Are Charter School Public Schools? I’m Afraid Not.

More Thoughtful

March 26, 2010

Are Charter School Public Schools? I’m Afraid Not.

by Alexander Hoffman, at 11:21 am

In the past, I have been very careful to talk and write about “charter schools” and “traditional public schools,” the latter of which is often abbreviated TPS. I have even tended to favor others’ claims that charter schools are, in fact, public schools. But I’m afraid that I was wrong. I have tried to be more thoughtful about this question and I simply cannot find a compelling argument that they are, and can find too many that they are not.

First, let’s acknowledge what charter schools are. They are publicly financed schools that are run by private – usually nonprofit – organizations. Sometimes they are independent, and sometimes they are part of larger charter school organizations or chains.

The primary argument that charter schools are public schools is that they are paid for out of government funds. While they do get most of their budgets from tax dollars, that is not enough to render them public schools. There are many other organizations that pay for operations with public funds but are still private organizations. Defense contractors receive enormous sums of money from the government to provide design and manufacturing of weapons systems, but they remain private corporations. Blackwater provided labor, training and services to the Department of Defense and the State Department, but it remained a private organization.

If a construction firm is hired by a school district to build a school, it remains a private firm. If a new firm is formed to bid for a school construction job, and wins the project, it still remains a private firm. Even if that firm does such a good job that it wins future bids and does all the district’s construction work, it remains a private firm.

Frankly, I’ve not heard any other arguments that charter schools are public schools. Meanwhile, there are lots of ways in which they most definitely are not public schools

I think that it is pretty clear that at least some level of oversight of the day to day operations of our public agencies must rise up to our elected officials. Public agencies and offices must have some level of democratic oversight. Abuses, mismanagement and bad policy are subject to review by elected officials or those they appoint. Policies can be changed, budgets cut and/or senior personnel removed as a direct consequence of this oversight. This is quite different than contracted services. So long as the terms of the contract are met, the government cannot reach into the management of a contractor and force changes. They may try to embarrass the contractor, but they do not have authority to require changes. On the other hand, public schools are accountable to elected school boards, legislatures and/or mayors. There may be changes in who is ultimately responsible for a district, but it always is an elected official.

Charter school principals cannot be removed by elected officials. Their board members are not subject to removal by public elections. The executives of charter management organizations are not accountable to the government for their jobs.

More important, however, is the difference in moral mission. It is the responsibility of the public schools to educate every child who shows up. All children who live in a school district have a right to attend a district school. Furthermore, no public school can in good conscience “counsel out” a student. Private schools are well known to engage the practice of “counseling out” when a student does not seem to fit in or is too disruptive or the school believes that it cannot well meet that student’s needs. As the student has the public schools to fall back on, the moral import of this practice is surely debatable. But the public schools must find another placement for students whose needs they cannot meet, because they – in the form of the district – have a moral and a legal obligation to educate every child that shows up.

Charter schools do not have that obligation, either legally or morally. To the extent that many charter schools are oversubscribed, it would be difficult or impossible for them to do so. While the public schools have to cram in more students – hopefully, eventually, leading to more classrooms and even schools – charter schools only have to serve as many students as they specify. Charter schools are free to say that they do not offer support services for English language learners or autistic children, but the public schools must provide schooling for every child. Charter schools are free to “counsel out” students.

Charter school employees do not work for the government; they are not public employees. While the government has contracted with charter schools to provide a service, they do not act as the government when the provide it. Their operations are not subject to democratic or public oversight; rather their contracts (i.e. their charters) come up for review for possible extension periodically.

If you can make a more thoughtful argument about why charter schools are public schools, I would love to hear it. If you agree or disagree, please share your own thinking as to why.

[Note: I have posted a follow up piece, and the conversation has continued there.]

http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com Stuart Buck

““If teachers unions were to be blamed for failing schools, then we would assume that schools in less unionized states would outperform schools in more densely unionized states.”

That has to win some kind of stupidest-statement-of-the-year award. What it’s missing: “holding everything else equal,” or “controlling for everything else,” etc.
http://MoreThoughtful.blogspot.com Alexander Hoffman

Mr. Buck,

The resolution of the debate did not include the word “partially.” The resolution posits that all the blame should be put on charter schools.

