Charter schools in the United States

Charter schools are a type of private school which trades a measure of autonomy for more or less "full" funding from government. The rationale for full funding is that the charter school has a contract with the government and takes on obligations which other private schools do not. Consequently, the establishment of a charter school is unlike the establishment of conventional private schools in that the establishment of a private school can be a unilateral act subject to laws of general application: the establishment of a charter school is a mutual act. A school does not exist as a charter school unless a government authority negotiates and grants a charter.

What distinguishes charter schools from public schools is that charter schools are not governed by the civil democratic community, except at the level of general policy, and they are not part of the commons of the community. One of the implications of this distinction is that, while charter schools generally receive full-funding from government, they are often not required to meet a few, some, or many of the operational requirements imposed on adjacent public schools.

Generally, charter schools are organized by educators, parents, community groups or private organizations with an express purpose, or according to a particular philosophy (often pedagogical).

The laws and practices governing charter schools vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The charter establishing each such school is generally a performance contract detailing matters such as the school's mission, program, goals, students served, methods of assessment, and ways to measure success. The length of time for which charters are granted varies, but most are granted for 3-5 years.

Charter schools are accountable to the government or government agency which grants the charter—a local school board, state education agency, university, or other entity—to produce positive academic results and adhere to the charter contract.

The basic concept of charter schools is that civil democratic communities cannot be relied upon to provide excellent public education and so at least some education should be privatized and, at the same time, fully publicly funded. Implicit in this conceptualization is the suggestion that there are "problems" with the public school system which the public cannot or will not fix.

From jurisdiction to jurisdiction, the law ennabling charter schools provides that they can be closed for failing to meet the terms set forth in their charter; alternately, the charter alone can be withdrawn and the school can continue to operate as a conventional private school in the jurisdiction.

Overview

The term "charter school" started in the U.S., but many of the related ideas such as granting greater autonomy to local schools, independence from local school boards, and operating under a charter, have existed in and out of the U.S. for some time. Charters allow publicly funded schools to act and operate more like private schools, but still have public obligations that private schools do not have. Some charter school advocates believe that competition from charter schools provides choices to families, which will force the other public schools to perform better.

The concept of public charter schools was first proposed by the Citizens League, a Minnesota think tank and lobbying organization. The first charter school opened in Minnesota in 1991, and as of the 2005-2006 school year, more than 3,600 charter schools are in operation in 40 states and the District of Columbia, enrolling more than 1 million students (National Charter School Directory, The Center for Education Reform). Charter schools reflect their founders' varied philosophies, programs, and organizational structures, and serve diverse student populations.

Charter schools are commonly founded as schools for students that may not be served well by traditional public schools in their communities (such as pregnant teens or teen parents, drop-outs, and other at-risk populations) or those with special educational needs. Some provide a "niche" education, providing a strong focus on dual languages, technology, or the arts.

Critics of charter schools claim they may siphon off the best students and leave regular public schools worse off. Supporters argue charter schools have been more likely to serve disadvantaged student populations. Many charter school administrators and parents argue that charter schools serve those students who are not getting their fair share at public schools. Most charter schools in big cities focus on Title I students.

Opinions vary as to the success of charter schools, in part because of the philosophical outlook taken, and in part because—as may be expected—such schools vary one from another in quality, competence, and effectiveness.

Charter school popularity

Some members of the public are dissatisfied with educational quality and school district bureaucracies (Jenkins and Dow 1996). Today's charter-school initiatives are rooted in the educational reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, from state mandates to improve instruction, to school-based management, school restructuring, and private/public-choice initiatives.

The charter approach uses market principles while insisting that schools be nonsectarian and democratic. Many people, such as former President Bill Clinton, see charter schools, with their emphasis on autonomy and accountability, as a workable political compromise and an alternative to vouchers. Others, such as President George W. Bush, see charter schools as a way to improve schools without antagonizing the teachers union. Bush has made charter schools a major part of his No Child Left Behind Act. Recent reports have shown charter schools not faring as well as public schools on state administered standardized testing. The number one reason given for low performance was because charters attract many students who have not performed well in other schools, and who may lack basic skills and knowledge needed for these assesments. Other studies show marked improvement over time by students who move from traditional public schools to charters. Indeed, many charter school students later surpass the test scores of their traditional school counterparts.

