The Death and Life of the great American School System

Chapter 3

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At the very moment that the voucher movement achieved a victory in the highest court in the land, the movement seemed to lose steam. It was not that proponents of school choice had lost heart, but that they had found a new vehicle that was less troublesome than vouchers: charter schools. Unlike vouchers, which might involve religious schools, charters raised no const.i.tutional issues. Beginning in the early 1990s, friends of school choice campaigned to persuade state legislatures to pa.s.s laws authorizing charter schools.

The idea was simple, and it was closely related to the Chubb and Moe plan: Any group or organization could apply for a charter for three to five years from the state or a state-authorized chartering agency, agree to meet certain minimum requirements and academic targets, and receive public funding for its students. What was the difference between voucher schools and charter schools? Students could use vouchers to enroll in any private school, whether it was religious or nonsectarian; the schools remained private schools. Charter schools, however, were considered public schools under private management; they were required to be nonsectarian.

In the 1990s, three versions of school choice emerged: voucher schools, privately managed schools, and charter schools. All of these schools receive public funds to educate students but are not regular public schools and are not run by a government agency.

Voucher schools are private schools that might or might not be religious in nature. Children with public vouchers enroll in them by choice. The vouchers usually cover only a portion of the tuition. Voucher schools exist only where they have been authorized by the state legislature (Milwaukee and Cleveland) or Congress (the District of Columbia).

Privately managed schools are public schools that an outside ent.i.ty operates under contract with a school district. They may be run by for-profit firms or by nonprofit organizations. Usually the districts turn over low-performing schools to private managers, hoping they might succeed where the district has not. The private firms, in essence, work for the district but are given a certain amount of leeway to make changes in staffing and programs. If the district is dissatisfied with the results, it may terminate the contract and regain control of the school or a.s.sign it to a different management organization.

Charter schools are created when an organization obtains a charter from a state-authorized agency. The charter gives the organization a set period of years-usually five-to meet its performance goals in exchange for autonomy. In some states, such as California, regular public schools may convert to charter status, thus seceding from their school district to become an independent district of one school. Charter schools may be managed by nonprofit groups or for-profit businesses. They may be managed by a national organization or by a local community group.

In 1988, Ray Budde, a professor of educational administration in Ma.s.sachusetts, first proposed the idea of charter schools. Budde published a paper called "Education by Charter: Restructuring School Districts." Budde wanted teams of teachers to apply for charters to run schools within the district. Each charter would have a specific set of goals and a specific term (say, three to five years) and would be rigorously evaluated to see what it had accomplished before the charter was renewed. In his plan, those who received a charter would have a bold vision and would take risks to explore the unknown. They would be expected to work on the cutting edge of research and knowledge, not to replicate what others were doing. Budde believed that the charter concept would lead to a restructuring of school districts, flattening their organizational chart while enabling teachers to take charge of decisions about curriculum, management, and instruction.10 In the same year, Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, put forward a similar idea of his own. In a speech at the National Press Club, Shanker suggested that groups of teachers should be able to run their own schools within regular schools and to pursue innovative ways of educating disaffected students. The reform movement inspired by the Nation at Risk Nation at Risk report, he said, was raising standards and was working well for about a quarter of students; the successful students were the ones "who are able to learn in a traditional system, who are able to sit still, who are able to keep quiet, who are able to remember after they listen to someone else talk for five hours, who are able to pick up a book and learn from it-who"ve got all these things going for them." But the old ways, he insisted, were not working for the majority of kids. report, he said, was raising standards and was working well for about a quarter of students; the successful students were the ones "who are able to learn in a traditional system, who are able to sit still, who are able to keep quiet, who are able to remember after they listen to someone else talk for five hours, who are able to pick up a book and learn from it-who"ve got all these things going for them." But the old ways, he insisted, were not working for the majority of kids.11 Shanker suggested that any group of six or more teachers should be able to submit a proposal to start a new school. "Do not think of a school as a building, and you can see how it works," he said. Such a group of teachers could set up a school within their own school that would try out different ways "of reaching the kids that are now not being reached by what the school is doing." Proposals for new schools would be reviewed by a panel jointly run by the union and the school district. These new schools would be research programs with a five- to ten-year guarantee that they could try out their ideas. The schools would be schools of choice for both the teachers and the students. But before they were approved, the other teachers in the building would have to agree to them, so that the new schools would not be in a hostile environment. This approach, Shanker said, was "a way of building by example. It"s a way not of shoving things down people"s throats, but enlisting them in a movement and in a cause." He pledged to take this idea to all of his locals around the country.12 At the union"s national convention, Shanker described his proposal for teacher-led autonomous schools within schools. He made clear that these new schools would be experimental, tasked with solving important problems of pedagogy and curriculum, and expected to produce findings that would help other schools. He did not want anyone "to go off and do his own thing." While he originally called these schools "opt-for schools," someone sent him Budde"s essay, which used the term "charter schools." Shanker liked the name and used it in his speech. The new charter schools should be evaluated, he said, although he hoped it would not be done with "the crazy standardized tests that are driving us all to narrow the curriculum."13 Over the next twenty years, as the charter movement spread, its supporters liked to point to Shanker as a founding father. The a.s.sociation with Shanker was intended to rea.s.sure people that charters were public schools, that they were not a threat to public education, and that they were not vouchers. But those who invoked his name routinely overlooked the fact that Shanker withdrew his endors.e.m.e.nt of charter schools in 1993 and became a vociferous critic. As he watched the charter movement evolve, as he saw new businesses jump into the "education industry," he realized that the idea he had so enthusiastically embraced was being taken over by corporations, entrepreneurs, and pract.i.tioners of "do your own thing." He abandoned his dream that charters would be led by teams of teachers who were akin to medical researchers, seeking solutions to difficult pedagogical and social problems. He came to see charter schools as dangerous to public education, as the cutting edge of an effort to privatize the public schools.

