Problem
- Charter schools divert funds from fiscally strapped school districts.
- Contrary to what charter proponents claim, charter school caps have not been reached in any community in the state.
- An influential 2009 study funded by the Boston Foundation, while sophisticated and sound in methodology, is seriously flawed and has been widely mischaracterized as “proving” the superiority of urban charter schools.
- The study’s conclusions are based on 26% of the charter sample (0 out of 5 charter elementary schools, 4 out of 13 charter middle schools, 3 out of 9 charter high schools) that had waiting lists (most of the rest had bad records or no waiting list). Of course, the schools with good records and waiting lists are the high performers, while the lower performing charters, including two that have since been closed due to underperformance and one that has been recommended for closure, were left off the lottery study.
- The current 54 Commonwealth charter schools are projected to absorb more than $266 million in state funds this fiscal year, including $245 million diverted directly from Chapter 70 for tuition and more than $21 million in so called “facilities aid”. The $266 million in tuition and facilities’ costs represents an almost 100 percent increase for charter schools in the past five years. In addition, the state is projected to spend more than $56.4 million this fiscal year for tuition reimbursement.
- Charter schools use public funds without public (elected school committee) oversight. Because of state control, local communities are denied the ability to reject them.
- There is a demographic difference between charter schools and the districts from which they draw their students. Proportionately fewer low-income students, fewer students with special needs, almost no English language learners and no children with severe disabilities.
- Many charter schools have high attrition rates (sending underperforming students back to the public school district).
- Charter schools increase transportation costs, exacerbate segregation and have extremely high rates of teacher turnover.
Position
Citizens for Public Schools believes that allowing or promoting more charter schools in Massachusetts would drain desperately needed resources from traditional public schools, which continue to serve our neediest students and families. Rather than focus attention and resources on schools that serve less than 3% of our students, let’s focus resources and support on the schools that serve the vast majority of all students—rich and poor, black and white, typical and disabled, English speakers and English language learners. We need an independent study of Commonwealth charters and we need to fix the funding mechanism for charter schools.
Solution
Citizens for Public Schools supports H 506 which establishes a working group to study what works and what doesn’t work in charter schools and to look at the funding mechanism. CPS also supports S237, a data collection bill which would enable us to, at long last determine who is in charter schools, what those waiting lists really mean, what is the attrition rate for pupils and teachers.
What Can You Do?
- Join Citizens for Public Schools.
- Contact your legislators: http://www.mass.gov/legis/city_town.htm and urge them to support H 506 (establishing a working group to study charters) and S237 (a data collection bill to determine who is in charters, what waiting lists mean and the attrition rate at charters for pupils and teachers).
- Write letters to the editor sharing your perspective on how to improve public education and the role of charter schools.
- Talk to your friends and neighbors about the need to support public schools and urge them to join CPS.
Worth Reading
“Are Charter Schools the Answer?” Mary Jo Hetzel of Work-4-Quality/Fight-4-Equity and the Coalition for Equal Quality Education, examines the charter school track record in Chicago, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New Orleans and Ohio and concludes they are not the answer to providing quality and equity to our public schoolchildren.
A national study of charter middle schools found students who won lotteries to attend charter middle schools performed, on average, no better in mathematics and reading than their peers who lost out in the random admissions process and enrolled in nearby regular public schools. An article on the study in the June 29, 2010 Education Week is here. The study is here.
CPS Co-Chairs Ruth Rodriguez and Barbara Fields wrote a letter to Governor Deval Patrick asking that he use his power to rescind the charter granted in Gloucester under indefensible circumstances.
“Charter lobby group details contributions,” a CPS analysis, peers into the deep, deep pockets of the charter school lobby and sees how much money there is and where it comes from. Given the lobby’s largesse, it’s not surprising that it had so much influence on the recent Massachusetts “education reform” bill.
“Charters: Students With Disabilities Need Not Apply” by Thomas Hehir of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, says it’s time for policymakers to directly address the issue of charter schools’ imbalanced enrollment of students with disabilities. “Traditional public schools are serving far greater numbers of them than charter schools, particularly those whose disabilities require significant special education services,” Hehir writes in Education Week, January 27, 2010. (Note: Education Week restricts full access to its articles to subscribers, but allows nonsubscribers to view a limited number of articles per week.)
Roger Garberg, PhD, a member of the Gloucester School Committee, has compiled some important data comparing the enrollment statistics of Massachusetts charter schools with those of regular public schools in the sending district. [Click to read "Are Charter Schools a Plausible Remedy for the Achievement Gap?" Garberg, 2009. Click here for a table comparing charter school enrollments with their sending districts.] The data show clearly that regular district schools for the most part enroll many more of the students with the greatest learning needs—e.g., students with disabilities, limited English proficient students—than do charter schools. He also shows how charters are an obstacle to racial and ethnic diversity in Boston. [Click to read "More Charter Schools: A New Obstacle to Racial/Ethnic Diversity in Boston," Garberg, 2009.]
Two recent reports on charter schools in Massachusetts contradict the talking points of the pro charter school movement. One highlights the sky-high attrition rates in Boston Charter Schools. The other reports on the lack of ELL (English Language Learners) in charter schools throughout the state.
And a recent report by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University found that there is a wide variance in the quality of the nation’s several thousand charter schools with, in the aggregate, students in charter schools not faring as well as students in traditional public schools. The report is available here.
Boston Globe: “Charters Must Commit to Diversity,” by Susan Eaton and Gina Chirichigno, July 19, 2009
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/07/19/charters_must_commit_to_diversity/
Letter to the editor of the Boston Globe from CPS Board Member, sent and published:
With a faltering economy compounding the woes of struggling families and students (and the schools that serve them), Governor Patrick’s newfound faith in charter schools is deeply troubling (“Test scores drove charter decision,” July 17. Despite considerable hype, charters are unproven, leaky vessels that are unlikely to reach the promised land of educational excellence and equity. Worse, they divert scarce resources from schools that serve the neediest students and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
There is scant evidence, though much ideology, behind the notion of charter school superiority. The overall record shows charters do not outperform traditional public schools serving similar students. Moreover, some of the most highly praised charter schools lose most of their students between freshman and senior year (then claim 100% college going rates for the small fraction who remain). Where do they go? They either drop out or return to district schools.