Locations of charter schools

Inside the United States

In 1991, Minnesota adopted charter school legislation to expand a longstanding program of public school choice and to stimulate broader system improvements. Since then, the charter concept has spread to 40 states and DC. State laws follow varied sets of key organizing principles based on the Citizens League's recommendations for Minnesota, American Federation of Teachers guidelines, and/or federal charter-school legislation (U.S. Department of Education). Principles govern sponsorship, number of schools, regulatory waivers, degree of fiscal/legal autonomy, and performance expectations.

Current laws have been characterized as either strong or weak. Strong-law states mandate considerable autonomy from local labor-management agreements, allow multiple charter-granting agencies, and allocate a level of funding consistent with the statewide per pupil average. Arizona's 1994 law is the strongest, with multiple charter-granting agencies, freedom from local labor contracts, and large numbers of charters permitted.

40 U.S. states have Charter-school laws. The vast majority of charter schools (more than 70 percent) are found in states with the strongest laws: Arizona, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, and North Carolina (Charter School Laws Across the States, Center for Education Reform). File:Charter schools.gif

Despite the map, Washington has yet to pass a law to create charter schools.

Outside the United States

Calgary Girls' School was granted a charter in 2003. As of 2005 it was one of only a dozen in Alberta, the only Canadian province to allow charter schools.

Well before American charter schools, New Zealand went far further in granting power to individual schools by abolishing all school boards and making each school independent, with local parent and teacher invovlement in decision making.[1] Although not called charter schools, each school does have a charter under which it operates and has a high degree of autonomy. The main difference, though, is that since all schools have the same status, individual schools don't all have the uniqueness typical of a charter school.

The United Kingdom established grant-maintained schools in England and Wales in 1988. They allowed individual schools that were independent of the local school authority. When they were abolished in 1998, most turned into foundation schools, which are under their local district authority but still have a high degree of autonomy.

About three years after their introduction in the U.S., the Canadian province of Alberta allowed charter schools beginning in 1994. Alberta charter schools have much in common with their US counterparts. As of 2005 there are only about a dozen charter schools in the province, compared with over 50 school boards, with the largest one alone having over 200 schools. The idea of charter schools initially sparked great debate and is still controversial, but has had limited impact. No other province in Canada has yet followed Alberta's lead.

Overall, charter schools have had much less support outside the U.S., although many of the choices provided by charter schools have long existed elsewhere under different names.

Results

Early promise

Evidence on the growth and outcomes of this relatively new movement has started to come in. The U.S. Department of Education's First Year Report, part of a four-year national study on charters, is based on interviews of 225 charter schools in 10 states (1997). Charters tend to be small (fewer than 200 students) and represent primarily new schools, though some schools had converted to charter status. Charter schools often tend to exist in urban locations, rather than rural.

This study found enormous variation among states. Charter schools tended to be somewhat more racially diverse, and to enroll slightly fewer students with special needs and limited-English-proficient students than the average schools in their state. The most common reasons for founding charters were to pursue an educational vision and gain autonomy.

"Charter schools are havens for children who had bad educational experiences elsewhere," according to a Hudson Institute survey of students, teachers, and parents from fifty charters in ten states. More than 60 percent of the parents said charter schools are better than their children's previous schools in terms of teaching quality, individual attention from teachers, curriculum, discipline, parent involvement, and academic standards. Most teachers reported feeling empowered and professionally fulfilled (Vanourek and others 1997).

Recent Findings

A report issued by a pro-charter school group, released in July 2005, looks at twenty-six studies that make some attempt to look at change over time in charter school student or school performance. Twelve of these find that overall gains in charter schools were larger than other public schools; four find charter schools’ gains higher in certain significant categories of schools, such as elementary schools, high schools, or schools serving at risk students; six find comparable gains in charter and traditional public schools; and, four find that charter schools’ overall gains lagged behind. The study also looks at whether individual charter schools improve their performance with age (e.g. after overcoming start-up challenges). Of these, five of seven studies find that as charter schools mature, they improve. The other two find no significant differences between older and younger charter schools.

