Charter Schools: No Silver Bullet

Charter Schools:
No Silver Bullet

By Jamie McKenzie (About Author)

Unshackle schools from the bureaucratic controls of the public system, the theory goes, and you will see student scores skyrocket and reading problems drop away like the catepillar's skin. Rubbish. It's not that simple. Not that easy.

To hear or read the proponents of charter schools singing their praises, you might consider charter schools a magical, silver bullet perfect to convert the ailing, burdened schools of our cities into smoothly functioning, sparkling examples of wonderlearning.

There is no solid research supporting these grandiose claims, but there is growing evidence that the claims are fanciful. Many of the charter schools recently started in Pennsylvania are struggling and doing no better than their public counterparts according to a story published this October in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The Inquirer published results for both Pennsylvania and New Jersey on Sunday, October 16, 200.

Charter School test scores

The Inquirer article makes reference to a national study that calls into question the magic of charter schools:

"The Charter School Dust-Up," a March 2005 report by the Economic Policy Institute, compared enrollment and achievement data at charter and public schools and reached the conclusion that charter schools have not performed better than their public school counterparts. This study disproves the claims of charter advocates that the discrepancy can be explained or excused based on charter students being less advantaged.

"Charter schools fall short in testing!"

Posted on Sun, Oct. 16, 2005
By Martha Woodall

Inquirer Staff Writer

"Charter schools are increasingly popular alternatives to traditional schools, yet many don't perform any better on state tests."

"In Philadelphia and its Pennsylvania suburbs, 30 of the 59 charter schools operating long enough to face sanctions under the federal No Child Left Behind law are not meeting its academic standards, an Inquirer analysis shows."

While a handful of charter schools performed quite well, according to this story, the majority struggled and stumbled, failing to deliver on the bold and glowing promises of charter fans.

Lurking behind NLCB/Helter-Skelter is the fervent wish of right wingers to replace the public system with a free market system of schooling that lifts choice and experimentation to the level of religion.

Lacking research evidence to justify their claims, proponents cling to blind faith as if hope and a prayer could turn non-readers into readers.

Reading improves when students are shown the way by good teachers. If the teacher has been fully trained in effective reading diagnosis and effective intervention, poor readers can be transformed into good readers. Unfortunately, charter schools do not automatically hire expensive, well trained expert teachers with such reading backgrounds and will sometimes fall into the trap of buying packaged reading programs that promise much but deliver little more than fast food learning, scripted lessons that fail to address the needs of individual students.

Quoting from the EPI press release for "The Charter School Dust-Up."

The authors undertook the research last year, in the wake of a heated controversy surrounding the initial release of NAEP data seeming to show that charter school students performed no better than regular public school students. Many charter school supporters claimed that the reason was that charter school students were more disadvantaged.

The new EPI report refutes that claim. The report shows, for example, that while charter schools enroll a higher percentage of black students than regular public schools, black students in charter schools are less likely to be eligible for lunch subsidies than black students in regular public schools, yet test scores for black students are no higher in charter schools than in regular public schools.

Charter schools are schools operated with public funds but freed from most regulations that guide regular public schools. Many charter school proponents expected that freedom from regulation and union contracts would easily lead to higher average student performance.

The EPI report reviews studies from a number of states showing that, based on standardized test scores, students in charter schools perform at levels that were no higher – and in some cases consistently below – those of counterparts in regular public schools. These states for which data are available include those with the largest concentration of charter schools, such as California, Michigan, Texas, and the District of Columbia.

Reckless Abandonment

Properly staffed with strong teachers well grounded in good practice, an individual charter school might do a good job for children, but the challenge of educating children with learning problems and various kinds of social and economic disadvantage is not easily addressed by turning to free form schooling. Sending children to highly speculative and experimental schools staffed by the untutored, untrained and inexperienced is a form of reckless abandonment.

While change is appealing when a local school proves disappointing, there is always some danger that the charter school will prove to be a "perfect stranger," perfect mainly because unknown and full of promise. A year later, the realities of the "perfect stranger*" may be perfectly horrible as the Inquirer describes one school - the Village Charter.

"The finances were so bad that the charter had been placed in receivership. With a new principal, a new business manager, and debt reduced from $1.3 million to less than $400,000, Hill is ready to focus on academics."

As Lawrence Mishel, the president of EPI, stated upon the release of "The Charter School Dust-Up:"

"The evidence that charter schools do not outperform regular public schools suggests that while some charters may be a benefit to students, others do great harm,” said Mishel. "Charter schools were designed to be experimental; it should be no surprise that some experiments lead to failures, experiences that can provide useful lessons.”

*"Perfect stranger" is a phrase from Jackson Browne's song, "Fountain of Sorrow."

This is a decade of harmful educational policies imposed by a malevolent national force. We are witnessing rampant experimentation with one of our most important institutions. Both parties in Congress have overstepped their bounds, setting in motion what amounts to a wrecking ball that is doing major damage to the children of this generation. Aided and abetted by an ideologically tilted Department of Education, Congress has imposed a simple reform plan on the nation that is transforming schools in ways that end up diluting quality and distorting agendas. Schools across the land are narrowing focus and turning to factory styles of education that are fundamentally undemocratic and flawed.

Even if they knew what they were doing, Congress was never meant to tell the states how to run the schools. The founding fathers expected that schools would be managed locally. But the interference is worsened by the simple-mindedness of the strategies employed.

To rely upon testing in a few subjects as a way to improve learning is wrong-minded and foolish.

One wonders how these members of Congress ever rose to power without reading the story of Jack and the Bean Stalk. They have been sold a bag of plain old beans. There is no magic.

Capacity is built in schools by funding professional and program development, not reying primarily upon testing. NCLB is heavy on testing while very weak on capacity building.

It would help if Congress would listen to educators with a lifetime of success and expertise rather than a cadre of right wing policy wonks who have never worked in schools.

We are seeing disaster relief from folks without experience and educational policy dictated by a Secretary of Education who has never been a teacher or principal.

The signers of the Declaration of Independence and later the Constitution never expected Congress to tell us how to run our schools or which reading programs to buy.

More Data on Charter Schools

http://www.pde.state.pa.us/charter_schools/site/default.asp
Pennsylvania Department of Education on Charter Schools

http://www.state.nj.us/njded/chartsch/
New Jersey Department of Education on Charter Schools

http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/book_charter_school
The Charter School Dust-Up
Examining the Evidence on Enrollment and Achievement