Kendall O’Neill
Megan Keaton
Eng 112
22 April 2013
Charter Schools:
Helping or Hurting the Public Education System
The
Center for Research on Education Outcomes or CREDO proved that the vast
majority of charter schools perform at the same level or worse than their
traditional counter parts. While these schools continue to fail, they take
important resources from the existing public school. The dwindling amount of
resources like funding, qualified teachers and eager students cause public
schools to teach in worse environments, making charters appear better. The
children of today will be the adults of tomorrow and it is imperative that they
have a strong education for a hopeful future. Charter schools and traditional
public schools are playing a dangerous game of tug-of-war. Charters continue to receive federal funding
while traditional public schools funding has been drastically cut across the
nation. In this paper, I will show the appeal of charter schools. I will then
show how they are hurting the public education system. Finally, I will show the
reader how this can be settled neutrally by keeping the successful charter
programs around while filtrating out the weak ones.
Charter
schools started about 20 years ago with the first one in Minnesota. They were created
as an educational experiment. The teachers didn’t have to follow strict
guidelines on what to teach, how to teach it, and how long to spend on a
subject. Teachers had the freedom to teach as they saw best fit with the
promise of producing high test scores. This freedom gave teachers the ability to
try new innovative ways of teaching and teach by exploring through student’s
creativity. The only restriction they had was that they had to produce strong
results, high test scores, or the charter would end and the school would close.
Charters are well liked because they rely on high amounts of community
involvement with the community and parents of the students. Parents are
consulted with opening, managing and upkeep of the school. Parents are asked to
help with school fundraisers and most importantly in the involvement of their
child’s every day school work. The downfall and reason all students can’t
attend these desirable schools is because there aren’t enough of them. Students
who attend these schools have been chosen randomly through a lottery. Most
students won’t have the opportunity to attend them even if they have been on
the wait list for years.
“As
of 2009, more than 4700 charter schools enrolled over 1.4 million children in
40 states and the District of Columbia. The ranks of charters grow by hundreds
each year. Even so, more than 365,000 names linger on the charter school wait
lists.” (CREDO) The desire to attend charter schools are higher than ever
before. With NCLB Act 2001 parents and students had the opportunity to leave
their failing schools or “drop out factories” and attend charter schools or use
vouchers to attend better schools that weren’t in their district. This choice made parents feel as if they were
more in control over the education their child would receive.
There
are a couple of charter programs that have proved to produce results much
higher than those of their traditional schools counterparts. “Those are the
ones that capture headlines or show up on 60 minutes: Harlem Academy, KIPP, Achievement
First, Uncommon Schools, Aspire, MATCH, and Preuss schools.” (On the Commons)
KIPP is a rigorous course that truly challenges kids and produces strong
results. KIPP students have an extended school day and go from 7:30 – 5, they
attend Saturday school, they attend mandatory summer school for three weeks and
they receive two hours of homework a night. (KIPP) “Mathew Di Carlo at the
Albert Shanker Institute estimates that the successful charter school year is
2-4 months longer than that of traditional public schools.”(On the Commons)
With this extended school year, teachers have more time to focus on their
students. They can spend more time on subjects the class may be struggling with
and they have more time to focus on individual students. “In 2004, 85% of KIPP
alumni who were seniors in high school were accepted to a university or
college.” (KIPP)
The
percentage of KIPP students that go off to college in comparison with students
that attend the local neighborhood schools shows a vast difference. However
most students that will enroll in the KIPP program will not finish it. It is
estimated that about 60% of KIPP students will drop out during the course of
middle school. (Washington Post) In reality KIPP students drop out more than
they finish the program. Even with the number of kids dropping out, KIPP rarely
allows students to enter in the 7th or 8th grade “…because
in the later grades, KIPP students are surrounded only by successful peers who
are the most committed to the program.” (Washington Post) KIPP may be able
to produce higher test scores and higher percentages for students going off to
college but they are false, misguided statistics.
