Morning Shots

January 9, 2013

No, we don’t have the ability to tell the future, we just know what solid chartering practices look like, and Maine does not have them. Yesterday’s Newswire noted the Governor’s attempts to improve Maine’s charter school law, but we suggested he go further and consider real multiple authorizers not tied to the state.

Which is why news of the rejection of 4 out of 5 brick and mortar charter schools, as well as two virtual charter schools, unfortunately doesn’t come as much of a surprise.

Check out The Essential Guide to Charter School Lawmaking – Model Legislation for States for more on what constitutes an effective charter school law.

January 2, 2013

Charters still suffer inequity despite great success, a point reinforced in a recent piece by Peter Roff.

Chester, Pennsylvania, has more than 3,000 students in charter schools, with a better success rate than local public schools. As Roff puts it:

Creating what it calls a “Private, Public School” culture, the Chester charter school offers a 10-1 student-teacher ratio as well as academic programs created in partnership with nearby colleges and universities, which the regular public schools, by contrast, simply cannot match.

…despite 50 percent of the school’s funding being withheld, forcing drastic cuts in student services, its students “outperformed the rest of the Chester Upland School District in the Pennsylvania System of School Assessments in reading and math by 20 percent.”

This supports what CER found in our Annual Survey of America’s Charter Schools and other research on charters and performance:

· Inequity in funding is not exclusive to PA. On average nationally charters receive about 30% less per pupil than their traditional public school counterparts.

· Charters do more with less funding and serve predominantly disadvantaged students.

· Charters in high demand because, as Mr. Roff points out, they typically operate very differently than the traditional system.

But even with those spectacular results (or, perhaps – perversely – because of them) freedom and flexibility is under attack with calls for more regulation and less autonomy.

Especially, though not only, in Pennsylvania.

A commentary in the Wall Street Journal today, “The Irrational Fear of For-Profits in Education” , could not have come at a better time, as the hearing on the Brockton charter school, run by for-profit provider SABIS, is today in Massachusetts.

The Wall Street Journal piece notes that Americans are fine with privatization in many other areas, like transportation, yet there is an odd bias against for-profits running schools. “Critics charge that for-profits are distracted by the demands of investors, while public systems can focus solely on the children. Yet the vast majority of K-12 spending goes to pay employee benefits and salaries. Meanwhile, school boards and superintendents have accepted crippling benefit obligations and dubious policies to placate employees and community interests.”

The local Massachusetts superintendent, who has been selected as the next state superintendent, falls victim to this bias and has vocally opposed the charter (and was even caught trashing charters on company time). What’s crazy is that SABIS already successfully runs schools elsewhere in The Bay State and is helping “close the achievement gap between its mostly minority student body and white counterparts in the suburbs“.

As the Boston Globe notes, “SABIS has earned the right to expand in Massachusetts” — they should at least be given a fair shot and not be short-changed based on the fact that they operate to make a little change — which according to the academic record here, isn’t just monetary.