Education

Great post, Clay.

Andrew, a charter school is a very specific type, so a school either is or it isn't. It's a legal definition for the structure of the school, not just an adjective applied to a school. My own kids attend a public arts specialty high school, San Francisco School of the Arts, that is not a charter school.

I would disagree that the only measure that matters is the success of the students who graduate. That's because charter schools do harm in many ways to other schools and to their students.

(Some charter schools harm their OWN students too -- there are recent news reports of KIPP schools in both Fresno, CA, and Atlanta, GA, denying students access to the bathroom and forcing them to wet their pants. But that's actually beside this particular point.)

To be clearer: If my kids' school gets twice as much funding per student than the school down the street, with no higher need involved, at the expense of the students in the school down the street -- my kids and their classmates may be successful, and I'll be happy as a clam (assuming I have no moral qualms and play see-no-evil, as with so many charter school insiders) -- but it's not right or just to claim that my kids' school is a success in the big picture.

The New York Education Examiner blog covers the growing backlash against the "Billionaire Boys' Club," the "eduphilanthropreneurs" who seem to be working to destablize and ultimately reshape public education to suit their whims, in an undemocratic, backroom process. The blog cites both Clay's post and one of mine, which is on Diane Ravitch, a former ally of the "education reform" movement, who now says, "It appears that the Big Money has placed its bets on dismantling public education."

Charter schools are a big part of that effort.

NYC Education Examiner:
 http://tinyurl.com/cceo79

My post on Ravitch:
http://tinyurl.com/dhzt9w

I agree with your verdict on the measure of success, Caroline. Thank you for the explanation on charter school, also.

I was referring to the success of the school in isolation, but of course, as you pointed out, we need to measure this success in comparison to other factors, such as funding per student.

I don't believe any single measure is sufficient to evaluate an entity as complex as the performance of a school teaching hundreds of students from diverse backgrounds. However, we have to start somewhere, and the measure of a student's success upon graduation is a good beginning. We can also include the funding per student number, and other measures just as student participation in community activities, etc. I am sure there are many such soft measures which are not used at the present.

Andrew, what you've said here is something I agree with 110%: "Perhaps in the final analysis, the current public school system of homogeneous standardized format is not the right approach. Perhaps every school should be customized, i.e. chartered, to serve the needs of that community."
This is something I have been thinking about more and more as I teach internationally and train teachers. The longer I teach in different areas, the more I see the need for communities to define what best works for them and the schools within them. This is one of the reasons I think charter schools can be successful, yet is the reason why I share Clay's concern about the transfer of success from the charter schools to public schools, as he says here: "What's the mechanism that will allow for that 'duplication of success' in traditional public schools?"
I definitely think that some of the flexibility and innovation needs to transfer to public schools, too. But I don't agree that all charter schools are negative and exclusive. There needs to be some safe place for the innovation and experimentation to happen, and I think it makes sense to "try it out" on specialized communities, such as those with special learning needs or from unique social backgrounds. The petri dish needs to be somewhere, and charter schools seem to make the conditions and process a bit smoother.
Ultimately, however, I'd like to see something akin to what you've described above -- that of education serving communities as their needs are defined.

Thank you, Adrienne. I like the way you put it - education serving communities as their needs are defined. In the past, this was simpler when communities were more homogeneous and similar across the country, and the needs were simpler with industrialization requiring only the fundamental skills. As the world changes, the needs require re-definition. This is best done with participation from parents, i.e. PTA etc, but is not often possible. The current discussion in the media is part of the process when the different stakeholders voice their views.

I don't see a single consensus for all the different needs from the different communities. As you said, we need different experimental regimes and find the best solution for each community with its unique set of needs. The key is finding an equitable long term solution so that every student in every school in every community receives an equal opportunity for a quality education that gives him or her a chance to succeed.

I see a parallel in this conversation to the global banking crisis.  Our public schools have been a cornerstone institution in our communities that has as much, if not more, influence over our future as the financial systems that drive the economy.  Charter law is in part, at least in its initial intention, a drive to remove beurocratic restraints that weigh the public school system down and place more control in the hands of the communities schools serve.  It is a return to the neighborhood school, a return to smaller educational institutions that in theory are more adaptable to individual needs.  In a world that is increasingly turning toward personlization and individual experience for a new economic paradigm people are expecting more choices and individualization/customization in schooling as well. 

In banking we have seen megabanks like Citibank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, AIG, etc. become insovent while many of our smaller community banks have stayed out of the red.  I suspect one major reason for this is the sheer size of the megabanks depersonalizes finance for the banker thus embolding them to make careless and wreckless investments with depositor's money.  Perhaps the public school system has grown into this (at least for our larger urban and suburban schools).  When decisions are made in a larger school district that effect all students it is easier to neglect the needs of subsections of that population in service of the needs of the masses.  Charter law is meant to be a way out.  I know that many larger school districts also recognize this issue and have themselves sponsored chartered schools in their districts.

All of the public school beurocracy costs districts money when in practice much of what they do in larger districts should be within the locust of control of the practitioners themselves.  When you take an aspect of your job and delegate it to someone else that someone else needs to be paid for their service.  How is that payment made?  Larger class sizes.  I created a short video last week that illustrates this as well as the effect school choice has on public schools:  Animated Explanation of Disruptive Innovation in Education   

Perhaps one answer is to disband all public schools and make every school a chartered school.  This would allow all schools to shed the burdon of tradition and beurocracy that over time has weighed them down.  Perhaps this needs to be done with our financial institutions as well. 

"Perhaps one answer is to disband all public schools and make every school a chartered school."

Now *that* is an idea that I like the sound of, at least in theory. Hmmm...

