CER Testimony: Charter Schools for Maryland

CER Testimony

TESTIMONY BEFORE THE MARYLAND SENATE
EDUCATION, HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

by Jeanne Allen, President
The Center for Education Reform

February 6, 2003

Distinguished Members of the Committee:

I am delighted and encouraged that deliberations have begun on a charter school bill that will support the revitalization of education in Maryland. Currently, thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia have embraced charter schools as a means to improve education; perhaps Maryland will lead the remaining 11 states into this new era of education reform.

Over the last four years, we have been contacted often by educators, parents and citizen groups in this state about their interest in helping to bring about charter schools. Many of those parents and educators now belong to the Maryland Charter School Network, and others stand ready to communicate to you their deep desire to help found schools that are better tailored to the needs of their children.

Before I explain the reasons and research behind my support for charter schools in Maryland, let me provide you some brief information about my organization.

The Center for Education Reform (CER) is a national voice for more choices in education and more rigor in education programs, both of which are key to more effective schooling. It delivers practical, research-based information and assistance to engage a diverse lay audience—including parents, policymakers, and education reform groups—in taking actions to ensure that US schools are delivering a high quality education for all children in grades K-12. Our work has led to the creation of more than half the nation’s charter school laws.

In addition to leading CER, I am a 20 year resident of the state of Maryland and reside with my husband and four children in Montgomery County. Despite the respective higher quality of our County’s schools, there is not a week that goes by where there is not a discussion with friends and community about the need for dramatic improvements in the content, approach and methods of teaching that we offer our children in most public schools and, yes, even in some private schools. I know you all have been part of similar discussions in your communities.

Having also spent a considerable amount of time in Baltimore City and Kent County, I share the concern of lawmakers here that we are not doing enough fast enough to reach all the children whose growing and diverse needs are a constant challenge to our public school system.

Indeed across the state, it has become increasingly clear that Maryland is not different than most states in its need to dramatically improve and increase the learning opportunities we offer our families and children.

Having led one of the nation’s premier education reform and research organizations for the last ten years, we now have an enormous storehouse of information to draw from to help determine what works best for children. In fact, the information produced by the Center for Education Reform is used objectively by institutions such as the U.S. Department of Education, the National Council of State Legislatures, the Education Commission of the States, and dozens of research universities, laboratories and schools. The information and observations we have collected and analyzed, working in tandem with many of the above-named institutions, are the basis for the following information.

Charter schools are an innovative way to increase family and community involvement in a child’s education. When created under a good law, charter schools will deliver programs that are tailored to educational excellence and community needs. Because they are schools of choice, they are held to the highest level of accountability – consumer demand. It is our hope that the bill that comes out of committee will not only enable charter schools to provide excellent educational opportunities for all children, but to exceed the highest expectations as well.

In order to create a viable charter law, a few things need to be considered.

· It’s imperative that the legislation allows multiple chartering authorities, which will produce genuinely autonomous charter schools.

· The creation of a binding appeals process is fundamental to ensuring the development and growth of quality charter schools in Maryland.

· It is also very important to create incentives for charter schools to thrive throughout the state, by requiring equitable and timely funding, especially as it relates to per pupil funding and facilities assistance.

Attachment A (What Makes a Strong Law) clarifies in detail the criteria that are necessary for what researchers agree is a strong law.

The legislation proposed by Governor Ehrlich meet the criteria for a strong law. Conversely, previous proposals in the Maryland Legislature have been comparatively very weak.

The largest issue of contention by various interest groups is always who sponsors charter schools and once established, who sets the rules. In traditional public education, school boards are elected to establish and manage education policy district by district and are in turn accountable to the state for following rules and regulations. Teachers unions, through the negotiation of collective bargaining contracts, set the rules and regulations for issues relating to overall school management of teachers, including work hours and how time is allocated, degrees of responsibilities at various levels of pay, pay levels themselves, and often times the assignment of teachers to various activities.

In charter schools, the governing board that is established and vested with authority for running the charter school becomes the equivalent of the school board, and is no less accountable for the mandates of the state than any school board. The parents that choose to send their children to charter schools in effect "elect" to entrust these boards with the authority for educating their children. And rather than be required to be part of a bargaining unit that battles out the finer points of their work obligations, teachers choose to work in charter schools and negotiate their work and salary rules directly. They may choose to bargain collectively as a group, or they may remain independent.