When Baltimore handed over nine public schools to a for-profit business called Education Alternatives Inc. in 1992, Shanker was appalled. When Republican governor John Engler of Michigan endorsed charter legislation, Shanker denounced him for ignoring his state"s poor curriculum and standards. In his paid weekly column in the New York Times New York Times, he repeatedly condemned charter schools, vouchers, and for-profit management as "quick fixes that won"t fix anything."14 After he turned against charter schools, Shanker steadfastly insisted that the biggest problem in American education was the absence of a clear national consensus about the mission of the schools. He repeatedly decried the lack of a national curriculum, national testing, and "stakes" attached to schooling; these, he said, were huge problems that would not be solved by letting a thousand flowers bloom or by turning over the schools to entrepreneurs.

Ironically, as charter schools evolved, the charter movement became increasingly hostile to unions. Charter operators wanted to be able to hire and fire teachers at will, to set their own salary schedule, to reward teachers according to their performance, to control working conditions, and to require long working hours; with few exceptions, they did not want to be subject to a union contract that interfered with their prerogatives as management. The Green Dot charter organization was one of the few that was willing to accept teachers" unions in its schools. The United Federation of Teachers in New York City opened its own charter schools, to prove that its contract was not an obstacle to charter management. But the overwhelming majority of other charter operators did not want a unionized teaching staff.

Charter schools had an undeniable appeal across the political spectrum. Liberals embraced them as a firewall to stop vouchers. Conservatives saw them as a means to deregulate public education and create compet.i.tion for the public education system. Some educators, sharing Shanker"s original vision, hoped that they would help unmotivated students and reduce dropouts. Some entrepreneurs looked at them as a gateway to the vast riches of the education industry. Ethnic groups embraced them as a refuge in which to teach their cultural heritage without deference to a common civic culture. According to their boosters, not only would charter schools unleash innovation and produce dramatic improvements in academic achievement, but compet.i.tion would cause the regular public schools to get better.

In 1991, Minnesota became the first state to pa.s.s a law authorizing the creation of charter schools. The following year, the nation"s first charter school opened in St. Paul. City Academy High School was a paradigm of what Shanker had hoped a charter school would be: It aimed to help youngsters who had not succeeded in a regular public school. Its students, ages fifteen through twenty-one, had dropped out of school. They were from home situations marked by poverty or substance abuse. The school began with 30 students and eventually grew to about 120 students. In addition to academic cla.s.ses, it offered job skills training, counseling, and other individualized social services. While City Academy is not a research laboratory for public education, it is certainly serving students who would otherwise be on the streets with no prospects.

From there, the charter movement took off. In 1993, Jeanne Allen, the conservative Heritage Foundation"s chief education a.n.a.lyst, established a new organization-the Center for Education Reform-to lead the battle for charter schools across the nation. The centrist Democratic Leadership Council endorsed the idea of charters, too, because it was an ingenious way to promote public school choice, to "reinvent" government, and to break the grip (as its chairman, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, wrote) of "ossified bureaucracies governing too many public schools."15 In 1994, as part of President Clinton"s education legislation, Congress established a program to award federal dollars to spur the development of new charter schools. By fall 2001, some 2,300 charter schools had opened their doors, enrolling nearly half a million students. By 2009, the Center for Education Reform reported that there were about 4,600 charter schools with 1.4 million students. As of that date, forty states and the District of Columbia had charter schools; 60 percent of all charter school students were located in six states: California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Michigan, and Ohio. In 1994, as part of President Clinton"s education legislation, Congress established a program to award federal dollars to spur the development of new charter schools. By fall 2001, some 2,300 charter schools had opened their doors, enrolling nearly half a million students. By 2009, the Center for Education Reform reported that there were about 4,600 charter schools with 1.4 million students. As of that date, forty states and the District of Columbia had charter schools; 60 percent of all charter school students were located in six states: California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Michigan, and Ohio.

Charter schools proliferated in urban districts, where academic performance was lowest and the demand for alternatives was greatest. In the fall of 2008, twelve communities had at least 20 percent of their public school students in charter schools. Nearly a third of all students in Washington, D.C., Dayton, Ohio, and Southfield, Michigan, were enrolled in charter schools. The district with the largest proportion in charter schools was New Orleans, where 55 percent of students were in charters. New Orleans was a unique case, because its public school system had been decimated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and officials decided to place their bets on charters and privately managed schools when rebuilding the education system.16 As charter schools grew in popularity, the demand for vouchers ebbed. Charter schools met virtually the same needs as vouchers. They competed with the regular public schools. They offered choices to families. They freed the schools from the regulatory control of a school district. They included schools that were focused on specific cultures, whether Afrocentric or Greek or Native American or Hebrew or Arabic.

Charter schools came closer to the ideal set forth by Chubb and Moe than to the one proposed by Shanker. He had wanted charter schools started by teachers to concentrate on solving the problems of low-achieving, unmotivated students. But it soon became clear that charter schools could be started by anyone who could persuade the state or a state-approved agency to grant them a charter. Charters were opened by social service agencies, universities, teachers, parents, philanthropists, hedge-fund managers, for-profit firms, charter-management organizations, community groups, and other groups and individuals. Depending on the state, they might include public schools that converted to charter status, religious schools that removed the religious symbols, or tuition-charging private schools that decided to become tax-supported public charters. Some charters had efficient management teams that ran first-rate schools, but others were operated by minimally competent providers who collected public money while offering bare-bones education to gullible students. And a few were opened by get-rich-quick schemers who saw easy pickings.

