By Martin Scanlan – On Wednesday morning (3/23) at the State Capitol the Senate Committee on Education will hold a public hearing on several bills: SB-20, SB-22, and SB-34. SB-22, which deals with public charter schools, is the bill with the most state-wide effects in that the others focus solely on Milwaukee Public Schools.
Two dimensions of SB-22 should give pause to citizens across the political spectrum and around the state because as written, the bill would make it less likely for charter schools to serve the common good. The effects of SB-22 will be both to reduce the professionalism of the faculty and the level of local accountability for charter schools.
Clearly, the quality of education that occurs across sectors – public to private, preschool to postsecondary – stands squarely in the public interest. We all benefit when our schools educate children not only academically, but in numerous other manners as well. Society is strengthened to the degree that children learn reflection, compassion, creativity and generosity. Schools can also foster cross-cultural relationships and nurture respect amongst a populace that is growing increasingly pluralistic. While all schools serve the common good when they promote such learning, these characteristics especially define our expectations of public schools.
Charter schools, publicly funded and accountable, have proponents and detractors. Legitimate concerns have been raised about their quality. Empirical evidence shows that charter schools range widely in terms of student learning outcomes and, by and large, do not outperform their traditional public counterparts. Such unremarkable gains are alarming, since many charter schools are advantaged by being selective in which students they admit and retain. It is worth noting that such selectivity is antithetical to the nature of a public charter school because, by definition, public schools should take all comers.
At the same time, some charter schools serve as exemplary public schools through effectively serving a wide array of students, including those who have been marginalized in traditional public schools. Demonstrating responsiveness to parents and creative approaches to curriculum and instruction, charter schools can not only provide valuable options to families, but can serve as incubators for educational innovation. For instance, Nuestro Mundo Community School, piloting a dual language approach to serving Latino students in Madison, has prompted traditional public schools in the district to rethink bilingual service delivery.
Beneath debates over the merit of charter schools lies a fundamental point on which advocates and critics agree: all public schools must prioritize the common good. This principle applies to neighborhood schools, city-wide magnet schools, or charter schools. For schools, prioritizing the common good means reducing educational inequities and improving opportunities, particularly for those students who have traditionally been most disadvantaged.
This brings us back to SB-22, and two components that citizens of all political stripes should resist. First, by modifying teacher licensure requirements, to require only a bachelor’s degree and no teacher’s license for charter school teachers, SB-22 suggests a diminished standard of professionalism for teachers in those schools. Abundant research confirms what parents (and students) intuit: the teacher is the most important factor affecting student learning. Public policy must enhance, not undermine, standards of professionalism for educators in all schools.
Second, by proposing a new, politically appointed “Charter School Authorizing Board” at the state level, SB-22 diminishes the local accountability of these schools. Schools, like most institutions, function best when their ties to the community are strong. Local districts, universities, and municipalities – all of which currently have authority to charter schools – have such connections by design. A state-level, politically-beholden authorizing agency would lack this local level of accountability.
In these tumultuous times, when hyperbolic discord drowns reasoned discourse, Wednesday’s hearing provides citizens across the state an important opportunity to rise above rhetorical positioning to defend public schooling, an enterprise that serves all students, and thus, the common good.
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Dr. Martin Scanlan is Assistant Professor of Educational Policy and Leadership in the College of Education.
One could predict an academic researcher focused on programs that certify teachers would not respond fondly of SB-22.
However, as Clayton Christensen in his book ‘Disrupting Class’ would advocate, charters provide the necessary autonomy for a positive disruption in the market that would not happen on its own. Single authorizers (currently districts) holds innovation hostage and when push come to shove, cut their funding etc, which goes against the entire concept.