@Adrienne, can you or anyone actually name an innovation ever pioneered in a charter school anywhere? Just one single innovation? I have asked charter advocates over and over, and actually, no one has ever been able to answer that. That's a propaganda line that as far as I can tell has no basis whatsoever in reality.

@Carl says: (The charter school) is a return to the neighborhood school, a return to smaller educational institutions that in theory are more adaptable to individual needs.

Caroline: Not true. Charter schools do not generally serve a defined neighborhood, so that even in school districts that are based around a neighborhood assignment system, the charter schools aren't limited to serving students from a neighborhood. And it's not particularly true that they're smaller, either. Some are, but many are not.

@Carl: "many larger school districts ... have themselves sponsored chartered schools in their districts."

Caroline: Generally under legal pressure. In my state, the school board is severely constrained in the reasons it can reject a charter school, and if a district school board does vote down a charter school, the operators can appeal up the chain to the state Board of Education, which is stacked by fervently pro-charter school Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger with members who come directly from the charter school Mafia and never says no. Then the charter school can open in the district with its charter from the state Board of Ed. I know this is the case in at least some other states -- perhaps all? Anyway, responsible and informed local school board members know that charter schools harm other schools (and thus students) in their district and would overwhelmingly be inclined NOT to sponsor charter schools if they were not forced to.

@Carl and @Adrienne, here are some issues that communities and societies would face if every school were a chartered school:

-- Currently, charter schools self-select for students who are predisposed to succeeed, from families who are concerned about education. That's because charter school enrollment is entirely by request. In addition, because of the lack of oversight, any charter school that so chooses is perfectly free to pick and choose students, and expel with impunity, including for poor academic performance.
-- Charter schools also drastically underserve students with disabilities and English-language learners, two groups that require more resources in school.
-- Even so, charter school overall do not outperform traditional public schools. In the aggregate, this clearly indicates charter schools are inferior educators.
-- So, if charter schools were the ONLY schools, they would
presumably have to accept those students whom they now exclude or underserve, and who pose the greatest challenge to public education. Either that, or those students would just go without schooling (which would you charter advocates call for?). If charters, with the advantages they have, already perform no better than traditional public schools, it stands to reason that if those advantages were eliminated because they HAD to serve all students, they would do considerably worse, lowering the quality of our public school system overall.
-- In addition, charters are undemocratic, largely answering to nobody except their own internally chosen boards. So all public input and democracy would be removed from our public education system.

It seems to me that this is not the greatest school reform plan I've ever heard, but maybe that's just me...

@Adrienne, can you or anyone actually name an innovation ever pioneered in a charter school anywhere? Just one single innovation? I have asked charter advocates over and over, and actually, no one has ever been able to answer that. That's a propaganda line that as far as I can tell has no basis whatsoever in reality.

@Carl says: (The charter school) is a return to the neighborhood school, a return to smaller educational institutions that in theory are more adaptable to individual needs.

Caroline: Not true. Charter schools do not generally serve a defined neighborhood, so that even in school districts that are based around a neighborhood assignment system, the charter schools aren't limited to serving students from a neighborhood. And it's not particularly true that they're smaller, either. Some are, but many are not.

@Carl: "many larger school districts ... have themselves sponsored chartered schools in their districts."

Caroline: Generally under legal pressure. In my state, the school board is severely constrained in the reasons it can reject a charter school, and if a district school board does vote down a charter school, the operators can appeal up the chain to the state Board of Education, which is stacked by fervently pro-charter school Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger with members who come directly from the charter school Mafia and never says no. Then the charter school can open in the district with its charter from the state Board of Ed. I know this is the case in at least some other states -- perhaps all? Anyway, responsible and informed local school board members know that charter schools harm other schools (and thus students) in their district and would overwhelmingly be inclined NOT to sponsor charter schools if they were not forced to.

@Carl and @Adrienne, here are some issues that communities and societies would face if every school were a chartered school:

-- Currently, charter schools self-select for students who are predisposed to succeeed, from families who are concerned about education. That's because charter school enrollment is entirely by request. In addition, because of the lack of oversight, any charter school that so chooses is perfectly free to pick and choose students, and expel with impunity, including for poor academic performance.
-- Charter schools also drastically underserve students with disabilities and English-language learners, two groups that require more resources in school.
-- Even so, charter school overall do not outperform traditional public schools. In the aggregate, this clearly indicates charter schools are inferior educators.
-- So, if charter schools were the ONLY schools, they would
presumably have to accept those students whom they now exclude or underserve, and who pose the greatest challenge to public education. Either that, or those students would just go without schooling (which would you charter advocates call for?). If charters, with the advantages they have, already perform no better than traditional public schools, it stands to reason that if those advantages were eliminated because they HAD to serve all students, they would do considerably worse, lowering the quality of our public school system overall.
-- In addition, charters are undemocratic, largely answering to nobody except their own internally chosen boards. So all public input and democracy would be removed from our public education system.

It seems to me that this is not the greatest school reform plan I've ever heard, but maybe that's just me...

They can expel students who don't excel or cause problems. And they can also say "no" when their enrollment caps are met. Public schools can't.

That's not true.  Public schools can and do expel kids (try sending your kid to school with a pocketknife in a "zero-tolerance" district, and see what happenes).  Public schools can also reject students within the district when they are oversubscribed.  I just got a notice from my children's elementary school 1/2 a mile away that under state law governing teacher/student ratios, if you wait too long to register for next year, your kids may be sent off to a different school. 

 I mean, if the charter concept is so great, why don't we just get rid of the restrictions for all public schools?

Now you're talking! 

Caroline, there's no evidence that charter schools are cream-skimming the best or most advantaged public school students.  A very recent RAND report (probably the most wide-ranging study of charter schools across the country) found that "students switching to charter schools had prior test scores that were below districtwide or statewide averages (though usually the difference was small)," and that "it does not appear that charter schools are systematically skimming high-achieving students or dramatically affecting the racial mix of schools for transferring students."

