LONG BEFORE MORE than $40 million was spent last year making the cases for and against charter public school expansion, I was skeptical about using a statewide ballot initiative to decide the question. I believe ballot initiatives are best reserved for instances where the Legislature is flouting public opinion, and that wasn’t so with Massachusetts charters, which were created and then increased several times via legislation. But now that the voters have spoken, the Commonwealth must pursue ways to incorporate the reforms into traditional public schools that have made Massachusetts charters so successful.
The rejection of more charter schools at the ballot box means it could be a decade before we see the kind of growth Massachusetts charter supporters have sought. In the aftermath of Question 2 it is to be hoped that traditional public schools will perceive charters as less threatening rivals and perhaps be more willing to entertain applications of some of the techniques charters have effectively deployed.
After all, charters don’t operate in secret; we know what makes them thrive – school autonomy and accountability. With charter school expansion slowed over the next few years it is incumbent upon traditional public school leaders to consider embracing charter-style reforms. There is precedent for this, albeit limited.
In Boston, we can look to Charlestown’s Edwards Middle School as an example of how charter approaches can be adopted. Under Jeffrey Riley, who currently runs the state receivership of Lawrence Public Schools, Edwards focused on strengthening its teaching corps by using evaluations, upgrading professional development, increasing collaborative planning time, giving the faculty more say in school decision making and actively recruiting the best new educators. Since it functions under a collective bargaining agreement with the Boston Teachers Union, Edwards went out and raised the money needed to finance a longer school day and year.
Instituting these charter-style reforms paid dividends. In just three years, the achievement gap between Edwards and state averages narrowed by 80 percent in English and two-thirds in science. The improvements extended to low-income, special needs, English language learners, African-American, and Latino students, all of whom made real gains.
Sadly, Edwards’s momentum halted after Riley’s departure, but his time there still demonstrates the applicability of charter-like reforms to district schools.
Riley also used charter schools to help him turn around the schools in Lawrence. He transferred management of one particularly troubled school to the Community Group, which runs the highly successful Lawrence Community Day Charter School. MATCH charter public school has also brought its proven, highly successful tutoring program to the city’s schools.
Additionally, the Phoenix Academy Network, with charter schools in Chelsea and Springfield, operates a district school as part of the Lawrence turnaround effort. Phoenix focuses on at-risk youth, including teen parents, the chronically truant, court-involved students, those with special needs, English language learners, and young men and women who have already dropped out. Key parts of the Phoenix model are relentless support and eschewing traditional grade levels based on seat time in favor of a system that allows students to progress at their own pace.
The result of this work has been improved MCAS performance and a 40 percent jump in the graduation rate in Lawrence.
But the Lawrence experience also confirms what we have so often seen over the years. Although the receivership certainly qualifies as a success, the results aren’t as dramatic as occurred at Edwards. One reason is because turning around a district is more difficult than righting an individual school.
All these lessons are important for school and district leaders, particularly those in urban areas who face innumerable challenges. Edwards Middle School taught us that charter reforms can indeed be successfully adapted to traditional public schools.
Efforts like the Springfield Empowerment Zone, a joint effort between the Commonwealth and Springfield schools to provide a group of the city’s schools with charter-like autonomy, is unlikely to have as much upside as top-notch urban charter schools, but it represents a step in the right direction in a post-Question 2 world.
Lawrence reminds us just how demanding district turnaround is, and that starting new schools is often a more direct route to real educational transformation. Traditional districts should show a greater willingness to close failing schools and start from scratch with new ones.
During the charter ballot fight representatives from the traditional urban school districts were clear about their opposition to charter schools. Now, the onus is on those same district officials to demonstrate they can deliver on in-district reforms and results that match those of the charters.
Tom Birmingham is the Distinguished Senior Fellow in Education at Pioneer Institute and co-author of the landmark Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993.
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The question I keep asking is if Charter Schools are so terrible, why do so many parents want to put their kids into them?