The advocates of choice-whether vouchers or charters-predicted that choice would transform American education. They were certain that choice would produce higher achievement. They based their case for choice on the failings of the public schools, pointing to low test scores, low graduation rates, and the achievement gap between children of different racial groups. They invoked the clarion call of A Nation at Risk A Nation at Risk as proof that America"s schools were caught in a downward spiral; only choice, they argued, could reverse the "rising tide of mediocrity," though the report itself never made that claim. They were confident that when schools compete, all students gain. Parents would surely vote with their feet for the good schools. Good schools would thrive, while bad schools would close. Some advocates believed that choice was indeed a panacea. Having chosen their schools, students would get a superior education, and the regular public schools would improve because of the compet.i.tion. The basic strategy was the market model, which relied on two related a.s.sumptions: belief in the power of compet.i.tion and belief in the value of deregulation. The market model worked in business, said the advocates, where compet.i.tion led to better products, lower prices, and leaner bureaucracies, so it would undoubtedly work in education as well. as proof that America"s schools were caught in a downward spiral; only choice, they argued, could reverse the "rising tide of mediocrity," though the report itself never made that claim. They were confident that when schools compete, all students gain. Parents would surely vote with their feet for the good schools. Good schools would thrive, while bad schools would close. Some advocates believed that choice was indeed a panacea. Having chosen their schools, students would get a superior education, and the regular public schools would improve because of the compet.i.tion. The basic strategy was the market model, which relied on two related a.s.sumptions: belief in the power of compet.i.tion and belief in the value of deregulation. The market model worked in business, said the advocates, where compet.i.tion led to better products, lower prices, and leaner bureaucracies, so it would undoubtedly work in education as well.

I GOT CAUGHT UP in the wave of enthusiasm for choice in education. I began to wonder why families should not be able to choose their children"s schools the way they choose their place of residence, their line of work, their shoes, or their car. In part, I was swept along by my immersion in the upper reaches of the first Bush presidency, where choice and compet.i.tion were taken for granted as successful ways to improve student achievement. But I also wanted to help Catholic schools, as a result of my contact with the great sociologist James Coleman in the early 1980s. His work convinced me that these schools were unusually successful in educating minority children. When I became a.s.sistant secretary of education in charge of research, I was invited to speak to the National Catholic Education a.s.sociation. I asked my staff to gather information comparing the performance of Hispanic and African American students in Catholic and public schools. I learned that minority kids who attended Catholic schools were more likely to take advanced courses than their peers in public schools, more likely to go to college, and more likely to continue on to graduate school. The Catholic schools could not afford to offer multiple tracks, so they expected all students to do the same coursework. I became interested in seeing whether there was any way public policy could sustain these schools. Long after I was out of office, I coauth.o.r.ed an opinion piece with William Galston, who had served as President Clinton"s domestic policy adviser, proposing a national school choice demonstration project in at least ten cities.17 At the same National Catholic Education a.s.sociation conference in 1991, the sociologist Father Andrew Greeley predicted that the first voucher would arrive on the day that the last Catholic school closed. He knew that Catholic schools, despite their great success in educating working-cla.s.s and poor children, were struggling to survive. He knew that help was not on the way. What he did not know-and what I did not realize-was that the new charter school movement would undercut Catholic schooling. Charter schools offered an alternative not only to regular public schools, but to Catholic schools, which were burdened by rising costs. As more and more states opened charter schools, more and more Catholic schools closed their doors. Between 1990 and 2008, some 1,300 Catholic schools that had once enrolled 300,000 children were shuttered.18 Many of them would have shut down anyway because of changing demographics and the diminished number of low-paid religious teachers to staff them, but compet.i.tion with free charter schools was very likely a contributing factor. Many of them would have shut down anyway because of changing demographics and the diminished number of low-paid religious teachers to staff them, but compet.i.tion with free charter schools was very likely a contributing factor.

There was an undeniable appeal to the values a.s.sociated with choice: freedom, personal empowerment, deregulation, the ability to chart one"s own course. All of those values appealed to me and many others. The anti-choice side was saddled with defending regulation, bureaucracy, and poor academic results. How much easier it was to promise (and hope for) the accomplishments, successes, and rewards that had not yet been achieved and could not yet be demonstrated, but were surely out there on the other side of the mountain.

NOT LONG AFTER THE MILWAUKEE VOUCHER PROGRAM STARTED in 1990, researchers began to debate whether vouchers were improving student achievement. The Wisconsin State Education Department hired John Witte of the University of Wisconsin to evaluate the Milwaukee program. Witte found that the voucher students were not making large gains. Voucher supporters denounced his findings because he was appointed by the Wisconsin state superintendent, who was a well-known critic of vouchers.19 One study followed another, with a predictable pattern: The critics of vouchers almost always found small or no gains, while supporters of vouchers almost always found significant gains. Each side criticized the other"s research methodology. Each said the other was ideologically biased and not to be trusted. One study followed another, with a predictable pattern: The critics of vouchers almost always found small or no gains, while supporters of vouchers almost always found significant gains. Each side criticized the other"s research methodology. Each said the other was ideologically biased and not to be trusted.

The same exchanges occurred in Cleveland, where a voucher program started in 1995. The critics saw little or no progress. The supporters said the critics were wrong. One side found promising gains; the other side saw no gains.