Well, that screwed up the link.  Here it is: http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG869.pdf

@Stuart, when a public school expels a student, the student is still the responsibility of the school district one way or the other (disciplinary transfer to another school, alternative school, etc.). When a charter school expels (or rejects or counsels out) a student, it never has to give a thought to that student again. That's a HUGE difference -- a different universe. And same with your situation, which isn't really analogous to charters -- your kid will still be in a district school. (I mean, not to fail to acknowledge the disruption etc. to your kids and family -- but from the district's perspective, it is still serving your children.)

The main "restriction" driving the charter school advocates is the goal of busting the teachers' unions. Of course that's what some people advocate as a matter of principle, but call it what it is.

Otherwise, the "restrictions" are things like democracy, oversight, and the responsibility to serve all students -- including those with special needs, limited or no English, behavior problems, academic challenges etc. Should we really get rid of those things?

@Stuart, when we talk about skimming, we are discussing factors that are not measurable by a researcher. You can measure economic level and parent's education level, but not motivation and level of functioning.

Sharon Higgins and I co-wrote two posts earlier on this blog explaining how this creaming happens. It is self evident that if there is even one requirement to be met in enrolling in a school, those who cannot or are not interested in meeting that requirement will not be enrolling in the school. The requirements in the case of charter schools are: hearing about the school and being interested enough to get the application form, fill it out and turn it in. That right there screens out an unfortunate number of families. (Anyone who disagrees with that needs to get out more.) In addition, many charter schools require signed commitments to this and that, screening out a lot more troubled families. Many require commitments to volunteer time, screening out still more.

Charter school folks contradict themselves constantly on this one -- for example, KIPP insists that it doesn't cream, while simultaneously describing the meeting with the prospective student and family where they are all required to sign various commitments and told that if they can't meet those commitments this isn't the right place for them. It's kind of -- say whatever is most effective in that particular situation, without regard to consistency or honesty.

So what?  If my nearest public school kicks out my kid, or denies enrollment due to teacher/student ratios, THAT SCHOOL doesn't have to worry about my kid any more.  It's the district's concern then.  Just as is the case with a charter school. 

The main "restriction" driving the charter school advocates is the goal of busting the teachers' unions.

That's one way of putting it.  Another way to put it would be the freedom to hire good teachers who have real credentials rather than the worthless kind (like masters' degrees in education), or the ability to fire bad teachers without being tied up in years of red tape. 

democracy, oversight, and the responsibility to serve all students -- including those with special needs, limited or no English, behavior problems, academic challenges etc. Should we really get rid of those things?


Democracy . . . that's why charter schools exist in the first place, because the people got their say.  So that's a straw man.  Oversight?  There's plenty of oversight.  Talk to any charter founder about their struggles in getting approved by state boards or local school districts, about the fact that they're required to meet state testing requirements or go out of business (funny how that doesn't seem to happen to other public schools). 

Finally, many charter schools do serve special needs kids, etc.  Look at the overall statistics on charter schools in Texas: http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/opge/progeval/CharterSchools/chart_0508.pdf  Charter schools are much more likely to serve black and impoverished students than the average Texas public school, and the percentage of charter schools in special ed or limited English is pretty similar to the public school percentage. 

 It is self evident that if there is even one requirement to be met in enrolling in a school, those who cannot or are not interested in meeting that requirement will not be enrolling in the school.

So what?  Schools SHOULD be trying to get parents to be more involved and interested in their children's education.  That's a good thing about charter schools, not something to sneer at. 

The schools that are doing well in Denver tend to be the charter schools or themed schools.   Those schools with a specialization or innovation are attracting lots of motivated students who are interested in that focus, and because their needs are met and interest is stoked, they do very well.  This approach has worked so well here that Denver has specialized many of their newly re-opened schools with themed approaches.  There is a Montessori school, an arts school, a science and technology academy, etc.  They also made a magnet school for English as a Second Language speakers in order to be able to provide the focused help these students need to succeed, because their needs for several years are different from an English speaking student.  I am also familiar with many schools around the nation that cater to students with behavior issues.  They are places that are better at turning those kids around and meeting them where their needs lie.
This approach has the affect of catering to the needs and interests of families and students in a given area.  If there were only school of choice and no automatic regional enrollment, then it may get parents more involved, which would be a good thing.  Even if the traditional or regional approach was retained and parents who chose not to choose, it would essentially group all kids with families that are not involved for whatever reason.  These kids too might have their needs met better in this specific school.  The school might be in a better position of providing a balance that they do not get at home (nutrition, encouragement, attention, etc.).
As for union busting, I don't think that is a charter's number one goal.  Even as a former teacher, I think it is good to be able to hire or fire teachers based on ability and leadership, rather than tenure and the like.  Good teachers have nothing to fear and they seem to enjoy teaching at a school that matches their area of passion or focus.

"If my nearest public school kicks out my kid, or denies enrollment due to teacher/student ratios, THAT SCHOOL doesn't have to worry about my kid any more.  It's the district's concern then.  Just as is the case with a charter school."

@stuart, no, that's not right. Because charter schools are pitted against districts by this setup. When a charter school comes into a district and starts self-creaming higher-functioning students into its school, dumping the others on district schools; and kicks out students for low performance or whatever, dumping them on district schools; and then proclaims itself superior to the district schools that it dumped those students on, as is consistently the case (and the press, and people like some commenters here, buy that hook line and sinker), it hurts the non-charter schools. They lose support and resources, while charter schools are heaped with undeserved praise and showered with seven-figure checks from the Billionaire Boys' Club.

