Charter Schools. What if?

Landstudentsdesk

By Kristin    

Let's open this conversation up.  I have no problem with competition and a big problem with the seniority-protects-bad teachers issue.  While I disagree that we should do an across the board comparison of charter and traditional schools, I have no problem with charter schools as a well-done alternative to poorly-performing schools. 

Say Washington state allowed charter schools.  What would you want them to look like?  What would you want them to do?  If you could design a charter school, where would you put it, who would you put in it, and what would you expect from it?

Instead of just saying "No," let's maybe, here, say "If…"

15 thoughts on “Charter Schools. What if?

  1. Mark

    I’m sure there are issues with this idea, but when a district gets as big as Seattle or Evergreen or other behemoths, waste probably multiplies.
    What if huge districts were broken up into smaller units…?

  2. Kristin

    Wow, guys. Great volley. These are the questions we need to ask, and the answers we need to seek.
    I would add that traditional schools – at least in big districts like mine – are financially crippled by their size. There’s a lot of waste.
    I’m not an expert on charter school finance, but what I’ve heard from people who have worked in them and run them is that, for example, teachers change their own lightbulbs, saving hundreds of dollars. I’d be willing to do this in exchange for a smaller class size.
    I think one of the problems in Washington’s big urban districts is that everyone’s stonewalling to protect jobs – the jobs of the custodians, the jobs of the landscapers and people who change locks.
    While as a citizen I also respect the work these people do and don’t want to see anyone lose her job, I feel like we’ve lost our perspective in terms of how to budget for education. Too much of our budget goes to things that don’t help kids learn. Way too much.
    I would like to see what could happen for kids if a school was built – philosophically built – with kids as the purpose, and not employment. Spending public money? Yes, charter schools spend public money, but they spend it on kids and the good ones get results. That’s more than I can say about Seattle Public Schools.

  3. Mark

    Thanks for clarifying, Jason. What I do see in all this, though, is that the lottery step still functions as a filter. If the lottery demands some kind of volition on the part of parents, then even this limits access for those students whose parents lack the volition to even respond when the schools pursue them for support.
    I guess my point about the screens and the fees (tuition cannot be charged, but fees can, and are), though, is that there are ways around the stated policies and laws. If I bill my program as “college track,” I don’t deny access to anyone, but it changes who chooses my program. If I bill it as “math, science and technology,” that likewise changes who chooses, especially if there are materials fees that must be paid (even if there is a process for getting those fees waived or paid…that process further deters people from choosing that option). That functions to steer some students and parents toward or away… while no where might the enrollment process specifically deny access, it colors the choice.
    The simple “choice” issue, also, is a form of de facto screen. There are kids out there who are raising themselves. It is reality. We want to believe that every parent does everything they can for their child, but the reality is that there are some parents who do not make education a priority, and those are the kids who schools end up spending tremendous energy trying to help (as they should). Any one of us has probably had pass through our classrooms dozens of kids who are essentially raising themselves and perhaps their siblings because of parents with issues with drugs, alcohol, abuse, or simply absenteeism. I’ve encountered parents in these situations who won’t even return a phone call or stop by the school to make an action plan for their kid–I feel safe presuming that those parents are not as likely to jump on the charter opportunity if it involves going out of their way to do so. Those are the kids who are most apt to slip through because if schools “fail” them, they lack the family safety net that others might have.
    My “what if” takes away that concept of choice: if the best practices employed by charters would work for all kids, then give the school the right to employ those flexible best practices and make kids OPT OUT not OPT IN. If you look at kids who are successful, it is because at some stage of the game they opted in… whether that meant choosing to do homework or choosing to ask a teacher for help. The kids who we need to remember are the ones who don’t opt, who don’t have parents encouraging good choices, and who need us to go get them rather than have us sit and wait for them to come to us.

