A Comment About Pending Federal Charter School Legislation

From the Parents Across America blog:

H.R. 2218 (bill summary) passed the House Education and Workforce Committee on June 22 by a vote of 34-5.  The five Democrats who voted against the bill are:  Reps. John Tierney (MA), Dennis Kucinich (OH),  Dave Loebsack (IA), Raul Grijalva (AZ), and Tim Bishop (NY). The bill is likely to be brought to the House floor before the August recess,  scheduled to begin August 8.  Parents, please send a similar message to your  Representatives, by calling or emailing their offices and tell them that they should oppose this bill.   You can find their contact information here.

A cover letter to Congress and this position paper is also available as a downloadable pdf.

Why Public School Parents Oppose H.R. 2218

and Our Recommendations for Improving the Charter School Bill

July 4, 2011

Parents Across America (PAA), a grassroots organization representing public school parents from across the United States, opposes the current version of H.R. 2218, the Empowering Parents Through Quality Charter Schools Act, which was recently reported from the House Education and Workforce Committee.

PAA is committed to bringing the voice of public school parents – and common sense – to local, state, and national education debates. We believe that parents are empowered, and children are better educated, only when parents are full partners and have an equal voice in education policy making. PAA supports proven, common-sense education reforms that have a demonstrated track record of success.

PAA has many concerns about charter schools, their effect on our nation’s system of public schools, and how well they serve children and families. PAA was hopeful that the Committee would include provisions in H.R. 2218 that would effectively address our major concerns about the lack of equity, quality, parental rights, and accountability of many charter schools. The bill makes some progress toward those goals and the Committee should be recognized for those efforts.

However, we are concerned that the overall effect of the bill will be to rapidly increase thequantity and not the quality of charter schools, without the necessary safeguards, and to weaken the public school system, which we believe is the very backbone of our democracy.

PAA looks forward to working with to improve H.R. 2218, in order to assure better charter school transparency, accountability and governance, so that they fulfill the role originally envisioned for these programs – that of partners in improving the overall quality of our nation’s public schools.

Our specific concerns about H. R. 2218 – and our recommendations for improving it – are detailed below.

PAA’s Concerns about Charter Schools and our Recommendations for Improving H.R. 2218

1 – Effective Parental Involvement: VOICE along with CHOICE

We are pleased that H.R. 2218 at least tacitly acknowledges the power of parent participation in children’s education, which research shows is one of the most critical elements of successful schools and improved student achievement. Unfortunately, the billdoes not include any of the key aspects of parent involvement identified as critical by experts, such as a parental role in decision making at the school level. Instead, the bill relegates parents to the role of consumers rather than educational partners. This does not provide parents with a real voice, only a dizzying array of unknown and unreliable options. The first choice of most parents is to send their child to a high-quality neighborhood school; it is unclear how this bill supports that choice. In fact, we have seen how the rapid expansion of the charter sector has undermined neighborhood schools, drawing resources from them and at the same time expecting them to serve our most at-risk students. Furthermore, as more states remove their charter caps, we will see more districts that are majority charter schools, When students must compete for access in a lottery, they can be left without any school to attend in their neighborhood.

In addition, we do not support the bill’s proposal for centralized state chartering entities. Such charter authorizers are not elected officials accountable to parents and the community and do not have the same stake in the vitality and improvement of local public schools. This would be a huge step backwards, especially given that it is their taxpayer funds which will be used to support the operations of these schools. Taxation without representation is a principle deeply rooted in our nation’s history and values. It is disturbing that this bill ignores or conflicts with that important ideal.

PAA recommends:

• The same parent involvement requirements for all schools receiving public funds, including charter schools. This should encompass parent involvement in school governance through PTAs, membership on an elected or advisory governance board, or other means of bringing parents into decision making roles at the school.
• Guarantees that there will be parent and community input in the charter school authorizing process.
• The right of local communities to approve or disapprove the establishment of charter schools in their communities, either through direct vote or through their school board or other locally-elected body.

2- Problematic charter school enrollment and other practices: WHOSE CHOICE?

The experience of many parents is that the charter school has the “choice” of enrolling or retaining their children, not the parent.

The data are clear that charter schools across the nation overall enroll far fewer English learners and disabled students, and are pleased that H.R. 2218 highlights that problem. However, we do not believe that the bill provides adequate remedies to prevent charter schools from employing discriminatory policies and practices, or legal consequences for such actions.

