Voting with Their Feet for Charter Schools

Debate about the effectiveness of charter schools, vis-a-vis their conventional public school counterparts, seems never-ending. Some studies suggest they're superior; others say that's a myth. Both camps point to the anecdotes and analyses that bolster their case. The waters remain murky.

But by one oft-overlooked but critically-important measure, parental demand, charters seem to be making the grade. Just look at today's Denver Post:

"Alma Meraz's eyes welled when her daughter's name was pulled from a cookie jar during an enrollment lottery for the high-performing West Denver Prep charter school.

"I'm so happy," said Meraz, who cleans houses for a living. "I need her to go to this school for better opportunities. For a better life."

West Denver Prep — which some parents have come to view as a first step toward college and possibly a lifeline out of poverty — is rated the second-best school in Denver.
The school's college-preparatory curriculum and swift interventions for struggling students have been touted for helping at- risk kids beat the academic odds. West Denver Prep now posts some of the best academic growth in the state.

The middle school also draws nearly double the number of applicants it can seat, meaning waiting lists are long and disappointments high during the annual school- choice enrollment period.

It's a scenario played out across the state each winter, as parents battle to get their kids into popular, high-performing schools during the choice period.

The Colorado Department of Education estimates about 38,000 children are waiting to get into Colorado charter schools. One such school, Classical Academy in Colorado Springs, has 7,800 students on its wait list."

While the so-called experts duel and debate, education consumers are speaking loud and clear. More and more Americans, if given the choice, are voting with their feet for charter schools. And that's a good enough measure of success for me.

Giving the Devil its Due

It's fashionable in right wing circles to slam the Washington Post for being a left-wing rag. On most days, it lives up to that reputation. But the paper's editorial page has broken ranks with the hard left on at least one important issue, school choice. And it deserves credit for that.

The Post has lent rhetorical support to controversial D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, in her epic battles to turn around one of the worst systems in the country -- a national disgrace unfolding right in the shadow of the capitol dome. And the paper has come to embrace school choice, including charter schools and voucher programs, as important options for urban students trapped in failing systems.

Tomorrow's Post editorial touts the now-demonstrated benefits of charter schools for underprivileged kids, while slamming teachers unions for their hidebound opposition to this public school innovation. It's almost like reading The Washington Times, but better -- since it will be read, and hopefully taken to heart, by tens of thousands of hard core liberals over a cup of coffee tomorrow morning.

For Charter Schools, Failure Is An Option

As a charter school supporter, I've watched with dismay as a once-renowned area charter school network, Cesar Chavez, has spiraled into disorder, scandal and disappointment for parents, students and teachers. It's too early to say exactly what went wrong. I hope some enterprising local journalist takes the time to tell the story in full. It appears there were problems in the network's upper ranks, which have now cast shadows over everyone below.

But the disappointment of parents and students, along with independent efforts to salvage some elements of the network, indicate that the schools still have strong support among customers, despite problems at the top.

The silver lining to every story of a charter school failure is that these schools are allowed to fail -- that they are held accountable for poor performance, unlike most conventional schools, that blithely carry on, in perpetuity, even when they aren't performing up to par. Such failures are rare. But they do occur. And that's okay. For every charter school that flounders and fails, three or four or five are flourishing. On balance, these school are still serving students well, as a mountain of new evidence shows, and despite what some blinkered critics say.

For charter schools, failure is an option. Maybe that's why so many succeed.

Beware Greeks Bearing Gifts

George W. Bush cracked open the door to a federal takeover of American public schools with the unfunded mandates imposed on states through his No Child Left Behind program. Barack Obama is tearing that door off its hinges, and driving a truck through the gaping hole, by using stimulus funds to force state compliance with his own education agenda, as the New York Times reports today.

"Holding out billions of dollars as a potential windfall, the Obama administration is persuading state after state to rewrite education laws to open the door to more charter schools and expand the use of student test scores for judging teachers.

That aggressive use of economic stimulus money by Education Secretary Arne Duncan is provoking heated debates over the uses of standardized testing and the proper federal role in education, issues that flared frequently during President George W. Bush’s enforcement of his signature education law, called No Child Left Behind."