Give me a break. Tom Birmingham, a co-author of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993, didn’t once mention state funding for public education. That’s odd, considering the Ed Reform Act established the Foundation Budget…the mechanism distributing state aid to local public schools…and a report released in 2015 by the Foundation Budget Review Commission found the Foundation Budget comes up short – big time – for special education, low income and English language learners. So Tom, how is it you’ll use your co-authorship of the 1993 Education Reform Act to give yourself the appearance of respectability but you’re not willing to acknowledge about 900,000 students…children of this state’s taxpayers…are attending local public schools that are not properly supported by the state and the state legislature along with Governor Baker need to make fixing that their top priority?
The question I keep asking is when will you look up just one single charter school fact and make a case for charter schools based on that one fact. Back in 2012, 60 Minutes had a segment on charter schools run by followers of a secretive Turkish Islamic sect…more than 120 charter schools in this country with more than 40,000 students. Three of those charter schools operate in Massachusetts. Do you know who else runs charter schools in this country? Nation of Islam, fundamentalist Christians (with pastors as principals) just to name two. A pricey Jewish private school in Texas closed one day and reopened the very next day as a Hebrew language charter school in the same religious setting and now taxpayers get to foot the bill. How is any of that a good thing? Why don’t you simply take some time to research charter schools? If you’re concerned about H-1B visas then be aware the secretive Turkish Islamic sect followers operating charter schools use those visas to import male teachers from Turkey…even using them to teach English. If you’re concerned about outlandish taxpayer funded salaries then you should take a quick look at the New York Dailey News article, “Top 16 NYC charter school execs out-earn Chancellor Dennis Walcott.” One of those charter school executives is Eva Moskowitz and she now makes well over $500,000 a year. There’s much more to charter schools. Take some time to really understand charter schools then you’ll have a very difficult time defending them.
If the district schools didn’t suck so badly, some of the above might possibly be relevant.
It’s a case of the “lesser of two evils” — even if what you allege is true (and I doubt it is in Massachusetts), parents care about one thing: their children.
I’m not defending anything — merely stating that lots of parents have a strong preference for these charter schools, and hence they can’t be as bad as you claim.
The district schools could drive the charters out of business if they wanted to….
Finally, something we can agree on. Yes, the district schools could drive the charters out of business…if they were fully funded and fully resourced. That’s why Birmingham didn’t say a peep about funding. He knows local public schools are underfunded…he knows it…but like all charter school boosters…refuses to say even one single word about it. Can’t you see what’s going on? It’s all about starving public schools of funding and resources. And why don’t you dive deep into charter schools and what’s going on with public school funding in this state? For Pete’s sake, make a case why a publicly funded charter school should be allowed to operate under rules that are unacceptable for public schools. Did you know, K-8 charter schools are not required to accept new students after grade 4, K-12 charter schools are not required to accept new students after grade 6, charter high schools are not required to accept students after grade 9 and all charter schools are not required to accept students after February 15th. How did those cutoffs become accepted practices? How would that work out if public schools were exempt from accepting students under those circumstances? Seriously, how would that work out for the state?
ENOUGH of the “more money” mantra!!!!!!!!!
Not only are district schools getting twice what they once did, they are building a whole bunch of ornate and not-absolutely-necessary replacement school buildings — funded by 1% of the sales tax and a mosaic of property tax overrides.
Further, the money follows the child — district schools that lose children to charter schools have less children to educate and hence ought to get less money. Or should Florida get the same amount of money as Boston? (Florida has a total population of 472 people…)
I think the district schools ought to do better with the money they already have…..
Remember too that the number of children in Massachusetts has been dropping for the past 40 years, and continues to drop. Hence the schools having more money than they did 30 years ago is on addition to them having less children to educate.