By 2009, studies by different authors came to similar conclusions about vouchers, suggesting an emerging consensus. Cecelia E. Rouse of Princeton University and Lisa Barrow of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago published a review of all the existing studies of vouchers in Milwaukee, Cleveland, and the District of Columbia. They found that there were "relatively small achievement gains for students offered educational vouchers, most of which are not statistically different from zero." They could not predict whether vouchers might eventually produce changes in high school graduation rates, college enrollment, or future wages. But they did not find impressive gains in achievement. Nor was there persuasive evidence that the public school systems that lost voucher students to private schools had improved. Since no one claimed that the voucher programs had produced dramatic changes, Rouse and Barrow cautioned against antic.i.p.ating that voucher programs were going to produce large academic gains in the future.20 A team of researchers that included both supporters and critics of vouchers launched a five-year longitudinal study of the Milwaukee program. In the first year of the study, they found that students in the regular public schools and those in the voucher schools had similar scores. Students in the fourth grade in voucher schools had lower scores on state tests of reading, math, and science than students in regular schools, while voucher students in eighth grade had higher scores. Neither group demonstrated high performance. At all grades, both public school students and voucher students were well below the 50th percentile nationally, mainly around the 33rd percentile, which was typical of low-income students.21 In 2009, the same research team released another study that found no major differences between students in voucher schools and those in regular public schools. The research group included the strongly pro-voucher Jay P. Greene of the University of Arkansas and John Witte, who was considered a critic of vouchers. The researchers found "no overall statistically significant differences between MPCP [voucher] and MPS [Milwaukee Public Schools] student achievement growth in either math or reading one year after they were carefully matched to each other." Perhaps there would be different outcomes in the future, but this was not the panacea that voucher supporters had promised and hoped for. 22 22 The District of Columbia voucher program-the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program-was created by the Republican-controlled Congress in 2003. The scholarship, worth $7,500, could be used for tuition and fees at a private or religious school. The vouchers were awarded by lottery; priority was given to students attending "schools in need of improvement"-so-called SINI schools. Congress mandated annual evaluations of the program. The first evaluation in 2008 reported that in the first two years of the program (2004 and 2005), there was no statistically significant difference in test scores of reading and math between students who won the lottery and those who entered the lottery but did not win. However, the third-year evaluation of the voucher program (released in 2009) found that there was "a statistically significant positive impact on reading test scores, but not math test scores." The reading scores represented a gain of more than three months of learning.23 Supporters of vouchers were ecstatic about the third-year evaluation because at last they had hard evidence that vouchers would benefit students. They glossed over the finding that these gains were limited to certain groups of students. The students who experienced gains in reading were those who entered the program from schools that were not not in need of improvement, those who entered the program in the upper two-thirds of the test score distribution, and those who entered in grades K-8. Females also seemed to benefit, though that finding was not as robust as the others. The groups that did not experience improvement in reading (or math) were boys, secondary students, students from SINI schools, and students in the lowest third of the test score distribution. The students who did not see any gains were those in the highest-priority groups, the ones for whom the program was designed: those with the lowest test scores and those who had previously attended SINI schools. in need of improvement, those who entered the program in the upper two-thirds of the test score distribution, and those who entered in grades K-8. Females also seemed to benefit, though that finding was not as robust as the others. The groups that did not experience improvement in reading (or math) were boys, secondary students, students from SINI schools, and students in the lowest third of the test score distribution. The students who did not see any gains were those in the highest-priority groups, the ones for whom the program was designed: those with the lowest test scores and those who had previously attended SINI schools.24 Test results were not the only source of concern about voucher schools. When a team of reporters from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Milwaukee Journal Sentinel examined the voucher schools in Milwaukee in 2005, they uncovered unantic.i.p.ated problems. Applicants to run a voucher school did not need any particular credentials, nor did their teachers. The journalists visited 106 of 115 voucher schools (nine voucher schools would not let them in); they found good schools and awful schools, Catholic schools, Muslim schools, and evangelical Christian schools. examined the voucher schools in Milwaukee in 2005, they uncovered unantic.i.p.ated problems. Applicants to run a voucher school did not need any particular credentials, nor did their teachers. The journalists visited 106 of 115 voucher schools (nine voucher schools would not let them in); they found good schools and awful schools, Catholic schools, Muslim schools, and evangelical Christian schools.

The reporters judged that about 10 percent of the voucher schools were excellent, and the same proportion showed "alarming deficiencies." Among the last group was Alex"s Academics of Excellence, which had been opened by a convicted rapist and remained open despite allegations that staff members used drugs on school grounds. At another school, the Mandella School of Science and Math, the founder went to jail for padding the school"s enrollment and stealing some $330,000 in public funds; he used part of his ill-gotten gains to buy two Mercedes, while his teachers went unpaid. Those schools and two others were eventually closed by the authorities, not because of parents voting with their feet to take their children out of bad schools, and not because the academic program was abysmal, but because of financial improprieties. One of the voucher schools that reporters visited was opened by a man with an expired license as a subst.i.tute teacher who had previously worked as a school security guard and a woman who had previously been a teacher"s aide. They collected $414,000 annually in public funds for the eighty pupils enrolled in their spa.r.s.ely furnished rented s.p.a.ce. When reporters visited the school, only fifty students were present, and instruction was minimal.25 But on the whole, the reporters concluded that "the voucher schools feel, and look, surprisingly like schools in the Milwaukee Public Schools district." Student performance in the Milwaukee public schools increased in the first two years after vouchers were introduced-possibly because the new compet.i.tion spurred teachers to prepare students for the state tests. After that, achievement in the regular schools stalled. As the compet.i.tion got stiffer, there were no more improvements in the public schools. This was not the momentous result that voucher advocates had predicted.

The one notable consequence of the voucher program was that (in the words of the Journal Sentinel Journal Sentinel reporters) "it opened the door for the spread of other forms of school choice, including charter schools, which have taken innovative paths and have been growing rapidly in enrollment." As students enrolled in the voucher schools, charter schools, and interdistrict choice programs, enrollment in the Milwaukee public schools plummeted. In 1998, the district had about 100,000 students. A decade later, enrollment in the regular public schools dropped just below 80,000. Vouchers, charters, and choice were rapidly eroding the public education system. reporters) "it opened the door for the spread of other forms of school choice, including charter schools, which have taken innovative paths and have been growing rapidly in enrollment." As students enrolled in the voucher schools, charter schools, and interdistrict choice programs, enrollment in the Milwaukee public schools plummeted. In 1998, the district had about 100,000 students. A decade later, enrollment in the regular public schools dropped just below 80,000. Vouchers, charters, and choice were rapidly eroding the public education system.26 A similar phenomenon occurred in Washington, D.C. As charter schools grew, enrollment in the District of Columbia"s public schools dropped sharply. When the first charter school opened in the district in 1997, the public schools enrolled nearly 80,000 students. By 2009, the number of students enrolled in public schools dropped to only 45,000, while fifty-six charter schools enrolled 28,000 children, over a third of the students in the district (with an additional 1,700 students in voucher schools).27 The media regularly pummeled the district"s public schools as the worst in the nation, while the highest officials in the federal and local government lauded charter schools as the leading edge of school reform. Little wonder that parents voted with their feet to abandon the public schools. The media regularly pummeled the district"s public schools as the worst in the nation, while the highest officials in the federal and local government lauded charter schools as the leading edge of school reform. Little wonder that parents voted with their feet to abandon the public schools.