Actually read what Weingarten says and you’ll find — over and over again, every year — that she talks about how complicated it all is.
Ken

Alex! You know how to bait me! OK… I’ll respond to the quote and give you one that is missing.

First, one that is missing relevant to our conversations. Randi states:

“The overwhelming number of teachers opt to join a union because whether it’s in New York state or other places, everyone has a choice as to whether or not to join a union, and ultimately — people — they do… Legally everyone has the choice. In New York City they have the choice. All over the country they have the choice. They may not have the choice about whether or not to pay for the services the union renders but they have the choice to join the union. And in New York City 96 percent of the people who teach in New York City opt to join the union.”

Now, given how the system works, I think that statement is misleading. They don’t “opt to join the union” in any real sense. They have to opt to get OUT of the union. Also, opting to get out the union would accomplish nothing, as far as I know, other than alienate union members. Moreover, even if the statement is technically true (which I don’t think it is), what’s the point of it other than to deceive listeners into thinking that 96% of teachers in NYC support the union? Is that a fair statement given how the “opt in/out” system actually works? If you answer one question in this comment, please focus on this one.

As for the first quote you list, Randi:
1. Doesn’t mention that unions and teacher organizations are active, for example the Texas AFT, in creating some of the same policy moves in states like Texas as exist in states like New York.

2. Despite loads of other important factors, she uses this one correlation to ask “What does that tell us?” What does she want people to think? Then, Terry Moe pushes back:

“… to say basically that schools in the South don’t do as well as schools in the North, which is true, and that schools in the South don’t have unions and the schools in the North do, and to day, gee whiz, it must be because unions are good for schools. I — don’t try that a university. It doesn’t wash.”

After that, Randi gives your second quote.

I enjoyed the debate. I hope people watch it or read the transcript!

Can you summarize your point of view on this stuff, preferably without insulting me?
http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com Stuart Buck

Mr. Hoffmann, I can’t really figure out how anything you said is responsive to what I said. Maybe you were thinking of an earlier comment?
http://MoreThoughtful.blogspot.com Alexander Hoffman

Ken,

I’m looking for intellectual honesty. You keep accusing Weingarten of being dishonest — though you don’t use that word — without backing it up.

1) Which statement do not think is untrue? What is your basis for that accusation?

2) There are 40 other states that she could have mentioned. Do you think that she ought to have examined the dynamics in each and every one?

3) She intentionally chose states that allow but do not require collective bargaining. She was making a particular point, and not one that you seem to be responding to.

You seem to be repeating your desire for those who don’t agree with you to explain the context that best supports your point, even if it isn’t part of the point they are making.

********************

I’ve made my “point of view on this stuff” (if by that you mean the accuracy of blaming unions for our schools’ problems) clear over and over again.

People who have read contract, looked at legislation, examined how schools actually operate and listen to what others blame issues on know that things people most often blame are contracts rarely are to be found therein. The failures of our schools come from my causes, and a truly informed view make is impossible to put unions high on the list.

While there are some combative union and chapter leaders, the problems that can be honestly and knowledgeably traced to them pale before the problems caused by unwise or ineffective district and school leadership. Superintendents have far more influence than union leaders, and principals have far more influence than chapter leaders. It’s not even close.

Of course, there are wider problems as well, things whose origins are outside the schools, beyond the control of unions or educational administrators. But it is clear that those with formal responsibility for results have found a convenient scapegoat in unions, even if the facts do not support their vague theories of action.

It is the responsibility of supervisors to properly evaluate their people, and accurately document what they find. Problems that occur after they have failed to do that should be put on their them, and no one else. You don’t blame the calculus teacher for his/her student being unable to do arithmetic, and you don’t blame the construction firm for the problems in the blueprints.

Moe and the rest of his crew tried to deny the resolution in the debate “DON’T BLAME TEACHERS UNIONS FOR OUR FAILING SCHOOLS” by repeatedly pointing out that unions are not big supporters of charter schools, without any support for their implications that charter schools are superior to public schools or are even a scalable policy. This is typical of those who would bash union. Vague theories of action that they are unable to fill out, let alone support with real evidence. Ignorance at best, and intellectual dishonesty at worst.

