CHARTER SCHOOL OPPONENTS IGNORE FACTS
By Paul T. Hill and Robin Lake
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 17, 2000

        The opponents of charter schools have demonstrated the advantages of not paying attention. State Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe, D-1st District (north King-south Snohomish counties), claims that charter schools would escape from public accountability and hurt disadvantaged students.

        People who don't pay attention can believe those things but they are not true. The proposed Washington state charter law that McAuliffe recently prevented from coming to a vote in the Legislature would have made local school boards the main authorizers of charter schools and would have required charter schools to administer the Washington State Assessment of Student Learning test (WASL) and be held accountable under the same state standards that apply to all public schools.

        The fear that disadvantaged children would suffer also is groundless. Nationwide, charter schools serve almost exactly the same proportion of poor and minority children as neighboring public schools. A new national study sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education shows that poor and minority students attending charter elementary schools make huge gains in reading. In states and districts that place priority on serving the poor, that's who charter schools serve.

        Charter-school opponents agonize over the fate of public schools left behind when some families choose charters. But what does it mean to be left behind? Seattle's school population, especially in the high-poverty south end where charter schools are most likely to arise, is growing far faster than charter schools could be started. If five charter schools, each enrolling the national average of 200 students, were to start up in the Seattle area this year they would barely soak up the overcrowding in the existing public schools. Except in small rural districts, where charter schools seldom form, children who transferred to charter schools would not leave any empty desks, though they would reduce the demand for portables.

        McAuliffe also has said that no one is left behind in today's public schools. But, as poor and minority parents know, their children are left behind. Their children are left with the worst and most overcrowded buildings and the least advanced instruction. They are also left behind by teachers who transfer to schools in more affluent neighborhoods as quickly as they can, by influential families that can negotiate admission to gifted programs and special magnet schools and by wealthy parents who can send their children to private schools or move to the suburbs.

        In Seattle, as in most cities across the country, poor and minority parents complain that the existing public schools do not serve their children well. According to a report on school satisfaction by the Educational Testing Service, Seattle and Everett parents were more dissatisfied with their public elementary schools than parents in such educationally troubled cities as Baltimore, Kansas City, Dallas and San Jose. More than a third of the unhappy parents were so dissatisfied they wanted to move.

        These parents want choices, but without the goad of a charter-school law school districts are not inclined to provide them. A charter school law would push districts such as Seattle to start up new schools in poorly served or overcrowded areas, rather than continuing to pack children into existing low-performing schools. If the school district did not seize this opportunity, parents, community groups and philanthropists could create and seek charters for new schools.

        Charter schools provide public education choices for families that have no options about where they live or whether to pay private-school tuition. Money follows children to charter schools, so virtually all of it is spent on teaching and learning and almost nothing is spent on central office bureaucracy. Because parents choose schools, they can make sure their children get attention. Because schools and teachers choose each other, staff conflict and poor coordination among classes are rare.

        Nationally, teachers in charter schools are highly satisfied because they get to choose their colleagues and can be rewarded for stellar effort. Parent satisfaction is high because schools have to say what and how students will learn and have to keep their promises. Moreover, schools where children do not learn can be closed and replaced with other charters.

        Defenders of the status quo would have us believe that bureaucracy, school board micro-management, labor conflict, musical-chairs transfers of principals and formal, distant relationships between school and parents are the essence of public education. But they are wrong. No arrangement that thwarts parents' efforts to get quality education for their children deserves to be called public education.

        Thirty-seven states now have charter laws, and they have the support of both national parties, including President Clinton, Vice President Gore, Gov. Gary Locke and Texas Gov. George W. Bush. If McAuliffe had been paying attention, she would know that charter schools preserve the public in education and provide options for serving children whom our schools now too often fail.

###

Paul T. Hill is author of "It Takes A City: Getting Serious About Urban School Reform," Brookings 2000. Robin J. Lake is associate director of the University of Washington's Center on Re-Inventing Public Education.

CER Home Page The Education Forum Charter Schools E-Mail CER CER Publications