This is a great read underlining why more autonomous mechanisms are needed to innovate and redesign education:
http://coopcatalyst.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/school-redesign-vs-school-reform/
http://homegrownonsiskiwit.blogspot.com/2011/03/rural-school-districts-design-flaws-and.html
The above link will inform you about the South Shore School District and our attempt to start a Charter School in Cornucopia, WI. I’m not against public schools. They are necessary. But in rural WI we have a problem. The silo style of teaching, one teacher for every grade, every subject is just too expensive to keep running. Our small group of PARENTS created the vision for a learner centered charter school, Quaking Aspen Field School. We wanted to cooperate with them before this bill passes. We were denied. south Shore School could so easily take our ideas and implement them next year if they wanted to. (They said they love the concept) But they won’t. There is no vision at this school. No one is at the helm of this sinking ship. No one has the guts to stand up and say, “why are 60 out of 200 students open enrolling out of the school district, and how can we get them back? And why do so many families homeschool in our district?” Their solution is to
ask for more money, warning that if the levy does not pass, the school will close in two years. So let it close. We will open our charter school, run by the parents and people of this community, NOT a CORPORATION, when South Shore closes it’s doors.
Your comments about selectivity are flawed for MN and WI. Current laws in both states require charters to accept all applicants based on space limits only, just like open enrollment laws in those states for traditional schools. What is missing from your analysis is the level of parent satisfaction. Parents of children in charter schools are statistically more satisfied than their traditional school peers. SB 22 will give Wisconsin charter schools and parents the ability to form independent schools that will elevate the WI law to the level of MN law which consistently rank as one of the best authorizing laws in the US. While SB 22 may not be perfect, it is the first step in unbinding the creation of innovation in education from the capricious nature of local school boards. As a director of a charter school in MN, I have seen first hand how multiple authorizing pathways have given students and parents hope, choice and the ability to find a school that fits their learning style.
I’d like to briefly respond to the substantive points raised by these comments. I agree that innovative approaches are often the best ways to tackle problems in education. Some school designs have governance and funding structures that provide greater power to parents and communities and flexibility to educators to redesign curriculum and instruction more effectively. I reference an example of one such school in the charter sector in my blog post: Nuestro Mundo Community School.
Oftentimes these efforts face local resistance, as described with the initiative in Cornucopia, WI. Nuestro Mundo faced the same thing: it was started by public school teachers and local parents who first tried to work with the district, but found that they needed to create a charter school to overcome the district’s intransigence.
The assertion that charter schools are as non-selective as their traditional public counterparts is accurate in theory, but not in practice. A careful examination of enrollment and retention numbers shows that charter schools enroll fewer students with disabilities, for instance. Consider evidence provided at a recent hearing at the House of Representatives that addresses this. Claims ignoring the practices of selectivity in charter schools (as well as many other schools across sectors) are either disingenuous or uninformed.
My main point, however, remains that public schools (including charter) have a fundamental responsibility to prioritize the common good by reducing educational inequities and improving opportunities, particularly for those students who have traditionally been most disadvantaged. Simply calling for innovation and redesign carte blanche doesn’t address this core problem, nor does the point that parent satisfaction are an important metric to consider. Reform efforts to charter school laws that do not explicitly improve the structures to prioritize the common good are troublesome. The current efforts to reduce local accountability and professionalism are examples of this.
I welcome further discourse on this! Clearly we all approach matters from our own perspectives. I am shaped by my current role as an educational researcher and a faculty member in an institute of higher education, as well as my previous experience working as a teacher and administrator in both private and public settings. We all approach these matters from our own experiential backgrounds. Hopefully, we are able to draw upon these in manners that enrich, not stifle, debates.
While the assertion that charter schools do not enroll special education students at the same rate in traditional schools is true for nation wide statistics, that is not the case in Minnesota. Charters in Mn enroll special education students on average of 13%, which is the state average. 24% of the students enrolled in the school I direct are special education students. I will concede that California Charters enroll only 6% special education students, but that is not the case in the Midwest Charters. It is also interesting to note that traditional schools in WI can deny an open rolled application for a special education student while the charter can not deny that same student access.
I would also counter that charter schools by law need to be non-discriminatory to meet state and federal laws. Non-enforcement of these laws is not a charter school issue per se, but a lack of oversight and enforcement on the part of State Governments.
In MN, the over whelming majority of students come from disenfranchised groups, with 45% of the students enrolled in our school qualifying for free and reduced lunch.
You fail to provide an mechanism for change for innovation in education. SB 22 is a tool to give reformers the necessary autonomy and finances for that change. Comparing charters to traditional schools at this point in their development lacks an understanding of long term growth and the concept of innovation.