Originally published in Educational Leadership Vol. 54, No. 2,October 1996
Charter
schools are hot. But willcommercial motives, money problems, and
unproven boasts about student gainscool down the education reform of
the '90s?
Everyone,
it seems, loves charterschools. Time magazine has called them the "New
Hope for PublicSchools" (Wallis 1994). The New Democrat, the Democratic
LeadershipCouncil's journal, says charter school advocates are "Rebels
With a Cause"(Mirga 1994). And The New York Times (in an unusual note
of irony) calls themthe "Latest 'Best Hope' in U.S. Education"
(Applebome 1994).
American
Federation of TeachersPresident Albert Shanker launched the movement
when, in a 1988 National PressClub speech, he called for empowering
teachers by creating "charter"schools that focused on professional
development and had a clear commitment toimproving student achievement
(Sautter 1993). Since then, the rise of charterschools to the top of
the educational reform agenda has been spectacular.
To
many educators, parents, andpoliticians, the charter school idea
represented a public education alternativeto private school voucher
proposals. It was an idea they could embraceenthusiastically because it
seemed to protect public education as aninstitution and at the same
time provide for fundamental reform and systemic"restructuring." As a
bonus, charter schools had more media sexappeal than, say, site-based
management.
Zealots, Entrepreneurs, Reformers
Tom
Watkins (1995), the directorof the Detroit Center for Charter Schools,
says charter school advocates areusually one of three types:
1.
Zealots, who believe that"private is always better than public," market
systems are alwayssuperior to public systems, "unions are always the
problem," andstudents at private and religious schools outperform their
public counterparts.Neoconservative supporters, such as Hudson
Institute Fellow Chester Finn andformer Secretary of Education William
Bennett, probably fit most comfortably inthis category.
2.
Entrepreneurs, who want to makemoney running schools or school
programs. Edison Project charter schoolsoperating in Boston, Michigan,
and Mt. Clements, Michigan are examples ofprivate entrepreneurs using
charter school legislation as an opportunity toturn a profit.
3.
Reformers (child-, parent-, andteacher-centered), who want to expand
public school options and provide thesort of creative tension they
believe will help improve all schools. It is thisgroup--perceived as
representing a kind, moderate, educational middle--thatgenerates most
of the favorable press reports about dedicated individualsstruggling to
make a difference in the lives of America's schoolchildren. Theseare
the people (and Watkins places himself here) who have given the
charterschool movement its air of mainstream respectability.
Despite
the rosy image provided bythe child-centered reformers, most of the
money and political influence drivingthe charter movement have been
provided by the zealots and the profiteers.
Prairie Fire Reform
Charter
school reformers aim theirrhetorical firepower at those ever-popular
sources of evil in American publiceducation: overregulation and
unresponsive bureaucracies. Remove the regulationand dismantle the
bureaucracies, their logic goes, and--voila thousand flowerscultivated
by the unfettered ingenuity, energy, and commitment of parents
andteachers will bloom. The idea is simple, direct, and appealingly
libertarian.
In
1991, Minnesota became thefirst state to pass a charter school law. The
Minnesota legislation enabledschool districts to "charter" schools
organized by teachers. Theseschools were freed of most state and local
regulations and operated asnonprofit cooperatives that were legally
autonomous. Existing nonsectarianprivate schools also were allowed to
apply for charter status. For the mostpart, the Minnesota legislation
met Shanker's criterion of empowering teachers.
Within
fours years, charter schoollaws had been adopted from one end of the
country to the other. At the end of1994, 11 states had some form of
charter school law on the books and 134charter schools had been
approved. By late summer 1996, 25 states and theDistrict of Columbia
had passed laws. The number of charter schools approved hadjumped to
246, of which 110 were up and running.
An
August 1995 survey of these 110charter schools found that about 27,500
students were enrolled. Most of theseschools were small (about 250
students on the average--only 140 if Californiaschools were excluded).
The schools were most often located in leasedcommercial space (in Hull,
Massachusetts, for example, this meant eight roomsin the Seashore
Motel). Two-thirds wanted to attract a cross section ofstudents and
about half were intended to serve at-risk students. Their academicfocus
was primarily on "integrated interdisciplinary curriculum"
or"technology" or "back to the basics" (University ofMinnesota 1995).