If unions are the problem — or even are a significant contributor to the problem — then that should be a testable proposition. There should mechanisms and processes that explain how it happens. And we should be able to example if those theories hold true.

You yourself should already be acknowledging — even actively spreading the word — that collective bargaining rights and teachers union contracts are not “the” problem, or even a significant contributor to these problems, as you are learning that states without collective bargaining rights appear to have the same issues.

As you continue to search for ways to blame unions, you should be pointing to specific policies, how unions are responsible for them and how those policies play out in districts and schools — and in *classrooms* — to the detriment of education. If you cannot do that, if you cannot do all three of those things, then your assertions that teachers unions are a problem are little more the same kind of scapegoating that enables outsiders to avoid looking into the real issues of teaching and learning and allows school and district leaders to avoid their own management and leadership failures.

No one care more than me about finding real ways to improve our schools, but there simply isn’t evidence to support claims that getting rid of teachers unions help students. Heck, there isn’t even good reasoning.

And so, as all this attention given to charter schools distracts from solutions with real potential, blaming teachers unions distracts from examining the real dynamics in schools and districts that created the problems we see in our classrooms. And at the end of the day, that’s what I care about, what actually happens where the students are.
http://MoreThoughtful.blogspot.com Alexander Hoffman

Mr. Buck,

You grabbed a piece of a quote from a particular debate. The point she was making was in response to a resolution which the debate was focused on discussing.

(You went to HLS, right? I don’t need to explain how form debate works, do I?)

You cite Weingarten’s comment as stupid, and out of context it would be. But in the context of the debate, there was no need to say “all else being equal.”

I would applaud Weingarten, along with Terry Moe, Rod Paige and the other three who took part in the debate, for their supposed willingness to participate in a program that demands that they make some of their thinking so explicit and requires them to respond to the points of their opponents. But it seems that you would hold it against them, because their focus on the actual question of the debate can produce quotes which — out of context — might seem foolish.
Stuart Buck

Huh? How would the context of the debate in any way excuse her ignorant (or dishonest) attempt to suggest that one can simply compare the academic performance of unionized states to non-unionized states without controlling for anything else?
http://curioustwo.com Ken Hirsh

Thanks Alex.

I think Randi’s quote on “opting to join a union” crosses the line into “untrue”, but it is, in the very least, deceptive. What do you think she was getting at?

On a note related to your last comments, Terry Moe, in the debate stated:

“[The research literature is] pretty big on the impact of collective bargaining on student achievement. She [Kate, not Randi] says there’s nothing. There is, plenty… The results in this literature are pretty mixed. And I think it’s party because, A, it’s complicated, and B, a lot of the studies don’t do it very well. But there are two studies that are actually in very top-level journals, they have been through very rigorous peer review process. They are one by Caroline Hoxby… Another one is by me in the “American Journal of Political Science,” 2009. Both these studies show, through a quantitative analysis, both of them very extensive, that the impact of collective bargaining on student achievement is negative.”

Of course, Hoxby and Moe might be viewed as biased. (Not like Weingarten!)

Finally, I hear you (and others) about looking at leadership, both principals and higher, for other areas for improvement in the system. That makes a lot of sense.
http://MoreThoughtful.blogspot.com Alexander Hoffman

Ken,

Moe’s paper does not look at the presence of collective bargaining. He is misrepresenting what his paper is even about. In his own words, from the paper itself, he is looking at “contract restrictiveness.” That simply is not the same thing. Moreover, all of his data points come from a state that requires collective bargaining by teachers, so his data is not remotely capable of addressing the question at hand. Not that he claims in the paper that it does.

Hoxby has, as I have said here on Gotham, a long history of sampling issues, as well. I’ve not seen the paper he is referring to, but I’d bet that it has sampling problems, too.

So, if Moe has to misrepresent his own work to support his claims, the evidence he wants might not exist anywhere.