Just so you know, state funding for local public schools increased dramatically since the 1993 Education Reform Act. That law was the result of a 1978 court case brought on behalf of students in certain property-poor communities who alleged that the school finance system violated the education clause of the Massachusetts Constitution. The court system…after 15 years…finally agreed that it did violate the Constitution. Yes, the number of students has been declining in Massachusetts. Did you know according to state data, the number of special ed students with severe disabilities is increasing? WBUR’s website has an article, “‘There Is No Yelp’: Why Parents Struggle With The State’s Special Ed System,” worth reading. Since 2003, enrollment of students with autism is up more than 300 percent. The number of students with severe neurological impairments is up almost 150 percent in the same time frame. If the student population is declining overall but the percentage of students with complex disabilities is increasing then what’s the result?
Come on. Get real. Don’t you know what “the money follows the child” is all about? The money following the student to charter schools is the average per pupil spending of the sending public school district but the student going to the charter school doesn’t come with the average per pupil costs. Weren’t you paying attention during the Question 2 debate? Most charter schools’ student demographics do not reflect the sending public schools student demographics. Most charter schools have a lower percentage of special education, low income and English language students which leaves public schools with a higher percentage of higher cost students. Not too long ago, The Lowell Sun found the Collegiate Charter School of Lowell’s student body has 13% English Language Learners, 6% students with disabilities and 39.1% economically disadvantaged which is well below the Lowell Public School District’s 25% ELL, 15.5% students with disabilities and 50.4% economically disadvantaged. Collegiate Charter gets the money for the average cost per student but has a population of mostly easier to teach students while the Lowell public schools have less money to provide resources necessary for a higher percentage of higher need students. Even though there’s a state law for charter schools to have student demographics similar to the sending local public school districts that’s not being followed by many charter schools…including Collegiate Charter School of Lowell. You need to do some homework on charter schools.
Just so you know, for a property tax override to take effect voters have to approve it. So what’s your problem with that? The cost of building everything from houses to public buildings is going up. And as far as replacement buildings is concerned, WBUR has an article, “With Old Buildings And Conflicting Needs, Boston Public Schools Face Hard Choices,” detailing how two-thirds of Boston’s 132 public school buildings were constructed before World War II. That’s a lot of old buildings not replaced. What’s the inventory of really old public school buildings in fair and poor condition across the state?
The “more money” argument is getting tiring, as is the circular logic.
There are 351 municipalities in Massachusetts, of which Boston is only one.
And your circular reasoning is getting really tiring.
You need to end the ad hominem insults, they are getting tiring.
1: The demographics are meaningless because of the variance caused by child & parent effort. In addition to the 13% ELL, how many have already learned English?!? In addition to the 15.5% SPED, how many more children don’t need SPED because the regular classroom meets their needs???
NB: You have no idea how many children in any school actually have disabilities.
2: There is some level of self-selection on economic disadvantage as well. Remember too that unreported income inherently isn’t reported and hence creates a false positive here.
3: What you call “easier to teach” students are actually “easier to ignore.” If you believe in equity and social justice, that should bother you.
4: If we are to worship the goddess of demographics, we would have to randomly fire nearly 40% of our teachers — for no reason other than the fact they are women. After all, if 50% of students are male, shouldn’t 50% of the teachers (and support staff) be male as well?
“…while the Lowell public schools have less money to provide resources necessary for a higher percentage of higher need students…”
That is not true!!!!
The Lowell Public Schools receive less money because they have FEWER STUDENTS!!! The same thing would happen if a large number of families were to move to Lawrence.
:”If the student population is declining overall but the percentage of students with complex disabilities is increasing then what’s the result?”
It should be that we find out WHY….
I again suggest that school environment is a factor — and that the same child in a charter school may not have the same complex disability.
Remember too that the Massachusetts Constitution has been amended 120 times, and this education clause can be amended as well….
I doubt there’d be any support for amending that education clause in the Massachusetts Constitution since it was written in 1780 and the United States Constitution doesn’t have any obligation to public education in it at all.
Are you saying the school environment causes autism or developmental delay or intellectual disabilities?
There are two reports confirming the Foundation Budget…the mechanism distributing state aid to local public schools underfunds public education: The Foundation Budget Review Commission 2015 report and the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education’s 2010 report. Why don’t you list two reports supporting your position that Massachusetts public schools are fully funded? Go ahead.