A Case for Charter Schools?

[Jessica Shiller is an assistant professor of education and coordinator of the master’s program in teaching social studies at Lehman College, City University of New York.]

Charter schools, one of the most hotly-debated policy issues in education policy today, has divided proponents who see charters as an innovative way to improve student achievement and the opponents who see charters as death sentences for teacher unions and community voice in schools. Raise the topic in any gathering and you will find people fiercely arguing both sides. Yet, the debate as it has currently been framed misses the boat almost entirely. Whether you're for or against charters, the question to ask about charters is: Who benefits?

The data shows mixed results on charter performance with some showing incredible achievement gains, and others not showing any. In the end, there is no clear evidence that charters on the whole are better than a well-performing public school. That is why charter schools are mainly absent from suburban communities where well-performing schools are easy to find. It is not that suburbs are resistant to charters, but like any community with well-performing schools, they are content with what they do have. Why shouldn't they be? By and large, in middle class suburbs across the nation, schools are performing well. So well, in fact, that urban parents will risk getting arrested to get their children into those schools.

As a result, charter school advocates have carved out a niche in the under-served urban communities across the country. In cities, where schools and neighborhoods have been under-resourced for some time, residents cannot claim that their schools are doing so well they do not need charters. Just the opposite is true, which makes the charter school movement hard to resist. Consequently, charter schools have proliferated in cities. And why not invite charter schools in, many might ask, since public schools were not performing so well there anyway? With urban parents literally "crossing the border" for better schools, it is clear that they want better performing schools too.

But are charters the answer to a better education? Proponents say that charters can provide a 21st century education, one that allows teachers to engage in innovative practices, use technology effectively, and manage without bureaucratic red tape. These are not radical innovations, and already have been implemented in regular public schools in New York, where I am from, but also in other cities. So, again why are charter schools being pushed so hard as the silver bullet?

The answer lies in our initial question - who benefits? Obviously some families have benefited from charter schools, but the venture philanthropists who start charters have benefited too. In New York, many of them have received millions of dollars through no-bid contracts from the city, and stand to get millions more in stimulus package funding promised by Obama and Duncan.

With clear evidence that charter schools' so-called innovations can be implemented in regular public schools, we need to ask why charters are necessary. It would be naive to think that charter proponents are only motivated by a desire for a 21st century education for all children. There is a lot of money in it for the charter founders. Just like with many education reforms that preceded charters, a trend is set, dollars flow, and reformers come from all around to exclaim its virtues.