Clearly
as a result of thepolitical struggle among charter school advocates
with different agendas, thepractical meaning of the term varies
considerably from state to state. At aminimum, however, all states
defined charter schools as public schools thatoperate under a special
contract or charter. Depending on the state, thesponsor granting that
charter could be a school district, a university, a stateeducation
board, or some other public authority. Most, but not all, statesplace
limits on the number of charter schools allowed.
Instead
of having to meet moststate or district regulations, charter schools
are accountable for such mattersas educational programming, academic
results, and fiscal affairs under theterms of their contract with their
sponsoring organization (Bierlein andMulholland 1995). The sponsor is
in turn responsible for guaranteeingcompliance with the contract. In
almost all cases, charter schools have beendesigned to be nonselective,
tuition-free, nonsectarian, and based on choice.Funding depends
directly on the number of students enrolled.
Laws Weak and Strong
One
of the most significantdifferences among the various charter school
laws is the degree of autonomythey grant the schools. Arizona,
California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan,and Minnesota have what
are sometimes characterized as "strong" charterschool laws because they
allow these schools to operate as legally independententities with a
high degree of autonomy. In contrast, the so-called"weak" charter
school laws passed by Georgia, Hawaii, Kansas, NewMexico, and Wyoming
grant charter schools little more autonomy than otherpublic schools
(U.S. General Accounting Office 1995).
Obviously
"strong" and"weak" are in the eye of the beholder. Given the variety of
reasonsoffered for embracing the charter school concept--to encourage
innovativeteaching, to create new professional opportunities for
teachers, to promotecommunity involvement, to improve student learning
and to promoteperformance-based accountability, among others (U.S.
General Accounting Office1995)--it is not surprising that charter
school legislation has variedconsiderably.
Free-Market Accountability
As
yet, no national evaluation ofthe effectiveness of charter schools has
been completed. The Pew CharitableTrusts have funded a study to be
conducted by Chester Finn and Louann Bierleinat the Hudson Institute.
And the U.S. Department of Education has commissioneda study that
should begin to provide some data in the next two or three years.
In
the meantime there are a fewclues about the impact of the reform. A
1995 report issued by the IndianaPolicy Center, "Charter Schools:
Legislation and Results After FourYears," found little in the way of
systematic evidence that charterschools increased student achievement
(Indiana Policy Center 1996).
In
December 1994, the Minnesotalegislature released a report on charter
schools in Minnesota. The authors didnot try to judge the success or
failure of the charter experiment; they felt itwas too early for that.
They did, however, highlight a number of problems thatthrew into
question the idea that charter schools would provide a model forpublic
school reform (Urahn and Stewart 1994).
Because
Minnesota charter schoolswere free of all legal requirements placed on
public schools, except thoseclearly spelled out in their charters, the
charter schools didn't necessarilyhave to operate in open meetings or
otherwise be open to public scrutiny. Thatmade it difficult for the
public to hold them accountable for proper andefficient conduct of
their activities. Accountability was further complicatedby a finding
that some school boards granting charters were unwilling or unableto
adequately evaluate charter school outcomes or student success.
One
of the biggest problemsMinnesota charter schools faced was financing.
Thus, in order to reduce class sizeand afford other reforms, the
schools relied on experienced teachers to acceptlow salaries and take
on administrative and other responsibilities. The schoolsalso had
difficulty finding facilities and paying for even the most
basicequipment--books and desks--without additional income from private
sources thatcould not be relied upon for continuing, long-term support.
These
problems are not unique. Ina recent survey of charter schools around
the country, financial support and thelack of start-up funds were the
most frequently mentioned problems (Universityof Minnesota 1995).The
authors of the Minnesota legislative report concludedthat without
increased support, "it is not clear that charter schools willbe able to
function as anything but educational reform 'on the margin' "(Urahn and
Stewart 1994).
Despite
the report's perfectlyreasonable conclusion, most charter school
supporters would be the last ones toadmit publicly that they are
backing a reform that has neither a logical nor ademonstrated
relationship to increased academic achievement and that will
costsomeone lots of money to get off the ground and keep afloat. Most
would ratherclaim that the market will somehow provide.
For
this reason, charter schooladvocates often prefer to frame the issue of
accountability the way vouchersupporters do. Real accountability, they
say, is imposed by competition in themarketplace. Parents who "know
what they like" and who are"empowered" to choose the school their
children attend will sendtheir kids to a charter school if they think
its program is good; and if theydon't, they won't. This view assumes
parents know an effective school programwhen they see one and that they
could not possibly be satisfied with anineffective school.
