Charter Schools Are Still Not Public Schools

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March 31, 2010

Charter Schools Are Still Not Public Schools

by Alexander Hoffman

Last week, I explained why I no longer think that charter schools are public schools and asked for comments from GothamSchools readers. I’ve given a lot of thought to the ideas that others have presented.

First, no one has come close to rehabilitating the argument that charter schools are public schools simply because they accept public funds. Many organizations have their operations paid for — in whole or in part — by public funds, and not all of them are public in the way that “our public schools” are. If charters are public schools, this is not why.

Second, I raised the issue of democratic accountability. To what degree do elected officials and their appointees have authority over arbitrary aspects of charter school operations and staffing? For example, years ago Mayor Bloomberg required all schools to hire parent coordinators. Under mayoral control, Bloomberg can mandate curriculum and spending decisions, and any spending not controlled by existing contracts. Generally, elected officials and their appointees can even remove principals and other administrators for arbitrary — though not discriminatory — reasons. (Because New York City principals have a union contract, this authority is severely constrained. But this is unique to the city and could be negotiated out of the contract.)

There have been many arguments raised against this point, but they generally fall into two camps. One was that there are other public institutions that are led by people who cannot be so removed, but these responses have been based on admitted ignorance (e.g. how are members of the NY Board of Regents appointed and how can they be removed?, what are the laws regarding removal of charter board members? etc.). The other response has been that elected officials and their appointees can pressure charter schools to remove a principal. My understanding is that this pressure only comes in the form of withdrawing a school’s charter. I am sorry, but I do not think this argument works. By this argument, major accounts of a private company have the authority to fire salesmen at that company because they can threaten to move their account if the company does not accede to their demand. Going back to one of my examples, the private construction firm who builds schools for a district could be threatened with losing the job if some kind of site supervisor is not fired. That does not make the company part of a district or a public entity.

To state this more plainly: Demands that only have power if backed by the threat to pull a charter or contract do not equate to the sort of ongoing democratic oversight that fits into to my understanding of public schools

Third was my most important criteria, the obligations to educate all comers. One reader, Gideon, wisely pointed out that this would imply that our so-called public universities would be excluded. I do not have a problem with that. I think that the distinction between public and private higher education is rather thin and am therefore happy to say that public universities are not public at all like our public schools are.

Another response, perhaps the most common one, has been that many public schools do not serve all comers. There are exam schools, for example. And the kind of school choice model we have in New York City means that few, if any, schools serve all comers. However, I anticipated much of this argument before writing last week. School districts have a responsibility to educate all comers. It is our public schools who collectively – in the form of districts – meet that obligation. District offices are obliged to figure out how to do this and may not direct children to charter schools as part of their solutions

Let me be clear: Charter schools are not district schools. Virtually the entire purpose of charter schools is to free them from districts and their authority. Any argument that states that charter schools are part of the public schools because they are part of the mélange of schools that educate our children applies equally to unquestionably private schools. If those who advance this argument cite the use of public funds, they would have to claim that private schools that accept publicly funded vouchers are also public schools, an argument that I do not think they want to make.

However, I am also willing to concede that in most meaningful ways, selective so-called public schools are really not public schools. And I would further say that meaningful public status is certainly questionable for any school that students cannot attend simply by following the standard normal procedures that all students/families must follow — including my own high school.

Ken Hirsh and others have raised the point that charter schools are subject to government oversight, including inspections and perhaps various well or lesser known state and federal legislation. The mere fact of regulation and inspection however, does not a public entity make. Meatpacking plants are subject to federal inspection. Restaurants are subject to government inspection. Most organizations are subject to regulation in one form or another, though the degree of regulation often varies from industry to industry.

In fact, there are many regulations that only apply to those who receive public funds. For example, the City of New York enforces much of its own legislation by requiring compliance as a condition of contracting with the city. The fact of regulation does not make these entities public.

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

So, what am I getting at? I think that public schools must be both responsive to and responsible for the public.

There is no question that charter schools — like many private organizations and entities — are somewhat responsible to the public (as expressed in the form of democratic government). They certainly are more responsive to the public than traditional private schools, but it is not at all clear that they are more responsive than other private entities (i.e. other than traditional private schools) that accept large portions of their operating budgets from the government. By design, they are less responsive than traditional public schools, even if they are more responsive than traditional private schools

Clearly many charter school operators do personally feel responsible for the public and its children. Many charter school leaders work hard to build a school culture that will outlive them and that is infused with that sense of responsibility. I, therefore, understand why some who work in charter schools think of their schools as public schools. However, they build this culture voluntarily; it is not intrinsic to charter schools generally or even a requirement of their charters. The very fact that they are only required to select a student body from among those who apply in the first place makes for a qualitative difference from public schools. Districts cannot place additional students in charter schools when all district schools are overcrowded, nor can they enroll students whose families failed to take part in the normal school selection process in charter schools. In this respect, charter schools are more like traditional private schools than they are like traditional public schools.

