Ineffective charter schools must be closed

18 Aug

In Focus on charter schools: Charter school laws, moi said:

This blog wholeheartedly supports charters, but more important, this blog supports school choice.  One of the principles of this blog is that all children have a right to a good basic education. There are a variety of ways that each child will receive that good basic education and the choice should be left to the parents or guardians. The only caveat should be that if the education option is failing to educate that child, there should be other alternatives to choose from. Charters are governed by state law which authorizes them and sets the parameters for operation. One of the reasons many support charters is it is at least theoretically possible for failing schools to be closed. There are going to be good education options of all types and there will be failures of public school, private schools, and homeschools. Just as success is not attributed to all choices in a category, the fact that a public school or charter school is a failure does not mean that ALL public schools or ALL charter schools are failure. People, use a little discernment. Many are so caught up in their particular political agenda that they lose sight of the goal, which is that all children have a right to a good basic education.

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools has issued the report, Measuring Up to the Model: A Ranking of State Charter School Laws, 2012 http://www.publiccharters.org/publication/?id=658       See, Report: Quality of Charter School Laws Improves Nationwide   http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/report-quality-of-charter-school-laws-improves-nationwide/

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/focus-on-charter-schools-charter-school-laws/

One of the perceived advantages of the charter school concept is the ability to close underperforming schools.

In Focus on charter schools: There must be accountability, moi said:

Moi supports neighborhood schools which cater to the needs of the children and families in that neighborhood. A one-size-fits-all approach does not work in education. It is for this reason that moi supports charter schools which are regulated by strong charter school legislation with accountability. Accountability means different things to different people. In 2005 Sheila A. Arens wrote Examining the Meaning of Accountability: Reframing the Construct for Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning which emphasizes the involvement of parents and community members. One of the goals of the charter movement is to involve parents and communities. http://www.mcrel.org/PDF/AssessmentAccountabilityDataUse/4002IR_Examining_Accountability.pdf

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/focus-on-charter-schools-there-must-be-accountability/

Sean Cavanaugh’s Education Week article discusses charter school accountability.

In Debate Grows Around Charter School Closure, Cavanaugh writes:

One of the most vexing questions about charter schools—when low-performing ones should be shut down—is receiving new attention, amid concerns that lax and inconsistent standards for closing them will undermine the public’s confidence in the sector.

Over the past few years, a growing number of researchers, policymakers, and charter school backers have called for removing obstacles to closing academically struggling schools, though many barriers remain.

Numerous states have approved laws in recent years that have raised or clarified standards for charter school performance, while also establishing policies to make it easier for charters to open and secure facilities and public funding.

Even so, state and local policies vary greatly in their expectations for charter schools, and in the standards they set for authorizers—the state, local, or independent entities typically charged with approving charters and overseeing their performance.

According to a report released this year, the nationwide rate of closure of charters schools up for renewal has actually fallen over the past three years, which could be interpreted as a sign of improved quality, weaker oversight, or some combination of both. Another recent estimate shows that the percentage of charters in different states that have shut their doors varies widely—from zero to 5 percent in some states to well over 20 percent in others.e Also

Debates about the standards for closing struggling charters are nothing new, either in the context of broader policy discussions or in communities weighing the performance of individual schools. But the issue has received more intense focus lately from pro-charter groups that say they want to ensure that the sector, which has grown fairly steady for two decades, is held to high standards….

Others point out that many low-performing charters do, in fact, close, and warn against state and local officials setting overly rigid standards for judging performance without considering the challenges individual schools face.

“Trying to create one-size-fits-all formulas—that flies in the face of what charter schools should be,” said Jeanne Allen, the president of the Center for Education Reform, a Washington organization that supports such schools. Authorizers need to be held to high standards for judging charters, she said, but also “actively understand the context of each school.”

Debates about charter quality notwithstanding, research suggests that academically struggling charters do not get a free pass.

A larger percentage of low-performing charters close—19 percent—than do similarly struggling public schools—11 percent—according to a 2010 studyconducted by David A. Stuit, a partner at Basis Policy Research, an independent research organization in Raleigh, N.C., for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington think tank that supports charters. That study focused on 10 states, which have about 70 percent of the country’s charters.

Nationwide, 15 percent of the 6,700 charter schools that have opened over the past two decades have shut their doors for one reason or another, according to the Center for Education Reform. The largest proportion of those closures, nearly 42 percent, were the result of financial woes, usually related to low enrollment or lack of funding, the CER concluded. Twenty-four percent closed for reasons of mismanagement, and a smaller share, 19 percent, were shut down for academic reasons.

Who Authorizes Charter Schools?

The nation’s charter schools are overseen by a variety of authorizers. The vast majority of them—more than 90 percent—are individual school districts:

859 local education agencies
46 higher education institutions
20 nonprofit organizations
20 state education agencies
10 independent chartering boards
2 mayors/municipalities

957 total

SOURCE: National Association of Charter School Authorizers http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/08/17/01closure_ep.h32.html?tkn=PVLFy1z3RewY%2BLRHVgefsvkBJ3%2BmKA5iLdlO&intc=es

So, what does this all mean? No one method will educate all children. If the goal is to give all children a good basic education, then all options must be on the table. Otherwise, the supposed adults are protecting their jobs and their pensions.

Resources:

Why Charter Schools

Related:

National Education Policy Center study compares spending by charters and public schools                                                                                                                              https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/05/07/national-education-policy-center-study-study-compares-spending-by-charters-and-public-schools/

Good or bad? Charter schools and segregation                                                    https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/good-or-bad-charter-schools-and-segregation/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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