Undeniably,
this position haspopulist appeal. In practice, however, parents'
decisions about where to sendtheir children are much more complex than
a simple judgment about a school'sacademic program. Considerations such
as proximity to the school, workschedules, availability of after-school
care, and extracurricular activitiesget thrown into the mix. Also, the
ability of parents to choose the best schoolfor their children requires
more than the freedom to walk away from schoolsthey don't like: they
also must be able to get their children into schools theylike better.
The
chance of a market creating amultitude of options for all parents,
especially those in the most impoverishedurban areas, is so small as to
be nonexistent. Obviously that is why no one hasyet explained in
practical terms how to create the surplus educational capacityneeded to
give parents such an opportunity. Should a dissatisfied parent decideto
switch schools, who pays to keep a vast network of partially filled
schools atthe ready? In the real world, financing limits parents'
choices. Charterschools do nothing to change that basic fact.
Real-World Money Problems
If
the popularity of charter schools demonstratesanything, it is America's
enduring faith that major educational reforms can beaccomplished on the
cheap. Charter school reformers in Massachusetts andelsewhere have sold
the idea that charter schools won't cost anyone anything--areal win-win
reform. This fiscal miracle is accomplished by a budgetary sleightof
hand in which the money to educate charter school students is, for the
mostpart, taken out of state aid to the district in which the student
lives. In thecase of hard-pressed urban school systems such as
Boston's, such financingfurther undermines the district's ability to
serve the children attending itsschools.
Raising
the necessary money is oneproblem; keeping track of it after it has
been raised is another. Few of theinstitutions legally empowered to
grant charters are likely to have the expertiseor the resources to
monitor and enforce those charters. If educationalperformance
contracting during the Nixon administration and the more recentcontract
problems between Education Alternatives Inc. and the Baltimore
andHartford school systems are any indication, we will soon be reading
stories ofmismanagement and educational short-sheeting at charter
schools.
In
fact, in 1994, one Californiacharter school, Edutrain, went belly up
with more than $1 million in publicmoney unaccounted for. Apparently
the school administration had been spendingmoney to help pay the
principal's rent, lease the principal a sports car, hirea bodyguard,
and fund a $7,000 staff retreat in Carmel--this while teacherslacked
textbooks and supplies (Schmidt 1994).
To
some charter school supportersthe failure of Edutrain was an example of
the educational market imposing itsdiscipline. The problem with their
logic is this: Aneducational"market" does not punish the people who set
up a schoolthe way a financial market punishes investors in stocks and
bonds when shareprices plummet or a bond issuer defaults. In the
Edutrain fiasco, the peoplepunished were the students who had their
education disrupted and the taxpayersand students in the Los Angeles
Unified School District who were out ofeducation money and received
nothing in return. In the charter school market,the financial risks are
socialized, while the financial gains are privatized.
Demonizing Teachers
The
lack of a common educationalvision helps assure that the argument for
charter schools is dominated byeconomic, not educational, ideas.
Central to the logic of charter schools isthe idea that competition
will force public schools, which now have a monopolyin providing
educational services, to improve or perish as parents choose tosend
their children to better schools. Unfortunately, how competition
willresult in better teaching and more learning is never specified.
The
assumptions are that educatorshave grown fat and complacent in the warm
embrace of a government monopoly andthat a threat to their now-secure
futures will force them to figure out how todo better. In this
scenario, teachers unions are considered self-interestedculprits
responsible for driving up the cost of education without accepting
accountabilityfor student achievement.
Neoconservative
charter schoolzealots, such as Chester Finn and the Center for
Educational Reform's JeanneAllen, ridicule the idea that schools
(particularly those in poor, urbandistricts) might need more money to
improve. Any increase in funding would,from their perspective, be
throwing good money after bad. In what has becomethe conventional
wisdom in the charter school movement, the enemies of schoolimprovement
are rigid union contracts; bloated, unresponsive bureaucracies;
andoverregulation, not fiscal constraints.
Hostility
toward teachers unionsand the teacher certification requirements they
have achieved is built intosome so-called "strong" charter school laws,
including those inArizona, California, Colorado, and Massachusetts.