For example, there are many cases where students are refused enrollment in a charter school,  expelled, or pushed or “counseled out” of a charter school. Charter schools may practice exclusionary measures; for example, “enrollment applications” that ask families to write essays or state whether a child has an special education Individual Educational Plan before even being considered. In some cases, the school’s discipline policies are excessive or unduly punitive; in others, students who are not “making the grade” or who need special services are encouraged to leave. Some charter schools charge fees and penalties that are so burdensome that the parents end up “breaking their contract” with the school or simply opt to remove the child to avoid the payment. In general, data shows a disturbingly large attrition rate in many charter schools, yet these schools are not held accountable.

Advocacy groups in Chicago, New Orleans, and elsewhere have been denied basic information about charter school operations that should be disclosed under Freedom of Information laws. Charter schools should be required to publicly report on all spending, sources of funding, financial relationships between board members and charter management operators, student attrition rates including the number of students who enroll and leave each month, as well as detailed student demographic characteristics including free lunch, English learner and special education status. Without the public availability of such data, it is difficult to evaluate charter school performance and ensure that they treat all children fairly.

PAA’s recommendations:

• Charters schools should have neighborhood boundaries and accept all children from within those boundaries whose parents choose to enroll their child at the charter. Charter school enrollment processes should be consistent with and as simple as those of neighborhood public schools. Charter schools should not require excessive fees, charge financial penalties, or otherwise create a financial barrier for students to be in school.
• Charter schools and all other schools receiving public funds must be equally transparent and accountable in reporting their spending, enrollment, discipline, and transfer and attrition rates, and be prevented from discriminating against special needs, homeless or low-income students, children of color or English-language learners, or any other protected class. There must be adequate monitoring and enforcement provisions to assure fairness and non-discrimination.
• Resources and monitoring are needed to insure that all children have a safe, attractive, healthy school environment as well as non-discriminatory, positive discipline procedures.
• Publicly funded charters, including those operated by management companies, must comply with Freedom of Information laws.

3 – Charter school QUANTITY v QUALITY

We are concerned that H.R. 2218 seems designed to yield a rapid and essentially unregulated  increase in the quantity, but not the quality, of charter schools by prioritizing funding for those states that agree to repeal their charter caps, and by supporting full-blended or hybrid-online charter school models.

Research on charter schools shows inconsistent results. The most authoritative of controlled

studies showed that 37 percent of US charter schools have worse student outcomes than traditional  public schools, less than 50 percent are on a par with them, and only 17 percent provide a superior education for their students. (Stanford/Credo 2009)

The research on online charter schools is even more problematic. According to a recent study done by the US Department of Education, online instruction for students in grades K-12 has little or no research backing. Policymakers “lack scientific evidence of the effectiveness” of online classes, according to the authors of the study. (Barbara Means, Sept. 2010)

An annual report of for-profit education management organizations concluded that only thirty percent of virtual schools met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) as compared to fifty five percent of “brick and mortar” schools. The Pentagon currently refuses to accept graduates from online high schools into the military, since the academic standards are so low. (Suzanne Schafer, May 2011). As pointed out in a recent expose in Business Week,  school administrators and academic researchers are increasingly “concerned that online schools fail children and overcharge taxpayers”—and that the model may have been “embraced more broadly as a way to overhaul public schools at the expense of actual education.”

PAA’s recommendation:

• Until and unless there is sufficient accountability of charter school operations, including increased federal support for state and local oversight agencies, we believe that states and districts are acting responsibly in capping the number of charter schools and should not be punished for doing so. The federal government should develop oversight standards to which states would be held accountable in order to provide consistency in monitoring and protection.

4 – EQUITY in construction funds

H. R. 2218 provides federal support to fund construction and/or renovation costs for charter schools at a level not provided for traditional public schools, despite the fact that many of the traditional public schools throughout the country are overcrowded, and these facilities are where the vast majority of students are educated. This is a problem that is becoming even more prevalent as most districts have seen increased enrollment in recent years.

PAA’s recommendation:

• There is no reasonable rationale for using taxpayer funds to build more charter schools until and unless the federal government provides resources to build and renovate our traditional public schools, especially in underfunded and overcrowded urban districts, proportional to the number of students currently enrolled in them.

