Charter Schools: The Magic Bullet for Education?

On September 27, 2010 Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced “the award of 5 Charter Schools Program 2010 National Leadership Activities grants, totaling $3.5 million to non-profit organizations for projects of national significance to improve charter school quality across the country.” Please read the statement carefully – that is 5 grants to non-profit organizations for a total of $3.5 million dollars. That is some serious juice for private organizations charged with leading the way to education reform of public charter schools. What exactly are we getting for that money? And who are these people?

According to the press release,

• The Arizona Charter School Association (AZCSA) is going to develop a start-up model that includes key characteristic of a good leader and best practices for schools serving a high percentage of low-income, Native American, and Hispanic students. Price tag - $444,480
• The Center for Educational Innovation – Public Education Association (CEI-PEA)  Plans to “build the capacity of charter schools to implement effective academic and operational programs and meet accountability requirements; improve professional development and evaluation for charter school teachers.” Price tag - $756,797
• The Illinois Network of Charter Schools (INCS) plans to explore the potential of charter schools in three - make that 3 – communities. Of course the value added piece is the design teams and support groups that will share their discovered knowledge with others. Price tag - $807,058
• The National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) These folks are developing a model set of policies and practices for model authorizers and then disseminating the results to other authorizers. I’m not even sure what this means, but with the cost it must be important. Price tag - $834,670
• West Ed is developing eight – make that 8 – modules for online delivery of best practices professional development for charter school teachers which will then be disseminated online to other charter school entities to facilitate online instruction for charter schools. Price tag - $656,995

What all of these groups have in common is that they are private entities. They are not living day-to-day in the public schools of this nation. Even though they are non-profit groups we certainly notice that their quest to reform charter schools is expensive. I personally developed eight modules for one online graduate course for the cost of my salary; and I did it for eight different courses in one academic year.

Arizona was one of the first states to pass a charter school law and it quickly leapt onto the bandwagon. It was also one of the first states to have charter school officials indicted for misuse of public funds and charter schools closed as a result of bankruptcy.

I assume all of these groups are well intentioned but after many years in education I am skeptical about slick advertising that promises a magic bullet for curing the problems of schools. The evidence is still out on charter schools. Many are doing a good job and many are poorly conceived and whither before getting much of a track record.

Charter schools are public and if they provide the panacea that everyone believes they do, why not reconfigure our public schools on the charter model? Make schools and classes smaller, staff them with teachers who buy into the school philosophy and emphasis, and take away the oppressive regulations foisted on ordinary public schools. Let teachers teach and students will learn.