Under those laws, virtuallyany adult with "qualifications" is allowed
to teach in a charterschool, or administer one for that matter, without
the need for certification.It's an approach that is in some ways
analogous to trying to solve the problemof access to health care by
allowing anyone who can attract patients topractice medicine.
"Edventures" inExploitation
The
surge of interest in charterschools seems to have energized a fledgling
movement that wants to increase thenumber of what it calls "teachers in
private practice." This isbilled as a movement for teachers who want to
work as entrepreneurs instead ofemployees. The idea of teachers as
entrepreneurs is couched in the language ofgreater professionalism and
independence for teachers freed to work when andwhere they want, even
free to set their own fees. To those who contend thatgood teachers are
too often yoked to incompetents by union protections, theidea also is
presented as a chance for good teachers to take their competenceto the
marketplace and receive the greater rewards their talent will command.
In
practice, however, the abilityof professionals to set their own fees
depends on how many others are competingin the marketplace. Because the
money available for public education isconstrained by political
decisions, cost, not competence, will often be themost decisive factor
in hiring.
Changing
state laws to make iteasier to be a private practice teacher would most
likely result in largenumbers of teachers finding themselves shut out
of the more highly paidpositions with fringe benefits they might have
had as school districtemployees. These teachers would be involuntary
teachers in private practice,with the freedom to do the same work for
lower wages and few opportunities toraise their incomes, whatever their
competence.
This
mirrors what has happened atpublic universities over the past two
decades. As money to hire professors inpositions leading to tenure has
steadily diminished, schools have hired moreadjuncts to work on
year-to-year contracts at low pay with few, if any, fringebenefits
(Judson 1996). They are, as the outside critics argue, free to
changecareers. But a system that consistently turns away talented
people underminesthe quality of higher education in the long run.
Certified
and uncertified teachersin private and religious schools are already in
this battered boat. That's whylarge numbers leave those mythically
superior schools as quickly as they canfind a decent-paying job in a
public school system. Anyone who thinks about itquickly realizes that
charter schools can never occupy more than a very smallcorner in
American public education without drastic reductions in wages or
hugeincreases in education spending.
For
the zealots and profiteers,charter schools are as much a vehicle for
breaking up teachers unions andlowering wages as an education reform
strategy. That is why so much of theirrhetoric demonizes teachers
unions and paints them as self-serving enemies ofreform. They attack
teachers unions for backing "weak" charter laws(for example, those that
keep charter schools clearly accountable within thestructure of public
education). As in universities, a continuing erosion ofteachers' wages
could drive many of the best prospective teachers into
otheroccupations. This most likely would lower the quality of public
education,inevitably harming the poorest children the most.
Storefront Education
One
of the most hotly contestedaspects of charter schools is who will run
them. As originally proposed byAlbert Shanker, the idea was to
"empower" certified teachers byfreeing them from regulations so they
could run their program more effectively.But charter school laws in
states that allow private and for-profit schools tooperate without
certified teachers open the door to some strange possibilities.
Many
people who start charterschools will work long and hard to accomplish
their goal and some will havegood results. Many of these schools,
however, won't last long. People burn out,they move on, their kids grow
up, and for any number of reasons the effortcollapses.
The
quick-buck operators, on theother hand, are likely to be much more
durable. Attracted by the lack ofregulations, effective fiscal
controls, or academic standards, and untroubledby the welfare of their
students, they will be free to set up and close downover and over
again, milking the system for as much as they can get. Their rolemodels
will be the scam artists who bilk post-secondary students out of
theircollege Pell Grant money and student loans by opening up
fly-by-night schoolsof "business" or "technology" or even "hairstyling"
and "nail academies."
One
of the paradoxes of thecharter school idea is that the farther the
schools are outside the publicschool system, the more they rely on the
idiosyncratic vision of a few peopleand the more exotic their methods
of funding become. As a result, even if thereare some individual
success stories over the next few years, they may not serveas models
elsewhere because their circumstances will be unique.
The Public Debate vs. the Real One
Free-market
zealots are likely tocontinue to claim vindication or argue that their
reactionary ideas need moretime to work. Supporters of public education
will call the experiment a costlyfailure and marvel at the willingness
to spend large sums on unprovenalternatives while cutting resources for
the public system that serves mostchildren. With an absence of uniform
standards, the war of educationalanecdotes and misleading statistics
will remain "subject tointerpretation."
