CHARTERS AS MODELS AND OBSTACLES FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION
Themes in the News by UCLA IDEA/Week of April 30-May 4, 2012 | http://bit.ly/JkQxtb
05-04-2012 :: Twenty years ago charter schools were created to introduce innovation in teaching methods, in staffing, in school funding and in school organization in order to improve students’ learning. It was hoped that, by operating outside the established district structures, which charter advocates portrayed as inefficient and stifling innovation, charters would develop successful practices that could be used as models for non-chartered, public schools.
There is no question that the charter movement has grown: today, there are almost 1,000 charters enrolling more than 360,000 students in California. And just this week two dozen elementary and middle schools in the San Fernando Valley requested to become affiliated charters in the Los Angeles Unified School District—in part so that they can capture an additional $385 per student in state block grant funds (Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News).
But how has the charter experiment played out? Have charters generated realistic examples for districts seeking to serve all students well; or are they obstacles to that all-important goal; or both? Charters continue to raise difficult questions as witnessed by the move of schools in San Fernando Valley as well as several other news stories that have surfaced recently.
DISTRICTS PROVIDE PUBLIC OVERSIGHT OF MANY CHARTERS, BUT IS THAT OVERSIGHT TIMELY, ADEQUATE, AND WELL-ENOUGH RESOURCED?
In Los Angeles, board members issued a notice of violation to the Birmingham Community Charter High School, the first of three steps in revoking a charter. The school must respond to allegations that it mishandled school admission and discipline issues. The board members are concerned about the lack of communication between the district and school (Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Times). Last month, Oakland district officials considered not renewing the high-scoring American Indian Charter School's charter for fiscal mismanagement (San Francisco Chronicle, New America Media).
ARE GAINS FOR CHARTERS LOSSES FOR TRADITIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS?
Proposition 39 granted charter schools access to unused space in local school districts. Known as co-location, a charter school would operate out of the empty classrooms on public school. Sometimes shifting enrollments and other factors result in charters occupying space that is not actually “empty.” Los Angeles students at a Silver Lake elementary school would have its bilingual kindergarten curtailed if a co-located charter gets the space (KPCC). A Bay Area charter competed for space until it reluctantly agreed to split up its k-8 program onto two separate campuses (San Jose Mercury News). Teachers at Franklin High School protested a proposed charter co-location that would limit student access to libraries and the gym, and further burden administrator (Patch). These incidents point to an emerging tension as charters, which have positioned themselves as rivals to local public schools, now seek to forge partnerships.
DO CHARTERS PROVIDE BETTER EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES WITH COMPARABLE AMOUNTS OF MONEY?
A new report published by the National Education Policy Center points to inconsistent funding and successes across the country, with the unsurprising finding that the more successful charters outspend neighborhood public schools. Charters receive both public and private funds and sometimes, as in California, separate grants from the state. Federal programs, like Race to the Top, are also directing more resources to charters. According to the report, "Spending by the Major Charter Management Organizations," with limited pools of private/public funds that schools can draw upon, claims of charters’ superior results should be balanced by their funding advantages. Perhaps, in many cases, it’s not the innovation, but the money that makes the biggest difference.
California and LAUSD (with more charters than any district in the nation) must stop treating charters as fragile experimental sites. If charters are going to be permanent features in our education landscape, all public schools must have access to comparable resources and oversight.
"I don't think anyone foresaw that they would be a substantial proportion of your overall system of public education," Dr. John Rogers, director of UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access (UCLA IDEA) said (KPCC| http://bit.ly/IKUSct). "And now we're reaching that point and our structure of policies doesn't really have the regulations in place to deal with this new reality."
CHARTER SCHOOLS: HOW MANY BUCKS FOR THE DESIRED BANG?
NEPC press release | http://tinyurl.com/d8dlmeb
BOULDER, CO | May 3, 2012) :: Do charter schools live up to their supporters’ claim that they deliver a better education for less money?
While previous research has focused on the first half of that claim – education quality -- a new report published by the National Education Policy Center examines the second half – what charters spend.
Schools operated by major charter management organizations (CMOs) generally spend more than surrounding public schools, according to Spending by the Major Charter Management Organizations: Comparing Charter School & Local Public District Financial Resources in New York, Ohio and Texas.
The finding is significant, especially when programs such as the U.S. Department’s “Race to the Top” are directing more resources to charters deemed to be successful. The NEPC report presents new research on this question by Rutgers University Education Professor Bruce Baker, working with University of Colorado Boulder doctoral students Ken Libby and Kathryn Wiley. The research team examined spending in New York City, Ohio and Texas.
“Charter school finances are hard to measure,” says Baker. “Charters generally receive both public and private funds. Also, in-kind assistance and resources from districts and states to charters vary greatly. Yet we can see that the most successful charters, such as KIPP and the Achievement First schools, have substantially deeper pockets than nearby traditional schools.”
The report explains that most studies highlighting or documenting a successful charter school have sidestepped or downplayed cost implications while focusing on specific programs and strategies in those schools. The broad conclusion across these studies is that charter schools or traditional public schools can produce dramatic improvements to student outcomes in the short- and long-term by implementing “no excuses” strategies and perhaps wrap-around services. Most charter school studies conclude that these strategies either come with potentially negligible costs, or that higher costs, if any, are worthwhile since they yield a substantial return.
But according to Spending by the Major Charter Management Organizations, a “marginal expense” may be larger than it sounds. An additional $1,837 expense in Houston for a KIPP charter school, where the average middle school operating expenditure per pupil is $7,911, equals a 23 to 30 percent cost increase.
“A 30 percent increase in funding is a substantial increase by most people’s definition,” says Baker.
The study compares per-pupil spending of charter schools operated by CMOs to the spending in nearby district schools. The report’s authors examined three years of data, including information on school-level spending per pupil, school size, grade ranges and student populations served. For charter schools, the report’s authors drew spending data from government (and authorizer) reports as well as IRS non-profit financial filings (IRS 990s). Notably, the data from these two different sources matched only for New York City; the data reported for Texas and Ohio from the two sources varied considerably.
The study found many high-profile charter network schools to be outspending similar district schools in New York City and Texas. But it also found instances where charter network schools are spending less than similar district schools, particularly in Ohio. In Ohio, charters across the board spend less than district schools in the same city.
In contrast, KIPP, Achievement First and Uncommon Schools charter schools in New York City, spend substantially more ($2,000 to $4,300 per pupil) than similar district schools. Given that the average spending per pupil was around $12,000 to $14,000 citywide, a nearly $4,000 difference in spending amounts to an increase of some 30 percent.
Similarly, some charter chains in Texas, such as KIPP, spend substantially more per pupil than district schools in the same city and serving similar populations. In some Texas cities (and at the middle school level), these charters spend around 30 to 50 percent more based on state reported current expenditures. If the data from IRS filings are used, these charters are found to spend 50 to 100 percent more.
The National Education Policy Center (NEPC) at the University of Colorado Boulder produced Spending by the Major Charter Management Organizations: Comparing Charter School & Local Public District Financial Resources in New York, Ohio and Texas, with funding from the Albert Shanker Institute (http://www.shankerinstitute.org/) and from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice (http://www.greatlakescenter.org).
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