  4. Jason

    1. Laws vary from state to state regarding how charters are funded and how enrollment or admission is determined… various online sources indicate this.
    2. In Massachusetts, for example, “charters are not mandated to serve exactly the same breadth of students as regular public schools. Specifically, they are not required to provide access to students with severe special needs … Other charters are founded with a specific orientation toward the arts, math and science, or even an explicitly ‘college prep’ curriculum. Having such an orientation stated in the name of the school may encourage some groups of applicants while discouraging others from considering the school as a possibility for them. These types of charter schools acknowledged a tension between being accountable to their mission and being fully open in enrollment practices.” (This was drawn from some research about charter schools in Mass. which revealed disparities between demographics of open-enrollment public schools and the community charter schools: here… http://www.massinc.org/~/media/Files/Mass%20Inc/Research/Full%20Report%20PDF%20files/CharterSchool_Report.ashx)
    Guidance from OCR and DOE is clear– you cannot ask any questions in the lottery process which leads to this sort of creaming. You’re allowed to bill yourself as having any particular mission and serving a particular set of students better than others (though this is typically high-poverty, ELL, arts, science, i.e. not nefarious in practice), but the application itself, if it follows federal law, allows no screening.
    Students who cannot be served by a small school generally (i.e. requires resources that the funding of charters specifically excludes like excess cost special needs or pretty often non-inclusion students) can be blocked access to a charter only if it is determined (and not by the school alone, the authorizer and SEA typically has to weigh in) that the child cannot possibly receive adequate services. These are the kinds of students typically excluded from general population test scores because they’re taking alternative assessments, etc. State law varies here, with some states requiring a non-inclusion special ed class once you reach a certain size. This is a general problem that all small, traditional public schools face but since charters have no funding mechanism to pay for tuition to go to another district or even private school (as TPS’s do), they are sometimes let off the hook.
    3. A few sites I found indicated that in some states, charter schools can require lengthy applications and even interviews as a stage in the enrollment process–though it was not clear how the data/observations of these applications or interviews was used. However, the site above and others acknowledge that this may influence a family’s decision to pursue the charter school option… thus functioning as an enrollment screen.
    It is against the law to screen a kid out and to have any kind of “application”. The application is an entrance ticket to a lottery which can only ask for basic contact information. I think I’d have to read to see what they’re defining as an application process, but if these are interviews to figure out what a child’s specific educational needs are prior to enrollment, that kind of activity likely would be allowed. But any kind of additional screening is a violation of federal regulation and would put the school at serious risk. Since it’s a federal issue, not a state issue, various state laws have little effect here.
    4. As for the enrollment fees, I only found a handful of references to this, including some schools which required activity and other fees for students (lab fees, art fees, etc., which though not required for matriculation were necessary for participation in school programming and again functioned to limit opportunities, even though, as in open public schools, families could apply for assistance or waivers, that step again functions as a deterrent for some within the population who might otherwise choose a charter but be turned off by the apparent financial obligation). I believe I figured out one the source of this “$1000” misperception of mine–the recent rankings of “America’s Best High Schools” included some which required enrollment or registration fees, thus resulting in limited opportunity–I don’t know if these schools were “charter” schools, so I apologize for that misunderstanding.
    Charter schools by law cannot charge students. Federal definition of a charter school states this clearly, “6. Does not charge tuition;” (from CSP regulations).
    While I’m sure you are right that no stated policy can be in place which violates the law, there are certainly practices in place which function as enrollment screens–and the data which reveals (as in the study above and in others) that the ethnic, SES, and special needs profiles of charters rarely mirror their feeder districts suggests that some system is in place which results in inequity.
    Be careful how you define inequity, especially when these are frequently small schools that must randomly select their students. More telling would be the composition of students in the lottery, rather than eventually enrollment, since we’re talking about random draws sometimes of 20-40 kids from several hundred students. The more categories you compare kids on at this few number of students, the more likely they are to not look at their district. This also varies from state to state, somewhat, and so does not apply to Kristin’s question of what would you want a charter to look like– many states have laws that explicitly state that charters must serve some proportion of a particular population, or look like their districts, etc. This can easily be a part of your world of, “What if?”

