The conflicting points of view about charter schools were represented at a panel discussion that took place at ASCD's most recent Annual Conference. Among the panelists arguing in support of charter schools was Joe Nathan of the University of Minnesota, author of Charter Schools: Creating Hope and Opportunity for American Education.
Nathan first clarified what charter schools are. "These are public schools," he said. "They're schools of choice; they can be sponsored by a variety of publicly accountable organizations; they have a contract for results; and they have to show improved achievement or they're closed down." Charter schools must also be nonsectarian, Nathan noted, and they cannot use admissions tests to "pick and choose among kids."
Nathan extolled the benefits of letting entrepreneurial groups of parents and teachers create charter schools. "Giving people a chance to create distinctive public schools empowers people who have ideas, passion, and vision," he said. "All over the United States, literally thousands of teachers—many of them public school teachers in existing systems—have [already] stepped forward to create the kinds of schools that they think make sense," Nathan said.
Also arguing in favor of charter schools was Perry Glanzer of Focus on the Family, a conservative parent organization. Glanzer contended that charter schools will empower parents. Well-written charter school legislation will allow middle-income and low-income families to choose among schools, he said. As a result, school systems will become more responsive to parents' wishes, and parental involvement in schooling will increase.
Surveys have shown extremely high parental satisfaction with charter schools, Glanzer claimed, and many charter schools have long waiting lists. "Parents love these options; they're looking for them," he asserted. "Why not open up the system to create these options?"
David Bennett, a consultant who was formerly president of Education Alternatives Inc., a for-profit company that operates public schools, also spoke in favor of charter schools. "Good public schools use all of the resources available to them to provide quality education, and they intentionally reach out for the variety that charter schooling offers," he said.
Raising Objections
Other panelists expressed very different views. Walter Amprey, superintendent of the Baltimore City Public Schools, argued that focusing on charter schools "distracts us from our charge to fix [existing] public schools." Rather than creating new schools, we should concentrate on making the schools we have now work better, he said.
"Charter schools and choice are shortsighted, quick-fix approaches to a big problem," Amprey asserted. "I want us to take all of our effort, all of our healing forces, and zero in on the problems of public education. I think we can look more intelligently, more creatively, at ways to fix the [existing] public schools."
Panelist Alex Molnar of the University of Wisconsin was harshly critical of charter schools, which he believes harm the institution of public education.
Many charter school laws have "very wide-open requirements with regard to who can open a charter school and who can teach in one," Molnar pointed out. To waive regulations for educators in this manner, he said, is analogous to letting anyone who wants to practice medicine do so without a license. "Let's let anyone open a hospital," he said mockingly. "We could have community-based clinics in storefronts, church basements, and front porches. We don't need the heavy-handed, bureaucratic state to regulate this; the bad clinics will close."
Nathan dismissed this argument out of hand. "Charter schools have to have a contract," he said. To create a charter school, "you have to convince a public body—a local board, state board of education, a public university—that you have the qualifications." A variety of proposed charters have, in fact, been turned down, Nathan said. "It's not about letting anybody who wants to do this do it."
An audience member from Delaware interjected that in his state, charter schools are subject to very few of the regulations that other public schools must follow, "with the explanation given that these are things that hold back the public schools." Why not have the same rules apply to both? he asked.
If existing public schools are willing to be held accountable for improving achievement, Nathan said in response, then they should be allowed to free themselves from burdensome regulations by converting to charter schools.
Widespread Change?
Although panelist David Bennett described himself as a strong advocate of public school choice, he questioned whether the creation of alternatives such as charter schools "really has the potential to cause widespread change, versus yet another form of boutique innovation, for which public schools are infamous."
Nathan argued vigorously that charter schools will spark widespread reform. "When school systems can no longer assume that they have the families and the money [those families] represent, it's going to stimulate the larger system." He cited examples of districts that had steadfastly ignored parent requests—for a Montessori school or a core knowledge school—until charter schools became a possibility. This new pressure caused the districts to accommodate parents' wishes.
Molnar disputed this notion. He spoke feelingly of his daughter, a committed teacher in the overstressed Milwaukee Public Schools, who has 31 students in her 5th grade class, some with disabilities. "There's absolutely nothing that setting up a charter school would do to stimulate my daughter to do a better job," Molnar stated. "In fact, it would make her job a good deal harder because the resources available to her to educate those children would be even further diminished. What she needs is more resources behind her, not somebody starting up a charter school in the projects, four blocks away from her school."
