Hosted by The Center for
Education Reform
Hosted by The Center for
Education Reform
BRAZIL HAS TACKLED THE SAME PROBLEMS AS CHARTER SCHOOLS
By Harold Q. Langenderfer
Chapel Hill Herald, September 10, 1997
Charter schools are a response to the concerns many people have about problems in our public school system. The movement taps knowledge of solutions other countries have developed to solve similar problems. The experiences with the school system in Brazil as described in the Aug. 15 Wall Street Journal shed some light on the charter school movement in North Carolina.
From 1991-93, school teachers were on strike because of a dysfunctional primary education system. Sixty-one percent of students who went to school at age 7 never completed the eighth grade. Of the 37 percent who graduated, the average number of grades repeated was four. Only 3 percent completed the eighth grade without repeating a grade!
In the light of this dismal record, the state education minister of Brazil introduced education reform in 1991 over the protest of the teachers. Since then math scores have doubled, and 169,000 students graduated from the eighth grade in 1997 vs. only 79,750 in 1991. These results occurred because of a shift to local autonomy, more parental involvement, and teacher and principal accountability.
The reason the teachers resisted the shift to local autonomy in 80 local school districts was because the schools had no tradition of parental input. The reform movement gave schools autonomy in fiscal, administrative, and curriculum matters, whereas the old system was an administrative nightmare, requiring a requisition to the state capital to buy a few new chairs! Reform empowered leadership at the local level, with the new school board including parents, teachers and students! The parents selected the school principal with the term of office being three years.
Surveys and experience have shown even the least educated parents put a priority on education and seeing their children learn. The new system has not clearly identified teacher standards and teacher accountability is limited. School boards can now recommend removal of incompetent teachers, but they probably need more freedom to remove ineffective teachers. Nevertheless, the current model has some key attributes such as local autonomy, parental power, accountability, and community involvement by teachers and principals.
In light of the problems in our public school system in North Carolina, it seems clear that the creation of charter schools is designed to improve public education in a way similar to the experiences in Brazil. In a recent report by the Hudson Institute, the following conclusions were presented as to the benefits of charter schools from the perspectives of students, teachers, and parents:
In effect, the potential for success in charter schools is exciting, but not without some concerns. In a subsequent article, attention will be devoted to such issues as the educational impact of charter schools, the birth pains and life cycles of charter schools, the problems and prospects for charter school accountability, how charter schools are different, and the policy perils of charter schools.
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Harold Q. Langenderfer, an emeritus faculty member at UNC, lives in Chapel Hill.