Time to reassess costly charter schools
THIS SUMMER, as I interviewed another disillusioned charter school teacher looking for a public school teaching position, I realized that much of what the public hears about charter schools is either myth or misinformation. Charter schools have captured the interest of some parents and legislators who believe they stimulate innovation in public education. It is easy to say, "Why not let an interested group of parents start a school and see what they can do?"
However, the public is not always aware that charters are a costly experiment requiring state and local dollars above normal expenditures. Next year the charter school program will require an estimated $170 million of school district and state funds. In contrast, the state will expend only $75 million on the Department of Education's early childhood program, $23 million on full-day kindergarten, $14 million on school nursing and school-based health centers, and $201 million for relief to all school districts statewide for educating special education students.
Charter advocates claim that dollars follow students. However, the average of $9,000 per pupil charters receive from the sending district reflects fixed administrative and building maintenance costs that do not disappear when the student transfers to a charter school. In addition, the $9,000 includes costs such as municipal administration and retired teacher pensions that are not incurred by charters.
Given the significant investment of public funds, an experiment of this scale deserves continuing and thorough scrutiny to ensure it is a worthwhile expenditure of scarce taxpayer dollars. Yet, some legislators, state Board of Education members, and advocates of charter schools appear reluctant to support an independent review in spite of significant questions about the operation of charters.
Many people have raised concerns about the current funding formula that generously funds charters while seriously compromising the resources of sending school districts. However, other significant issues need review. For example, charter advocates indicate that charter students are more diverse than the state population. In fact, most charters enroll far fewer English language learners and special education and low-income students than the districts from which their students are drawn. Not surprisingly, many observers believe that charters are essentially skimming the easiest to educate students from the public schools.
Student attrition in the majority of charters is troubling. It may be easy for a charter to perform well if struggling students choose to leave the school. High teacher and administrator turnover in charter schools raises questions about instructional quality, program stability, and working conditions. With a few exceptions, the general academic performance of charters appears to be no better than the sending school performance. With the significant investment we are making, our standards and expectations for charter student performance should be much higher.
Public schools do not fear innovation and choice. Schools around the state have adopted effective reform models, successfully included students with disabilities in regular classrooms, and developed programs for English language learners. These initiatives are available to everyone and are accountable to the voting members of our community.
In contrast, charters have no accountability to their local communities, either financially or academically. This lack of accountability creates serious tensions within their local community.
Moreover, few reforms initiated by charters have application to public schools -- the original intent for creating charters. Although some charters work collaboratively with the local district or offer programs public schools cannot provide, many are simply well-funded private enterprises no better, and sometimes worse, than the public schools from which they draw their students.
In spite of these concerns, the only reviews of this expensive experiment have been conducted by pro-charter groups. Now, before spending more resources on charter schools, we need a full and independent review of the effectiveness of our charter school policies and the schools themselves. It is time for charters to be accountable to the original mission of the legislation that created them. And it is time for a moratorium on expanding this expensive experiment until we have an independent assessment of how best to pursue that mission.
Given scarce resources for public education, it is time to make sure this experiment is worthy of further investment of public resources. An independent assessment will help untangle the myths and misinformation and enable us to make better public policy decisions about the future of Massachusetts education.
Sheldon H. Berman is superintendent of schools in Hudson and past president of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents.
