Their claims do not match reality
Go
to any school board meeting, PTA forum or editorial page, and you’re bound to
see folks from all different walks of life getting red in the face over these
institutions.
But
what are they anyway? And why do they generate so much passionate disagreement?
To
answer these questions and many more, I’m going to examine five of the most
pernicious myths about charter schools, debunk the fallacies and come to the
simple truths.
1. Charter Schools are Public Schools
That’s
what charter school supporters say, anyway. But it’s only partially true.
In
short, charter schools are schools that were opened by special arrangement (or
charter) with a state or authentic public school district that allows them to
exist without having to abide by all the rules and regulations that govern all the
other schools. Thus, the charter school can go without
an elected board, it can pocket public money as private profit, hire
uncertified teachers, refuse to admit special education students,
etc. The degree of latitude depends on the special arrangement.
Is
that a public school? In one way it most certainly is. All charter
schools are funded by public tax dollars. Everything else is up for
grabs.
They don’t even
have to accept all the students in their coverage area like
authentic public schools do. You still have to support them with your taxes
though.
Is
that a public school?
QUICK
ANSWER: NO.
2.
Charter Schools Save Money
This
is another claim by the charter school industry that has been in contention
for their entire 30
year existence.
Charter schools
were invented in 1991 and only exist in 43 states and the
District of Columbia. They enroll about 6% of the students in the country –
roughly three million children.
However,
the idea that they could save money is pretty absurd. They duplicate
services that already exist at neighborhood public schools. When you
pay for two providers to do the same thing, that doesn’t lower the cost.
It drains money
from the existing public schools and often forces school
directors to raise taxes so they can continue to provide the same services as
before.
However,
not only do charter schools increase costs, they often waste the extra money
taxpayers are forced to provide.
Consider
that more than a
quarter of charter schools close within 5 years of opening. By year 15, roughly
50% of charter schools close. That’s not a stable model of public
education.
Moreover,
1,779 charter schools (37 percent that
receive federal grants) never opened in the first place or were
quickly shut down. Since 1994, the federal
government has spent $4 billion on these types of schools. Think of
how much money has been wasted that could have been put to better use in our
much more dependable authentic public schools!
To
be fair, some charter defenders will argue that since they are free from the
same regulations as public schools, they can cut costs WITHIN their
institutions and provide the same services for less. However, they never return
that savings to the taxpayers. They simply cut services for their students and
then pocket the savings. Lowering quality
may be a way to cut costs, but it’s not exactly an innovation –
and certainly not something to be envied.
This
may be cost effective to the bureaucrats and profiteers running charter
schools, but it is not a savings to you and me – to speak nothing of how it
hurts the students hoping to receive a quality education.
So
do charter schools save money?
QUICK
ANSWER: NO!
3.
Students do Better Academically in Charter Schools
This
is what it says on all those charter school advertisements you see popping up
everywhere. But is it true?
The
problem with answering that is one of apples and oranges. How do you fairly
compare charter and public school students when each group is so different?
Charter schools
can legally cherry pick their students. They serve far fewer
students with disabilities and English Language Learners. If a student is hard
to teach, they “convince” them to go somewhere else.
Meanwhile,
authentic public schools can’t do that. They take all comers.
As
a result, charter schools can APPEAR to do better for their
students but that appearance is due to privileged rules not better teaching or
academic programs.
However,
even with such advantages, charter schools
have failed to show consistent results over authentic public schools on
comparative studies.
According
to a 2010 Mathematica
Policy Research study funded by the federal government,
middle-school students who were selected by lottery to attend charter schools
performed no better than their peers who lost out in the lottery and attended
nearby public schools. This was the most rigorous and most expensive study of
charter school performance commissioned by the US Department of Education, and
it found no overall positive benefit for charter schools.
And
there have been many others. A 2016 study found
that Texas charter schools had no overall positive impact on test scores and,
in fact, had a negative impact on students’ earnings later in life.
Even
a 2020 study by
the charter-friendly Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) found
that charter schools are not exceeding public schools in most areas of the
country. In addition, the study found vast variations in the quality of charter
schools – some being better and many being much worse than the norm.
So,
taken as a whole, do charter schools outperform authentic public schools?
QUICK
ANSWER: NO!
4.
Charter Schools are About Innovation
This
was, in fact, one of the selling points of the charter school concept when it
was first proposed. Being freed of the regulations that authentic public
schools have to abide by would allow charter schools to be laboratories for
innovation.
However,
after 31 years, practices at charter schools can be seen as somewhat
different than at authentic public schools, but are they innovative?
According
to a 2018 report by
IBM Center Visiting Fellow for Evidence-Based Practices, the
practices connected with most positive academic outcomes at charter schools
are:
1)
Longer school days or academic years
2) Zero tolerance and other strict discipline policies associated with rewards
and sanctions
3) Centering the curriculum on improving test scores and test prep.
These
are pretty much the opposite of what developmental psychologists, education
experts and civil rights activists want for children.
Forcing
adolescents to spend more time in the classroom is the exact
opposite of what other high achieving countries (like those in Scandinavia)
do. Treating
children like prisoners with harsh punishments for not conforming to strict
rules is not considered best for developing young minds. And narrowing the
curriculum to drill and kill reading and math test prep may
improve scores but it certainly doesn’t create well-rounded adults with strong
critical thinking skills.