The 2007 report of the federal National a.s.sessment of Educational Progress had disturbing implications for Milwaukee"s public schools. That a.s.sessment found that the test scores of African American students in Wisconsin"s public schools were among the lowest in the nation, comparable to those of African American students in Mississippi and Alabama in both reading and mathematics in fourth and eighth grades. The gap between white and African American students in Wisconsin was one of the largest in the nation. This reflected poorly on Milwaukee, where two-thirds of the African American students in Wisconsin attended school. According to choice theory, vouchers were supposed to improve the public schools, but the NAEP results showed that the performance of African American students in Milwaukee continued to lag.28 In sum, twenty years after the initiation of vouchers in Milwaukee and a decade after the program"s expansion to include religious schools, there was no evidence of dramatic improvement for the neediest students or the public schools they left behind.

CHARTER SCHOOLS WERE THE JEWELS of the school choice movement. They were far more popular than vouchers and multiplied rapidly. By 2010, about 30,000 students in the nation were using publicly funded vouchers, while some 1.4 million students were enrolled in about 4,600 charter schools. Every president lauded charter schools, from George H. W. Bush to Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Barack Obama. Charter schools appealed to a broad spectrum of people from the left, the right, and the center, all of whom saw charters (as others had previously seen vouchers) as the antidote to bureaucracy and stasis and as the decisive change that would revolutionize American education and dramatically improve educational achievement. Charter schools represented, more than anything else, a concerted effort to deregulate public education, with few restrictions on pedagogy, curriculum, cla.s.s size, discipline, or other details of their operation.

The charter school sector had its problems, which was not surprising in light of its explosive growth. In 2004, the California Charter Academy, the largest charter school chain in California, collapsed in bankruptcy, stranding 6,000 students in sixty storefront schools at the beginning of the fall term. The founder of the organization, a former insurance company executive, allegedly collected $100 million from the state to finance his statewide chain of charter schools.29 Pennsylvania pa.s.sed a charter law in 1997. Ten years later, there were 127 charter schools, nearly half in Philadelphia. The city adopted what is known as the "diverse provider model," in which district schools compete with charter schools and privately managed schools (operating under contract to the district and not entirely free of districtwide mandates). Researchers from the RAND Corporation noted that achievement had improved in Philadelphia, but "with so many different interventions under way simultaneously in Philadelphia, there is no way to determine exactly which components of the reform plan are responsible for the improvement." The RAND team concluded in 2008 that students in charter schools made gains that were statistically indistinguishable from the gains they experienced while attending traditional public schools. They found no evidence that the local public schools were performing any differently because of compet.i.tion with the charter schools. In 2007, the same researchers had a.n.a.lyzed Philadelphia"s experiment in privatizing schools. They found that the privately managed schools-including for-profit and nonprofit managers-did not, on average, exceed the performance of regular public schools. In 2009, Philadelphia officials announced that the privatization experiment had not worked; of twenty-eight privately managed schools, they said, six elementary and middle schools outperformed the regular public schools, but ten were worse than district-run schools.30 The Philadelphia Inquirer Philadelphia Inquirer reported that at least four charters were under federal criminal investigation for nepotism, conflicts of interest, and financial mismanagement. The managers of other charters in Pennsylvania created private companies to sell products or services to their schools or placed relatives on the payroll. One charter, the reported that at least four charters were under federal criminal investigation for nepotism, conflicts of interest, and financial mismanagement. The managers of other charters in Pennsylvania created private companies to sell products or services to their schools or placed relatives on the payroll. One charter, the Inquirer Inquirer found, paid millions of dollars in rent, salaries, and management fees annually to a for-profit company owned by the charter"s chief executive officer. Cyber-charters, which offered online instruction to students at home, were receiving full payment for each student and ama.s.sing multimillion-dollar reserves; in virtual charter schools, relatively small numbers of teachers can "instruct" hundreds or even thousands of students online, generating huge profits for the charter company. Special education funding was also an issue in Pennsylvania, because charters collected payments for special education students but were not required to spend all the money they received on special education services. found, paid millions of dollars in rent, salaries, and management fees annually to a for-profit company owned by the charter"s chief executive officer. Cyber-charters, which offered online instruction to students at home, were receiving full payment for each student and ama.s.sing multimillion-dollar reserves; in virtual charter schools, relatively small numbers of teachers can "instruct" hundreds or even thousands of students online, generating huge profits for the charter company. Special education funding was also an issue in Pennsylvania, because charters collected payments for special education students but were not required to spend all the money they received on special education services.31 When charters get outstanding results, researchers inevitably ask whether they enroll a fair share of the neediest students. Some charters specifically serve English-language learners or special education students, and some do have their fair share. But in many instances, charters avoid students with high needs, either because they lack the staff to educate them appropriately or because they fear that such students will depress their test scores. A 2008 study by Jack Buckley and Mark Schneider of the charter schools in Washington, D.C., showed that they enroll substantially smaller numbers of children with high needs than do the regular public schools. On the one hand, the D.C. charters have a disproportionately high number of poor children, but on the other, "the vast majority of charters have proportionally fewer special education and English language learning students." A small number of charters target these groups, they said, but most do not. English-language learners were underrepresented in twenty-eight of thirty-seven charters, and special education students were underrepresented in twenty-four of thirty-seven charters, as compared to their proportions in the District of Columbia public schools.32 Nonetheless, some charter schools unquestionably have achieved outstanding results. In Texas, the School of Science and Technology in San Antonio was the only middle school in that city to earn a rating of "exemplary" from the state. About 20 percent of charter schools were considered excellent by state evaluators, and another 20 percent were struggling to survive, while the remaining 60 percent were somewhere in between.33 The charter schools with the most impressive record of success are the KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) schools, which have been called culture-changing schools, because they aim to teach students not just academics but also self-discipline and good behavior. KIPP was launched in 1994 by two teachers, David Levin and Michael Feinberg, after they completed their two-year a.s.signment in the Teach for America program in Houston. Feinberg opened a KIPP school in Houston, and Levin opened one in the South Bronx in New York City. Both schools achieved exceptional results. Generously funded by foundations, Levin and Feinberg opened dozens more KIPP schools across the nation, specifically to prepare poor minority students for college. Fifteen years after the organization was founded, there were eighty-two KIPP schools with approximately 20,000 students.34 Almost every KIPP school is a charter school, and most are middle schools (grades five through eight). In contrast to regular public schools, KIPP schools have longer days (nine and a half hours), some Sat.u.r.day cla.s.ses, and three weeks of summer school; typically, a KIPP school provides 60 percent more time in school than a regular public school. Students, parents, and teachers sign a contract agreeing to fulfill specific responsibilities. The central organization does not define KIPP"s pedagogy and curriculum; it leaves these decisions to individual school leaders.