In August 2005, a national report of charter school finance found that across 16 states and the District of Columbia—which collectively enroll 84 percent of the nation’s one million charter school students—charter schools receive about 22 percent less in per-pupil public funding, or $1,800, than the district schools that surround them. For a typical charter school of 250 students, that amounts to about $450,000 per year. The funding gap is wider in most of twenty-seven urban school districts studied, where it amounts to $2,200 per student. In cities like San Diego and Atlanta, charters receive 40% less than traditional public schools. The fiscal inequity is most severe in South Carolina, California, Ohio, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Missouri. The primary driver of the district-charter funding gap is charter schools’ lack of access to local and capital funding.

On August 16, 2004, the Department of Education released a great number of reports without public announcement. Buried in the mountains of data was the first national comparison of test scores among children in charter schools and regular public schools. These results, from a study of 6000 4th grade pupils in 2003, showed charter school students performing worse in both mathematics and reading than comparable students in regular public schools. This study may have been buried to avoid negative publicity, since the Bush administration has been a strong supporter of charter schools.

These results were the most comprehensive so far, holding constant such factors as race, neighborhood, and income. Many conservative foundations had requested the study, hoping that the results would show gains for charter schools. Chester Finn, the president of one such foundation, admitted "The scores are low, dismayingly low." (New York Times, August 17, 2004) One possible explanation is that enrollment in charter schools selects for students who were having academic trouble. A number of promintent research experts called into question the usefulness of the findings and the largely unrigorous media coverage they received (Advertisement in the New York Times, August 2004).

At a December 2004 workshop held by the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) to discuss the findings of the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) pilot study on charter schools, government officials urged charter opponents and proponents alike to use caution in making "sweeping" conclusions from the NAEP report. NAGB Chairman Darvin Winick called attention to what he called the "fine print" of the study - that is, "one snapshot in time cannot determine the achievement of students."

A Harvard study also released in December 2004 that included 99 percent of all elementary charter school students found that they performed favorably in both math and reading compared to similar students in nearby conventional public schools, and that the longer the charter school had been in operation, the more favorably its students compared.

Other Problems

Nearly all charter schools face implementation obstacles, but newly created schools are most vulnerable. Most new charters are plagued by resource limitations, particularly inadequate startup funds.

Although charter advocates recommend the schools control all per-pupil funds, in reality they rarely receive as much funding as other public schools. They generally lack access to funding for facilities and special program funds distributed on a district basis (Bierlein and Bateman 1996). Sometimes private businesses and foundations, such as the Ameritech Corporation in Michigan and the Annenburg Fund in California, provide support (Jenkins and Dow). Congress and the President allocated $80 million to support charter-school activities in fiscal year 1998, up from $51 million in 1997.

Charters sometimes face opposition from local boards, state education agencies, and unions. Many educators are concerned that charter schools might siphon off badly needed funds for regular schools. The American Federation of Teachers urges that charter schools adopt high standards, hire only certified teachers, and maintain teachers' collective-bargaining rights. Also, some charters feel they face unwieldy regulatory barriers.

According to Bierlein and Bateman, the odds are stacked against charter schools. There may be too few strong-law states to make a significant difference. Educators who are motivated enough to create and manage charter schools could easily be burnt out by a process that demands increased accountability while providing little professional assistance.

Policy and practice

As more states start charter schools, there is increasing speculation about upcoming legislation. In an innovation-diffusion study surveying education policy experts in fifty states, Michael Mintrom and Sandra Vergari (1997) found that charter legislation is more likely considered in states with poor test scores, Republican legislative control, and proximity to other states with charter schools. Legislative enthusiasm, gubernatorial support, interactions with national authorities, and use of permissive charter-law models increase the chances for adopting what they consider stronger laws. He feels union support and restrictive models lead to adoption of what he conisders weaker laws.

The threat of vouchers, wavering support for public education, and bipartisan support for charters has led some unions to start charters themselves. Several AFT chapters, such as those in Houston and Dallas, have themselves started charters. The National Education Association has allocated $1.5 million to help members start charter schools. Charters offer teachers a brand of empowerment, employee ownership, and governance that might be enhanced by union assistance (Nathan).

Over two dozen private management companies are scrambling to increase their 10 percent share of a "more hospitable and entrepreneurial market" (Stecklow 1997). Boston-based Advantage Schools Inc., a corporation specializing in for-profit schooling, has contracted to run charter schools in New Jersey, Arizona, and North Carolina. The Education Development Corporation was planning in the summer of 1997 to manage nine nonsectarian charter schools in Michigan, using cost-effective measures employed in Christian schools.