All
the while, the desperation ofAmerica's poorest children and their
families will grow. No state's charterschools, under laws strong or
weak, will make an appreciable difference formost of these children.
They are failing in public schools. They are failing inCatholic
schools. They are going under. That is not because they cannotsucceed,
but because they have been abandoned in a political and economicdebate
that masks selfish interests with educational rhetoric.
No
amount of entrepreneurial zealwill make up for a lack of sufficient
resources to provide for them. Indeed, itis the market that has
destroyed their neighborhoods and the livelihoods of theadults they
rely on. Unleashing the market on the public schools will onlycompound
the harm.
Charter
schools, like privateschool vouchers and for-profit schools, are built
on the illusion that oursociety can be held together solely by the
self-interested pursuit of ourindividual purposes. Considered in this
light, the charter school movementrepresents a radical rejection not
only of the possibility of the commonschool, but of common purposes
outside the school as well. The struggle is notbetween market-based
reforms and the educational status quo. It is aboutwhether the
democratic ideal of the common good can survive the onslaught of
amarket mentality that threatens to turn every human relationship into
acommercial transaction.
References
Applebome,P. (October 12, 1994). "Latest 'Best Hope' in U.S. Education: CharteredSchools." The New York Times.
Bierlein,
L.A., and L. A. Mulholland. (1995)."Charter School Update and
Observations Regarding Initial Trends andImpact." Policy Brief,
Morrison Institute for Public Policy. Tempe:Arizona State University.
Indiana Policy Center. (March 1996). "CharterSchools: Legislation and Results After Four Years." ERS Bulletin23: 7.
Judson, G. (January 17, 1996). "Yale StudentStrike Points to Decline in Tenured Jobs." The New York Times.
Mirga, T. (April-May 1994). "Rebels with aCause." The New Democrat 6, 2: 17-22.
Sautter,
R. C. (1993). "Charter Schools: A NewBreed of Public Schools," Policy
Briefs, Report 2. Oak Brook, Ill.: NorthCentral Regional Educational
Laboratory.
Schmidt, P. (December 14, 1994). "Citing Doubts,L.A. Board Revokes School's Charter." Education Week: 3.
University
of Minnesota Humphrey Institute of Public Affairsand Education
Commission of the States. (1995). Charter Schools: What Are TheyUp To?
A 1995 Survey. Denver: Education Commission of the States.
Urahn,
S., and D. Stewart.(1994). "MinnesotaCharter Schools: A Research
Report." St. Paul: Minnesota House ofRepresentatives Research
Department.
U.S.
General Accounting Office, Health, Education andHuman Services
Division. (January 1995). "Charter Schools: New Model forPublic Schools
Provides Opportunities and Challenges." Report to SenatorsArlen Spector
and Edward Kennedy. Washington, D.C.: U.S. General AccountingOffice.
Wallis, C. (October 31, 1994). "A Class of TheirOwn." Time 53-61.
Watkins, T. (September 6, 1995). "So You Want toStart a Charter School." Education Week:40.
Copyright 1996 by Alex Molnar.
Alex
Molnar is Professor of Education at theUniversity of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee, School of Education, Enderis Hall, P.O. Box413,
Milwaukee, WI 53201. His latest book is Giving Kids the Business:
TheCommercialization of America's Schools. (New York:
Westview/HarperCollins1996).
As a bonus, charter schools have more media sexappeal than, say, site-based management.
If
the popularity of charter schools demonstratesanything, it is America's
enduring faith that major educational reforms can beaccomplished on the
cheap.
Despite
the rosy image provided by the child-centeredreformers, most of the
money and political influence driving the chartermovement has been
provided by the zealots and the profiteers.
In
a recent survey of charter schools around thecountry, financial support
and the lack of start-up funds were the mostfrequently mentioned
problems.
In the charter school market, the financial risks aresocialized, while the financial gains are privatized.
The
fact is, charter schools can never occupy morethan a very small corner
of public education without drastic wage reductions orhuge increases in
education spending.
For
the zealots and profiteers, charter schools areas much a vehicle for
breaking up teachers unions and lowering wages as aneducation reform
strategy.
No
state's charter schools, under laws strong orweak, will make an
appreciable difference for most of America's poorestchildren.
Charter
schools, like private school vouchers andfor-profit schools, are built
on the illusion that our society can be heldtogether solely by the
self-interested pursuit of our individual purposes.