Whether charter schools do indeed diminish the funding provided to regular public schools was a point of contention among the panelists. "Many of the funding mechanisms for charter schools have the effect of harming the public schools which those students used to attend," Molnar insisted.
Bennett, however, contradicted that assertion. "To generalize, charter schools receive substantially less money, on a per-pupil basis, than do the counterpart traditional public schools," he said. In Minnesota, charter schools receive $4,000 for each student—far less than the $6,000 that regular public schools receive, Bennett claimed. "The economic advantage is clearly to the traditional public school, not the charter school."
Nathan said that charter schools may help attract more funding for public schools, because they have contracted to achieve specified results. "Governors see more accountability, and so they're willing to allocate more money," he said, noting that this attitude simply reflects the public's demands for greater accountability.
Funding aside, Molnar raised more fundamental objections to charter schools. "I have serious questions about our ability to cohere as a society as we hear more and more arguments that say, I ought to choose this, irrespective of everything else,'" he said.
"These market-driven reforms deny us the opportunity to continue to argue with each other in a heated way about our common good," Molnar said. "What we need more of, not less of, is collective engagement in common civic institutions such as public schools, so that if you don't like the public school that your child is attending, you work to change that school."
Amprey elaborated on this theme from his perspective as an urban superintendent. "We get diverted with all these arguments about creating other kinds of schools," he emphasized. "I've got to create an environment that [works] for my entire school system, because I can't have 10,000 new different schools." Fixing existing schools must be our top priority. "If we look at this thing in a creative way, we can fix our public schools," he maintained. "It's going to take more money, and we can do that."
But Nathan countered that this argument—"Let's fix the existing schools; let's not set up new ones"—rings hollow to those educators who are deeply frustrated with the present system. "We want to give people right now a chance to create new kinds of schools, not as a way to attack the system but as a way to encourage the system to improve."
"Fundamentally, it's about opportunities," Nathan asserted. "We need to give opportunities to people who really care about kids" to create and run public schools. "It can help kids, it can help improve the system—and that to me is the bottom line."
Some Facts About Charter Schools
Some Facts About Charter Schools
Since 1991, 25 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have passed charter school legislation.
As of fall 1996, 16 states and the District of Columbia had charter schools in operation, with many more approved but not yet open.
Arizona leads the nation with 164 charter schools up and running, followed by California with 109.
Charter school laws vary significantly from state to state. Differences affect who is allowed to operate a charter school, who may sponsor a charter school, how charter schools are funded, employee requirements and restrictions, and student performance requirements, among other factors.
Almost all charter school legislation requires schools to abide by health, safety, and civil rights laws.
This information was summarized from the U.S. Charter School Web Site, which can be found at http://www.uscharterschools.org/
Weigh in on Charter Schools: Respond to ASCD's Phone Survey on this Issue
Weigh in on Charter Schools: Respond to ASCD's Phone Survey on this Issue
Let us know what you think about charter schools. It's as easy as picking up the nearest phone.
As part of our ongoing efforts to find out our members' views on important education issues, ASCD uses a telephone survey process. This month, the topic is charter schools. To respond to the phone survey, call (toll-free) 1-888-933-ASCD, between August 11 and August 29, 1997. Results of the phone survey will be reported in a future issue of Education Update. Responding to the phone survey takes 3 to 5 minutes. During the survey, you will be asked the following questions:
Yes, for four years or more
Yes, for less than four years
How much do you care about the issue of charter schools?
Do you think it's a good idea to encourage the creation of charter schools?
Charter schools are bound by their charters to reach specified achievement goals. In exchange, they are granted freedom from many regulations that other public schools must follow. Given these conditions, will charter schools produce better results?
Will competition from charter schools prod other public schools to improve?
Some state charter laws allow entities other than local school boards (such as county or state boards, or universities) to sponsor charter schools. Is this a good idea?
Some state charter laws allow any individual or group to make a charter proposal, rather than limiting that prerogative to select groups, such as certified teachers. Is this a good idea?
In some states, charter schools have wide latitude in whom they hire for their faculty. Will charter schools undermine collective bargaining and lead to wider acceptance of noncertified teachers?
Yes, and we should avoid that
Should we concentrate on fixing existing public schools rather than creating new schools?
No, creating new schools is the better strategy
No, we should devote energy to both strategies
At the end of the phone survey, you will be given an opportunity to leave a short recorded message. Thanks for sharing your views.
