Social Justice and the Charter Schools

I feel like there are a couple things being lost in this discussion:

1. Charter schools are public schools. They are charted by the state to operate.

2. Funding. Charter schools are nonprofits that can pull in philanthropic dollars in ways that public schools can not.

3. There have been a lot of blanket statements about the failures of charter schools. The research does not hold on that. What the research does show is the following: It appears that there is wide variation in academic performance, similar to the variation in traditional public schools. Charter schools have lower test scores than traditional public schools. However, charter schools are more likely to serve African Americans and Latinos and lower-income students. When you compare performance on race and income, performance with public schools is the same. Is that a failure? I don't think so. Most charter schools are relatively new and the qualitative differences in education are not taken into account. (http://www.newschools.org/viewpoints/ideas_at_work.htm) and (http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/choice/pcsp-final/index.html) (http://www.nagb.org/release/charterschool1204.html)

4. Even the NEA is not total against charter schools. They have some criteria that they believe important for charter schools, most of which are reasonable. (http://www.nea.org/charter/index.html)

5. Progressive Christians have traditionally supported alternative education efforts while supporting universal education. Alternative schools within school districs are progressive favorites. And let's not forget the immense Catholic education system that provides a viable alternative to public schools, especially in low income areas. Many progressive Christians, especially progressive Catholics have been very supportive of Catholic education.

To respond generally...
I think its great for progressive Christians to envision an ideal system for public education, but in the meantime many schools in poor areas are failing. Its entirely appropriate to think through the decisions that low income parents have to make. It grounds the discussion in reality and not just ideology. There's a reason why poor parents line up to get into top performing schools...because the school in their neighborhood that their children are assigned to go to just isn't functioning as it should.

Progressives are about universal education indeed. No one would argue with the fact that we want schools that are equitably funded, that each school have well paid teachers and ongoing teacher training, that curriculla is engaging and meets high academic and personal development standards. These are all things that we must ensure for our children, but there is a lack of clarity as to how we get there.

Progressives are also about innovation and social entrepeneurship. I do believe charter schools are part of the equation. They have the freedom to experiment with different modes of education, to extend the school day, try innovative curricula.

Another example of this innovation and entrepeneurship is out of school time programs. After school programs are run by both public schools and by nonprofit organizations that work inside or outside the school. These programs provide essential enrichment and academic reinforcement to the 6 hours a day in the classroom. Would the folks arguing against charter schools also say that all after school programs must be provided by school districts as well? Some great innovations have occurred, especially in low-income districts, by nonprofit programs addressing the out of school time hours. Charter schools provide similar innovation and alternatives for families.

If you are an educator and you believe that the school day should be extended, that the curriculla doesn't have enough technology skills development, or that parents should be required to be more involved, where can you test your ideas? The freedom by and large doesn't exist in public schools, so many social entrepeneurs have developed charter schools. Some have failed, some have succeeded and some have been so-so. You accept some risk and failure when you try new things. It similar to the business world. The big companies operate as they do, but innovation comes from entrepeneurs. Successful new ventures either make it big themselves or get incorporated into a big company.Successful charter schools can take off on their own, but more importantly, their succcessful innovations can be adopted throughout our educational system, having been tested in a smaller, more controlled environment.

I believe in a universal system, but I also believe that we need to foster innovation in education. Progressives support reforms efforts whether within traditional schools or charter schools because the need for change is so desperate. Charter schools are not incompatible with universal education values, but indeed play an important, catalyzing role in the ecosystem of public education.

I think the critical question for both Christians and American citizens is not "what's best for my child." The glowing results in some charter schools begs the question: What is to become of the children of inept parents and the children with disabilities after public schools are drained of funds, talented teachers, and capable students? Jesus called us to care for "the least of these."

Pilgrim for Christ This comment came from on of the Pilgrims for Christ. Jan is chairing her teacher's union in Oregon this year and I thought her comments were worth noting. They were in response to my copying the original blog entries to our email group. "Peggy, I don't have the time to go into depth on the challenges with charter schools, but I certainly don't agree with the second writer, although I don't necessarily have the answers for what to do about our nations' schools in poor areas. I recently read somewhere a very discouraging piece about how terribly difficult it can be to turn them around, even with proper funding, technique, and motivated educators. It's a long-term challenge. Charter schools are a sloganistic short-term solution and part of a real assault on public education in America. Why should we raise the teacher preparation standards for our public schools and then lower them for charter schools? Why would we alter safety or health or any other kinds of regulations that have been put in place for our public schools and exempt charter schools? And many teachers I know would be willing to lengthen the school year - just pay them for it. I think that we need to offer more educational options within the public school system, but charter schools are NOT the answer, and by and large, it appears that they are showing themselves to be less effective than public schools. The data that is coming in is not in their favor. Ah, guess I went on too long, Peggy. Sorry! Education issues are my life." Jan

One of the things I find most curious about the highly-politicized debate over charter schools is that, despite the fact, as Jo notes, many associate the movement as the latest diabolical ploy of the NeoCon menace, the founders, directors, teachers, and administrators that actually run these schools are as left-leaning as many of us--arguably more so, given that they have left their arm chairs of liberality to actually battle in the trenches themselves.