In the demands they make on students, teachers, and parents, the KIPP schools are reminiscent of the American public schools of the 1940s, or even the 1920s, before the onset of cla.s.s-action lawsuits and union contracts. In those days, it was not unusual to encounter schools with strict disciplinary codes and long working hours (though not nine-and-a-half-hour days).

Despite its successes, KIPP has its detractors. Critics question the applicability of the KIPP model to public education in general. One persistent question is whether KIPP enrolls all kinds of students, as regular public schools must. Like other successful charter schools, KIPP admits students by lottery; by definition, only the most motivated families apply for a slot. Charters with lotteries tend to attract the best students in poor neighborhoods, leaving the public schools in the same neighborhood worse off because they have lost some of their top-performing students. They also tend to enroll fewer of the students with high needs-English-language learners and those needing special education.35 The students who remain in KIPP schools for four or more years tend to achieve large test score gains. Most KIPP schools consistently outperform traditional public schools in the same neighborhood. But KIPP schools often have a high attrition rate. Apparently many students and their parents are unable or unwilling to comply with KIPP"s stringent demands. A 2008 study of KIPP schools in San Francisco"s Bay Area found that 60 percent of the students who started in fifth grade were gone by the end of eighth grade. The students who quit tended to be lower-performing students. The exit of such a large proportion of low-performing students-for whatever reasons-makes it difficult to a.n.a.lyze the performance of KIPP students in higher grades. In addition, teacher turnover is high at KIPP schools, as well as other charter schools, no doubt because of the unusually long hours. Thus, while the KIPP schools obtain impressive results for the students who remain enrolled for four years, the high levels of student attrition and teacher turnover raise questions about the applicability of the KIPP model to the regular public schools.36 KIPP has demonstrated that youngsters from some of the toughest neighborhoods in the nation can succeed in a safe and structured environment, if they have supportive parents and are willing to work hard, spend long days in school, and comply with the school"s expectations. Thus far, public schools have not copied their methods. Regular public schools must accept everyone who applies, including the students who leave KIPP schools. They can"t throw out the kids who do not work hard or the kids who have many absences or the kids who are disrespectful or the kids whose parents are absent or inattentive. They have to find ways to educate even those students who don"t want to be there. That"s the dilemma of public education.

The theory of the charter movement is that compet.i.tion with the regular public schools will lead to improvements in both sectors, and that choice is a rising tide that lifts all boats. But in reality, the regular public schools are at a huge disadvantage in compet.i.tion with charter schools. It is not only because charter schools may attract the most motivated students, may discharge laggards, and may enforce a tough disciplinary code, but also because the charters often get additional financial resources from their corporate sponsors, enabling them to offer smaller cla.s.ses, after-school and enrichment activities, and laptop computers for every student. Many charter schools enforce discipline codes that would likely be challenged in court if they were adopted in regular public schools; and because charter schools are schools of choice, they find it easier to avoid, eliminate, or counsel out low-performing and disruptive students.

Yet, even with their advantages, charter schools-like all new schools-face daunting challenges. Reformers declare their intention to open new schools as though this would solve the problems of low-performing schools. But new schools cannot be ma.s.s-produced or turned out with a cookie-cutter design. Opening a new school is difficult. It involves starting with or recruiting a strong leader and a capable faculty, obtaining facilities, developing a program, a.s.sembling a student body, creating an effective administrative structure, and building a culture. Getting a new school up and running may take as many as five years. Some will succeed, some will be no different from the schools they replaced, and others will fail.

Reformers imagine that it is easy to create a successful school, but it is not. They imagine that the lessons of a successful school are obvious and can be easily transferred to other schools, just as one might take an industrial process or a new piece of machinery and install it in a new plant without error. But a school is successful for many reasons, including the personalities of its leader and teachers; the social interactions among them; the culture of the school; the students and their families; the way the school implements policies and programs dictated by the district, the state, and the federal government; the quality of the school"s curriculum and instruction; the resources of the school and the community; and many other factors. When a school is successful, it is hard to know which factor was most important or if it was a combination of factors. Even the princ.i.p.al and teachers may not know for sure. A reporter from the local newspaper will arrive and decide that it must be the princ.i.p.al or a particular program, but the reporter will very likely be wrong. Success, whether defined as high test scores or graduation rates or student satisfaction, cannot be bottled and dispensed at will. This may explain why there are so few examples of low-performing schools that have been "turned around" into high-performing schools. And it may explain why schools are not very good at replicating the success of model schools, whether the models are charters or regular public schools. Certainly schools can improve and learn from one another, but school improvements-if they are real-occur incrementally, as a result of sustained effort over years.

HAVE CHARTER SCHOOLS LIVED up to the promises of their promoters? Given the wide diversity of charter schools, it"s hard to reach a singular judgment about them. In terms of quality, charter schools run the gamut. Some are excellent, some are dreadful, and most are somewhere in between. It is in the nature of markets that some succeed, some are middling, and others fail.

