Brave New (Charter) World

Let’s get biases and politics out of the way first. I am a big fan of the charter school concept—defined as the rich idea that when it comes to schooling, one size does not fit all, and big monolithic districts do not and cannot serve diverse children as well as site-directed, purpose-driven, innovative schools. If I lived in Detroit, I would choose a magnet school or charter school for my children—and even though I live in a district with fine public schools, one of my children attended a public school and the other attended a private school. Ideologically, I’m with Dewey on this one: I want the best possible education for all children, the kind of carefully chosen options my own children had.

One more thing: I think that positioning charter schools as the opposite of public schools, rather than a necessary supplement to public education, has poisoned the discourse. And—it goes both ways. It’s not just public schools and public school teachers being skeptical (or downright nasty) in their remarks about charter schools. Public school academies—charters—seem to be bent on repeating the worst sound bites about public schools, whether they’re strictly true or not, thereby displaying the aphorism that your mother repeated when you were seven years old: you don’t make yourself look better by tearing someone else down. 

I have a number of friends now working in the charter school movement in Detroit, a city where a handful of good charter schools have begun to flourish and bear fruit. Last week, they invited me to attend a showing of “The Providence Effect,” a full-length film depicting a school success story: Providence St. Mel, a K-12 Catholic school on Chicago’s tough west side.

Providence St. Mel has accrued considerable recognition after parents adamantly refused to close it on diocese recommendation, 30 years ago: President Reagan visited, around the time the “Nation at Risk” report was being crafted, and Oprah Winfrey has taken a personal interest (and contributed more than a million dollars). Providence’s outcomes—an average ACT score of 23, and 100% college admission for graduates—resemble those of well-heeled suburban public schools. Now, there is an attempt to replicate the “Providence effect:” a charter school in Englewood, led by Providence graduates and veteran teachers, and based on programs and principles at the original PSM.

The screening was part of a two-day professional conference for charter school proponents and teachers, and featured a panel discussion with Big Names in the Michigan charter school movement, a State Board of Education member, various business-leadership types, and the principal of the new Providence charter school. The room was set up for hundreds of people, but I’m sure the attendance numbers (perhaps 60 people) were disappointing to the organizers. As I was parking on the rooftop of Cobo Hall, charter school teachers wearing conference badges were flooding out of the building, recognizable as teachers by their youth, their post-collegiate dress and tote bags—plus their “let’s go get a beer” demeanor.

Impressions from the film and the panel discussion:

• The movie has a campaign-film aura—gauzy graduation footage with students inexplicably wearing white gloves, bits of talking-head rhetoric, quick-cut black and white shots from Chicago’s troubled past, backed by a vocal track of adolescents singing. It’s impressive, all right, especially their catch phrase: It’s not rocket science. The lingering message: anybody with high expectations and tight rules can turn around kids destined for the dumpster.

• There is curiously little about instruction in the film; we do see a few examples of very traditional classroom teaching. There is a clip of first-graders in a race-to-the-board competitive spelling game (the teacher assigning points to teams, a la Professor Dumbledore), and a HS math lesson where the teacher puts an equation on the board and announces “No calculators!” (which drew a spatter of applause from the audience). An elementary teacher models a familiar and effective questioning strategy but then suggests that nobody in his circle believes that second graders can do work at this level.

• Among the panelists, the principal of the new Providence charter school was most grounded in reality. She admitted that while they were on a strong upward curve, test scores were still mediocre. Asked how they deal with discipline, she said that students were put on a “three strikes and out” contract—if they couldn’t abide by the rules, they held a conference with parents to decide if the child was a “good fit” for Providence. According to the principal, every child, even kindergartners, has a grade point average (another murmur of approval from the audience). Nobody asked about parents who never bothered to come to school, the advisability of a five-year old having a GPA before he understands cumulative averaging, or where the kid who is not a good fit ends up.

• There was a kind of professional pep rally atmosphere. The panel moderator took questions from people who seemed pre-selected, often acknowledging the “great work” Joe was doing or the “outstanding leadership” of Mary. There was an angry question on why charter schools get less money than public schools, on average, from the public coffers. Reginald Turner, the State Board member, clarified: charter schools get the same per-pupil allowance as other public schools in the surrounding area. And guess what? There aren’t many charter schools in Grosse Pointe, where the funding level is high; charter schools are generally found where there is dissatisfaction with public education and not much money. And they get the same public monies as the other schools nearby—you might even call that equitable.

• When asked what Detroit could do as a first step to fix its failing public school, the business folks agreed: get new teachers, preferably from Teach for America (which one panelist described as “the Peace Corps of teaching,” an unfortunate metaphor in a city trying to pull itself out of devastating depression). A woman asked what special training Teach for America corps members got that would make them particularly effective in Detroit. The panelist replied that it wasn’t a matter of training—it was a chance to get “graduates of the top colleges” into the classroom.