  5. Mark

    Jason, I’ve done a little quick research about charters and found a few interesting points which might be relevant to offer grounds for my offending statement.
    1. Laws vary from state to state regarding how charters are funded and how enrollment or admission is determined… various online sources indicate this.
    2. In Massachusetts, for example, “charters are not mandated to serve exactly the same breadth of students as regular public schools. Specifically, they are not required to provide access to students with severe special needs … Other charters are founded with a specific orientation toward the arts, math and science, or even an explicitly ‘college prep’ curriculum. Having such an orientation stated in the name of the school may encourage some groups of applicants while discouraging others from considering the school as a possibility for them. These types of charter schools acknowledged a tension between being accountable to their mission and being fully open in enrollment practices.” (This was drawn from some research about charter schools in Mass. which revealed disparities between demographics of open-enrollment public schools and the community charter schools: here… http://www.massinc.org/~/media/Files/Mass%20Inc/Research/Full%20Report%20PDF%20files/CharterSchool_Report.ashx)
    3. A few sites I found indicated that in some states, charter schools can require lengthy applications and even interviews as a stage in the enrollment process–though it was not clear how the data/observations of these applications or interviews was used. However, the site above and others acknowledge that this may influence a family’s decision to pursue the charter school option… thus functioning as an enrollment screen.
    4. As for the enrollment fees, I only found a handful of references to this, including some schools which required activity and other fees for students (lab fees, art fees, etc., which though not required for matriculation were necessary for participation in school programming and again functioned to limit opportunities, even though, as in open public schools, families could apply for assistance or waivers, that step again functions as a deterrent for some within the population who might otherwise choose a charter but be turned off by the apparent financial obligation). I believe I figured out one the source of this “$1000” misperception of mine–the recent rankings of “America’s Best High Schools” included some which required enrollment or registration fees, thus resulting in limited opportunity–I don’t know if these schools were “charter” schools, so I apologize for that misunderstanding.
    While I’m sure you are right that no stated policy can be in place which violates the law, there are certainly practices in place which function as enrollment screens–and the data which reveals (as in the study above and in others) that the ethnic, SES, and special needs profiles of charters rarely mirror their feeder districts suggests that some system is in place which results in inequity.
    I hope this justifies my perception a little better–but I look forward to seeing your response. I’m sure there are charter schools which mirror their feeder districts’ demographics far better, but the difference is a critical difference which implies unequal opportunity.

  6. Mark

    Back to your original question, Kristin: “If you could design a charter school, where would you put it, who would you put in it, and what would you expect from it?”
    I know that charters imply choice (despite the lotteries employed for some), but if the essential charter idea is freedom from hoops in return for some degree of accountability, then it ought to be offered to ALL children in a given service area, not just some. If it’s best for some, it ought to be best for all, right?
    A big expectation: the burden of proof would be on the school, and it would not necessarily require measurement of performance on standardized tests. The accountability element would be based on what the school can show in terms of student growth based on the entire served population (again, every child in the service area). If I were in the English department, it would be my department’s responsibility to provide data to illustrate the gains we’ve achieved…again this might or might not include standardized tests.
    I think that bigger than the charter vs. non-charter issue is the idea that the funding system for public education is flawed. I don’t have a solution just yet, but I sense that millions of dollars invested in testing might be better invested in laying foundations for student learning rather than setting up a finish line whose function ends up being determining which schools get punished.

  7. Mark

    Sorry if I offended you, Jason. I’m just conveying the message I’ve heard, read elsewhere, etc. In all sincerity: please tell me how charters differ from open-enrollment public schools. My understanding has been that enrollment in charter schools is restricted and that schools are allowed to require a variety of things of families who choose to enroll in their programming–and this can include commitments of time and resources/money which functions as a filter which eliminates access to a segment of the population. If my information is incorrect, please take this opportunity to correct my misconception. I invite this as an opportunity for discussion, not attack.

  8. Jason

    “Then, instead of enrollment screens and thousand-dollar enrollment fees which prevent some of the kids most in need from finding their way to those golden charters, we’d have some balance.”
    There are a lot of posts here that are long on conjecture and very short on facts– precisely what you were looking to avoid, Kristin. But this is by far the most offensively false statement I’ve seen on these pages.
    If a charter screens on prior achievement, race, ethnicity, wealth, disability, language proficiency, etc it’s in violation of the Civil Rights Act, Title IX, the Equal Protection Clause, etc.
    If a charter charges parents even a dime for the right to apply or to attend, it loses all public funding.

  9. Kristin

    Tom, it is TOO a serving of Brussels sprouts! It’s not lasagne!
    On what are you basing that statement about charter schools? There are a lot of charter schools filled with kids who went by choice that are failing.
    I honestly believe that if you take excellent, passionate teachers with a shared vision and a creative school day, we could get even the non-motivated kids to succeed. I disagree that a charter school filled with kids who had to attend wouldn’t be a charter school.
    ,
    I think we can get creative with this opportunity, make it work well, and fill a gap in our system.

