The proliferation of charter schools has become one of the most divisive issues in public education. Proponents tout the successes of some and generalize it to all. They promote charters as desperately needed alternative to neighborhood schools they call "drop-out factories." Opponents characterize charter schools as anti-union agenda-driven corporate saboteurs of public education and labor unions. They deny any qualitative difference between charters and non-charter public schools -- and, in fact, refer to statistical comparisons that show charter schools less successful than other public schools (ironically using the same numbers many of us dismiss as invalid instruments by which to measure teacher success or pay).
The uncomfortable truth for both sides of this argument is that they are partly right but just as wrong.
The reality, on the ground -- the only place that matters for students, parents, or teachers -- is that some neighborhood schools are not safe and the overall quality of instruction is shameful. I have been inside some of these schools and have known students who have either left or altogether avoided them because of the experiences of friends and family. In some communities charter schools are among the alternatives to which students and parents look for relief -- but there are also other alternatives, including magnet schools, alternative public schools, and better neighborhood schools usually in better neighborhoods (sometimes requiring a school bus ride an hour or longer).
There are other truths on the ground worth noting. Every teacher in every problematic neighborhood school is not a problem. In fact, some of the worst schools sometimes have some of the best teachers -- just not enough of them and the obstacles to quality instruction can be formidable. They include an anti-academic culture among students and even some faculty, a lack of experienced or consistent leadership, and overwhelming numbers of students in crisis.
And not all of those charter school alternatives are offering quality instruction. Most are small and that alone should make them better. It generally makes them safer and gives teachers more opportunities to interact with students and reach them in meaningful ways -- in and outside the classroom. Small non-charter public schools have the same advantage but do not have the autonomy charter schools have in deciding how to allocate resources.
Which is why every charter school, untangled from district rules and red-tape, ought to be better - but the sad truth is that at least some of these charter schools are squandering their advantage.
I teach at a successful -- though far from perfect -- non-charter public alternative school (a 9 on the Great Schools website, the only one in our zip code that includes several charter schools) and just as many of my students come to us to get away from charter schools as to escape neighborhood schools and about as many come ill-prepared from each.
Those who come well-prepared tend to come from certain schools. Some are charter. Some are not. One thing those students have in common is that they can all tell you about at least a few really good teachers they've had.
That is no surprise. Even the most vehement teacher-bashers -- most of them anyway -- concede that really good teachers are the most important component in a quality education.
What we cannot agree on is how to make every teacher a really good teacher.
Proponents of charter schools say that job security makes us complacent, lazy, intractable. It gives us what people call "the civil servant mentality." We can all find examples of such teacher -- but a lot of us actually care about the students we work with every day and if you care about your students then why wouldn't you work hard until your last day? (And, by the way, I don't mean to suggest that some postal workers aren't passionate about the letters they carry or that some sanitation engineers aren't... you know...)
Opponents of charter schools, on the other hand, say that job-insecurity compromises academic freedom and integrity and that charter schools in general discourage teachers from staying long enough to reach their maximum effectiveness.
But not all charter schools are non-union. In fact, teachers in the largest charter school organization in my city (Los Angeles) are union members. Many charter schools offer pay comparable to LAUSD. A former student of mine is now a teacher at one such charter. He believes that he is respected by his administration, given favorable working conditions and well-compensated for his work.
But not all charter school teachers are. In my capacity as an athletic director I have gotten to know charter school coaches and teachers, some of whom are treated fairly and others who are outright exploited -- and who usually do not last more than a year. A few weeks ago I spoke to a substitute teacher filling in for one of my colleagues. She described for me the disorganized and malfunctioning charter school at which she currently teaches. The school, she said, was delivering very little instruction to its students and was two months behind in paying her. They give her a day off once a month so that she can sub in LAUSD in order to maintain her LAUSD health coverage because they have failed to make good on their promise of employee benefits.
Of course, it isn't as if I couldn't tell you horror stories of teacher exploitation and mistreatment in LAUSD or any other big city school district.
My suggestion is that proponents of charter schools turn their attention to making those charter schools live up to their promise. Meanwhile, if opponents of charter schools can be part of the solution in our non-charter public schools, they might not feel as threatened by those charter schools.
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Why do I call KIPP, and their knock-offs "sweatshops," as you may well ask? Very simply because the profiles I have read in newspapers about KIPP schools reveal that teachers are required to work daily from 7:30-5:15, some Saturdays, and a longer school year. Then, as if a mandated 9.75 hour work day is not enough, they go home prepared to take homework help phone calls for 2 hours per night, and this falls during quality family time for most families with children.
I wonder at the retention rate when teachers are mandated to work such long days, and to interrupt their personal and family time evenings, too. I could never have raised my children under such demands. As it was, I worked long hours when my children were 5 and 7 and I returned to work as a teacher, but at least I had some control over the hours that I completed the work, and I was able to schedule several hours late each afternoon and evening to spend quality time with my children, preferring to do my prep and planning between about 9 and 11, after they were in bed.