If you believe U.S. News and World Report, two of the top twenty Schools of Education are right here in Michigan, including the long-running #1 in Elementary and Secondary teacher preparation, Michigan State University, and the #4 public university in the country, the University of Michigan. There is also a strong network of regional teacher preparation programs. There is no shortage of smart, highly qualified and skilled teachers here in Michigan.

Michigan is a teacher-exporting state. About three-quarters of our best and brightest would-be teachers go to work in other states (when they can get jobs). Of those who remain in Michigan, a significant segment gets jobs in newly formed charter schools—because there are no jobs in public schools. The best new teachers in Michigan? They’re the folks who went streaming out the door to grab a beer with their teaching colleagues as I was parking my car.

When it comes to evaluating charter schools, the key question is always: Compared to what? Charter schools in Detroit have many potential resources that public schools do not, beginning with positive public assumptions and PR.

Charter World is an interesting place, with different beliefs, incentives and catch phrases than Public School World. It would be a shame to lose the opportunity to do something truly different with charter schools, relying instead on rhetorical flourishes and empty myths.

Comments

[Rachel]

Increasingly, my take on charters is that they are effective magnets for engaged parents and passionate, energetic teachers in areas where there is a shortage of those resources in district schools -- which is often the case in high poverty urban districts. They are also, in many cases, magnets for private philanthropy.

One reason you don't see as many charters in districts like Grosse Point is that they have involved, educationally savvy parents to ensure that the "regular" schools succeed.

In poorer, more urban areas, these resources are more dilute, any many schools don't have the critical mass they need to be effective. Charter schools are a way of ensuring that at least a few schools do -- but its not clear that they can do more than chip away at the more fundamental problems.

[Nancy Flanagan]

Thanks for your post, Rachel. I believe your "magnet for engaged parents" theory is a better way of explaining what drives a good charter school than "skimming off the academic cream," which is, I think, skewed and unfair.

What I'm most interested in, however, is the "magnet for private philanthropy" idea, which was totally in evidence at this meeting. Lots of people congratulating each other on building a strong charter system, without honestly examining the challenges that "failed" public schools are forced to cope with--i.e., kids who are "not a good fit" with the program. The fundamental problems remain.

Would I rather have some successful charters than no good schools? Absolutely. But positioning charters as the anti-public school and well-trained teachers as a liability displays profound misunderstanding of the complexities that urban publics deal with, as well as a lack of compassion.

[teachin']

"...[W]here the kid who is not a good fit ends up..." is EXACTLY one of my primary concerns with charters. I teach in a high-needs urban school; we're about 85% free and reduced lunch. Several of my students are kids who were kicked out of charters because the charters don't have to keep the problem children. We do. And I love those kids and I want them to succeed just as much as any other kid, and that's my other big problem with charters. Not every kid has parents who are involved enough, or aware enough, or capable enough to get their kid into a charter school, nor are there enough slots to begin with. While of course every child should get the best education possible, what happens to the kids who can't get accepted to charters? Who can't even apply? Charters pull off a lot of the strongest, most involved students and parents, and that hurts every other kid at my school even more.

I just don't believe that charters can solve all the woes that supporters claim. Because what about everyone else?

[Claus]

I think you hit the nail on the head when you note that boosters have marketed charter schools as the "Anti-public school.' THAT sums up what I find so unsettling about the usually well-funded charter school zealots. It has been hard to articulate what bugged me until you put it so well.

Like you, I'm no enemy of charters. Many deserve the admiration they get me, if you ask me. And many do not.

But I'm not surprised that majorities of Americans' believe that charters are not public schools. That is in large part a function of the marketing job that has been done for them. There is an industry of movies and books about charters. Are there comparable movies about the most successful traditional public schools? Not really. Most movies about traditional public schools focus on the single heroic teacher who succeeds DESPITE the terrible administrators, fellow teachers, neglectful parents, etc. who try to tear them down.

What about those traditional public schools in poor communities that are just humming? Schools like Maryland's Viers Mill Elementary where a long-serving, experienced staff have drown from their own inner resources to get almost every one of their overwhelmingly low-income children doing well on state tests and elsewhere? There is little or no public mythology about such schools.

There is, however, a whole heck of a lot for charters....

[Nancy Flanagan]

Thanks, teachin' and Claus. This blog seems to have struck a nerve. I found many things about the presentation somewhere between disconcerting and manipulative.

Michigan charter schools must take all applicants (including identified special education students) and use a lottery system if there are more applicants than seats--something that charters often point to as evidence that they're dealing with the same challenges as public schools. Savvy parents of special education students are looking for specific programs and resources, however--and are not likely to find them in boutique charters. And other special education parents are not motivated to review schooling options aggressively.