I spent three years working with the Project for School Innovation (www.psinnovation.org) on teacher leadership and knowledge sharing with Charter and traditional district public schools in greater Boston. During this time, I was beyond impressed by charter schools like Neighborhood House Charter School (http://www.nhcsonline.org/), Academy of the Pacific Rim (www.pacrim.org), and Boston Collegiate Charter School (http://www.sbha.org/), to name a few.

Each of these schools serves the same diverse mix of students as Boston Public Schools. Free from the constrainsts of district and union mandates, students at these schools perform at or above their peers at Boston's elite exam schools (ex. Boston Latin), or in Boston's more affluent suburbs. When they fail to, the state closes them down (ex. Frederick Douglass Charter School - www.doe.mass.edu/boe/minutes/05/0728reg.doc). Where there are slight differences in percentages of students on individual ed plans, or free-and-reduced lunch, Boston is working to fine tune its funding formula so that it is more in line with the real costs of teaching different kinds of kids. I believe Seattle uses a similar formula.

In some cases, these schools have over 1000 families on their waiting lists. Parents are so desperate for alternatives to existing schools that they clamor for seats even untested, new Charter schools.

Charters still serve only a tiny fraction of all students in public schools. Yet through collaborations like the Project for School Innovation, educators at charter and district schools manage to set aside the politics to share ideas for how to reach kids, and to raise the bar for all schools.

What's more, even though the Massachusetts and Boston Teachers Unions are as adamantly opposed to charters here as they are in most districts around the country, Boston's Superintendent, Tom Payzant, has responded by offering more choices to parents--creating a network of "Pilot Schools," which gain much of the autonomy over curriculum and staffing as charters, while still benefiting from scale efficiencies of affiliation with a larger district. Boston has also refined its school lottery algorithm, to maximize the number of families that earn seats in their top-choice schools.

Jo, your lead quote raises other important questions about No Child Left Behind, and our current path towards more and more pervasive high-stakes tests. It is a tough balancing act for schools to prepare kids for those without beating the love of learning out of them. Here again, I have been inspired by how many charter schools have pulled this off. Look at the KidLab program at Neighborhood House Charter SChool (http://www.psinnovation.org/PSI/btft03-2.html), Deborah Meier's Central Park East Elementary in New York or Mission Hill School in Boston, or the network of schools launched by the Big Picture Company (http://www.bigpicture.org/). The list goes on.

What would Jesus do in this debate?

Good question.

I don't think there is an easy answer.

I know he loves those union folks, locking arms in protest against schools they see as draining funds from their coffers.

He loves those Republicans, who love charters because they have faith in competition and market-based solutions, and don't believe you can fix a broken system by pouring more money into it.

He loves those parents, praying their child will earn a seat in a charter school.

And we sure know he loves those kids.

If he had his own, who knows, maybe he'd home school.

Steve, thanks for writing! Your expertise is exactly the kind that should be driving a timely and important discussion of the future of American schools.

I think we miss the big picture when we think about what I or you should do as poor or rich parents or educators. Individuals do have to make hard choices about their children's education. But Christians, whether they have children are not, whether they teach or not, are called to inquire into the way their society functions, and how just that society is for all. Christian activists in the nineteenth century were among the most prominent lobbyists for an expanded education system. They worked to save children from long hours in factories, and to require years of education for all students. They lobbied to provide adequate money for the public schools, and to ensure a curriculum that served the interests of the pupils

Those nineteenth century activists could never have envisioned high schools like jails where metal detectors stand at every entrance, where a majority of graduates cannot read.

Our schools now stand on the threshold of an entirely new phase. If they continue in the direction of one trend, by the year 2050 no American education of any quality will be available to those except of the smallest, most secure minority. For poor and immigrant children, school will merely serve the function of a jail for conveniently locking up the dangerous members of future ghettos. The only hope will be the occasional, voluntary charity of well-meaning communities.

Charitable communities and churches can take on the burden of a few children at a time, but they aren't intended to take on the problem of entire neighborhoods and ghettos, or to face the structural differences in income and opportunity created by race and class.

All I mean is a warning: the future is neither with public schools nor with the extended adolescence of a compulsory, inflated, and meaningless university education. We must be careful, as we enter the coming century, to preserve some of the social mandates for a truly democratic society that were once embodied by public schools.

Public schools, for Dewey and other American philosophers of the progressive movement, theoretically implied that all citizens would have an equal opportunity to be educated, to participate meaningfully in politics, and to rise to great success. The expansion of university education to the middle class after the 1950s, and to minorities and the poor with affirmative action in the 1980s, was similarly meant to accomplish the political goals of a diverse, equally-opportunitied, participatory democracy.

