In 1988, American Federation of Teachers president Albert Shanker suggested a new kind of experimental school that would allow teachers to try innovative approaches to educating students. Shanker was concerned that too many students in traditional classrooms were not being well-educated, and he was hopeful that these innovative approaches would be effective in helping children of different racial, ethnic, economic and religious backgrounds come together to learn from one another. He called these schools charter schools, and the first ones appeared in Minnesota. They were authorized in Massachusetts as part of the Education Reform Act of 1993.
More than 30 years later, it is clear that in addition to offering some innovative and effective teaching approaches, they have also brought a great deal of controversy. I want to take a brief look at charter schools, to try to understand more clearly what they are, and why there is such tension between some traditional district school districts and charters.
What is a charter school?
Charter schools in Massachusetts are public schools that are privately run and publicly funded, each with their own board of trustees and leadership. They are responsible to the state rather than to the community or district in which they are located. Charters are free to chart their own approach to education though their students must meet the same state requirements that all public school students are required to meet, whether they are part of an expeditionary learning school, the Chinese Immersion school, or a charter focused on the arts. They are evaluated by the state each year and must renew their charter every five years by demonstrating that they have met the terms they have agreed to in their initial charter.
Sadly, no matter what the approach, there has often been significant tension bordering on hostility between charters and their nearby districts making cooperation between traditional district schools and charters rare. Where does this tension come from?
Money
It really begins with money; there is not enough of it, and there are tensions and competition related to how that money is distributed. The Massachusetts Teachers Association estimates that more than $420 million is diverted from traditional district schools to charters each year, leaving the traditional district schools struggling to serve the students in their buildings and to attract new students and families to join them. Some districts claim that they have lost millions of dollars a year to charters, forcing them to cut staff, programs, electives and activities that are most compelling to students. How does this happen? It is complicated, but here is a brief explanation.
When students leave the traditional school for charters, their tuition money goes with them. The state does reimburse the sending district that same amount during that first year, then 60% the second year and 40% the third year, recognizing that the sending district still has fixed costs such as maintaining the building, heat, light, teacher salaries, transportation, and so on. What the state reimburses that sending district does not cover either those fixed costs or the actual costs of educating students, leaving districts in a deeper hole. In addition, the students who are left in the traditional district schools are disproportionately expensive to educate as a higher percentage of them who are English language learners, special education students, or students with other significant learning challenges who require additional resources. Charters do not have to keep students who provide extra challenges to educate and frequently counsel them back to the districts where there are more resources available, so there is a heavier burden on the traditional district schools. Teachers in traditional schools are represented by unions who bargain contracts, working conditions, benefits and pensions, including limits on what they can be ordered to do. Teachers in traditional district schools thus cost more on average than teachers at charters and more personnel are required to meet the legal requirements of serving students needing extra services.
The state authorized charters at the same time as they instituted the Chapter 70 funding formula for public education. The heart of the funding formula was a progressive plan to give more money to financially poor communities, and there was an assumption that the population would keep growing so that if students left for charters there would be more students who would move into those vacant seats. Many districts and communities are facing declining populations leaving the districts less able to serve their population of students. Housing prices continue to rise beyond what families can afford, and this has also contributed to the decline in student populations and the ability to keep and maintain faculty and staff.
Students and teachers
Fewer than 10% of charters have a unionized work force and that means that public school teachers cost more, as mentioned above. Charter advocates point out the ways in which the union limits what happens at school as there are strict limits to what teachers can be asked to do, and how long they are expected to work. Teachers can be required to work longer days, take on a range of assignments both in and outside of their areas of certification, and take on additional advisory/counseling type roles, and there is real risk of burnout.
And there is also joy and excitement to having the freedom to engage in interdisciplinary projects, to get to know students more deeply in advisories, to take field trips and other creative assignments, and to work in collaboration with colleagues who hold a similar vision.
The students they are working with tend to be students with fewer serious learning challenges. This happens for two reasons; first, families that apply to enter the lottery that is the doorway to charter schools are less likely to have students who are second language learners, students with special needs or other challenging learning needs. Second, the charter school can encourage students with challenging needs to leave the school, up to the point that they literally encourage them out the door, usually back to the traditional district schools that have no choice but to accept them. The charter schools are not always being cold-hearted in this; they likely do not have the personnel or resources necessary to truly serve the needs of those students. It’s also true that having to serve more challenging students can interfere with the charter’s mission. The traditional schools have no such luxury; they are mandated to serve everyone.
In conclusion
There are many charters providing wonderful education to their students, and much of the tension or criticism around charters is not focused on the particular schools, but rather the funding structure and practice set up by the state that results in inadequate funding for everyone, sets up competition over the few dollars available, and hijacks the conversations we need to have about how to best educate our children and instead has us focused on the dollars involved. It would be so much simpler if the state simply paid the costs of charters directly to them without involving the traditional school district and then fully funded our traditional districts, getting them the dollars they need to serve our children.
Doug Selwyn taught at K-12 public schools from 1985 until 2000 and then at university as a professor of education until he retired in 2017. He is the chair of the Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution education task force. You can reach him at dougselwyn12@gmail.com.