Enter Horace Mann
THE ANNUAL assault on Massachusetts charter schools is underway with a proposed amendment to the House budget that could jeopardize funding for students attending the 49 autonomous schools. Having failed in an earlier attempt to impose a moratorium on charter schools, opponents now seek to suppress the movement by capping the payments that charter schools receive from school districts at $5,000 per student.
School officials bristle when their students and a goodly portion of the per capita costs for educating them depart for charter schools. It's chastening, and it was meant to be. The crafters of the state's 1993 education reform law hoped that school districts would respond to the challenge by adopting the charter movement's flexible approach to teacher hiring, scheduling, budgeting, curriculum, and length of school day. Instead, much of that energy has been spent lobbying the Legislature to weaken funding for charter schools.
There is some middle ground, but few seem willing to cultivate it. In 1997, the Legislature created Horace Mann charter schools, which get comprehensive support --including buildings and materials -- from the school district, and which compensate teachers according to union contracts. But other traditional restrictions can be set aside, leaving educators with more control over scheduling and courses. The introduction of dozens of such schools in the state would likely elevate student achievement and deescalate the battles between school districts and autonomous charter schools. Yet only eight Horace Mann schools now exist statewide, and not a single application has been filed in the last two years. Boston, to its credit, has created 19 pilot schools that operate along similar, semi-autonomous lines. But most school officials elsewhere are failing even to consider an option that could reinvigorate public education in their cities and towns.
On Thursday, a conference sponsored by the nonprofit Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy will try to uncover why Horace Mann schools have failed to take root. A recent study by the group points to several obstacles, including teacher union resistance to possible schedule changes and superintendents' fears that, once staffers taste freedom, they may want to opt out of the school system entirely and form independent charter schools. Financial disincentives also play a role. Autonomous charter schools, for example, can carry over money available at the end of the year. But Horace Mann charter schools must negotiate such terms.
School officials are conditioned to attack at the mention of the word ''charter." But they can't stem reform. Education reformer Horace Mann made that clear in Massachusetts more than 150 years ago.