Democracy? I can go complain to the school board in my district about issues within any non-charter school, and request information about that school. My kids' own schools are governed by School Site Councils that include parents elected by me and the rest. But any issue with one of the charter schools in my district? Blank wall. No info, no public input, nada.

Oversight? Ask any school district that has tried to close a charter school it's not happy with, one that chooses to fight. My own district, San Francisco Unified, got beaten bloody in the INTERnational press, and hammered with legal costs, when it moved to close a school here run by now-failed for-profit Edison Schools Inc. in 2001. In addition, as I previously noted, elected local school boards have basically no say over whether a charter opens in their districts or not. There's no possible way to call this democratic. 

And you've moved into the standard surreal land of charter school discussion with this post:
(Me: It is self evident that if there is even one requirement to be met in enrolling in a school, those who cannot or are not interested in meeting that requirement will not be enrolling in the school.

Stuart: So what?  Schools SHOULD be trying to get parents to be more involved and interested in their children's education.  That's a good thing about charter schools, not something to sneer at.)

It's like a script. Here's how it always goes:

Caroline: Charter schools self-select for students who are predisposed to be higher functioning.
Charter advocate: They do not!
Caroline: (gives explanation of why charter schools self-select, which charter advocate can't refute.)
Charter advocate: What's wrong with self-selecting? Self-selecting is good!

Yes, it is good for the school if it can self-select for higher-functioning, more motivated students. The issue is that another school has to teach the lower-functioning, less-motivated students. When charter schools dump the lower-functioning, less-motivated students on traditional public schools, then proclaim themselves superior, and are rewarded with support and money for that, it hurts the schools that are accepting ALL students. Charter schools, of course, also notoriously underserve children with disabilities (these could be any of our kids) and English-language learners. When they self-select for easier-to-teach, lower-need students, and get more support and resources to do that than the schools that accept more-challenging, higher-need students, it's not fair and it harms traditional public schools. 

@Tracy, right, because all these schools self-select, which is NOT inherently a bad thing. My own kids attend a public arts high school much like one in Denver:

"The schools that are doing well in Denver tend to be the charter schools or themed schools.   Those schools with a specialization or innovation are attracting lots of motivated students who are interested in that focus, and because their needs are met and interest is stoked, they do very well."

It's just that self-selecting, proclaiming themselves superior to the schools that don't, and then winning acclaim, support and resources for it harms other schools and their students.

"As for union busting, I don't think that is a charter's number one goal.  Even as a former teacher, I think it is good to be able to hire or fire teachers based on ability and leadership, rather than tenure and the like.  Good teachers have nothing to fear and they seem to enjoy teaching at a school that matches their area of passion or focus."

"Tenure and the like..." So do you think teachers should get no seniority protection? Because that's "tenure and the like." And the notion that good employees "have nothing to fear" IS at the heart of union-busting. If you follow material by and about the charter movement, you will see that it is very much about union-busting -- that is the heart and soul of the charter school movement.
 

You say: Oversight? Ask any school district that has tried to close a charter school it's not happy with, one that chooses to fight.

From "Charter School Closures: An Opportunity for Accountability," Center for Education Reform, February 2006, http://www.edreform.com/_upload/closures.pdf: "Of the over 4,000 public charter schools ever opened, 436 have been closed for failing to perform on some level or failing to attract enough students to be financially stable."

The rest of your post seems equally well-informed. 

In addition, as I previously noted, elected local school boards have basically no say over whether a charter opens in their districts or not. There's no possible way to call this democratic. 


Democracy doesn't exist only within local school boards, you know.  Some might even suggest that state boards of education are democratically accountable.  Anyway, local democracy isn't valuable here, unless your goal is to prevent anything from upsetting the local public school monopoly.  The analogy would be if Burger King (or any other restaurant at all) had to ask permission from McDonalds before being allowed to open a restaurant in your county.  That would be a great policy only if your goal was to give McDonalds a complete monopoly, with no chance for anyone to have any different food. 

When I worked in Chicago public schools I was one of the youngest teachers there.  There were some good teachers there and some teachers that were not good - tenure didn't seem to matter.  One of the tenured remedial teachers made jokes about how stupid his students were all day long.  Another teacher in foreign language was known as the ditto queen - she had set her curriculum up and had no intent on ever infusing it with new life.  Even the tests were the same and the students were on to that and used old copies to prepare or cheat with.  Teachers who are not good teachers should not have any protection to keep their job for life.  That is not fair to students and that is really what teachers are there for.  They are there to teach (well) and not there to gain job security.  I want my children to be taught by people who are good at what they do and interested regardless of how long they have been at it.
Union busting may be one of the aims or the outcomes of the charter schools, but having met people who are SO passionate about their particular themed charter school I KNOW that it was about the curriculum and the freedom to do things in an innovative, focused way (art, technology, whatever) that moved them to open the school.  The people I know are not opening their charter schools to bust unions.

@stuart, many charter schools DON'T choose to fight it if their chartering district or other charter sponsor tries to close them down. And many close down on their own. So those account for those reported by CER. But if they DO choose to fight, they have the mightily funded forces of the charter Mafia behind them and can cost school districts plenty in legal fees, and can really make it impossible to shut them down. And that threat also weakens school districts' ability to provide other oversight.

By the way, the Center for Education Reform is a lobbying organization for charter schools -- a well-funded one with close ties to the former Bush administration and the usual billionaire suspects -- not an impartial research source of any kind. CER will not hesitate to put out false information in support of its cause. So it's not really a valid source in many cases.

As a stakeholder in my school district (the one in which I live and in which my kids attend school) I would dispute the notion that "local democracy isn't valuable here," but it certainly reveals where the charter advocates are coming from, doesn't it? Once again we get the talk out both sides of the mouth: charter schools are so democratic, and anyway, democracy is worthless.

The state Board of Ed is appointed by the governor, so though I vote on the governor, it's far, far, far less accountable to me than my locally elected school board.

