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 Commentary:
Charter Schools - Another Failed Reform
Are They The Best Use Of Our Limited Public Dollars?
by Dr. Herbert S. Moyer, Michigan State Board of
Education Treasurer
For more articles like this
visit
https://www.bridges4kids.org.
Charter schools nationally are celebrating their 10th
anniversary. They were created under the politically motivated
premise of providing parental choice, more innovation,
creativity and to be examples from which regular K-12 public
schools could benefit. All of this would be combined with less
government oversight. Several “billions” of dollars later we
have a few charters that have achieved credible results.
However, the vast majority are questionable as to the
philosophies, innovation and overall quality they originally
professed to exemplify.
State and national studies have shown a mixed bag. Harry Minon
and Christopher Nelson, researchers at Western Michigan
University Evaluation Center, published a study based on four
years of research into charter schools in Pennsylvania,
Illinois, Connecticut and Michigan. They have concluded that
there is a mixed and disappointing record for charters in
meeting their stated objectives of increasing student
achievement (currently they are at least 6 to 12 months behind
regular K-12 students), leveraging improvement in public
schools, and satisfying customers.
Some charter school students, parents and teachers seem
satisfied with their schools. And charter schools have provoked
some public relations efforts in K-12 public schools as they
compete for student enrollments. Although many charter schools
in Michigan and nationally are located in poor urban areas,
“they tend to enroll lower concentrations of at-risk students
than neighboring K-12 districts.” Charter schools are supposed
to deliver good education at lower cost than regular public
schools but, as it turns out, they tend to receive and spend
more than comparable public schools. The proportion of spending
on charter school students has drifted downward relative to
dollars spent on administration. (Average K-12 administration
costs are around 10%, to charters’ average of 30%.) Overall,
Minon and Nelson concluded that Michigan’s charter schools
“often produce weaker outcomes at greater cost than non charter
schools.”
The April 8, 2003 issue of the New York Times, contained a
report by Dr. Bruce Fuller of the University of California at
Berkley that included the following results of two charter
school studies:
1.Charters “rely on young, inexperienced and unaccredited
teachers and charter schools do not have the resources to
provide the instructional help that many of their students
need.” The study found 48% of teachers in the average charter
school lack a teacher certificate, while 9% of teachers in
normal public schools lack one.
2.The study also found that teachers in charter schools serving
low income and minority students are paid considerably less than
their counterparts in public schools. The study also found that
55% of teachers in charter schools run by for profit management
companies are unaccredited and not highly experienced.
Since 1991, more than 2,600 charter schools nationally operate
on public funds, but are independent of locally elected school
boards and have operated under less government regulation than
their regular public school counterparts. They serve nearly
700,000 students in 36 states and the District of Columbia, but
little achievement data is available. Critics say that charter
schools siphon money and resources from the regular schools at a
time when that system is under funded. In addition, critics say,
“There is not evidence charter schools improve achievement for
large numbers of students.”
Charter school supporters believe the schools freed from
constraints and bureaucracy of public schools and with local
autonomy can raise achievement and be more responsive to the
needs of individual students and families. President Bush has
praised charter schools for the “innovative programs” and has
sought an additional $753 million in new funding next year to
expand charter schools and experiments with school vouchers.
Professor Fuller said he believed that there are “a few strong,
high-quality charter schools, particularly in Connecticut.”
However, charter schools vary greatly from state to state, and
his study found a wide disparity in resources and teacher
qualifications and experience among the schools. Many states
including Texas, Arizona and Colorado have eliminated the
requirement of teacher certification for teachers in charter
schools. The Michigan Legislature also eliminated school
administration certification about the time it passed the
state’s charter school enabling legislation. This seems
ludicrous at a time when the “No Child Left Behind” legislation,
which Mr. Bush approved, for improvement in teacher training,
qualifications and experience.
It has also been found that many private management groups have
acquired chartering contracts – a type of “carpet-bagging,”
using them as a public money “cash-cow” for their privatizing of
public education! WMU researchers, Jerry Horn and Minon found in
their 2000 study that many Michigan small public school
academies were being contracted by these private management
companies to increase profits through economies of scale. Their
schools (which constitute 70% plus of the charter schools in
Michigan) have created “cookie-cutter” schools, which is
contrary to the original purpose of choice, creativity,
innovation and parental involvement; this has been done to
promote a higher profit for them! Upjohn Institute and WMU
researchers, Nelson and Dr. Kevin Hollenbeck (2002) confirmed
many of these same results plus the fact that charter school
students test scores lag behind those of regular K-12 public
school students.
Further investigation has identified several charters that were
established as de-facto segregated ethnic oriented schools: Afro
centered, Arabic centered, Armenian centered, etc., with the
intent to teach their respective cultures, values and in some
cases religion. In fact, it is reported that one Arabic centered
charter school in California is being investigated for being
$2 million short in their audit and having possible terrorist
ties. This charter is still under investigation. All of this is
being done with the support of public dollars and under charter
school law. Some refer to these types of schools as a form of
“educational ethnic cleansing.”
The purpose of my sharing this information is to alert the
public and ask the question is this the best and intended use of
our limited resources? As fiscally responsible citizens, we
should demand a GAO (Government Accounting Office) cost benefit
analysis of charter schools in comparison to our regular K-12
programs and ask for a complete and objective evaluation of this
ten-year experiment. “Without attention to these inequalities,”
Professor Fuller said, “charter schools could be failed reform
for working class and low-income families.”
It is not suggested that everything works smoothly in the public
area, or that local communities are always coherent,
enlightened, or equalitarian as they engage in democratic
governance. However, in the regular K-12 public schools, there
are locally elected boards of education, which create a
legitimate setting for common citizen input; not an elitist
process of appointments and private contracting as currently
found in charter schools!
We need to keep on the table the issue of how well public
education serves community and societal empowerment, which is
both an object and fundamental cornerstone of our democratic
heritage.
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