Are charter schools really the best choice?

Table 1: Number and enrollment of public elementary and secondary schools, by school level, type, and charter and magnet status: Selected years, 1990-91 through 2013-14

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), "Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey," 1990-91 through 2013-14. (This table was prepared September 2015.)

      In northwest Baltimore, Md., Tiela, an 8 year-old little girl, black, walks one block to Langston Hughes elementary school. But ratter than go inside, she rides a yellow bus a mile away to Arlington elementary, since Langston closed last year. “Academically, it was one of the best performing schools in its impoverished neighborhood of Park Heights” (Amy Scott 6). Langston, as we classifies it as traditional public school or district school, is one of the victims of the competition from charter schools. “ We see all across the country, charter schools expanding in ways that impoverish public education as a whole”, said NAACP president Cornell Brooks. According to the table that represents the enrollment and number distribution of non-charter schools and charter schools, it is safe to say that the regular public schools are experiencing extremely low rate of increase in quantities and enrollment. Comparably, charter schools’ enrollment was five times during 2013-2014 from 2000-2001 and their quantities almost are tripled during 2013-2014 from 2000-2001 (see table 1).

The expansion of charter schools seems to become the cure for the American education. Recently during an education hearing, Betsy DeVos, Mr. Trump’s pick for education secretary, strongly suggested that parents should be able to send their children to successful public schools mainly charter schools. However, the debate about whether charters schools outperform public schools in fair competition and weather charter schools are available for every kid remains unquestioned.

What is the performance of the transferred disadvantaged students in charter schools?

In Tiela’s situation, is there any guarantee that she will do better in Arlington elementary? We don’t have an answer because when facing the justification that whether charter schools always outperform its counterpart traditional public schools, charter schools’ answers are always vague and lack of supportive evidence. From a report from the executive office of the president, it records that “disadvantaged students often fall behind in higher-performing schools” (3). Here is a clearer comparison between disadvantaged students and white students in charter schools (see table 2).

Table 2: Achievement Gaps in Our Lowest Performing Schools.

(Source: Source: 2012–13 Common Core of Data (Title I status, student membership) and 2012–13 EDFacts State Assessment Data)

Huge gap between different groups makes us doubt about that if the existence of charter schools fails to take care of disadvantaged students. In his book, The Death And Life of The Great American School System, Dinae Ravitch claims, “When students compared with by race and ethnicity, there was little difference in the test scores of students in charter school and regular public schools”, after the 2007 NAEP was released (Ravitch, 140). On 2003 NAEP, Christopher Lubienski and Sarah Theule found that regular school performed “relatively well when compared to demographically similar private schools and charter schools, without the remedy of major, private-style structural reforms in their governance and management”(Lubienski and Theule 40). In addition, in 1998, Garn and Stout compared the student achievement between charter schools and non-charter public schools given the data from at-risk students and found that charter schools have not made any significant achievement in improving test scores for at-risk students. (Lin Qiuyun 7). From the evidence of the past and current statistics, we can safely conclude that less improvement had been made by charter schools to improve disadvantaged students and disadvantaged students even have better performance in their public schools compared with charter schools.

Effectiveness.

However, we have to admit that some charter schools prove its academic achievement over public schools. In New York City, some of the best public elementary schools (charter schools) are in Community School District 3 where “the vast majority of children pass the annual state tests, gifted and talented programs buzz with activity, and special programs attract promising young musicians or families who want a progressive approach to education” (Taylor 1). Here is another example in Philadelphia where Steel Elementary School was about to be taken over by Mastery Charter Schools. In his article, “How to Destroy Public School System”, Daniel Denvir demonstrates, “Founded in 2001 with 100 ninth graders, Mastery now educates its own district-within-a-district of nearly 100000 students in fifteen schools and boasts high test scores and culture of determined optimism” (Denvir 5). But the comparison of superiority solely on NAEP or test scores does not give us the actual performance of the schools. The transparency of sores itself is a problem. Date back to the January 8, 2002 when No Child Left Behind law was passed, it strictly required all public schools to prepare state test and they need to reach 100 percent of proficiency in reading and mathematics. And the “proficiency” was defined by each state, so there were various standards in states. Ravitch commend that this “allowed states to claims gains even when there were none” (Ravitch 101). Qinyun claims that, “Although advocates consistently agree that charter schools will improve student achievement, to date there is no available evidence to support this assertion, because extant data are flawed by small samples and inadequate research designs” (Lin Qinyun 7). Vague test standard and inadequate research would mislead parents and students to choose charter schools.