[Rachel]

In someways it's the "magnet for private philanthropy" that bugs me most. I'd really like to see a study of the actual per-pupil spending at successful charter schools.

[Craig Simpson]

During my 30 public school teaching career (I retired in June) the charter school debate has often pulled me both ways. Ted Sizer startled me when he came out strongly in support of charter schools. Many co-teachers startled me with their view that charter schools were evil incarnate. Arguments on both sides were alternately compelling and self serving.

One comment about a side issue in your article -- if anyone thinks that getting "the best and the brightest" (Teach for America) and then throwing them into the most difficult of teaching senerios with little training and limited experienced support will solve the problem . . .. The "best and the brightest" and the "average with a dimmer switch" all need real, not just paper trail, mentoring that will allow them to survive long enough to become the best they can be. Real mentoring costs money and in the public sector there is never enough money. Therefore the allocation and reallocation of existing funds is critical in developing real mentoring and that means some sacred cows will be lost.

It is this reality that may be the strongest argument for charter schools.

[Nancy Flanagan]

Thanks for visiting a Strange Land, Craig. I concur that there are plenty of sacred cows in Education World, many of which deserve to cease--including the notion that teachers should sink or swim in their first year with little guidance.

Real mentoring costs money--and so does building a veteran work force. Notice I didn't say "30-year teachers," but rather experienced, empowered educators who can apprentice novices. There is great appeal in having a teaching force that is young, smart, morally dedicated, and cheap--especially because you know they're going to turn over in 5 years or less. That kind of teaching force holds costs down and makes employees more malleable. Cynic that I am, I see the "best and brightest" argument as the false gloss on what amounts to a cost-cutting plan.

[Chuck Stockwell]

Nancy,

Give me a call and I will show you instructional innovation in the charter school I started in Hartland 14 years ago. It would give you a chance to see what is happening in your own back yard.

I asked the "angry" question you refer to. I don't think it was angry - it was an attempt to get the facts out.

Turner should have known better when he replied. Charter schools save tax payers in Michigan $250 million dollars each year - facts in the MDE's annual report on charter schools. That 'savings' comes from unequal funding.

In Livingston County, where you live, the school districts have levied hundreds of millions of dollars in school construction taxes in the last 15 years. During that time the charter schools I work with there got no local tax dollars for buildings.

You wrote once about the Howell District that built a $70 million high school with local tax dollars and then could not afford to open it. The building still sits vacant. The children of some of the tax payers who are paying for that empty school now attend near by charter schools. The county's two charter schools have offered to use their state aid to lease the building and save Howell some money, but the school leaders there won't even talk to charter schools.

And one last angry thing. The Livinston county school district (LESA) distributed the federal ARRA IDEA money to local districts. LESA divided up $6.5 million and they decided the two charter schools with 1100 students deserved just $5,000.

[Nancy Flanagan]

Hi Chuck. Thanks for visiting Teacher in a Strange Land. I'm very familiar with Charyl Stockwell Academy, which is literally in my backyard--I live just a short walk away. I supported your efforts to establish a Glasser school in my district when you first opened, and taught many of your former students who moved to Hartland schools from CSA. CSA has served as a competitive alternative for parents looking for a different kind of education for their kids and I admire you for sticking it out.

When it comes to unequal funding, all I can say is welcome to the club. When John Engler (a charter proponent) gave wealthy schools a "held harmless" clause in Proposal A, because they represented his political base, he put the unequal funding template in place. So you're not getting shorted while the surrounding public schools bask in wealth--you get what they get. I could also make the argument that it's cheaper to educate your K-8 kids than producing the necessary, expensive high school programming and instruction.

You are, however, in a different situation than most of the boutique charters in Detroit, where the private philanthropists Rachel mentions, above, have set up charter schools with impressive facilities and good PR. And obviously, you have good reason to be angry about not getting an equitable share of the ARRA pie.

As for the empty Howell HS, and their idiotic refusal to lease their (marvelous) facility to another educational entity--it's a good example of public schools reflexively seeing charters as the enemy. Howell has handled the situation poorly, but let's not translate those blunders into the position that all public schools are wasteful and shortsighted. I'm not precisely sure where we should direct our anger about inadequate school funding, but we might start with a legislature that can't get past political posturing.

The theory was that charter schools, freed from regulatory constraints and grasping unions, could use available monies in creative new ways. Turns out that all schools need adequate resources, no matter where they come from. Thanks for your comments.

[Essay Help]

Hi,
I really like your website and your writing style. You have written great and interesting content.

[Academic Essay]

Hi,
Interesting topic! Hope you will elaborate more on it in future posts

[A level coursework]

Hi,
It must've taken you a bit of time, so thanks for taking the time to do so, I appreciate it, and this post is just great.