Which bring me back to Mr. Buck’s latest comment. Quite simply the studies he would cite to support his point simply don’t exist. Running the regressions — on the state or district level, I believe — including the independent variables he mentions (and others that we’d agree on) and union penetration rate simple do not show that that union penetration is a statistically significant variable, let alone one with large effects. In other words, if you

However, one doesn’t even need run those to understand what she was saying. in the context of the resolution at the heart of the debate (one that does include the existence of other factors), and the arguments made by Moe et al (which do not acknowledge the existence of other factors, either), her statement is clear. Heck, it’s right there in what he quoted. She doesn’t say “partially,” either. She is talking about *solely*, just like everyone else. Whether you control for those factors, or not, MA does better.

As for the dumbest statement? Well, misrepresenting your own paper that came out so recently is truly much much dumber.

******************

What was Weingarten getting at with “opting to join a union”? I think she was getting at the fact that teachers have the option, and look at where they end up. She never said “opt in,” so your demand that she should have said “opt out” is simply too much.

Let’s give everyone a better sense of what she was saying.

“Legally everyone has the choice. In New York City they have the choice. All over the country they have the choice. They may not have the choice about whether or not to pay for the services the union renders but they have the choice to join the union. And in New York City 96 percent of the people who teach in New York City opt to join the union.”

I think that that is pretty clear.

But you think that she should have said “opt not to opt out of joining the union, and opt not to quite the union” or “don’t either opt out of joining the union or quit the union”? Seriously? She opted for a simple statement that was easily understandable in the context of the larger debate, one that is 100% literally correct. Even if I WERE to grant that it is dishonest or deceptive, what does that mean in the context of THIS debate? Would it make unions more to blame for the failures of our schools?

And what does that have to do with the question of the publicness of charter schools?
http://curioustwo.com Ken

Agreed! We have traveled a long way from the point of your post. You should be happy that it lead to all of this discussion (or at least some of it). It’s common for us to address supporting arguments for some original point until we are very far from that original point.
http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com Stuart Buck

Moe’s paper is indeed about the restrictiveness of contracts . . . but that does tell us something about collective bargaining and union influence, because if you think that greater union influence leads to restrictive contracts and if restrictive contracts in turn harm academic achievement, then it’s a simple chain of logic (A => B and B => C, therefore A => C). In other words, if Moe is showing that the sorts of things that unions demand end up harming academic achievement, then that’s basically the same as showing that greater political power for the union to satisfy its demands will end up harming academic achievement.
http://MoreThoughtful.blogspot.com Alexander Hoffman

Mr. Buck,

How do you know which of those demands came from which party? Have you been in the negotiating room for any of those sessions?

Your argument has more than one logical leap.

In fact, Moe did nothing to show that even the most restrictive collectively bargained contract produces worst achievement gains (all else being equal, of course). He simply does not have evidence that the fact of collective bargaining itself is bad, because his sample contains ONLY districts with collectively bargained contracts.

So, perhaps he is showing that one links in his and/or your chain of argument is strong, but it’s not the one he claims it is.
http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com Stuart Buck

Well, I suppose it’s logically possible that unions offer to get rid of provisions in their favor but school districts insist on keeping such provisions, just like all the times that unions demand lower pay, but that doesn’t seem like the best way to bet.
Michael Fiorillo

Tell the Truth,

You’re absolutely right: the UFT forces teachers to do so many things.

It forces them to earn better salaries and benefits than non-unionized teachers.

It forces them to have some protection from arbitrary or vindictive dismissal.

It forces them to have minimum class sizes (without which, the Chancellor and Mayor would put 50 students in a class).

It forces them to have some say in the running of the school.

It forces them to have a political voice and political power (you see, I won’t even apologize for it!).

Yes, that mean and nasty union forces so many awful things upon us. So much, much better – as you suggest – to get rid of it, and be free to work for less, and have less control over our work.

Better to smash the chains of the UFT’s “inflexible bureaucracy” and find professional bliss in the supportive, respectful, communitarian embrace of Michael Bloomberg’s DOE.
Pingback: Charter School Stability « Education NYC
Former Charter employee

I just want to know. At the end of the day, when some crazy charter school principal wants to put a teacher or any other employee out on their behinds for no justified reason other than to satisfy his/her ego, who ultimately represents and advocates for said teacher or employee??
I’ve seen it happen in 2 charter schools where I’ve worked and no one was around in defense of these people.

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March 26, 2010

Are Charter School Public Schools? I’m Afraid Not.

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