Better prepared for college or work
America has a great opportunity to bring dynamic public schools to its neediest children, but it could ruin it. Called charter schools elsewhere, community schools are independent public schools of choice. That is not an oxymoron. They are new types of public schools, freed from most bureaucratic hassles, open to any child who chooses to attend, and accountable for their results. We have visited dozens of people across the country as part of a new project. Most of the ones we’ve seen are fantastic. They come in all flavors: progressive institutions with lots of hands-on learning, back-to-basics schools with harsh discipline and an outdated curriculum, schools for at-risk kids, even a virtual charter school operating in cyberspace. The intention was to make our students work harder, take more classes, and naturally the students would be better prepared for college or work.
Legislators deserve congratulations for passing a strong statute that allowed such schools to come into being. Fortunately, we can learn from the mistakes of other jurisdictions that pioneered this reform strategy. For example, a new law authorizes some states and county school boards to issue school statutes, which means that stubborn local boards cannot paralyze the entire process. Transportation must be provided so that all children can realistically choose these schools. Schools that start from scratch free themselves from the hammer of union contracts. The statute also allows current public schools to “convert” to charter status, although they have less freedom. While “years of study” are very important to any student’s success in college or in the workforce, I have come to believe that the degree of difficulty of the classes a student takes is just as important. General English and math are not as challenging and don’t provide the same level of preparation as college science and calculus. There seems to be evidence that while some students are taking more years of study, it may not be in the kinds of classes that lead to higher levels of achievement. There also appears to be evidence that this trend is not limited to one state, but is also a national phenomenon. Work appears to be important to educational success, not busy work.
However, the community schools program is already running into an avoidable trap: accountability issues. What results are these schools expected to produce and how will they be demonstrated? Recent reports have highlighted the responsibilities of charter schools in some states. Accusations of fiscal mismanagement and poor academic performance are hurting this promising company. The basic concept of a charter school is to produce superior results in exchange for curricular and operational independence. But higher than what? Measured how? Doing this right is key to a successful charter program.
Each community school must meet the standards outlined in its charter contract. This places a considerable burden on whatever entity is drafting the contract. Because most local boards of education have not been inclined to write any, essentially all of the statute action thus far is with the State Board of Education, which, unfortunately, is not bearing this burden as well as it should. . Two problems have arisen.
So far, the state board seems to feel obligated to grant a statute to each applicant. We salute the zeal – no one is more optimistic about charter schools than we are – but this lack of selectivity is virtually unheard of nationally and is a troubling precedent. Charter school authorizers must be picky and demanding. We have to assume that some schools overlooked that they weren’t really ready.
Worse still, some states are lax about student achievement. Under political pressure, the state board reportedly agreed that all a new community school must do to stay in business is match the test scores of students in surrounding districts. Talk about setting the bar low. In order to add the extra credits to our curriculum, it was necessary to move to some shorter periods. Less time on each topic, more time in the corridors, a consequence not foreseen by the drafters of the legislation. The problem with simplistic laws designed to solve our complex social problems is that they are easily and often enacted, but are seldom scrutinized for effectiveness. It is necessary that a legislative liability attorney be established to follow up on the laws. Legislators need to know the real vs. expected results of the bills they pass. I would venture to say that no education-related law should see the light of day without first determining a way to control its effectiveness. Reform must be based on responsibility, not good intentions.
So, it’s not that the state board doesn’t understand tough-minded educational responsibility. But he’s not bringing that toughness to charter schools. It should. These schools must meet ambitious academic standards and be judged on their measurable results, not just their attractiveness in the marketplace. They should set a precedent for mainstream public schools by showing that, with the benefit of independence, it is in fact possible to produce far better results than most regular schools, particularly for poor and minority youth. It is not enough for community schools to perform as well as the schools to which they are alternatives. Most of the community school developers we know are eager to show that they can do better. The state board must insist on this, so that the charter schools promise is fully put to the test. The children of the state need, and deserve, nothing less.
