Opinion Page- The Wall Street Journal
The promise of charter schools is that they'll improve student performance in return for exemptions from the staffing, curriculum and budget requirements of traditional public schools. The reality is often very different. According to a new study from the Fordham Institute, too many charter schools lack the operational autonomy they need to be effective.
The Fordham study looked at 26 states that comprise more than 90% of the nation's charter schools and concluded: "Our policy makers and school authorizers, by and large, have not fulfilled their part of the grand 'bargain' that undergirds the charter school concept: that these new and independent schools will deliver solid academic results for needy kids in return for the freedom to do it their own way."
In Connecticut, Indiana and Michigan, for example, charter school teachers must be state certified. In Delaware, even minor changes to the curriculum have to be cleared with the charter school authorizer. New Hampshire and Tennessee ban charters from hiring their own special education instructors. Charter teachers in Maryland and Wisconsin must be paid according to state-established salary schedules and participate in the state retirement program.
A good teacher has the single biggest impact on student performance, yet rules often limit who a school may hire or the terms of employment. Teacher certification rules block charters from hiring mid-career changers, retirees, engineers, scientists, artists and other professionals who might best meet the needs of students but have not been officially licensed by the state.
Many charters employ young people who plan to teach only for a few years and so they prefer to provide 401(k) plans rather than force instructors to work many years to vest in the state retirement program. When a state mandates participation in such programs, it makes teaching less attractive for many talented and idealistic new college graduates.
Traditional public schools must usually implement a fixed curriculum and use specific textbooks, while charters can adapt both based on specific needs. Yet 70% of charters in the Fordham study face barriers to making curriculum adjustments. Maryland, for example, forces charter schools to seek waivers from the district or wait years to alter a math or reading program that isn't working.
Teachers unions and school boards lobby politicians to impose these rules in the hope of hobbling school reformers. And the more such rules are imposed, the more the promise of charters becomes an illusion. Charters must already operate with less money, on average, than district-run schools, and they must often find their own buildings. Charters that fail can be shut down, unlike failed district schools. Charters need the freedom to succeed or fail, or we shouldn't expect them to produce better educational results.
Source Wall Street Journal-May 14, 2010
The Fordham study looked at 26 states that comprise more than 90% of the nation's charter schools and concluded: "Our policy makers and school authorizers, by and large, have not fulfilled their part of the grand 'bargain' that undergirds the charter school concept: that these new and independent schools will deliver solid academic results for needy kids in return for the freedom to do it their own way."
In Connecticut, Indiana and Michigan, for example, charter school teachers must be state certified. In Delaware, even minor changes to the curriculum have to be cleared with the charter school authorizer. New Hampshire and Tennessee ban charters from hiring their own special education instructors. Charter teachers in Maryland and Wisconsin must be paid according to state-established salary schedules and participate in the state retirement program.
A good teacher has the single biggest impact on student performance, yet rules often limit who a school may hire or the terms of employment. Teacher certification rules block charters from hiring mid-career changers, retirees, engineers, scientists, artists and other professionals who might best meet the needs of students but have not been officially licensed by the state.
Many charters employ young people who plan to teach only for a few years and so they prefer to provide 401(k) plans rather than force instructors to work many years to vest in the state retirement program. When a state mandates participation in such programs, it makes teaching less attractive for many talented and idealistic new college graduates.
Traditional public schools must usually implement a fixed curriculum and use specific textbooks, while charters can adapt both based on specific needs. Yet 70% of charters in the Fordham study face barriers to making curriculum adjustments. Maryland, for example, forces charter schools to seek waivers from the district or wait years to alter a math or reading program that isn't working.
Teachers unions and school boards lobby politicians to impose these rules in the hope of hobbling school reformers. And the more such rules are imposed, the more the promise of charters becomes an illusion. Charters must already operate with less money, on average, than district-run schools, and they must often find their own buildings. Charters that fail can be shut down, unlike failed district schools. Charters need the freedom to succeed or fail, or we shouldn't expect them to produce better educational results.
Source Wall Street Journal-May 14, 2010
Charter Schools Propose Innovation and Freedom --Politicians, Unions and Rigid Rules Don't Help
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute is a nonprofit organization that conducts research, issues publications, and directs action projects in elementary and secondary education reform at the national level and in Ohio, with special emphasis on our hometown of Dayton. It is affiliated with the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, and this publication is a joint project of the Foundation and the Institute. For further information, please visit our website at www.edexcellence.net or write to the Institute at 1016 16th St. NW, 8th Floor, Washington, DC 20036. This report is available in full on the Institute’s website. The Institute is neither connected with nor sponsored by Fordham University.
Information courtesy The Thomas B Fordham Institute
Charter Schools Are A Recent Idea
University of Massachusetts education professor Ray Budde first coined the term “charter school” in the late 1970s. He had in mind a fundamental reorganization of school districts designed to support the work of innovative teachers within the public school system.
His 1988 book, Education by Charter: Restructuring School Districts, articulated a vision whereby school charters would operate in much the same way as traditional charters had. He used the example of the charter granted to Henry Hudson by the East India Company in 1609. Budde aptly applied that same concept to education. He said that school charters, like their original namesakes, should support “exploration into unknown territory and involv[e] a degree of risk to the persons undertaking the exploration.”
Albert Shanker, longtime president of the American Federation of Teachers, shared Budde’s vision and discussed it publicly in a 1988 speech. He proposed creating schools-within-schools that would be publicly funded, but would allow greater agility to test out new ways of educating students. These small, teacher-led initiatives would be “totally autonomous,” as long as they provided “a better, alternative way of accomplishing the same purpose [as traditional schools].”
His 1988 book, Education by Charter: Restructuring School Districts, articulated a vision whereby school charters would operate in much the same way as traditional charters had. He used the example of the charter granted to Henry Hudson by the East India Company in 1609. Budde aptly applied that same concept to education. He said that school charters, like their original namesakes, should support “exploration into unknown territory and involv[e] a degree of risk to the persons undertaking the exploration.”
Albert Shanker, longtime president of the American Federation of Teachers, shared Budde’s vision and discussed it publicly in a 1988 speech. He proposed creating schools-within-schools that would be publicly funded, but would allow greater agility to test out new ways of educating students. These small, teacher-led initiatives would be “totally autonomous,” as long as they provided “a better, alternative way of accomplishing the same purpose [as traditional schools].”
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