CER Analysis

Michigan Commission Does Hatchet-Job on Charter Schools; Conclusions Appease Education Establishment, Charter Opponents

        A review of Michigan charter schools by a politically-appointed body charged with conducting a "complete and objective review of all aspects" of charter schools in Michigan offers misleading and inconsistent conclusions, observers say.

        The report of the Commission on Charter Schools in Michigan offers recommendations on how to restrict charter school freedom, while admitting that few conclusions can be made about the effectiveness of charter schools given the overall absence of data.

        The Commission failed to provide data about the achievement of charter schools, the reason for their high attendance rates, or their impact on traditional schools, despite the fact that such information is available. Rather, the Commission extended its job from reviewing charter schools to "identifying ways to improve and support Michigan's public educational system," a different and broader task than what they were assigned to do.

        Among the Commission members are the president of the state's largest school employees union, the Michigan Education Association, as well as an associate professor of educational policy from Wayne State University, which while authorized to do so has only chartered one lab school.

        CER president Jeanne Allen characterized the report as "deliberately misleading and inconsistent." She added, "As is the case with so many of these political commissions, the group ignored the facts. The commission neglected to look at the growth in state test scores in many of the charter schools, or why parents - who are taxpayers and deserved their attention - want to send their children to charter schools. And they chose to ignore the evidence in Michigan that charter schools have spurred public school districts to improve."

        Many flaws exist in the Commission's recommendations. The following are ten of the worst:

1) The Commission based their conclusions only on hearings, and did not conduct site visits, evaluations or in-depth research into charter schools to provide them with objective information. Yet the Commission opens its report by saying that it is "our duty to ensure that schools are accountable." If their job was to conduct an "objective" review, the members failed in their mission. Interestingly, the comments from parents and charter school operators at the hearings didn't make it into this "objective" report.

2) Only Charter Schools would be required to conduct annual testing in grades 3-8 next year. That is BEFORE that requirement is in place for all public schools. While charter schools and traditional public schools in Michigan all have to administer the state MEAP, the Commission seems to believe that annual testing for charter schools should precede such testing for other public schools. If the Commission believes that such testing is a good thing, it should be willing to extend this recommendation early to all schools, not just charter schools.

3) The Commission makes unsubstantiated claims about how much funding charter schools need to do their job, and without evidence says that charters do not serve the same number of special education students that traditional schools do. Using things like extracurricular activities to point out where charter schools do not have to spend money, the Commission gives no concrete numbers concerning how charter schools currently provide for children. The Commission also reaches the unsubstantiated conclusion that charter schools do not serve the same number of special education students that traditional schools do. Unfortunately, the recommendation that charters bear the cost of the proposal to begin testing every year is another indication of the Commission's opposition to charter schools.

4) The Commission believes that the solution to what it views as lax accountability in charter schools is to add a layer of control to state government oversight, as if there is a correlation between big government and good schools. If the Commission has its way the Superintendent of Public Education will be given the power to certify the chartering authority of an authorizer. By doing so, they are vesting enormous power in the state Department of Education - which they propose to grow- and taking away the job of the legislature, which provided a set of rules to govern authorizers when it enacted the state's charter law. Clearly, if control at the state level were the solution to public school accountability, all of Michigan's public schools would be thriving, thus begging the questions of why charter schools are so popular with parents.

5) The Commission says that the state should require that authorizers hold charter boards accountable for meeting standards and yearly progress. That relationship already exists so the "recommendation" is merely a red herring.

6) It recommends that school officials be permitted to review and comment upon decisions to put charter schools in and around their districts. Since school districts are traditionally hostile to charter schools, this is clearly an effort to retain power. Requiring public notice so that school districts can comment on other schools will result in additional animosity, not productive relationships. And in Detroit, where at-risk children could benefit from charter schools, the commission is recommending that the public school district be almost completely protected from any and all competition.

7) The report recommends that people involved with charter schools be expected to meet stringent conflict of interest requirements that are not currently applied to any public schools. The Commission itself was comprised of individuals who have conflicts - the head of the Michigan Education Association has long believed that charter schools are not in the best interest of her members. Is this not a conflict? If conflict of interest requirements are to be created, they should govern everyone from the Governor down to city zoning boards, not just charter school boards.

8) Private business involvement in charter schools took a beating in this report, with the Commission concluding that any private company that manages charter schools should disclose a level of information that is not sought from any other sector of private business that works within public education, from salaries and personnel information to operations and hiring practices. This level of interference with private business is not extended to any other industry. Nor is it expected of private companies that profit from education on a daily basis - from textbook firms, to testing companies, to furniture and supply manufacturers, etc. If there is to be disclosure of internal, private documents from companies that are hired to work in public education, such documentation should extend to all public school board members, all vendors in public education and government, including but not limited to vendors doing business with the state Department of Education. Whatever the final decision, there are legal problems and challenges with requiring the disclosure of what may be proprietary information, which the Commission may have overlooked.

9) The report recommends that a new "special purpose" charter be created that would accommodate 50% or more of troubled and at-risk students, ignoring the fact that charter schools already serve a near equal (and sometimes disproportionate) share of at-risk children. Many charter schools already specialize in at-risk children, from the SER Casa Environmental and Technological Academy to the Colin Powell Charter School in Detroit. Those schools attract needy children voluntarily. But establishing a special class of charter schools as a repository for half or more of troubled children puts these students at a disadvantage and suggests that they cannot succeed in more mainstream schools. It also essentially frees these mainstream schools from having to try to teach them.

10) The Commission ignored the wide array of research into what makes quality charter schools, and ignored lessons from other states, concluding without research that charter schools have reason to be restricted. So without establishing that charter schools have significant problems in Michigan, the state commission makes recommendations designed to curb their growth and create animosity, dividing public education and not uniting it as intended. At-risk charter schools in Texas, for example, made up the largest growth in charters in that state and experienced more trouble that eventually precipitated state intervention and an amendment of that state's charter law.

Conclusion: The Michigan Commission on Charter Schools was politically motivated by special interests for whom charter schools create pressure and against parents whose demands for better education has resulted in 61,000 children attending charter schools in Michigan. The Commission report should be dismissed. With new accountability requirements ready to be implemented, the state will have to wait no more than two years to see the progress made by charter schools compared to traditional public schools. Only then will objective observation and conclusions be possible.

Link to the Commission's full report at http://www.charterschools.msu.edu/.

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About Charter Schools from the Center for Education Reform