Both the Bush and Obama efforts travel under the guise of "reform." Both efforts include elements that many backers of improving education support in principle (higher testing standards and more accountability in the case of NCLB, for instance, and more charter schools in the case of Obama's No Taxpayer Left Alone program). But neither initiative serves the long-term interests of American public education, since both are unprecedented assaults on state and local control of schools.

No sector of American society that falls under federal dominance has flourished as a result. Almost everything Washington touches turns to shit, as we all know. That's reason enough to be wary of Uncle Sam's growing involvement in public education under Bush and Obama. And because federal involvement never comes without strings attached, and a hefty price tag attached, it's better in the long-run that such matters remain under state and local control.

I would like to see more charter school-averse states change their attitudes toward the alternative schools, so I might be inclined, at first blush, to applaud the Obama administration's use of stimulus funds as leverage against charter-resistant states. But because I try to think 2 or 3 moves ahead, I also anticipate that the Obama administration and its teacher union allies will eventually use this same leverage to force the unionization of charter schools, and to impose federal standards upon them, effectively robbing charter schools of the very things that make them unique, independent, effective and appealing.

Here's a hint of things to come in a related story from the Associated Press:

"Unions and their members do not oppose all charter schools, but they do want more say in how teachers are chosen. The American Federation of Teachers is actively seeking a bigger role in charter schools and has helped to unionize several."

Barack Obama's support for charter schools at first glance seems at odds with his political alliance with anti-charter school teachers' unions -- until one realizes that this administration intends to facilitate a union takeover of these schools through passage of the so-called card check law, which will make organizing the American workplace as easy as collecting enough signatures. Obama's support for charter schools is tolerated by teachers' unions because they understand that their chances of co-opting these schools will get a big boost from this union-friendly president.

That's why this backer of charter schools is skeptical of Obama actions that seem, on the surface, to be pro-school choice and pro-school reform. Beware Greeks bearing gifts. Charter schools have a better chance of remaining genuine charter schools if they are free of the federal government's -- and Barack Obama's -- smothering embrace.

Charter School Double Standard

Because charter schools are seen as a threat to conventional public schools; because charter schools tend to outperform conventional schools; because charter schools offer an avenue out for families trapped in failing conventional schools; because charter schools break with public education convention; because there are lists of families waiting to get into the best of them. These are just a few reasons why charter schools have so many enemies in the public school establishment. And it explains why these enemies are so quick to pounce at the slightest evidence that a charter school is faltering or falling down on the job.

A dozen conventional public schools can be failing their students, and performing below standards. A dozen conventional schools can suffer from discipline problems, lousy teacher morale and poor financial management. But nobody says a word about those schools, because it's business as usual. But if one charter school fouls up, falls short or draws complaints, it suddenly becomes big news, generating the sort of coverage we've seen lately about The Classical Academy in Colorado Springs and the Cesar Chavez charter schools in Pueblo and the Springs. The sharks start circling, hoping to drag one of these charters off their pedestals. Doing so shows that they aren't really very different, they aren't really a cut above, after all.

We've seen a spate of stories in recent months, for instance, about some racially-tinged incidents at The Classical Academy, a well-regarded charter school in Colorado Springs. The school took quick action to address the situation. But I kept wondering, when reading the stories, whether similar incidents go on all the time at conventional public schools, without generating a peep from the media. Bullying incidents happen, racial incidents happen, sexual incidents happen and discipline cases occur regularly at conventional public schools, I'm sure, but it's unnoticed beyond school walls. But when The Classical Academy is involved, it becomes big local news. The double standard is in full effect.

Now we see a similar pattern with the Cesar Chavez charter school network in Pueblo and Colorado Springs.

From today's Pueblo Chieftain:

"The superintendent of Pueblo City Schools wants Colorado’s commissioner of education to launch an audit of the finances and testing practices at the Cesar Chavez School Network.John Covington sent the letter to Commissioner Dwight Jones last week, enclosing clippings from various newspapers regarding the salaries paid to network executives and issues surrounding state achievement tests . . .

. . .Pueblo City Schools charters Cesar Chavez Academy and Dolores Huerta Preparatory High in Pueblo, are under contracts expiring in 2012 and 2014, respectively. The charter school network operates two elementary schools in Colorado Springs and an online program under the Colorado State Charter Institute and plans to open a school in Denver later this year under a charter from Denver Public Schools.News reports, instigated by a growing number of parents and former employees, recently reported on the salaries paid to Chief Executive Officer Lawrence Hernandez, his wife and Chief Operating Officer Annette Hernandez, and Jason Guerrero, the school's chief financial officer.

