Magna charter? A report card on school reform in 1995

Policy Review, Fall 1995 by Finn, Chester E Jr, Ravitch, Diane

The federal government is so hamstrung by special interest groups that getting it out of the way of change-minded states and communities may be the most we can expect from Washington on the "reinvention" front. Certainly, all efforts by Uncle Sam to foster such reforms directly have proven halfhearted at best and fraudulent at worst. The so-called "Improving America's Schools Act" of 1994, for example, banned any use of federal aid for privately managed public schools and created a school "choice" program so laden with preconditions and constraints that it. must be termed phony. It enables members of Congress to say they "toted for school choice" while ensuring that there is none.

Even rigorous accountability based on testing was discouraged by explicit prohibitions in the Coals 2000 legislation on the use of federal funds for this purpose. Those who believe that such reforms are the main hope for serious educational improvement are learning that Washington is the wrong place to look. But much is happening elsewhere in the nation under the "reinvention" banner.

POTEMKIN CHARTERS

The charter school idea has picked up tremendous momentum, as have variants, such as a flock of new, miniature high schools in New York City that are not called charters but share many of their characteristics. Those qualities include a large measure of operational independence from headquarters in return for a promise to achieve certain results over a stated period of time. (New York City's quasicharters, however, have not agreed to any educational performance goals, and their quasi-independence relies on waivers by the local teachers union, waivers that do not even apply to the schools' many other employees. )

By summer 1995, 19 states had enacted explicit "charter" school laws, including eight during the most recent legislative session (Louisiana, Arkansas, New Hampshire, Texas, Alaska, Wyoming, Delaware, and Rhode Island). Several hundred such schools were scheduled to be open this fall. Charter schools are no panacea--not in a country with 85,000 public schools--but this movement is the second-most-exciting development on the educational reform front.

Not all charter laws are created equal, however, and several enacted in recent months are so weak that they are unlikely to do much good. We think of them as "Potemkin" charter programs with an impressive facade but no substance. Some of these laws were supported by people who actually oppose charter schools on principle and had decided to undermine support for them by promoting a bill that pretended to create them. This is currently happening in New Jersey, where the state teachers union is supporting a weak charter bill in the state assembly, although a stronger, competing bill supported by the state education commissioner, the state senate, and Governor Christine Whitman may yet prevail.

Weak charter laws generally suffer from at least one of three serious failings:

* They require the prior assent of too many "stakeholders," such as a majority of teachers currently teaching in the affected schools, and contain no mechanism for creating new charter schools that do not already possess such stakeholders. Of course, it would be wonderful if existing schools converted to charter status with the support of a majority of teachers and parents working together, and that is sure to happen in some places. But there are also situations in which parents and community leaders want to start a new school, and they should be allowed to do so--with the staff they want to teach in it. (Currently, California's charter law requires the approval of a majority of teachers, as do those in Georgia, Hawaii, and New Mexico.)