While
some charters are efficient they most certainty aren’t all efficient. “…17
percent, provide superior education opportunities for their students. Nearly
half of the charter schools nationwide have results that are no different from
the local public school options and over a third, 37 percent, deliver learning
results significantly worse that their students would have realized had they
remained in traditional public schools” (CREDO) So, while most of these schools
don’t educate better than those of their traditional counter parts, they
continue to take important resources the public education system needs. They
take large amounts of funding, some of the most dedicated teachers and students
nationwide are on a waiting list hoping to gain entry this coming school year.
“While
voting to cut $11 billion out of federal education funding for fiscal year 2011
(including cuts in Title 1, the Striving Readers program, literacy, teacher
quality, math and science, and education technology, as well as special and
vocational and adult education), the U.S House of Representation found the
money to maintain charter and choice funding (Full-Year Continuing
Appropriations Act, 2011)(EBSCO Host).” The U.S government opted to cut an
unbelievable amount out of public education funding but found money to continue
the failing charter program. Writer David Morris for On the Commons magazine
said it best when he describes the charter program to that of kudzu. An
invasive plant that takes over the preexisting plants and smothers them. “The
cycle feeds on itself. More charters mean less money for public school; the
more public education deteriorates, the greater the popularity and number of
charter schools.” (On the Commons) We are essentially hurting ourselves with
charters rather than helping.
Teachers
are also drawn to charter schools. They are un-unionized so teachers can
receive higher pays with rising test scores. The teachers must do more work and
teach longer days but they receive help from teacher aides. Teacher aids will
sit with struggling students one on one or in small groups to give additional
help. They will also help teacher with their lesson plans. (Bureau of Labor
Statistics)
So what can we do to help our public education system?
Compromising with everyone is the easiest way to settle this long debated
topic. We must get ride of the failing charter schools. They cause the most
damage to our public education system and they make up 37 percent of all
charter schools. We will keep the charter schools that performing the same as
the traditional public schools. We can then talk with the U.S Department of
Education, school boards, school districts and superintendents and come to a
compromise about infiltrating our public schools and existing mediocre charter
schools with the programs from our successful charters. This move will be
radical and many people will be against it but it will be the best thing for the
public education system. With the end of charters and return to traditional
public schools, students around the country have the ability to attend these
high performing schools without having to be waitlisted or go through the
lottery. Also, with the end of charters all the misguided funding can return to
traditional public schools. There will be more money for teacher quality, the
focus on core subject like math and science and the ability to purchase new
equipment and resources. This will be an expensive transformation, however, if higher
test scores nationwide can be achieved, money should be no issue.
Work Cited:
Harvey, James.
"Privatization: A Drain on Public Schools." EBSCO Host. EBSCO Host,
Dec. 2011. Web.
<http://ehis.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.cpcc.edu/ehost/detail?vid=3&sid=f2230e38-1c2d-4fb0-8244
4e41c3d66554%40sessionmgr198&hid=4&bdata=JnNjb3BlPXNpdGU%3d#db=a9h&AN=67664426>.
Raymond, Margaret,
Dr. Multiple Choice: Charter School Performance in 16 States Executive Summary.
Rep. N.p.: CREDO.stanford.edu, 2009. CREDO.stanford.edu. Web. 20 Mar. 2013.
<http://credo.stanford.edu/reports/MULTIPLE_CHOICE_EXECUTIVE%20SUMMARY.pdf>.
Clark, Charles S.
"Charter Schools Will They Imporove or Hurt Public Education." CQ
Research. CQ Press, 20 Dec. 2002. Web. 23 Mar. 2013.
<http://library.cqpress.com.ezproxy.cpcc.edu/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre2002122000&type=hitlist&num=0>.
Morris, David.
"After 20 Years, Charter Schools Stray From Their Original Mission."
After 20 Years, Charter Schools Stray From Their Original Mission. On the
Commons Magazine, 7 Aug. 2012. Web. 28 Mar. 2013.
<http://www.onthecommons.org/magazine/after-20-years-charter-schools-stray-their-original-mission>.
Smith, Hendrick.
"Schools by School Reform KIPP." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2013.
<http://www.pbs.org/makingschoolswork/sbs/kipp/>.
Strauss, Valerie.
"The Answer Sheet -." The Answer Sheet -. The Washington Post, 1 Apr.
2011. Web. 23 Apr. 2013.
"Summary."
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 29 Mar. 2012.
Web. 23 Apr. 2013.
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