The Case Against Charter Schools

School Administrator, May, 2001 by Bruno V. Manno

A proponent responds to the 10 most common complaints about the charter movement

Since the first charter school law was passed in 1991, the number of charter schools has grown by leaps and bounds--from one St. Paul, Minn., school that opened in 1992 with 35 students to nearly 2,100 schools in 34 states and the District of Columbia that enroll around 518,000 students, or slightly more than 1 percent of the students attending U.S. public schools.

Charter schools are public schools, open to all who wish to attend, funded with tax dollars and accountable to an authoritative public agency and its constituents for its results. But charters are different from standard-issue public schools: They can be created by almost anyone, they are independent and exempt from many state and local regulations, they are attended by youngsters and staffed by educators who are there by choice, and they can be closed for not producing satisfactory results.

Charters are attracting considerable attention, especially in urban America where they are looking like a possible alternative for the system itself, creating a new education marketplace for many American communities. Today, for example, nearly 15 percent of the District of Columbia's public schoolchildren attend 33 charter schools. Almost 18 percent of Kansas City's children are studying in charter schools. In Arizona, charters comprise one-fifth of the state's public schools. San Diego County has 43 charters. Philadelphia has seen more than 30 charters arise in three years, now accounting for more than 10 percent of all its public schools.

Hugh Price, president of the National Urban League, argues that transforming urban education includes "charterizing" every school. Reinventing-government guru David Osborne invites us to "imagine, for a moment, a public education system in which every school is a chatter school." The Ford Foundation and Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government awarded one of their "Innovations in American Government Awards"--the Oscars of public service--to Minnesota's pioneering charter law.

Even the mainstream Education Commission of the States has proposed a model of school governance based on the charter principles of autonomy, choice and accountability for results. Within this framework, school boards would charter (or contract for) and fund schools but not operate or run them. They would exercise public oversight by holding schools accountable for the terms of their charters (or performance contracts).

Any bold reform effort like the charter strategy inevitably raises a host of big-picture questions, doubts and objections. Though some charter critics pose meretricious and self-serving objections, others are sincerely concerned with the well-being of children and the soul of public education.

Rebutting Allegations

What follows are the 10 most common allegations raised against charter schools along with responses to those weighty charges. Some complaints are legitimate, others specious. Most lie somewhere in between.

* Allegation No. 1: Charter schools rob funds and students from regular public schools. While they may benefit a few youngsters, they hurt those left behind by biting into district budgets.

While it is true that charter funds are typically subtracted from district revenues, that is because their students are subtracted from district rolls. The fundamental concept of any school choice regimen is that the money follows the child to the school the family selects. Public dollars are meant to be spent for the education of that particular student, not entitlements for school systems. The premise of the allegation is backwards.

Moreover, in all those jurisdictions where only local school boards can grant charters to schools, charter funding must be locally negotiated. Though funding formulae vary by state, charter schools on average receive about four-fifths of the dollars per pupil that conventional public schools receive, according to estimates by the Center for Education Reform. In some states, only the state's share of the student dollar reaches the charter school, leaving the district with its locally generated revenue and fewer students to educate.

In other states, local school systems may profit from charter schools via overhead charges and licensing fees. In yet other states, school districts continue receiving state money for youngsters who leave for charter schools because legislators opted to continue paying districts (on a diminishing basis) for funds "lost" when students transfer to charters. Massachusetts calls this "reimbursement," but elsewhere it is known as "double-dipping," because districts receive funding for children they are not educating.

Conversely, charter schools sometimes bring new money into a district by drawing onto district rolls (and into the state funding formulae) children who wouldn't otherwise be there: dropouts, home-schoolers, private school pupils and youngsters who live outside the district but choose to enroll in charter schools located in it.