The notion that public school is a monopoly is ridiculous. Is the public police force a monopoly that must be crushed? Is the municipal parks system? The public health system? I really don't get why these predators have focused so heavily on public education, but we need to stand up and fight it.

@tracy, I know that many people are not opening charter schools to bust unions, and that wasn't the origin of the charter movement. The free-market, union-busting right quickly hijacked the charter school movement, and now those well-intentioned people are in cahoots with those forces whether that's what they meant or not. It's something that the goodhearted, well-meaning, non-predatory people in the charter school movement need to deal with. In my experience, though, there's a mass response of la-la-la-la-we-can't-hear-you, and lots of shooting the messenger.

The organization Rethinking Schools has published a book, "Keeping the Promise? The Debate over Charter Schools," which includes writings by some early members of the charter school movement and an examination of how malevolent forces have hijacked the movement. I highly recommend it to thoughtful people who are willing to examine these troubling and complex issues.

Thanks, Caroline.  I will check out that book.

Once again we get the talk out both sides of the mouth: charter schools are so democratic, and anyway, democracy is worthless.


Try to get the arguments straight before you accuse me of contradiction.  Charter schools, as a movement, are democratic in that 40 or 41 states wouldn't have adopted charter school laws (over the objections of powerful special interest groups) unless there were a lot of the people who wanted some alternative to the local education monopoly.  But charter schools are not democratic in the sense of letting every local activist with an ax to grind start trying to ruin other people's education. 

If one thinks that local education monopolies are not the healthiest thing, and that it would be better to let a thousand flowers bloom (metaphor for allowing different people to have autonomy and choice over their own lives here), then it would make no sense to let local school boards block charter schools.  What monopoly is going to be honest and fair when deciding on whether to allow any of its customers to patronize the competition? 

Anyway, your language here is so full of prejudice that it's plain your mind is already made up, and is impervious to any facts (such as the facts about 10% of charter schools being closed for one reason or another, or the facts about how many charter schools serve precisely the at-risk kids that you say they don't serve).  So I'm not sure it's worth continuing a conversation. 

Oh, and just so you know where I'm coming from, my fourth grade son complains about being bullied at school.  The ringleader of the bullies is a kid whose parents are very active in the PTA and donate a lot of money, so no teacher wants to be the one who disses their kid.  That's local "democracy" in action.  I can't afford a private school, so I'm just hoping that my son does alright for the next few years, until he gets a chance to go to a local science-based charter school for high school.  He loves science, and it seems like a great fit. 

God forbid, of course, that I would want to have a more science-based focus than is available in my local public school monopoly, or that I would want an option other than sending my son out to be bullied.  That makes me a "malevolent force," or perhaps a "predator."   Right? 

@Stuart, I'm sorry your son is being bullied -- that's a terrible situation. I'm not calling a parent who is seeking out a charter school a malevolent force or a predator. Some of the powerful forces behind the charter school movement, though -- yes, they are malevolent and they are predatory.

There are definitely charter specialty schools specifically designed to serve at-risk students (there's one in my district that serves jail inmates), and of course there are students with disabilities in charter schools. But overall, charter schools notoriously underserve students with disabilities.

I missed @Carl's post about Teacher Professional Partnerships. OK, I haven't heard of a traditional public school run like that, so if it's true that there aren't any, I accept the correction -- an actual innovation being pioneered at a charter school. In quite a few years of following this issue and specifically asking that question, that's a first!

I also missed @Andrew's question about whether I would be OK with charter schools if my concerns could be eased with some kind of new system. Well, basically I think charter schools are like communism (this should cause a few charter advocates to blow gaskets). It sounds really good on paper, but human nature just corrupts it. When you give one school one set of regulations, and release the school down the street from those same regulations, it just seems to set off a stream of unjust competion on an unlevel playing field, laced with deception and greed. I mean, not on the part of individual schools necessarily, but on the part of some of the big operators and the other forces that are using the charter movement as a weapon to attack and destroy public education (or, in the propaganda version, "let a thousand flowers bloom"). If charter schools could be run with none of the harmful effects on traditional public schools I would have no problem with them.

@Adrienne, if you mentioned that you were talking about Canada, I missed it -- my apologies. I truly can't speak to Canadian charter schools. It's an entirely different culture when it comes to education funding -- they may well be wonderful in Canada. We're coming from entirely different places (literally and figuratively). Ditto with other countries. Do other nations even HAVE this a free-market movement that aims to attack and destroy public education?

@Adrienne, if you mentioned that you were talking about Canada, I missed it -- my apologies. I truly can't speak to Canadian charter schools. It's an entirely different culture when it comes to education funding -- they may well be wonderful in Canada. We're coming from entirely different places (literally and figuratively). Ditto with other countries. Do other nations even HAVE this a free-market movement that aims to attack and destroy public education?

Excuse my duplication and typo. In the U.S., charters are freed from "burdensome bureaucratic regulations," as they love to say. It's a different animal in a different environment. I do assume that I'm addresing charter schools nationwide, because I'm well versed in issues in the U.S., but outside the U.S., none of this may apply. Sorry for the assumption that we were discussing the same set of schools -- it never even occurred to me otherwise. Perhaps the charter schools in other nations could be a model for some in the U.S. that work.

No worries, Caroline. None of us is perfect, and I have a lot of typos, grammar mistakes, etc. I don't think we are being graded. Or are we? :-)

It is interesting that you compared charter schools with communism, and pointed to the fallability of human institutions. I was really impressed with President Obama's speech on race relations for the same reason. Please allow me to explain. He basically said that the Consitution was created to allow the creation of a MORE perfect union, not one that IS perfect. If I understand him correctly, the important thing to remember is to continually working together to achieve a better future. One thing he said in his book, The Audacity of Hope, kept coming back to me. The greatness of the American Constitution is its ability to keep the conversation going, between different peoples at different times. The key is to keep on talking even when we disagree.

