Charter Schools Are Learning Communities And Sources Of Community Rebirth
The debate surrounding public charter schools often boils down to whether they produce better educational results than traditional district schools, especially on test scores. That metric is reasonable enough. After all, charter schools are educational institutions. Taxpayers, especially K-12 educators, should know how these schools perform academically compared to traditional district schools.
However, test scores and graduation rates are only part of the picture. There is far more to the now 33 year-old effort to create taxpayer-funded independent public schools that families can choose for their children. Charter schools are also examples—and sources—of community rebirth and social capital—the shared values and resources that allow individuals to work together and effectively achieve a common purpose.
“We expected to open a school. We didn’t expect to gain a community,” a parent-founder of Platte River Academy, a K-12 charter school in Douglas County, Colorado, told my co-authors and me as we gathered information for our first book on charter schools in the late 1990s. A great many parents and educators would agree. There is a profound insight in that quote that hints at a not often enough discussed value of charter schools in America today.
The Charter Landscape Today
Much has transpired since the first charter school law was approved in 1991 by the state of Minnesota. Today, 46 charter laws have created 8,000 schools and campuses. Cumulatively, they enroll 3.7 million students (around 7.5% of all public school students), according to the Data Dashboard of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, and employ around 251,000 teachers. Around six out of 10 (58.1%) schools are in urban areas, with the others in suburbs (24.9%), rural areas (11.4%), or smaller towns (5.6%).
Since 2019, the last full school year before pandemic school closures, charter school enrollment has increased by almost 14% and has grown in 40 states. Meanwhile, district public schools have lost students in nearly every state. And contrary to a common misperception, charter school enrollment is not driven by affluent or white families.
According to the Data Dashboard, charter schools have consistently enrolled more students of color and students from low-income families than traditional district schools. Currently, seven out of 10 (70.7%) charter students are students of color compared to around half (53.8%) of district students, with six out of 10 charter students receiving free and reduced lunch compared to half (50.3%) in district schools. Hispanic students are the fastest-growing student group in America’s charter schools.
Perhaps for this reason, support for charter schools was a bipartisan political effort for many years. For example, charter laws were approved in states led by Democratic and Republican governors. However, as with many other issues today, bipartisan support for charter schools has dwindled. But it has not yet been extinguished. For example, at the federal level, Colorado Democratic Senator Michael Bennet joined three Republican colleagues and three Democratic colleagues to introduce the Empower Charter School Educators to Lead Act so that existing federal charter school funding can be used in new ways. ?
Educational Effects of Charter Schools
Three thorough studies were released in 2023 that provide detailed information on how charter schools are doing academically. The first is from the Stanford University Center for Research on Education Outcomes. It found that the typical charter school student made gains in reading and math test scores that were greater than the typical district school student.
These gains equaled an additional six days of learning in math and 16 days in reading. Charter management organizations that operate multiple schools are especially effective in improving test scores, regularly “returning more positive, and often gap-busting, results,” the report says.
A second report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the National Bureau of Economic Research summarizes thirty years of evidence for lottery charter schools—those schools where more students apply than can be accepted, requiring lotteries to determine who can enroll.
This report concluded, “Existing evidence shows that charter schools can improve academic achievement and longer-term outcomes like four-year college enrollment, particularly among lower performing students, non-white students, low-income students, and students with disabilities.”
The third study by Tulane University researchers was published in the Journal of Public Economics. It examined school district data from 1995 to 2016, analyzing the effects of charter schools on standardized tests and graduation rates, including the impact on students attending nearby public schools.
Its main finding was that districts growing charter schools’ market share by 10% increased math and reading scores and high school graduation rates for all students, not just one particular student group. This outcome is partly attributable to the competitive effects of charter schools, including replacing underperforming traditional district schools with better-performing charter schools. ?
Social Capital Effects of Charter Schools
?In addition to being places of teaching and learning, charter schools are instruments of civil society that build social capital, or the value that comes from positive relationships with people. And as schools of choice, they are voluntary organizations that exemplify Americans’ continuing enthusiasm for creating new organizations that meet their needs.
Charter schools function as a bridge or middle path between impersonal government agencies and the private spheres of individuals and families. As mediating institutions, they bring people together to tackle common problems, strive toward shared objectives, and create a moral order to guide a child’s education.
These schools help educators and families develop a sense of involvement in and ownership of the school as a community institution. They are about acquiring knowledge and developing relationships as a pathway to opportunity. They channel new energy into public education and interact with the communities where they operate. In short, charter schools are at the intersection of public education and civil society.
“Charter schooling has been arguably the most influential school reform efforts of the past several decades,” concluded the authors of the Tulane University report on charter schools. National Charter School Week is an opportunity to celebrate this accomplishment and continue to create these independent public schools of choice that families choose for their children.
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6 个月After 33 years it’s mind boggling that we are still explaining that charter schools are accountable and public. This article also states the positive difference charter schools have made within communities.