IRS filings pegged Hernandez’s compensation at more than $261,732, his wife at nearly $135,000 and Guerrero’s pay at just under $248,000.Another story, in the Colorado Springs Independent last week, resurrected cheating allegations dating back to 2005. At that time, according to stories in The Pueblo Chieftain, the school district’s director of assessment charged that answers on Colorado Student Achievement Program tests given at Cesar Chavez Academy had been erased but district officials did not follow up on the charges and the tests were not thrown out. Had they been, the district’s overall scores would have dropped."

I'm not objecting to the scrutiny these schools are getting. I'm not apologizing for any shortcomings, irregularities or misdeeds that such examinations bring to light. I'm fully aware that some charter schools are in deeper trouble than many conventional schools are.

I'm simply asking whether a double standard isn't at work in how this scrutiny is applied. All I'm arguing is that public education would be a lot better off, across the board, if that same level of skepticism -- that same eagerness to highlight deficiencies and problems -- applied to all public schools, equally, not just schools that the public education establishment wants to discredit or destroy.

Why Charter Schools Should Fear "Card Check"

Efforts by teachers unions to infiltrate, take over and destroy charter schools from within are at this point scattered and sporadic; something confined to a few urban areas, like New York City and Chicago, where the unions are honing their tactics and rhetoric. But expect these brushfire battles for the heart and soul of charter schools to become a full-scale assault -- an inferno that could consume the charter school movement itself -- if a federal "card check" measure (more formerly and ironically called the Employee Free Choice Act) is approved by Congress.

The focus of most debate on the issue has been card check's ramifications for the country's business climate -- on whether making it easier to unionize the workplace, by taking away secret balloting, will lead to the resurgence of a union movement that only a few years ago seemed on the ropes. But an even greater concern should be what card check will do to U.S. charter schools, which unions haven't been able to stop but are now intent on co-opting and corrupting.

Card check's implications for U.S. public education is something that hasn't been adequately examined.

The lack of union influence is one of the defining characteristics of a charter school. It's part of what allows them to innovate and excel and hold teachers accountable for performance in the classroom. It's one secret to their success. But teachers unions that long scorned the schools, and tried to block or marginalize them, now understand that the charter school movement isn't going away, so they've adopted a new strategy: If you can't beat 'em, wreck 'em.

Instead of sabotaging charters from the outside, the new gambit is to undermine them from within, by burrowing in, organizing the staff, and letting union-inspired inertia do the rest. The passage of card check would greatly facilitate and hasten that process, laying the groundwork for an all-out, national assault on charter school independence.

Where can we look for a preview of what card check might mean for charter schools? We can look to Chicago, where one effort to unionize 3 charters is making headway, helped along, not coincidently, by a card check system in Illinois that would go national if Congress passes the bill. This report on the Chicago Public Radio Blog, recounting the efforts of one charter school company to fend-off a union takeover, tipped me off to the wider, national implications.

The company that operates the charter schools is appealing the union takeover to the National Labor Relations Board, claiming it isn't legit because there was no secret balloting, which violates (current) federal law. The unions argue that Illinois law -- which doesn't require a secret vote, but simply that a requisite number of pro-union signatures be gathered -- should apply. These are the rules that will be in force nation-wide if card check is approved.

"Under federal law, the three charter campuses fighting for union representation would have to hold an election to determine whether teachers want the union," according to the report. But "state law doesn’t require an election at the schools, because a majority of teachers have already signed union cards."

While the card check debate is now mostly viewed as a battle between unions and business, backers of the measure may have an even bigger trophy in mind -- the debasement, denuding and eventual destruction of the greatest recent innovation in American public education. Perhaps if the growing number of American charter school families come to realize that they have a dog in this fight -- and that their charter school could become just like every other public school if card check passes -- the tide can still be turned against this terrible piece of legislation.

Liberal Newspapers for School Choice

The Boston Globe has an excellent editorial today urging an end to that state's resistance to, and discrimination against, charter schools. It joins The Washington Post among otherwise left-leaning newspapers that have broken with anti-school reform dogma of teachers' unions, and the Democratic Party, by embracing educational choice as an imperative for the troubled schools in the urban areas the papers serve. And the impact of this can't be underestimated, since such arguments have much more power coming from the left than from the right.