The reason I got so long winded is because it seems to me that charter schools, banks, whatever, none of them are perfect. They all require oversight, to root out corruption or bias or prejudice or whatever. That is the nature of human institutions. Even the Catholic Church is not immune to human fallability.

In other words, your points against the charter schools are valid but perhaps over-stressed. I think it is more helpful to discuss what charter schools need to change, what KIND of schools (regardless whether they are charter or public or even private) are needed in the new economy. By assuming that all or most charter schools are created for union-busting or for circumventing public schools, is to begin the conversation with pre-conceived ideas that we should revisit periodically to verify whether that assumption is true, or partly true, especially considering the multitude of circumstances and types of charter schools in a geography as diverse and as large as the US. Even granted what you say is true in your experience, it is not necessarily true in other places, and at other times as the charter school experiment evolve over time.

I think we can agree that oversight and community participation is a must, not only for charter schools, but for all schools.

Open enrollment using lottery allocation seems fair, but you mention pre-screening questionnaires. I am not familiar with this process, so perhaps it can be discussed what type of pre-screening is acceptable, and which types are prejudicial.

I believe other topics discussed were standards testing, performance metrics, and parental participation. These are all useful topics to help define the kind of schools (charter or otherwise) that we want.

Disclaimer: I am not associated with charter schools nor public schools nor private schools.

@Adrienne, probably neither of us knows whether the charter schools in the U.S., Canada and Qatar are even remotely the same animal. It would be interesting to find out, but someone paid to do that research needs to do it!

My point isn't so much that some charter schools are broken but that the system of charter schools harms public education.

The notion that public school is a monopoly is ridiculous. Is the public police force a monopoly that must be crushed? Is the municipal parks system? The public health system?

Of course the public school system is a monopoly.  What else do you call a business that has 90% of the market buying its product? 

Your analogies are not very useful unless you really make them parallel the public school system.  Suppose everyone was required by law to send their kids to a public park for 7 hours a day, up to age 16 or 18.  Suppose that the vast majority of kids were simply assigned to a public park in their own neighborhood, with no opportunity to go to any other park unless they paid $500 to $1000 a month for a private park.  And suppose a lot of poor people ended up being assigned to public parks with broken-down and rusty equipment, or without equipment at all, and when they tried to send their kids across town to the rich kids' public park, they were told, "Sorry, you need to buy a home in this neighborhood before you can come to the public park here."  Or more broadly, suppose a lot of people were just not happy with their neighborhood's public park -- maybe they happened to prefer a park with a bicycle trail, or a golf course, or a lake, or a different type of playground, etc. -- and maybe they weren't content being forced to go to a park that didn't have the facilities they enjoyed.

In that case, you bet we'd see a movement to free up the public parks system.  People would start saying, "This is insane.  Why can't I go to any public park?  Or if the state is going to require my kids to go the park 7 hours a day, why not give me some more options that my kids would actually enjoy?" 

Guess what: Charters and vouchers are about exactly the same thing . . . giving people more choice to do something with their lives other than being forced into just one option supplied by the government. 

Italics off

Italics off

By the way, here's an article by a Georgetown law professor that you really need to read before using any more of the prejudiced language about school choice being some sort of conservative conspiracy: http://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/forman/documents/progressive_history_of_school_choice.pdf

Title: "The Secret History of School Choice: How Progressives Got There First"

Do other nations even HAVE this a free-market movement that aims to attack and destroy public education

Funny you should mention it.  A lot of Western nations don't need a free-market "movement," because they already give vouchers to anybody for any school.  Belgium has had a universal voucher system for several decades, as have the Netherlands; Denmark has had vouchers for even longer than that. Sweden has had universal vouchers since the early 1990s.  Here's a video about the voucher program in Sweden: http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/03/15/opinion/1194838660912/swedens-choice.html

And enough with the language about "attack and destroy."  If McDonalds is the only restaurant in town, and I try to open a Thai restaurant, it's not because I'm trying to attack and destroy McDonalds.  Maybe I just like Thai food, and think other people might like a little variety and choice.    

@Carl asks: "Is the issue, in your opinion, that the system of charter schools harms public education or is it school choice that harms public education?"
My district, San Francisco Unified, is an all-choice district. This system has its problems, but it does give students access to schools outside their neighborhoods. Reason Magazine (free-market libertarian publication) even did an article a few years ago praising our district for that system. So no, I don't object to school choice at all, in and of itself, if it's fair and not designed to harm one set of schools. I think that a number of specific aspects of the charter school setup harm public education.

@Stuart, that argument that the free market is always best has been made in education ever since Milton Friedman (a guy with zero experience in K-12 education) came up with the notion of vouchers in the '50s. We've seen how wonderfully the unregulated free market has benefited our economy -- you'd think folks would be a bit embarrassed right now to continue touting it as the answers. Do we want to let the unregulated free market ravage our school system the way it has ravaged our economy?

Thanks for the link -- interesting-looking article, though I need to print out the 33 pages to read -- I definitely will.

I don't know about other nations, but I have heard that right-wing lie about the Netherlands' educational system for some years. I had Dutch friends go over it. It's totally false, top to bottom. Just FYI.

It's not a "lie" -- several European countries do have vouchers, much more extensively than in the United States (which has only a few small-scale voucher programs, virtually all designated for for inner-city poor people and/or special ed students, such as in Florida). 


Do we want to let the unregulated free market ravage our school system the way it has ravaged our economy?