Moreover,
those few charter schools that do engage in creative practices such as
organizing the curriculum around a theme like creative arts or racial justice
issues aren’t doing anything that isn’t already being done at authentic public
schools – specifically magnet and lab
schools.
The creativity
and innovation you find at most charter schools is in the accounting department –
finding new ways to reduce the services students would find at the neighborhood
public school and redefining the savings as profit. That and circumventing
conflict of interest regulations to allow the corporation that manages the
charter school to buy properties from itself at a hefty mark up.
Is
any of this innovation?
QUICK
ANSWER: NO!
5.
Charter Schools Improve Civil Rights
This
is perhaps the most often cited benefit of charter schools. In fact, the
impression has been that charters are the choice of people of color and serve
them better than their neighborhood public school.
However,
the facts show a somewhat different reality.
Yes,
charter schools do serve a disproportionately high percentage of children of
color. According to
2016 data from the National Center for Education Statistics, 26%
of all charter school students are black (832,000) compared with 33% of
Hispanics (1,056,000) and 32% of whites (1,024,000).
However,
approximately 57% of charter schools are located in cities compared to only 25%
of authentic public schools.
So
black people aren’t selecting charter schools more often as much as charter schools
are deciding to locate in areas where more black people live and are often
marketing their services directly to black and brown populations.
Are
these schools doing a better job of meeting the needs of these children?
A 2016 report from
UCLA casts doubt on this idea.
Charter
schools are notorious for suspending their black students at much higher rates
than their white students. While suspensions for students of color are high at
public schools as well, they are much more extreme at charter schools.
More
than 500 charter schools suspended Black students 10 percent more often than
white students. Moreover, the same figure holds for students with disabilities
at 1,093 charter schools. In fact, 374 charter schools suspended 25% of their
entire student bodies at least once.
Charter schools
are also notorious for increasing racial segregation in the neighborhoods where
they locate. Nearly half of all Black secondary charter school
students attended a charter schools that was hyper-segregated (80% Black) and
where the aggregate Black suspension rate was 25%.
However,
this increased segregation isn’t just something that affects Black charter
school students. It affects white charter school students, as well.
A 2018 report by
The Hechinger Report found that 10 percent of charter schools
enrolled a disproportionately high number of White students as compared to the
racial demographics of the district at large. Writer Kimberly Quick
calls these “White-Flight Charters”.
In
the first case, the charter schools end up with a disproportionate percentage
of Black students and the white students are left in the public schools. In the
later case, the Black students are left in the authentic public schools
and the white kids
flee to the charter schools.
Both cases are
not good for civil rights. They allow students of color to be
targeted for disinvestment and reductive curriculum while further privileging
the white students.
Don’t Black
students deserve the right to an education where corporations can’t teach them
on the cheap? Don’t they deserve educations free from
developmentally inappropriate long days, harsh discipline policies and narrowed
curriculum? Don’t their parents deserve the right to participate in the running
of their schools through elected school boards?
The
idea that it is somehow in the best interest of children of color to be
provided with schools containing fewer safety precautions is kind of insulting.
Far
from improving civil rights, charter schools too often violate them.
This
is why the NAACP has
repeatedly called for a moratorium on new charter schools. Members
of the organization’s educational task force released a statement saying:
“With
the expansion of charter schools and their concentration in low-income
communities, concerns have been raised within the African American community
about the quality, accessibility and accountability of some charters, as well
as their broader effects on the funding and management of school districts that
serve most students of color.”
Black Lives
Matter organizers also called for a charter school moratorium.
Charters, they wrote,
represent a shift of public funds and control to private entities. Along with
“an end to the privatization of education,” the Movement for Black Lives
organizers are demanding increased investments in traditional community schools
and the health and social services they provide.
Moreover, the Journey for Justice Alliance –
a coalition of grassroots community, youth, and parent-led organizations in
over 30 cities – has gone even further calling for an end to all school
privatization.
The
organization posted on it’s Website:
“The
evidence is clear and aligns with the lived experience of parents, students and
community residents in America’s cities: school privatization has failed in
improving the education outcomes for young people. There is no such thing as
“school choice” in Black and Brown communities in this country. We want the
choice of a world class neighborhood school within safe walking distance of our
homes. We want an end to school closings, turnarounds, phase-outs, and charter
expansion.”
So
do charters improve civil rights?
QUICK
ANSWER: NO!
There
are a lot of myths spread about charter schools – many of them being propagated
by the charter school industry, itself.
Most
of these are not facts; they are marketing.
While
there are some charter schools that do a decent job educating children, the
charter school concept is deeply flawed.
Authentic
public schools are far from perfect, but taken as a whole they are much
more effective, reliable, economical, transparent and democratic than the
alternatives.
We
should take steps to end the charter school model and transition those schools
that are working back to the authentic
public school system that has served our students well for more than a century.
Steven Singer is
a husband, father, teacher, blogger and education advocate. Singer is an 8th
grade Language Arts teacher in western Pennsylvania. He is a Nationally Board
Certified Teacher and has an MAT from the University of Pittsburgh. He is
Director of the Research and Blogging Committee for the Badass Teachers
Association. He is co-founder of the Pennsylvania-based education budget
advocacy group T.E.A.C.H. (Tell Everyone All Cuts Hurt). He often writes
at his own blog, gadflyonthewallblog.com.