While most teachers in charter schools were members of a union prior to teaching there, all but a handful of charter schools remain independent of traditional labor negotiations.

This does two things for the community affected by a charter school. One, it helps avoid the traditional battles that often plague school boards and unions and leave both often unsatisfied. Two, and more important, it leaves the fundamental decision of how to work and when to work up to the individual employees, but still offers them the ability to organize if they find it necessary.

Attachment B documents the states with charter laws that require teachers to join unions and those that do not, and how those laws affect the development of charter schools. (Note: Attachment B not available on the CER website. On average, states with multiple authorizers have nearly 8 times more charter schools than states that have only a single authorizer.* See below for more information.)

The option to bargain is a freedom that charter schoolteachers would not trade. In surveys and state research, teachers in charter schools are overwhelmingly more satisfied than in traditional schools. The publication produced by CER entitled What the Research Reveals about Charter Schools documents over 65 studies and reports that look at charter school operations and successes on a local, state, regional and national level. Many of these reports provide in-depth analyses of teachers experiences, which they document as not only more satisfying, but without the constraints and bureaucracy that often chase them from the profession before they had intended.

The research also finds that where strong laws thrive and healthy numbers of charter schools start, that charter school have not only a positive impact on students and teachers but on the surrounding traditional public schools as well. This "ripple" effect is created by the introduction of new ideas and institutions that often force traditional systems that have grown comfortable to reevaluate their programs, their effectiveness and responsiveness to parents. There is no question that helping traditional schools to see things differently with the pressure charters create is good for all kids.

That pressure has grown and effected more and more schools with the advent not only of more schools but with the new requirement that the federal No Child Left Behind act imposes on districts to provide options to children. School districts in Maryland have been hard-pressed to offer options in the absence of any kind of additional capacity in schools. Charter schools may offer the state a way not only to expand learning opportunities for many children but to offer additional options that they did not think they could create in the current system.

The growth of charter schools nationwide is worth a close look. Attachment C shows the growth since the inception of the movement as well as state by state. Clearly this is not a movement that is simply a fad. If you consider the numbers, while it is still less than one percent of all public schools, charter schools represent a larger proportion of students most in need than any other endeavor.

I’d like to conclude with a brief comment about the need for what we call multiple authorizers. School boards agree that their plates are full, and many question the value of charter schools themselves. While school boards should always be invited to participate in chartering schools, they cannot retain an "exclusive franchise" in providing education. It is this term that kicked off the nation’s first charter school in Minnesota, but progressive Democrats who felt that Minnesota’s one-size-fits-all system and lethargic bureaucracies were not educating kids well enough and with personal attention. That state, like many others, now allows public universities and even new state entities to become chartering authorities or sponsors. They are held accountable in the same way a state board of education is held accountable, but they are simply different and a bit new to those who are used to having the same institutions in charge.

The final Attachment D shows the importance of multiple authorizers. (Attachment D not available on the CER Website. On average states that do not require charter school teachers to join a union have over 7 times more charter schools that states that require charter school teachers to join a union.** See below for more information.)

I’d urge the Education Committee to transcend traditional alliances and recognize that no charter law that leaves the same institutions and regulations in place and without regard to success will produce the kind of schools that I know we all want for all of our children. This issue may have its detractors, but on the political landscape, they represent a fraction of the armies of parents and teachers who are leading this movement nationwide.

Thank you for the opportunity to address the Committee. I am happy to answer any questions you have and offer the assistance of the Center for Education Reform in your efforts here and in the future.

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NOTES:

* On average, states with multiple authorizers have nearly 8 times more charter schools than states that have only a single authorizer:

Total number of charter schools in the 27 states with multiple authorizers: 2538 (average: 94 per state)
Total number of charter schools in the 13 states with single authorizers: 159 (average: 12.2 per state)

** On average states that do not require charter school teachers to join a union have over 7 times more charter schools than states that require charter school teachers to join a union.

Total number of charter schools in the 29 states that do not require charter school teachers to join a union: 2563 (average: 88.4 per state)
Total number of charter schools in the 11 states that require charter school teachers to join a union: 134 (average: 12.2 per state)