Straw man.  And there's no evidence that charter schools are "harming" public schools.  Well, I take that back . . . for someone who is deep in the pocket for the public school system, the very existence of other schols might be seen as "harming" the public schools.  But most of the rest of us, who like choice and variety in every other aspect of our lives, don't really have any reason to buy the pro-monopoly arguments. Indeed, I've never yet heard anyone explain why it should be the "liberal" or "progressive" position to deny autonomy and happiness to poor people, all for the sake of making their kids jump through whatever hoops are created by powerful people in the government.

Who keeps turning on italics here? 

By the way, the Belgian decision to have universal school vouchers was made several decades ago, and is known in Belgium (according to a Belgian PhD that I know) as the "School Peace."  The whole reason for having universal vouchers is that Belgium used to have a lot of political struggles between Catholics and secularists over what direction the schools should take.  It was seen as a harbinger of "peace" when the government finally decided that everyone should be free to go to a school that fit their own preferences.  Belgium realized that it was just divisive and balkinizing to force everybody to fit into the same narrow system (when most people have to be in the same school, people then start to fight about about everything: "how dare you teach my kids about sex" vs "how dare you NOT teach my kids about sex"). 

Again, talking of the "unregulated free market" is a silly strawman.  It's not "unregulated" when you decide to shop for organic potatoes at Whole Foods but your neighbor decides to save a little money by getting white rice at Wal-Mart.  There are still food and safety regulations aplenty, and it would be ridiculous to suggest that creating competition necessarily means getting rid of all regulation.  To the contrary, the existence of different types of grocery stores merely means that more people can be happy with their food, and that not everyone has to be forced to eat the same thing.  That's a good idea, and I suspect that you would agree with this principle as to everything in the world outside of "schools." 

End italics

I haven't studied other European countries. It's not true that the Netherlands has any kind of system resembling vouchers -- and fool me twice, shame on me.

I don't think you know what you're talking about, here any more than anywhere else.  The Netherlands actually guarantee school vouchers IN THEIR CONSTITUTION.  Article 23 of the Netherlands Constitution actually states:

"(7) Private primary schools that satisfy the conditions laid down by Act of Parliament shall be financed from public funds according to the same standards as public-authority schools. The conditions under which private secondary education and pre-university education shall receive contributions from public funds shall be laid down by Act of Parliament."

End italics.

"The constitutions of Belgium and the Netherlands guarantee that any group or indivdual is free to establish a school.  Governments provide equal per pupil payments to all schools that teach the national curriculum, hire qualified teachers, and are above some minimum level of enrollment."

 John H. Bishop, "Privatizing Education: Lessons from Canada, Europe, and Asia," in Vouchers and the Provision of Public Services, ed. by C. Eugene Steuerle et al. (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), at p. 299.

And if you're really interested in what other countries are doing -- outside of assuming with no evidence that they're all rejecting vouchers and charter schools -- check out Diane Ravitch's 2000 article in The New Republic, titled The Right Thing: Why Liberals Should Be Pro-Choice http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2001/1008politics_ravitch.aspx

"Among the modern industrialized nations of the world, the United States is in a minority on this issue. Of the thirty nations that are part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, only seven do not permit any government funding of K-12 private schools; in addition to the United States, they include Greece, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, and Turkey. The proportion of students in government-funded private schools is sizable in countries such as Australia (25 percent), Belgium (58 percent), Denmark (11 percent), France (16.8 percent), South Korea (21 percent), the Netherlands (76 percent), Spain (24 percent), and the United Kingdom (30 percent)."


Hmmm.  76% of Netherlands students are in government-funded private schools.  So what gives you the idea that I'm wrong here? 

School vouchers work in Sweden; far from "harming" the public schools, the public schools actually improve under the potential for competition.  Who would have thought that a monopoly would act that way?  Well, actually most liberals would thought as much . . . if they were talking about anything other than education. 

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V76-4CF5G04-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=6ce5e84fcb451201bf6faa653fd60d19

"Since the introduction of school vouchers in 1992, independent and public schools in Sweden operate on equal terms. We analyze the effects of competition on the public schools using data on the results of 28,000 ninth graders. Because the decision on which school to attend is a choice variable, sample selection models are used. To account for the potential endogeneity of the share of students attending independent schools, we use instrumental variable estimation. We also estimate panel data models on 288 Swedish municipalities. Our findings support the hypothesis that school results in public schools improve due to competition."

It's pretty amusing that you cite Diane Ravitch, @stuart, because she has made a 180-degree turn in her views and is now solidly in the same camp I am, decrying the assault on public education by the charter mafia and the Billionaire Boys' Club. I blogged about her here:

http://tinyurl.com/dhzt9w

That's the best you can come up with, when faced with some actual facts? 

Wow, I have learned a lot on this topic thanks to the posters.  It seems like a dogmatic approach is not serving anyone when looking at this topic.  Do charter schools hurt traditional public schools?  Sounds like that may be true.  Is that a bad thing?  Not necessarily if it births a change that is positive.  Are unions threatened by charters?  Sounds like yes, but that may be a good thing if it forces them to address topics that weren't addressed here, like the ability to fire teachers who are not doing what they are at school to do.  People who are not utterly supportive of unions are not against teachers, they are not communists, nor mafia or whatever.  They may be just people who feel strongly that their views are doing good.  Do charter schools help some students learn and shine by using a different focus, an innovation of some sort that can reach their student body?  Sounds like yes, sometimes they do and parents and students are grateful to have this choice.  Is it possible that wealthy people want to use their money toward philanthropic purposes to shape education in a way they view as positive?  Yes.  Is it possible that they have an agenda and power to put it in place?  Yes.  Money for education is good, but we must be careful about how far that power and influence goes, of course.  Not all billionares are evil, not all money is good.
I think as long as we see this topic without so much intransigent, dogmatic thinking, and a little more equanimity, we might be able to agree with each other, to learn a little and to understand a little.  Any time there is name calling (mafia, predator) I always feel a little dubious that I will learn something in a balanced way.
Thanks, though for all of the really interesting ideas that you all shared here.