In 2004, a furious controversy erupted between advocates and opponents of charter schools when it turned out that the federal government had tested a national sample of charter schools in 2003 but had not released its findings. The federal government did not release the data on charter school performance when it announced the results for states and the nation in November 2003. The charter scores went unnoticed until the results were discovered on the federal testing agency"s Web site by staff members of the American Federation of Teachers. They learned that NAEP showed no measurable differences on tests of reading and mathematics between fourth-grade students from similar racial/ethnic backgrounds in charter schools and in regular public schools. Among poor students, fourth graders in regular public schools outperformed those in charter schools in both subjects. Overall, charter and public students performed similarly in reading, but public school students performed better in mathematics. The AFT published its own a.n.a.lysis in August 2004, which raised the question of why the testing data about charters had not been released in a timely manner. The effectiveness of charter schools was especially important, the AFT team argued, because the No Child Left Behind legislation proposed to improve low-performing public schools by turning them into charter schools. If charter schools were no more successful than regular public schools, then the "remedy" made no sense. The AFT leaked its discovery to Diana Jean Schemo, an education reporter at the New York Times New York Times, whose front-page story stated that "the findings, buried in mountains of data the Education Department released without public announcement, dealt a blow to supporters of the charter school movement, including the Bush administration."37 The data wars were on! Charter school supporters were outraged and took out a full-page ad in the New York Times New York Times to complain about the unfairness of judging charter schools that were serving far more disadvantaged students than their peers in regular public schools and to stress that the federal data said nothing about whether charter students were making gains. In December 2004, Harvard University economist Caroline M. Hoxby published a comprehensive study comparing charter schools and their nearby public schools. Hoxby a.n.a.lyzed the performance of virtually every charter elementary school student in the nation and found that they were more likely to be proficient in both reading and math than public school students, and that the charter school advantage increased with the age of the charter schools; students in charter schools that had been operating for more than nine years showed the largest gains. to complain about the unfairness of judging charter schools that were serving far more disadvantaged students than their peers in regular public schools and to stress that the federal data said nothing about whether charter students were making gains. In December 2004, Harvard University economist Caroline M. Hoxby published a comprehensive study comparing charter schools and their nearby public schools. Hoxby a.n.a.lyzed the performance of virtually every charter elementary school student in the nation and found that they were more likely to be proficient in both reading and math than public school students, and that the charter school advantage increased with the age of the charter schools; students in charter schools that had been operating for more than nine years showed the largest gains.38 But that was not the end of the data wars. Critics of charter schools a.s.sociated with the left-leaning think tank Economic Policy Inst.i.tute (EPI) published The Charter School Dust-Up The Charter School Dust-Up, reviewing the evidence as well as the controversy over the NAEP charter report, and concluded that charter schools were a risky venture in education. The critics quoted one of the leading charter boosters, Chester E. Finn Jr., who wrote: Some of the best schools I"ve ever been in are charter schools, some of which are blowing the lid off test scores in such vexed communities as Boston, New York, and Chicago. And some of the worst-and flakiest-schools I"ve ever been in are charter schools. Yet people are choosing them.39 The EPI authors said that the question to be answered was not whether charter schools, on average, outperform regular public schools, "but rather whether the underperformance of some charter schools is a price worth paying for the overperformance of others." They were particularly concerned that the response of charter supporters to the flap over the NAEP scores "reflects an unfortunate shift of some charter school advocacy from a pragmatic quest to identify school improvement strategies to an ideological prejudice against regular public schools." They recalled that one of the original goals of the charter movement was to engage in experimentation to see what works best, but the repeated claim that charter schools were superior to regular schools suggests that "experimentation is not necessary because charter school operators already know what works."40 In the years that followed, study after study compared educational performance in private schools and public schools, or charter schools and regular public schools. The only surprise was how small and usually insignificant were the gains recorded by any sector.

On a Friday in July 2006, the U.S. Department of Education quietly released a study comparing students in public and private schools. The timing suggested that the department did not want to call attention to the study, which found that public school students performed as well as or better than comparable children in private schools. Private school students scored higher on average, but their advantage disappeared when they were compared to public school students with similar characteristics. In mathematics, fourth-grade students in public schools were nearly half a year ahead of their peers in private schools. Only in eighth-grade reading did private school students surpa.s.s their public school counterparts.41 In the same year, another study appeared comparing the performance of students in public schools, private schools, and charter schools on the 2003 NAEP mathematics a.s.sessment. The authors, Christopher Lubienski and Sarah Theule Lubienski, maintained that mathematics scores offered a clearer indication of the school"s effectiveness than reading scores, because mathematics is influenced less by the child"s home experiences than reading. After controlling for demographic and other variables, the study found that the advantages of private schools and charter schools disappeared and, in some instances, demonstrated the superiority of regular public schools. The researchers concluded that the regular public schools performed "relatively well when compared to demographically similar private and charter schools, without the remedy of major, private-style structural reforms in their governance and management."42 When the 2007 NAEP test results were released, they showed that students in charter schools had lower scores than students in public schools in fourth-grade reading, fourth-grade mathematics, and eighth-grade mathematics. Only in eighth-grade reading did charter school students score the same as public school students. When students were compared by race and ethnicity, there was little difference in the test scores of students in charter schools and regular public schools (except that eighth-grade Hispanic students in charter schools did better in math). As Education Week Education Week reported, "The picture that emerges from the growing data set appears mixed for charter schools. While many a.n.a.lysts urge caution in using NAEP to judge the 4,300-school charter sector, the latest data do not bolster the early hopes of charter advocates that the sector as a whole would significantly outperform regular public schools." reported, "The picture that emerges from the growing data set appears mixed for charter schools. While many a.n.a.lysts urge caution in using NAEP to judge the 4,300-school charter sector, the latest data do not bolster the early hopes of charter advocates that the sector as a whole would significantly outperform regular public schools."43 Meanwhile, studies of charter schools compared to regular public schools continued to appear, and they reached dissimilar conclusions.