This is the press release PAA sent out today:

Parents Across America opposes bill that would increase charter schools

National grassroots group: HR 2218 should give priority to children,not charter operators

July 5, 2011 – For immediate release

Contact: Julie Woestehoff, 773-538-1135 or pure@pureparents.org

Caroline Grannan, cgrannan@gmail.com, 415/412-5758

Today, Parents Across America (PAA), a grassroots organization representing public school parents from across the United States, released a position statement opposing HR 2218, the so-called “Empowering Parents through Quality Charter Schools Act.”

“As parents, we fear that too much of this bill seems designed to alter a current law not to better serve our children but because it’s ‘not meeting the needs of the charter school community,’ as the Bill Summary puts it,” explained PAA founding member Julie Woestehoff of Chicago. “We believe that children, not charter school operators, should be the priority.”

The bill would provide extra support for charter school expansion, including providing new incentives for raising or abolishing charter school caps, and for taking decisions for authorizing new charter schools away from local school boards – despite substantial research showing that charter schools overall are no better than traditional neighborhood schools. The bill supplements charter school facilities funding and adds incentives for virtual (Internet-based) charter schools.

The PAA statement, released on July 5, said: “We are concerned that the overall effect of the bill will be to rapidly increase the quantity and not the quality of charter schools, without the necessary safeguards, and to weaken the public school system, which we believe is the very backbone of democracy.” The organization is sending a letter announcing the statement to all members of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, which recently approved HR 2218, and to the members of the US Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. PAA members are also sending the statement to their own congressional representatives.

The PAA statement said the organization had hoped that HR2218 would address “concerns about the lack of equity, quality, parental rights, and accountability of many charter schools.” The organization recognized that “the bill makes some progress toward those goals” and offered to work to improve HR2218 “in order to assure better charter school transparency, accountability and governance, so that they fulfill the role … of partners in improving the overall quality of our nation’s public schools.”

PAA founding member and New Orleans parent advocate Karran Harper Royal said: “We need legislation that provides relief for parents who are forced to choose a charter school when the charter takes over the neighborhood school” – a situation that is particularly troubling in her city, where the school system was dismantled after Hurricane Katrina. “When students must compete for access in a lottery, they can be left without a school to attend in their neighborhood. And a concern that affects the lives of many families is the way students with disabilities have been systematically excluded or pushed out of many charter schools.”

Albany, N.Y., parent and PAA founding member Mark Mishler added his concerns about the bill’s lack of assistance to a school district like his. “The charter school industry has targeted our relatively small urban district with an over-saturation of charters that causes a financial drain, without concern for the impact on the majority of students who will continue to attend the public schools.”

The organization doesn’t criticize parents for choosing charter schools, Woestehoff emphasized. “We understand why parents might be attracted to charter schools because of the disinvestment in traditional neighborhood schools under the current administration,” she said. “Parents want their children to attend schools that are important to people in power, and that get the funding they need to provide a high-quality education. Right now, charter schools fit that description more than traditional neighborhood schools. We feel that this is unfair and undemocratic, and that all schools should receive equal resources.”

The PAA statement called for improvements in the bill, including replacing its call for centralized state chartering entities with “guarantees that there will be parent and community input in the charter school authorizing process” and “the right of local communities to approve or disapprove the establishment of charter schools in their communities, either through direct vote or through their school boards or other locally elected body.”

PAA urged lawmakers to include in the bill: prohibitions on charter school enrollment processes that pose a barrier to families: transparency requirements on school procedures, discipline, attrition and governance; and continued caps on new charter schools until improved oversight can assure the schools’ quality.

The statement concludes: “There is no reasonable rationale for using taxpayer funds to build more charter schools until and unless the federal government provides resources to build and renovate our traditional public schools, especially in underfunded and overcrowded urban districts, proportional to the number of students currently enrolled in them.”

Some problems with charter schools:

• Charter school achievement overall is no better than that of traditional public schools.
• Charter schools drain resources from traditional public schools and school districts.
• Charter schools do not serve their share of the highest-need, most at-risk children.
• Charter schools are not accountable to the public or to their own school communities.
• Charter schools are often marked by often-secretly selective or exclusive admissions processes, including lengthy application forms requiring essays, teacher recommendations and more; pre-enrollment tests; and signed agreements to parent volunteer hours.
• Charter schools are often marked by very high attrition – including the schools that are hailed for supposedly high graduation and college matriculation rates.
• Charter schools provide fertile ground for incompetent or dishonest operators and have too often been marked by financial mismanagement or criminal behavior.
• Charter schools consume far more than their share of the time and attention of school boards, to the detriment of traditional public schools.

A detailed fact sheet referencing some of the many recent reports of charter school problems is here.