@Tracy, I'm voicing opinions, not pretending to be impartial.Nor are others pretending to be impartial, nor should they.

@Stuart, the issue of how other nations work is simply not an area that I have been able to study, and there's just not time on my calendar to do it. My two points -- that my Dutch friends tell me there is no parallel between the Dutch system and the U.S. voucher model and that Diane Ravitch has repudiated her own past opinions -- are what they are.

Ravitch's opinions are neither here nor there; she may have cooled somewhat on school choice, but that does nothing to discredit her statistics on how much school choice is available in European countries (which you, for no reason, seem to think untrue). 

Perhaps it may be useful to voice what we agree a school should do (regardless of charter of public).

It think we agreed that schools should educate students to learn not only what is taught in the classroom, but to continue learning outside of classrooms.

I thinke we agree that schools should address the needs of the community that it serves, whatever the geography and demographic require.

I think we agree that schools can only succeed if parents participate, and any measures that can increase that participation is desirable.

I think we agree that school performance need to be measured and monitored to provide objective and realistic comparison with other schools to help fund all schools effectively, and fairly.

I think we agree that school performance is to be measured using a number of different metrics, not just standardized tests. These metrics need to measure not only the student performance in certain subjects, but also softer, fuzzier scores in ways that are yet to be determined.

I am sure I missed a few other common ideas that we discussed. May I ask everyone else to add only common agreements, not disagreement for today?

@Stuart, not so much untrue but apples-and-oranges irrelevant. In the Netherlands and other nations, the notion that privatization is a good thing and government is bad, to be shrunk until it's small enough to be strangled in the bathtub or whatever that Republican operative's quote is, is from outer space -- just doesn't exist.

Here's what my Dutch friends have told me: there are public religious schools (since they have no First Amendment), which have to meet the same requirements of other public schools, without controversy or adversarial competition. There's a tiny number of privately operated schools, so few as to not be an issue in any discussion of national education policy. They are also not viewed as in an adversarial role with public. The notion that private schools are better, or that the whole education system should be turned over to private operators -- anything like that simply doesn't exist and goes against the grain of the whole culture.

Perhaps there are nations where the public-private push-pull is happening just like in the U.S., and there's a political philosophy that believes public infrastructure/services are all bad and should be privatized. If so, I'm not aware of them.

So if we emulated some of those nations' education systems, maybe we should adopt their views that a government ample enough to run a nation fairly and efficiently is fine, and especially (hurray! go for it!) adopt their nationalized health care systems. I'm overall completely fine with using Sweden as a role model!

It seems every time I see this issue being debated that one key item is left off the table.  That is the kids, the students, the reason for public, or charter or private education to exist.  We often get caught up in what is best for public education or charter education and forget that it is not the teachers, the administration, the school board or anyone else but the kids that should be the defining factor in what works. Charter schools are not created equal, they are only as effective as their vision and how they are able to pull it off. If they don't provide results in a way that the students by way of their parents support then they cannot exist.  This is as it should be. Involved parents are the best judges for what kind of education a child needs.  Without choices like charter schools, if their are problems in the public school system kids get the short end of the deal and there are no choices for parents aside from expensive private or home education.  Take my example.  My son from 1st grade on was identified as a student that instinctively understood math. He was bumped up a grade and successfully completed the next higher grade in math in 2nd and 3rd grades. In 4th grade the principal decided it was too much work to continue that option of allowing kids to attend a different math class so my son was effectively held back a year in math because of administration ineffectiveness.  I was an involved parent, I worked with his teacher and with the principal but we never found a suitable solution. My son was bored, not challenged and became a behavior problem because of it.  The principal actually told me that kids should not be pushed in math because eventually they would run out of classes to take.  I was astounded.  Really?  You can run out of math classes? And this in a district that allows for concurrent enrollment through the local university.  She also told me that there would be no changes to her policy and if I didn't like it I should look for a new school.  So I did.  What I found was a variety of charter schools in my area.  I did not see eye to eye on all of their philosophies, but I did find one that grabbed my interest.  It is an expeditionary learning school, meaning while teaching the basics of reading, writing and math, it also teaches these subjects and others in an in-depth manner.  For example my son explored birds in his first expedition.  They delved in-depth into the subject by studying  geography, science, social studies, writing, math and even art connected to birds.  Also they developed multi-age groupings for learning.  Grades 1-2  and 3-5 are combined for their expedition learning while breaking out for core subjects based on their need.  This system would have easily allowed for my son to progress as fast as he could have in math had it been in his first school.  While this may be a part of public schools elsewhere it is definitely NOT a part where we live and thus it is definitely innovative.  Apparently due to the opening of 2 new charter schools in the area enrollment dropped at our old school. And guess what, I recently learned that the principal in our old school decided that it wasn't so hard to allow students to attend different math classesafter all. It does appear that because of the charter schools in our area that our local public school has made some innovative changes.  Obviously this is not backed up by studies and is only experience of me.  But, I do not see why it should be different in other cases.  If charter schools work well and force public schools to adapt and become better then good for the entire education system. In other words good for the KIDS.  If charter schools fail then they will go out of business and that is right too.

Thank you, Kathryn, for sharing your experience. I am glad you found an alternative that works for you and your son. It is understandable that the public school system does not have sufficient resources to meet the needs of an exceptional situation such as yours, but the principal would have earned more appreciation if she had gone out of her way to help you find an alternative, such as the school that you found eventually, instead of simply telling you the excuses that she made. We know that public systems are constraint by many factors, but it is still nice to know that administrators care enough to find outside help and alternatives for parents, at least pass the buck to someone who can help, not just closing the book.