Nobody can contest that the public schools' time has come. As you state, hampered by bureaucracy, funding, and bussing, the public schools rarely fulfill their role except for a tiny minority of upper-middle-class suburbs, and then only because they abandon previous' generations ideals of a public school system open to all.

We often speak about the choices of individual parents: this is the context in which the question of charter schools is most often raised in the media. A talk-show host might raise the question as a common ethical dilemma: if you were a rich parent in a poor district, who wanted to support your community, but also wanted the best for your child, what's the best choice for you? The best solution for the individual is often, a charter school: it benefits both community (by offering scholarships to deserving poor children) and simultaneously benefits the individual child with a better education than that available at a public school.

But what is the best solution for a community? A charter school takes on *some* of the poorer and less gifted children, but it never has the ambition to take on all. A charter school in competition with many other charter schools (as they will eventually be) will compete to prove that it can win more funds and educate more students. In the interest of the individual charter school's success, most students of slums will go unschooled and untutored.

Such a solution -- with charter schools educating a minority of gifted and rich students as efficiently as possible -- might not be any different than what we have now, and it may offer particular individuals a better choice than what we have now. But let me ask: does it represent the best vision of society that we can manufacture? Is it the kind of society we're working for as progressives?

Traditionally, progressives have argued that the State should step in at a stage when individual begin to speak about universal education. The State should provide education, because the State is the only institution large enough to commandeer funds from all and redistribute education equally for all.

In the year 2005, American opinion has swung away from the opinion that the State -- or at least the federal government -- should be in the business of engineering local life. Progressives need to take these statements seriously. Among my own progressive friends -- many being childless to a late age -- few think hard about education. We tend to believe in the State's ability to use taxes to support public goods like police and highways, but we also accept that the public school system in its current state has failed. So we raise here a question to which we might not immediately have a good solution.

Steve has wisely raised the problems faced by individuals: individuals don't want to pay taxes to support an ineffective and violent system; nor do they want their kids to participate in it. Christian individuals, as educators and parents, are forced in such a reality to make hard choices about how they support children.

I want to challenge Steve and our other readers to provide for us the criteria of how a Christian *society* would organize its schools. Charter schools are almost certainly in our future. I'm less concerned with the reality of the charter school in any given area, than the future in which all education is carried out by charter schools competing with each other in a free market for funds and students.

In the long run, what's to stop the new charter school system from recreating the worst racial and economic injustices of the American education system before the era of affirmative action? What's to stop the poorest charter schools from automatically receiving the poorest students, whose applications are automatically dismissed by universities to which they apply? What, beyond occasional acts of charity on behalf of the occasional brilliant impoverished Latina ten-year-old, will remedy these structural inequalities?

I've encapsulated the nineteenth century progressive vision: more schools, more money, equally distributed for all. Socialist nations like those in Europe have made a version of this equally-disbursed education work, but only at the cost of limiting the choices available to all students. American public schools have similarly failed to accomplish an equal education for all. Charter schools won't try to.

What sort of an America are we fighting for? What kind of school system -- as a universal system, not as an individual school -- will do justice to the American belief in a range of choices for every individual, on the one hand, and the American conviction that being an ethnic minority from a poor family should not set the individual child back?

I don't know what sort of a vision progressive the Christian would subscribe to, but this is why I open up the question.

Jo

Jo,

Have to say that I disagree on charter schools. I spent a year working in an inner-city public school and a few years working with charter schools and big city public school administrations. The fact is that public schools in many, if not most low-income areas, are absolutely failing poor kids and their families.

The charter schools in these low income areas have the freedom (often from the teacher's union and the big administrative bureaucracy) to be entrepeneurial, to try new ways of educating kids who have so many other difficulties in their lives. Charter schools can do things like extend the school day, require more parental involvement and integrate technology and other job skill development in a more comprehensive manner. The fact is that many charter schools do a better job of educating than their public school counterparts. And the people running these schools aren't right wing idealogues. Most of the people I know are actually quite progresseive.

I am a huge believer in public education. My mom and brother are both public school teachers. They both work in the suburbs where the schools certainly have their problems, but do a fantastic job of turning out well educated graduates who go on to college or technical training. Public schools in inner city areas must be improved. Many school districts have stepped up to the challenge that charter schools represent and have improved, but there's still a lot of work to do. Funding equity between suburban and urban schools would help. As would more flexiblitiy from the teachers' unions on length of school day and year.

I do think it important that we not get caught up in ideology on this issue. If you are a low-income parent, you often have a choice: keep sending your kid to a school rife with violence and an inadequate learning environment or find a way to get your child to a school that is doing a much better job educating children. That's a choice that most suburban parents don't have to make. It is a reality for many poor parents. We should not fault those parents for choosing charter schools and we should not fault the hardworking educators and social entrepeneurs that seek to do their part to improve education.

from Panama,
Steve