A 2009 study by Thomas Kane and colleagues compared Boston"s charter schools, pilot schools (which have a high degree of autonomy in budget, staffing, and curriculum but are still part of the district), and traditional public schools and reached a verdict favorable to charters. Charters in Ma.s.sachusetts have an impressive record of success; in 2008, four of the top ten public schools on the state"s test of eighth-grade mathematics were charter schools, as were three of the top ten on the state"s test of tenth-grade mathematics. The study concluded that charters "appear to have a consistently positive impact on student achievement" in both middle schools and high schools. The gains were especially large in middle school mathematics, where students moved from the 50th to the 69th percentile in performance in one year-about half the size of the black-white achievement gap. Part of the study compared students who won the lottery to those who applied but did not win the lottery. Sociologist Jennifer Jennings admired the study but pointed out that the lottery portion of the study included only the most successful of the city"s charter schools-zero of five charter elementary schools, four of thirteen charter middle schools, and three of eleven charter high schools. The remainder were "not oversubscribed enough to require a lottery." The Kane report acknowledged that "substantial" gains were found in "high-demand Charter Schools with complete records" and warned that "these results should not be interpreted as showing that Boston Charters always produce test score gains."44 It showed that successful charter schools are very successful; it did not show that all charters are successful. It showed that successful charter schools are very successful; it did not show that all charters are successful.

Given their outstanding results, charters in Boston enjoy a good reputation. Some are exemplary schools. But an a.n.a.lysis by the Boston Globe Boston Globe in 2009 determined that compared to regular public schools, Boston"s charter schools enrolled a smaller percentage of students who were in special education or who were English-language learners. English-language learners were nearly one-fifth of the public school enrollment, yet the city"s charters (with only one exception) contained fewer than 4 percent of such students. Six of Boston"s sixteen charters had not a single English-language learner. The in 2009 determined that compared to regular public schools, Boston"s charter schools enrolled a smaller percentage of students who were in special education or who were English-language learners. English-language learners were nearly one-fifth of the public school enrollment, yet the city"s charters (with only one exception) contained fewer than 4 percent of such students. Six of Boston"s sixteen charters had not a single English-language learner. The Globe Globe wondered whether charters achieved "dazzling" test scores "because of innovative teaching or because they enroll fewer disadvantaged students." wondered whether charters achieved "dazzling" test scores "because of innovative teaching or because they enroll fewer disadvantaged students."45 This a.n.a.lysis by no means diminishes the accomplishments of Boston"s top charter schools-such as Academy of the Pacific Rim, Boston Collegiate, Boston Prep, and Roxbury Prep-but it leaves open the question of how to educate the neediest students and which schools will do so. This a.n.a.lysis by no means diminishes the accomplishments of Boston"s top charter schools-such as Academy of the Pacific Rim, Boston Collegiate, Boston Prep, and Roxbury Prep-but it leaves open the question of how to educate the neediest students and which schools will do so.

A national study in 2009 concluded that students in most charter schools performed no better than those in traditional public schools. Researchers at Stanford University, led by economist Margaret E. Raymond, a.n.a.lyzed data from 2,403 charter schools in fifteen states and the District of Columbia (about half of all charters and 70 percent of all charter students in the nation at the time) and found that 37 percent had learning gains that were significantly below those of local public schools; 46 percent had gains that were no different; and only 17 percent showed growth that was significantly better. More than 80 percent of the charter schools in the study performed either the same as or worse than the local public schools. Raymond concluded, "This study reveals in unmistakable terms that, in the aggregate, charter students are not faring as well as their TPS [traditional public school] counterparts. Further, tremendous variation in academic quality among charters is the norm, not the exception. The problem of quality is the most pressing issue that charter schools and their supporters face." She commented to Education Week Education Week, "If this study shows anything, it shows that we"ve got a two-to-one margin of bad charters to good charters." The Stanford study created demographic matches between students in charter schools and local public schools. The results were sobering, especially since the study was funded by such pro-charter groups as the Walton Family Foundation and the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation.46 In the same year, however, Caroline Hoxby and her colleagues at Stanford reached a starkly different conclusion. In a study of New York City charter schools, Hoxby determined that disadvantaged students who attended charter schools for nine consecutive years, from kindergarten to eighth grade, closed most of the "Scarsdale-Harlem" achievement gap. She compared students who won the lottery with students who entered but did not win, matching equally motivated students, to demonstrate that the charters did not attain great results by "creaming" the best students. This finding suggested to editorialists at the Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post Washington Post, and other national media that charter schools were the silver bullet that could finally solve the most deep-seated problems of urban education.47 A summary of research on charter schools by Tom Loveless and Katharyn Field of the Brookings Inst.i.tution in 2009 found, as one might expect, a large divide between advocates and critics of these schools. Some researchers found positive effects, some found negative effects, but on the whole "none of the studies detects huge effects-either positive or negative." Their review also indicated that charters probably promoted racial segregation, since parents chose schools "with a racial profile matching their own." The authors predicted that the real debate about charter schools was ideological and would not easily be resolved. They concluded, As so often happens with competing ideologies, the empirical evidence on charter schools has not yet settled the theoretical arguments about their existence. We need better research on charter schools, it is true, a non-controversial recommendation endorsed by blue ribbon commissions. But we should not be overly optimistic that better data will settle the charter school debate. Future research will be of varying quality, the data will be mixed and difficult to interpret, and the findings subject to different interpretations. Just as it is unreasonable to expect charter schools to solve all of the problems of American education, it is unreasonable to expect research to settle all of the theoretical disputes about market-based education and school choice.48 Buoyed by hope and the endors.e.m.e.nt of important political figures, enthusiasm for charter schools far outstripped research evidence for their efficacy, as scholars Buckley and Schneider noted. They predicted that the demand for "evidence-based reform" was on a collision course with the demand for more charter schools. While they saw cause for optimism in some charters, they concluded that the push for charters was "characterized by too many promises that are only, at best, weakly supported by evidence . . . even the most basic descriptions of

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