Reform By Charter

School Administrator, August, 1997 by Donna Harrington-Lueker

Superintendent Discover How Charter Schools Fit (or Don't) Their Districts' Agendas

In Kingsburg, Calif., Superintendent on Allvin is anything but lukewarm about charter schools.

"When I heard state officials present the idea back in 1992, it was a real revelation to me," remembers Allvin, who was then in his first year as the districts superintendent.

"Here they were saying, 'If you think you can do a better job without us, then prove it.' And here I was thinking, 'A better job without these regulations? You're darn right I can.'"

In fact, Alivin and the Kingsburg school board were so confident that the district's four schools and 1,850 students in K-8 could prosper under the new legislation, which freed charter schools from the straightjacket of the California education code, that they applied for a charter for their entire district. "It was a question of local control," says Allvin.

By becoming a charter school district, he and his board reasoned, Kingsburg would be able to withstand the controversial pendulum swings of teaching and learning that periodically rock the Golden State.

Six years after Minnesota passed the nation's first charter law, the charter school movement is booming. Slightly more than half the states have made charter schools an essential part of their school reform agenda. And while many superintendents continue to staunchly oppose charters, fearing that the movement will siphon off much-needed funding from the public schools that remain under their jurisdiction, a small but growing number of top school administrators, like Allvin, are finding ways to make charter schools part of their school district's reform plans.

Exponential Growth

Numbers alone suggest that the charter school movement cannot be ignored. As of early summer, 26 states plus the District of Columbia had adopted charter school legislation that allows groups of parents, teachers, or community members to form their own schools and frees those schools from most state and local regulations. That number is up dramatically from 19 states the year before and only two states in 1991.

The number of charter schools has grown as well. In 1995-96, 200 charter schools were operating nationwide. In 1996-97, though, that number had risen to 480 schools. This fall about 700 charter schools should be in operation, says Joe Nathan, director of the Center for School Change at the University of Minnesota and a nation 1 expert on charter schools.

Charter advocates a also predict that legislators in an estimated nine states, including Oregon, Washington, Missouri, New York Pennsylvania, and Oregon, are likely to consider charter legislation in the coming year, and a similar number are expected to strength en laws they already have passed, paving the way for even more schools to open.

The federal government also has offered its support. In his 1997 State of the Union address President Clinton called for the creation of 3,000 charter schools by the year 2000. To make that rhetoric a reality, the 1997 federal budget also calls for $51 million in funding to cover startup costs for charters. In addition, the U.S. Department o Education has contracted for a $2.1 million study to evaluate the effectiveness of charters and identify the characteristics of successful charter schools, and the administration has requested $100 million in charter school funding for FY 1998.

Legislation Dictates

As the number of charters increases, superintendents who have worked with charter schools are beginning to offer their own perspectives on the role superintendents have come to play and on how charter schools can become a part of a school system's mission.

First, they readily acknowledge, the superintendent's role o ten depends on a specific state's legislation. In Massachusetts, for example, charter school organizers bypass local school districts and take their plans directly to state officials. In Color do, on the other hand, charter school organizers must first seek the approval of the local school district but can appeal the district's decision to the state board of education.

Other states, including California, Michigan, and Arizona, allow organizers to seek charters from a number of sources in addition to local boards, including county boards of education in California, community colleges and local universities in Michigan, and a state charter school board in Arizona.

In states where local school boards grant charters, school superintendents are likely to be key players. "They're probably the first person in the school system that charter organizers contact," says Jim Griffin, executive director of the Colorado League of Charter Schools, a nonprofit group that supports the development of charter schools in the state. Depending on the size of the district, superintendents are also likely to have "handson, regular interaction" with the charter schools, Griffin says.

Intensive Support

Douglas County, Colo., a fast-growing district of 25,000 students just south of Denver, is a case in point. Last year, the district had three charter schools serving approximately 850 students. Two of he schools were so-called core Knowledge schools, based on the principles of University of Virginia professor E.D. Hirsch; the third emphasized experiential learning an multiage classrooms. Two additional charter schools--a Montessori school and another core knowledge school--will open this fall and are expected to enroll another 300 students.