAs are speculative and overstated. The absence of details and evidence in the report suggests it is ideological rhetoric rather than a workable policy proposal.

This report concludes that autonomy is a prerequisite for innovative and effective charter schools to emerge. Especially important is freedom from external bureaucratic control. Yet there is nothing in this report that addresses levels of autonomy in relationship to financial performance, resource allocation practices, academic results, and other key school characteristics and outcomes. Beyond anecdotal evidence, the authors fail to empirically demonstrate whether and how authorizers’ constraints have had an adverse impact upon any of the examined four key areas of school autonomy: staffing, instructional programming, governance, and culture.

Suggested Citation: Gulosino, C. (2010, May 26). Review of "Charter School Autonomy: A Half-Broken Promise." Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. Retrieved [date] from http://epicpolicy.org/thinktank/review-charter-school-autonomy