The resulting of intensive competition was that the school that failed to make progress toward 100 percent proficiency was defined as a school in need of improvement (SINI), and it would encounter serious sanction. And most low-performing public schools were facing reconstruction or take-over by charter school. This pushed public schools into more disadvantaged situation. What happened was that their motivated children were encouraged to select other schools and many low-performing schools closed because they had no effective way to turnaround. Many public school supporters blame it to charter schools that take away their resources. In Mastery Charter Schools’ expansion, it “appear to game the state’s special- education payment system to secure a larger share of district funds. In 2013, according to the Philadelphia Public School Notebook, city charters obtained nearly $100 million more than they spent on special education” (Denvir 8). Ravitch claims that “Charter schools may attract the most motivated students, may discharge laggards, and may get additional financial resources from their corporate sponsors, enabling them to offer smaller classes, after-school and enrichment activities, and laptop computers for every student”(Ravitch 136-137). This approves the abundant resources of charter schools, and anyone could expect its high academic standard based its advantage. However, the evaluation of the effectiveness of charter school cannot be based on test scores neither its huge advantages over public schools. Instead, more rational speaking, its effectiveness should be based on how much they improve based on each dollar taxpayer put into it. Even Michael Masch, the school district’s former chief financial officer and a progressive fan of Mastery’s work, makes a point that Mastery was “not doing more with less,” Masch says, “They’re doing more with more” (Denvir 8). This means the achievement of Mastery Charter Schools was the result of huge amount of funding. In his “Positioning Charter Schools in Los Angeles: Diversity of Form and Homogeneity of Effects”, Douglas Less Lauen, Bruce Fuller and Luke Dauter lists four types of charter schools: affiliated star-up, affiliated conversion, independent start-up and independent conversion. They demonstrate that “the institutional structuring of these distinct charter types serves to both divide and secure channels of funding, staff resources, and forms of legitimacy—reducing resource uncertainties and setting the constitutive rules of the game within a local education field” (Lauen, Fuller and Dauter 222). They suggest charter school has distinct institutional channel of resources depends on their type. However, they examined effects on test score growth overall, by charter type, and across four different cohorts of students, estimating models only for those students who remain in a charter or traditional public school during the time series and they found, “no statistically significant positive effects of attending a charter school on achievement growth” (Lauen, Fuller and Dauter 233). Regardless of the type of the schools, their research makes us rethink the effectiveness of charter school over regular public schools.

Are charter schools always available to disadvantaged students?

If charter schools as advocates expect is a successful way of educating students, are they always open to disadvantaged students? Here I am asking whether every student has the right to choose their schools and whether they prefer to enjoy their right of school choice, which can explain my position in defending that charter schools choose their students ratter students choose them. In an article, Kate Taylor reports, “New York Charters Enroll Fewer Homeless Pupils Than City Schools”, Kate Taylor reports, “With a record number of New Yorkers experiencing homelessness, charter schools are serving fewer homeless students, proportional to their total enrollment, than traditional public schools” (Taylor 4). When low-income students want to attend charter school they prefer, they find that they are not allowed to enter. Major reason is that the amount of applicants succeeds the seats available. And when the letter telling parents their right of transferring their students to a better school always was unclear and arrives late (Ravitch 99). Ravitch claims, “Many charter schools enforce discipline codes that would likely be challenged in court if they were adopted in regular public schools; and because charter schools are schools of choice, they find it is easier to avoid, eliminate, or counsel out low-performing and disruptive students” (Ravitch 137). Additionally, some students and parents are willing to stay in public school than transfer to another school far away from their living circumstance. “When offered a chance to leave their failing schools and to attend a supposedly better school in another part of the town, less than 5 percent-and in some cases, less than 1 percent-of students actually sought to transfer” (Ravitch 100).

Table 3: Achievement Gaps in Our Lowest Performing Schools

Source: 2012–13 Common Core of Data (Title I status, student membership) and 2012–13 EDFacts Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate data

The result of the unwillingness and not having enough seats available for students who want to transfer lock millions of students in low-performing schools. According to the executive report, “these low-performing schools, approximately 3,000 elementary and middle schools serving more than a million students across the nation, are in crisis” (The Executive Office of President 3). And here is a table showing the gap in reading and mathematics score and graduation rate between low-performing schools and other schools (see table 3).

Less founds also causes less supportive program and staff for low-performing school. “In 2013–14, the School District of Philadelphia had 6,321 fewer staff than it did at the end of 2011, according to district figures—a decrease of nearly 27 percent. The reduction included 2,723 fewer teachers, fifty-eight nurses, 406 counselors, 286 secretaries and 411 noon- time aides” (Denvir 31).

Conclusion

Though some charter school has made great improvement in academic performance based on its performance in test scores. But creditable research also implies the opposite by suggesting their performance has not gained much. What we can refer is that charter schools should meet more expectation corresponding with its huge advantage over public school under current support of US government; more importantly, it should improve disadvantaged students and open more space for them.

 Work Cited

Scott, Amy. “The civil rights divide over charter schools.” Marketplace. 12 Jan 2017, Web. 27 Jan.2017.

            <https://www.marketplace.org/2017/01/12/world/naacp-others-call-moratorium-charter-schools>

Ravitch, Diane. The Death And Life of The Great American School System. Basic Books, 2010.

Denvir, Daniel. "HOW TO DESTROY A PUBLIC-SCHOOL SYSTEM. (Cover Story)." Nation 299.15 (2014): 20-26. Academic Search Complete. Web. 27 Jan. 2017.

“GIVING EVERY CHILD A FAIR SHOT.” The Executive Office of the President. July 2017. Web. 27 Jan. 2017. <https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/esea_white_house_report_.pdf>

Taylor, Kate. “Harlem Schools Are Left to Fail as Those Not Far Away Thrive.” 24 Jan 2017. Web. 27 Jan. 2017. <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/24/nyregion/harlem-schools-are-left-to-fail-as-those-not-far-away-thrive.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FCharter%20Schools&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection>

---, “New York Charters Enroll Fewer Homeless Pupils Than City Schools.” 9 Dec 2016. Web. 27 Jan. 2017. <https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/nyregion/new-york-charters-enroll-fewer-homeless-pupils-than-city-schools.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FCharter%20Schools&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=collection>

Lubienski, Christopher and Sarah, Theule. “Charter, Private, Public Schools and Academic Achievement: New Evidence from NAEP Mathematics Data.” New York: National Center for the study of Privatization in Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, 2006. 2-5, 40.

Lauen, Douglas Lee, Bruce Fuller, and Luke Dauter. "Positioning Charter Schools in Los Angeles: Diversity of Form and Homogeneity of Effects." American Journal of Education 121.2 (2015): 213-39. Print.

Lin, Qiuyun. "An Evaluation of Charter School Effectiveness." Education 122.1 (2001): 166. Print.