The Case for Charter Schools
Robert Litan makes the case for charter schools. I largely agree with what he says to say:
A couple of caveats. One is that I think he underplays the importance of the voucher/charter distinction here, but the fact that charter schools, unlike private schools, don’t get to choose their students is important. The second is that while bashing our system as “Soviet-style” makes for good rhetoric, primary and secondary education in the Soviet Union was fine. Indeed, Communism, if applied across the board in the United States, would probably do a lot to improve our public schools. There are just other good reasons to avoid it. Last, it’s important to understand that the charter schools that have shown the most impressive results get substantial additional funding from foundations and other charitable sources over and above their public funding. The evidence, in other words, suggests that structural reform in the direction of more charter schools is a necessary complement to more funding, but not a substitute for it.
43 Responses to “The Case for Charter Schools”
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September 19th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Know what has made a difference? Magnet schools that require parental involvement as a condition of enrollment. It’s important to note that not all charter schools are created equal; the mere fact that one is a charter school is not sufficient. Also, from a special education point of view: charter schools often suck.
September 19th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
As a teacher at a private, progressive school, I would like to comment that the charter school system is a poor alternative to public education. Beyond the failings of NCLB, there are two major factors I have seen that play into whether or not a public school is “successful”. First is the proper appropriation of money and the second is positive parent involvement.
First, the public school system, is in many parts of the country, largely underfunded. However, the system is top heavy with administrators, consultants, and others who do not have contact with students. These salaries and the infrastructure needed to support these positions, cost many districts as much as faculty and supplies. Charter and private schools are more successful at providing a great education for less money because they have adopted a smaller top level and put more money into resources that students come in contact with. My school provides an (k-5) education for much less per-pupil than local public schools.
Second, parents need to be involved and committed to education. Not only at home, but in the schools on a daily basis. Students need to know that there is a whole community of adults who care about them, their education, and future. Public schools who open their doors to parents, have better performing students. Parent involvement needs to go beyond the kitchen table.
Re charter schools:
In Chicago, there are several cases where charter schools are allowed to reject students who do not meet pre-set goals for academics and behavior.
Thanks for the debate.
September 19th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
“Communism, if applied across the board in the United States, would probably do a lot to improve our public schools.”
When I went to college, my degree program (Engineering Physics) favored the communist Landau & Lifshitz textbook series for their courses. Why? They were far more rigorous than those published in the US. But that was Cornell, I’m sure the far more prestigious Liberty University would disagree and consider the Bible to be a more serious treatise on physics.
September 19th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
OMG!>?!|
My wife has worked in three charters schools in Philly: two ‘independant’ charters and one ‘out-sourced’ from the school district of Philadelphia. Her experience, and the overall results have not bourne out that charters make a freakin bit of difference…
this interview provides a ton of rhetoric…inner city kids, they’re bored, they got shot, there’s no difference from class to class, blah blah. BS! Every teacher is different, just the same as non-inner-city schools.
And I love the bit about letting bad schools go out of business juxtaposed to the whole economic meltdown going on: we’re not letting wall street go out of business.
Some charter schools are great, but so are some public schools. Just letting the free market run schools is no gaurantee of success. And the evidence is high here in Philadelphia that there’s a lot more in the recipe than just the magic charter ingredient.
Also, besides the existing results, there’s the whole back room politics thing going on: who is awarded charters (and award is a good way to describe the process), why, and what kind of oversight those groups get falls into the hands of a tiny group of individuals, largely isolated from public scrutiny or repercussions.
Think about Gov Palin’s actions as mayor with regards to the police chief, the head libriarian, the rape kits, etc–do you want that for awarding license to teach large numbers of children?!?
It’s all a way to go Norquistian on the existing system: to shrink it, to cut off viable parts until the remaining portion can be dispatched…
September 19th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Yep, as far as I can tell there’s ZERO evidence that Charter Schools have any real advantages over the regular kind.
But that hasn’t stopped all the Democrats and all the Republicans in DC circles from constantly touting their wonders.
Why does that kinda remind me of the crazy Iraq War?…
September 19th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Hot air. And I don’t have a problem with charter schools. Lutton has it right.
Competition is the worst of the rhetoric. Competition for what? As a teacher, I’m not in competition for anything. Even if you design a merit pay plan, it’s still not a competition, it’s a bonus. And most charters don’t have merit pay anyway.
Inner city kids are bored? How will charters fix this? If that’s his issue, he needs to talk about high stakes testing.
I also don’t think it’s as sensical as they seem to think to close a school that isn’t working. Would they want public schools in their own communities to have that type of instability? Is it okay for “inner-city” families to be told that their schools should shut down when the same system does not operate in the ‘burbs?
Matthew, what did you like about this piece?
September 19th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
“You, too, can make big bucks teaching anyone who wants to come! Just sign up for your charter today!”