Professor Frank Smith, of Columbia University Teachers College, sees the charter-school movement as a chance to involve entire communities in redesigning all schools and converting them to "client-centered, learning cultures" (1997). He favors the Advocacy Center Design process used by state-appointed Superintendent Laval Wilson to transform four failing New Jersey schools. Building stronger communities via newly designed institutions may prove more productive than charters' typical "free-the-teacher-and-parent" approach.

Charter schools might also benefit by adopting research-based schooling models, such as Accelerated Schools and the Success For All Program.

President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act also promotes charter schools. It is as yet unclear whether recent test results will affect the enacting of future legislation. A Pennsylvania legislator who voted to create charter schools, State Rep. Mark B. Cohen of Philadelphia, said that "Charter schools offer increased flexibility to parents and administrators, but at a cost of reduced job security to school personnel. The evidence to date shows that the higher turnover of staff undermines school performance more than it enhances it, and that the problems of urban education are far too great for enhanced managerial authority to solve in the absence of far greater resources of staff, technology, and state of the art buildings."

References

• Allen, Jeanne, and Anna Varghese Marcucio, "Charter School Laws Across the States: Ranking and Scorecard, 8th Edition." Washington D.C.: Center for Education Reform, 2004.
• American Federation of Teachers (August 2004). "Charter School Achievement on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress" (pdf).
• American Federation of Teachers. CHARTER SCHOOLS: DO THEY MEASURE UP? Washington, D.C.: Author, 1996. 68 pages.
• Bierlein, Louann, and Mark Bateman. "Charter Schools v. the Status Quo: Which Will Succeed?" INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM 5, 2 (April 1996): 159–68. EJ 525 971.
• Budde, Ray. "The Evolution of the Charter Concept." PHI DELTA KAPPAN 78, 1 (September 1996): 72–73. EJ 530 653.
• Hassel, Bryan. "Charter School Achievement: What We Know." Washington, DC: Charter School Leadership Council. July 2005.
• Hoxby, C. (December 2004). "Achievement in Charter Schools and Regular Public Schools in the United States: Understanding the Differences" (pdf).
• Jenkins, John, and Jeffrey L. Dow. "A Primer on Charter Schools." INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM, 5, 2 (April 1996): 224–27. EJ 525 978.
• Mintrom, Michael, and Sandra Vergari. "Political Factors Shaping Charter School Laws." Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (Chicago, March 24, 1997). 46 pages. ED 407 708.
• Nathan, Joe. CHARTER SCHOOLS: CREATING HOPE AND OPPORTUNITY FOR AMERICAN EDUCATION. San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1996. 249 pages. ED 410 657.
• Smith, Frank L. "Guidance for the Charter Bound." THE SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR 54, 7 (August 1997): 18–22. EJ 548 963.
• Stecklow, Steve. "Businesses Scramble to Run Charter Schools." THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 137, 37 (August 21, 1997): B1, B8.
• U.S. Department of Education. A STUDY ON CHARTER SCHOOLS: FIRST YEAR REPORT. Washington, D.C.: Author, 1997. 74 pages. ED 409 620.
• Vanourek, Gregg and others. "Charter Schools as Seen by Those Who Know Them Best: Students, Teachers, and Parents." Washington, D.C.: Hudson Institute, 1997. 12 pages. ED 409 650.

External links

• Charter Schools. Eric Digest. The original Wikipedia article listed here is based on the text at this public domain site.
• Charter School Weekly News Connection.
• Charter School Leadership Council
• Updates on New Charter School Research and Resources.
• Perspectives on Charter Schools: A Review for Parents. ERIC Digest.
• Charter Schools: An Approach for Rural Education? ERIC Digest.
• Public Charter Schools and Students with Disabilities. ERIC Digest.
• The Center for Education Reform
• US Charter Schools by state
• NEA Charter School Page
• Charter Friends National Network charter school on-line resources and links
• State profiles—charter schools.
• Nation's Charter Schools Lagging Behind, U.S. Test Scores Reveal. New York Times
• Education Evolving Education Evolving
• MACS Minnesota Association of Charter Schools
• eSchoolSearch Directory
• Massachusetts Charter Public School Association - "Myths and realities About Massachusetts Charter Public Schools."