There may be other left-leaning editorial pages out there that have similarly broken ranks, understanding that a slavish conformity to ideology is costing millions of kids a better education and opportunity. But today I can cite only these two.

So bully for The Boston Globe.

Bully for The Washington Post.

The Post blazed this trail by supported a voucher program for the District of Columbia, which must have set unions and Democrats back on their heals. And the paper has generally seemed to support controversial D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee in her efforts to turn around a terrible school system, including with this Jan. 7 editorial excoriating the D.C. City Council for undermining Rhee. And now comes the Boston Globe, to advocate for lifting the state's caps on charter schools, in response to compelling evidence that they're producing better results.

Here's The Globe:

Raise the cap on charters
January 10, 2009


THE SHORTEST DISTANCE between urban students and quality education is a charter school that is free to lengthen the school day, enhance the curriculum, and assign teachers without interference from teachers unions or downtown bureaucrats. Yet state education officials not only resist lifting tight caps on new charter schools but are now contemplating measures that would undermine opening charter schools under the current cap.

A new Boston Foundation study compared the achievement of Boston students at charter, traditional, and in-district pilot schools, which have adopted some charter-like reforms. The charter schools, which are run by independent boards, topped the list. The most dramatic finding in the new study was the success of charter schools in raising math performance by middle school students - usually a resistant bunch.

For middle school students in Boston, the impact of attending a good charter school meant moving from the 50th to the 69th percentile on the MCAS math test. The study also dispatched the tired argument that charters succeed only because they attract students from education-minded families and leave district schools with the hardest-to-serve students. It compares the achievement of charter school students in Boston with those who were motivated to enter the lottery but failed to win a seat.


With 61 charter schools underway, there seems to be plenty of room under the statewide cap of 120 schools. But a deeper look reveals a problem. State law also requires that no school district be required to transfer more than 9 percent of its net school spending to charter schools. That cap looms over Boston, where there is room for only 111 more charter school seats while 7,000 Boston students linger on waiting lists.

And how does one expand charter school opportunities in North Adams, with room under the cap for only 34 students, or in Somerville, with room remaining for just 70 students? The situation is barely better in Cambridge, Chelsea, Holyoke, Lowell, and other urban districts where the addition of a single new charter would meet or exceed the cap.


Now, to make matters worse, Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester is working on a proposal to the Board of Education that would delay the opening of new charter schools even under the current cap. State education officials are under heavy pressure from school district and local officials who must reallocate per-pupil costs to charter schools in hard times. But these are the same officials who are responsible for running schools that so many families are determined to flee. The touchstone in this debate should be student achievement, not the fiscal challenges in school districts, which can close or consolidate schools to offset declining enrollment.

The best strategy would be to double the potential for new charter schools in low-performing urban districts by raising the net school spending limit from 9 percent to 18 or 20 percent. School districts will howl. But they may also recognize the urgent need to provide their own students with longer school days and deeper opportunities.

One Ruling Closer to Judicial Oligarchy

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush called the ruling "heartbreaking," but "infuriating" better describes the Florida Supreme Court's haughty decision to summarily bump three education-related measures from November's ballot, without even deigning to explain itself. "The court did not explain its reasoning," reports The New York Times. "Instead it issued a one-page ruling saying that the amendments could not go on the November ballot and that a full opinion would be issued later."

The ruling is more than just a setback for the cause of school choice in Florida, and a potential death blow to a nascent school voucher program Bush has championed since he was governor there, which Democrats and teachers unions have tried mightily to derail. It marks another alarming lurch in the direction of a judicial oligarchy in the Unites States, in which arrogant judges become the final arbiters in every policy dispute, or, as in this case, preempt the peoples' right to decide for themselves.

The least a court can do, if it's going to deny the people a vote, is explain its reasoning. Declining to do so isn't just insulting, but suggests that the court is acting in a purely reactionary fashion, motivated more by ideology than legal or constitutional principle. But judges could not so rule -- and would not now effectively rule the country -- unless there were interest groups (in this case, teachers' unions) determined to win in the courtroom what they fear they can't win in the court of public opinion. And these groups, as well as the Americans who lend them financial and moral support, are also guilty of subverting our democratic institutions.