September 19th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Matt, if you haven’t already, I highly recommend that you read The Charter School Dust-up by Martin Conroy, et al . It’s the most comprehensive meta-analysis of charter school performance studies that I’ve seen, and ultimately finds little evidence that charters produce superior results to traditional public schools.
I’m not anti-charter – I don’t see anything wrong with parents having some choice – but the claims that charters provide better performance just don’t add up, especially when you consider that parents that choose charters are more likely to be involved with their child’s education in the first place, which has been shown to be a key factor in pupil performance. I think commentators commonly mistake cause and effect, here.
Also, I think claims that charters (such as KIPP) disproportionately focus on low-income groups need to be more carefully vetted. The poverty measure used to support the claim is eligibility for reduced price or free meals, which is a very blunt instrument. The most desperately poor kids are much more likley to be enrolled in traditional schools than in charters. Add in the fact that charters can disenroll pupils for not meeting their standards (or contracts) and it’s hard to see how they could ever look bad compared to traditional schools which cannot disenroll pupils for poor performance, and, yet, they often do.
There are entrenched interests, such as teacher unions, that oppose school reform and accountabilty as a knee jerk instinct, and that needs to change. But too many in the “reform” movement are also willing to assume that charters have a major part to play in improving education in the country, and I just don’t see the evidence to support the claim.
September 19th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Matt,
Charter schools provide more choice, but accessing these schools require more gas, VMT, road capacity, and pollution, by transporting parents and buses than if childrn walked and biked to their neighborhood schools Does your charter school position conflict with your transportation position?
The Dog
September 19th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I think we all like and respect Matt enough to encourage him to stay out of this debate; the comments pretty much indicate why.
September 19th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
We just moved our 4th grader and 2nd grader from “the best” public school in a very poor east coast city to a public Montessori Charter school. The switch has been incredible for my children, not because it’s a charter, but b/c it’s a Montessori. True Montessori schools don’t care about test scores, they care about the child. The school is much smaller. The teachers are all developmentalist in approach. There is no drill and kill. In my state, charters still must employ union teachers from the system, but this school was able to carefully screen the teachers b/c they had to have Montessori certification. There is no reason that principals, if given the autonomy from the larger school system and the budget to buy the materials, couldn’t do what this charter has done. It wouldn’t need to be a charter, and they wouldn’t need to “cream” off the better students from the traditional public school system. School districts should just hire excellent principals and give them autonomy to do what they do. Students could choose from 4-5 small schools in their neighborhood or run a lottery. There really shouldn’t be a need for charters per se and the attendant problems of creaming off the better students from the traditional public schools or kicking students out.
September 19th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Allys gift:
I think hit nail on the head with “this school was able to carefully screen the teachers.” The issue of scaling up small, successful programs is oft overlooked, unions or no.
September 19th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
the fact that charter schools, unlike private schools, don’t get to choose their students is important
With respect to charters right here in DC, Matt, that important “fact” is simply untrue. Further to Rob Freedman’s comments above, the charters have not only the power but also the financial incentive to dump problem kids back into the general DCPS population. (Financial, because if the charter waits until after the official “headcount” date for funding allocations, it gets the money for the later-dismissed student without actually having to educate him. Sweet!)
September 19th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Public school teacher; did the Masters thesis on charters. In Milwaukee, middle schools that turned charter had significant increases in test scores yet had significant declining enrollment. Other ‘independent’ charters who had absolutely awful state test scores saw their enrollment skyrocket? Even voucher schools that could choose their students weren’t showing an increase in student performance. One thing I do like about the charters is their freedom to create different types of special learning environments. There’s an aviation charter in Milwaukee. I think that would be cool. Right now with kids it seems to be all about the engagement, are the kids locked into what you’re doing. I think being able to create those kinds of learning environments would go a long way towards getting kids locked in.
September 19th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
The tricky part of the debate about charter schools and vouchers is in the definitions and guidelines. Public funds should only be used for schools that meet the legal requirements that public schools are required to meet.
Every child within the attendance area must be accepted, regardless of ability or circumstances. Special needs must be addressed as per IDEA. Teachers must be certified. State testing must be done and results assessed. Whatever priorities are incorporated into law and mandated to public schools must be required of any school receiving public funds.
Two of my kids have a high-functioning type of autism called Asperger Syndrome. One is in an excellent charter school within the public school district’s purview. While both kids are in general ed classroom settings, they have special ed assistance as needed. They’re both brilliant kids (no maternal bias at all, here), but their potential would be lost without the support ensured by IDEA.
I’m a little paranoid when the discussion gets to charter schools and the word “vouchers” comes up. If a school that is not required to accept my kids and support their special needs is given the opportunity to receive public funds, those public funds will be drained away from the public school system upon which my kids rely.
September 19th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Litan doesn’t get to a real meat of the issue until the 3:00 mark. Charter schools, vouchers, etc won’t do anything if the students are not interested in performing. Ultimately, the responsibility is on the students and parents to seize the free education that’s available. Teachers are generally thrilled to teach eager students. Less so with apathetic students. Regardless of school, the highest achievers are the ones who are motivated enough to perform. Not the slugs who go to school because they are compelled to do so.