  10. Tom

    Thanks, Kristin, for the recipe, but after adding lemon, bacon and onions you no longer have a serving of Brussels sprouts.
    Likewise, if you offer a seat in a charter school to the least motivated and lowest performing students, you no longer have a charter school.
    Charter schools only “work” when they set up in neighborhoods with a tradition of low-performing and unmotivated students and a minority of enthusiastic students desperate to work in a school with others that share their enthusiasm.
    That’s fine for them, but horrible for the community as a whole; the very definition of unsustainability

  11. Mark

    Kristin– I like your idea about reversing the ‘role’ of charter schools…sending the kids who need the most assistance to graduate. Then, instead of enrollment screens and thousand-dollar enrollment fees which prevent some of the kids most in need from finding their way to those golden charters, we’d have some balance.
    I think charters are an attempt to make capitalist a piece of a system which is inherently socialist. The premise was to offer “choice,” I’m sure, but in reality, the kids who “choose” to do well are the only ones who ever succeed anyway…it’s the kids who aren’t making the right choices on their own (like choosing to do homework) who need the special support a charter could offer.

  12. Kristin

    The fundamental problem with brussles sprouts is that they’re a little bitter and cabbagey. They are really good with a little lemon to cut the bitterness or, as I prefer them, with bacon, raisins, and red onion.
    Tom, you’ve identified the biggest potential problem for charter schools, and I agree with you. However, I think it’s something that can be prevented.
    What if charter schools began as places kids had to go if they were not on track to graduate? We always see successful elementary charter schools, but what if we posed the challenge, “You claim you can teach the toughest kids? Take the toughest kids.”
    In Seattle, the kids who have poor attendance and who are not on track to graduate are easy to identify. What if charter schools in Washington started with those kids? Longer days, longer years, smaller classes, exceptionally motivated and skilled staff, and the toughest kids. I think that could happen. Traditional public schools, like mine, are FAILING those kids. Whatever we’re offering, it can’t compete with loitering in front of the Albertson’s in the rain.
    I think a good charter school could do better with those kids.

  13. Tom

    The fundamental problem with charter schools as a sustainable solution is that charter schools, by definition, are full of kids who want to be there, or at least kids whose parents want them to be there. Public schools, by definition, are full of kids who may or may not want to be there. When a charter school sets up shop near a public school, it necessarily drains that public school of the most motivated students, leaving the public school to teach the rest.
    What amazes me, is that despite this obvious advantage, charter schools STILL don’t perform better than public schools. Some do, of course, and some don’t; but taken as a whole, charters have not proven themselves as a superior model.
    Sorry, Kristen, but asking me what kind of charter school I’d like to see is like asking me what kind of Brussels sprouts I’d like for dinner!

  14. Kristin

    Thanks Debora, I sat here nodding my head “yes” at all of your ideas.
    My favorite thing about the idea of charter schools right now is the opportunity to build a staff with a shared vision and commitment. That sounds sooooo good to me.
    I don’t know if I would teach in a charter school, either, but I think we should try them and give some teachers a chance to fly, instead of locking them into established situations with so much inertia nothing innovative ever happens.
    I think I’d like the first charter schools to be urban, and to be places where kids with the worst truancy were assigned. In my district, those are the kids who don’t make it in a traditional school.

  15. Debora Ortner

    I agree the conversation needs to be had. It is our job to teach our students to ask, “What if…?” for the rest of their lives. Why shouldn’t we be asking the same question. There are some pieces of public education I wouldn’t want to give up: free to users, accessiblity, committment to IDEA, quality educators (new discussion: definition of quality educator). I like the idea of mandatory parent/family involvement, research-based best practice guiding decision making as opposed to schedules and needs of adults, structured collaboration for teachers, students, family and community. If there are to be multiple charter schools than I think having common philosophical threads at individual schools will provide more action in decision making and less debate about what is best for kids. The time spent debating best-practice in staff meetings can be maddening but if there are some common agreements before hiring (see The Manhattan New School), whatever they may be at each school, I believe much less time would be wasted on paralyzing debate. Would I want to be there? I think in some situations I would be but I also know I would have to make some compromises to do so. I agree we can not compare apples to oranges but we would also need to lay some ground work to make sure that there is equity among all the schools, charter and non-charter. One child does not deserve a better or worse educational opportunity than another. What if THAT were true?

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