There is no reason why my district could not offer its own Montessori school given that there is clearly parental demand to support it. However, the district administration has no interest in offering one as they're happy with the status quo. This is why charters are so vital, because they offer families the freedom to chose denied to them by traditional public schools.
Also, a great call for the charter opponents in the end. Thanks for inviting them to be a part of the solution.
I think, charter schools improve pupil learning, increase learning opportunities, and encourage the use of different and innovative teaching methods by providing parents and pupils with expanded choices in the types of educational opportunities that are available within the public school system.
Benefits of this school choice include, but are not limited to, providing vigorous competition within the public school system to stimulate continual improvements in all public, creating new professional opportunities for teachers, and so on.
Here is a summary of my thoughts:
http://parents4magnolia.org/2011/05/06/charter-schools-101-gulen-charter-schools/
Charters do not usually have democratically elected school boards and there is little accountabilty until things go very wrong. Charters often use poor minority kids as their guinea pigs for untested and unscientifc methods of pedadogy. While you are bending over backwards to be fair to the charters, most of the charter operators are more than happy to criticize and take unfair advantage to profit their own aims.
Actually, I don't have to bend over backwards or any other way to be fair to charters or anyone else. I'm just trying to get at what's real. Misinformation and distortions and half-truths are as much the enemy as any corporation or hedge fund wishing to skim education dollars for their balance sheets. And I'm sure you know that corporate corruption in education exists plenty among school boards and school districts. Same goes for separate and unequal education--it isn't as if that doesn't exist in many of our school systems.
Eliminating charter schools won't solve our problems.
Eliminating the need (demand) for them is the solution.
When people do this, it is because they are using the numbers against the people who hold these numbers up as valid. That does not tacitly endorse those statistics, its more of a "well, you say these tests are the bee's knees, so look at what they say."
So that forces the other side to capitulate on either the generalized effectiveness of charter schools, or the legitimacy of the tests. Either way, we win.
BTW, I teach at a charter school that narrowly gets into the "17% that outperform comparable public schools." I say that I teach at a good school that I am very proud of that is a Charter school, but I recognize that our success is not indicative of the Charter School movement as a whole.
ok, run-on sentence, sorry.
I really like your articles. You are one of the more prescient writers around here.
Also at this school, I saw parents and teachers get rid of five principals in six years and other harsh unfair political (not based on merit) firings. I saw the school sometimes had to wait or do without because the school district did not want the charter to succeed and paid the charter less per child than a regular public school. Would they have done well in the old neighborhood school? Probably, but if they had not done as well, the reasons would have very little to do with teachers.
A promising statement came out today from California Charter School Association - http://toped.svefoundation.org/2011/05/04/charter-schools-willing-to-be-held-accountable-to-higher-standards/
I would love to see more school autonomy -- through deregulation -- in how money is spent and how it is accessed.
Ironically, though, I find that the charter schools with which I have dealings (as an AD and as the commissioner of two leagues with nearly a dozen charter schools) are usually the ones that cannot cut a check in time to pay game officials.
Government deregulation only works if the deregulated entity can live up to that freedom.
As far as charters not paying on time, it's also not fair to they are not living up to that freedom when the state is not living up to their end of the bargain and deferring state apportionments by 6+months. Local districts have access to TRANS loans which charters do not.
Charters or traditional public schools are a false choice and distracting from the real issues in education around teaching and learning.
To be fair, there's a big difference between evaluating one teacher on the test scores of a non-randomized sample of 30 students and comparing the test scores of thousands of students, matched by demographic factors, to evaluate the effectiveness of different models. Different sample size makes the first example ridiculous and the second, depending on the structure of the study, very possibly valid.
If you believe in multiple choice tests.
If you believe that multiple choice tests can measure reading and writing ability!
If you believe that a one day snapshot can represent a year's worth of learning...
Then you might find that these tests have any validity--on a large or small scale.
But I won't argue that the larger the sample the more reliable the data.
Thanks for the comment, eceresa
Now, the state tests are approaching uselessness. They existed originally to test kids and tell us what they know, but excessive preparation has made them pretty much useless for that. NAEP, however, isn't something anybody preps for. I'm sure there's some spillover from the prepping for multiple-choice state tests, but it's probably still more reliable.
One thing that's ironic: standardized tests should be, and used to be, a decent (though rough) diagnostic tool. The ridiculous focus we've placed on them has made them much less effective for this purpose. By focusing on getting test scores up, not what kids know, we've created a situation where the tests are much less likely to tell us what kids know.
But that's less a problem with tests as a tool than it is with the way that the tests have been misused for teacher evaluation.
In addition, I have yet to see a bona fide study where a pre-test and post-test was administered to control group and a group of charter school enrollees to ascertain if any improvements might be attributable to the school, its instructional methodologies, teachers, or students.
And, yes, none of the data on any of this is particularly compelling.