September 19th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Indeed, Communism, if applied across the board in the United States, would probably do a lot to improve our public schools.
In Which Matthew Yglesias Once and For All Obviates His Dwindling Chances of Someday Running for Elected Office or Getting Senate Approval of His Nomination to Join President Chelsea Clinton’s Cabinet.
September 19th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
It’s certainly true that the quality of education in the Soviet Union, at least during the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras, was superior to the United States. They spent about three times as much on education, as a percentage of GDP, as the United States.
Cuba has a very good educational system today, and gets a hell of a lot more bang for their buck than the United States. Not that that should particularly surprise anyone.
September 19th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Thank God for your commenters, Matthew, because when it comes to education policy, you are usually woefully uninformed and overly susceptible to anti-public school claptrap.
Stick to politics and foreign policy, which you are very good at. Do some thorough research before you dip your toe into Ed policy. Stop winging it.
September 19th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
I always want to scream when Matt talks about education.
I also have to pick on one commenter, dan (not me,) that said, “There are entrenched interests, such as teacher unions, that oppose school reform and accountabilty as a knee jerk instinct, and that needs to change.” Teacher unions aren’t against any reform just for knee jerk reaction. They oppose changes that mean their members get paid less, can’t organize, don’t have tenure, all the stuff that unions help with. The charter school teachers in my district make about $5000/ year less. These people can get fired over the slightest disagreement with anyone important. (You better not flunk the board member’s kid!) accontability is good and unions aren’t against it but want accountability that is fair and makes sense.
September 19th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
The so-called ’singapore’ math curriculum, that is supposed to work wonders and is being adopted in California and other places, actually originated in the Soviet Union.
September 20th, 2008 at 3:19 am
Matt claims that charters don’t get to pick their students. Lots of charters claim to use lotteries to choose their students randomly, but do you see these lotteries being conducted on TV with a guy from Price Waterhouse there to vouch for the honesty of the randomization process? I put my kid’s application in the lottery at a charter high school founded by the people who had been running the public middle school where my kid got a 5 on the AP Biology test in 7th grade. I dropped by the new charter school after the lottery to ask if my kid’s name got randomly drawn in the lottery. The administrator whom I asked to check the list practically fell over laughing at the idea that I was worried. “No need to check the list. Your kid got a 5 on the AP. He’s in.”
September 20th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Oh yes, Matt, more funding. We tripled per-pupil funding from 1960 to today (much of which went to shrinking class sizes by a third and doubling the %age of teachers with masters and doctorates), and we’ve seen a decline educational performance. Clearly there’s great evidence out there about the need for more funding. Millman rightly corrects you: the burden is on people to prove that the current system can work, and there’s no evidence that it can as currently configured.
And for the record, teachers who are bitter and have been fed the union line are not capable of offering dispassionate analysis on these issues.
Teachers’ unions have been behind a lot of the non-improving funding increases–choosing to shrink class sizes, which inflates their membership, rather than increasing teachers’ salaries. And the use of degrees as the basis for salary bumps: lots of teachers get crappy ed degrees online and that is supposed to mean something. It doesn’t. You can’t have it both ways. Progressives who tell themselves that unions are not obstacles to meaningful reform live in fantasy-land.
A lot of the problem is actually blowback from progress. Fifty years ago, if you were an educated woman or African-American, teaching was one of the few things you could do. That has changed, and so much the better. But it’s contributed to the fact that in 1960, 16% of female teachers had gone to the bottom 20% of colleges and 5% to the top; but in 2000, those percentages were 36 and 1, respectively. Union-instigated wage compression has only exacerbated this human capital deficit. If we want better teachers, we have to pay them more money. But in a world of finite resources, we have to face that fact that this means we will have to increase class size–and if we want better performance, we have to give teachers (& schools & principals) carrots and sticks–and we have to train teachers better, and frankly, recruit smarter ones.
September 20th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
It seems the readers have spoken. Not much more to say. Just nice to see Matt’s technocratic neoliberalism get debunked.
Is it just me, or are the wizards of the charter/anti public school movement always so distanced. It seems none of them wne to to public schools or has children in them or any first hand experience in the world they speak of.
One huge variable (or really multiple variables that are left our of the “school debate” is a discussion of community.
Low performing schools exist in communities destroyed by disinvestment, new federalism, and, as a result of the general neoliberal nonsense pontificated at times on this blog.
To ask schools to perform the job that was intended for society is a little far fetched.
December 6th, 2008 at 4:48 am
A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-filled van into the gates of a school in northwestern Pakistan Wednesday, killing at least three paramilitary soldiers, police said. The school, at Subhan Khaur village in
December 6th, 2008 at 4:49 am
A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-filled van into the gates of a school in northwestern Pakistan Wednesday, killing at least three paramilitary soldiers, police said. The school, at Subhan Khaur village in
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