And so, while charter schools are clearly not traditional private schools, by design they are not like traditional public schools, either. Even if we acknowledge that there are differences between different charter schools, and between charter school laws, neither of these terms seem appropriate. Those who insist that they are “public schools” or “private schools” clearly have some sort of agenda and some idea other than a full examination of the meaning these terms carry. This leaves us with a need for a third term, as neither “public” or “private” would be appropriate.

Luckily, we already have the term “quasi-public” from other sectors. I do not love this term — or even really like it — but it is surely better than either of the others.

65 Comments

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Stuart Buck
March 31st, 2010 11:06 am

Isn’t this all a matter of semantics? If you make a list of all the things that “public” schools have to do, and all the things that private schools have to do, there is no question that charter schools are overwhelmingly closer to the “public” schools in terms of substantive obligations, regulation, continual state monitoring and oversight, and accountability.
upperwestdad
March 31st, 2010 11:19 am

I think Mr. Hoffman has gone through a very elaborate and rigorous exercise to reinvent the wheel. Clearly these schools are not like either traditional public shcools, nor traditional private ones. They are a different breed that shares elements of both in terms of oversight, accountability, admissions, and financial backing. But we already have a name for this educational hybrid. We call them “charter schools.” Why muddy the waters with inventing a new name for something whne the old name works just fine?
Alexander Hoffman
March 31st, 2010 11:48 am

Actually, Mr. Buck, many people DO question that. More importantly, many think that there are other distinctions that matter at least as much as the ones you list.

And UpperWestDad, the fact is that there are countless people who claim that charter schools are public schools, and countless people who claim that they are not. It is not a question of what we should CALL them, but rather how we should THINK of them. These labels (like analogies) carry implications, illuminate some issues and cast others to shadows. Thus, the labels that people are fighting over (e.g. “public”) are indicative of bigger issues than just labels.

And that is why this is not just semantics.
Jonathan
March 31st, 2010 11:59 am

Calling charter schools “charter schools” works just fine. Some of their supporters continue to claim the label “public school” - it is they and their claim, not charter school opponents - which animate this discussion.
KitchenSink
March 31st, 2010 12:15 pm

I’ll speak for myself and say that I am motivated to point out that charters are public schools when conspiracy theorists claim that charters are part of some far-right-wing plan to destroy public institutions and replace them with profit-making private enterprises. To what end, I’m not sure.

Charters are confounding because their origins are so diverse. The movement is a true ‘big tent.’ You have people like me, who were squarely in the traditional district public school community (teacher, union member, etc.), founding charter schools. You have people who came from government to found charters, and you have businessmen/women and lawyers who think they could run schools on public funds more efficiently.

I agree that this exercise is all a matter of semantics, and I would add ivory tower semantics, because the thousands of poor parents on waiting lists really don’t care what you or I think.

If it’s a legal question, charters must be considered public (that is, we are Local Educational Authorities eligible for stimulus money and to apply for federal grants bla bla bla). If you (Alexander) set up an arbitrary list of criteria that suits your idea of public, you inevitably exclude all those other institutions whose public status most of us never question.

While I think it’s a fun question, I also think there are far more important questions. I’d submit:

* Where is this whole charter thing going?

* Who do charters serve? Who should they serve?

* How ARE charters held accountable?

* Is there really a transfer of knowledge between charters and TPS?
citizen
March 31st, 2010 2:57 pm

I don’t know why the question of whether charters are public or not is important. What we know is that public schools are failing and we are looking for alternatives. Charter is an alternative. It is not supposed to replicate the failing public model school that we are familiar with. So it is natural to have some differences. The real questions are: Do charters work? If they do, why and how? Who do they serve? Are they accountable? The rest of the discussion is waste of time of the public, of not of Mr. Hoffman.
Dee Alpert
March 31st, 2010 3:02 pm

I am constantly amazed by folks who give the argument that public schools have an obligation to educate all kids including ELLs and kids with disabilities. Perhaps we’re dealing with a fine semantic distinction that has little connection with the reality out in the field.

Public schools, esp. those in NYC, have an obligation to allow all kids to enroll and can require them to attend within certain legal constraints. This is not, however, the equivalent of actually educating all of these kids. What the overwhelming mass of data shows is that public schools do not actually educate ELLs and kids with disabilities in any objective and significant fashion. They just waste a lot of these kids’ precious time making them sit through classes which do nothing at all for them.

Conveniently, our State Board of Regents has made it illegal (with one notable exception, pulled off by well connected folks) to set up charter schools specifically designed to effectively educate kids with disabilities. And until a few months ago, they weren’t supposed to be set up to run programs which might prove effective for ELLs. In essence, NYSED and the Regents have required that charters use the same model for kids who are English-proficient or not disabled as they do for either or both of these very discrete groups. Needless to say, charters haven’t run to do this since it doesn’t work.

Hopefully, we’ll get some serious freedom for charters to set up programs that are designed - and based on serious research - to effectively educate ELLs and/or kids with documented disabilities, and then we’ll be able to tell whether there are models and programs that can be transferred to regular public schools. Until then … I wasn’t surprised that NYSED and the Regents were against charters serving either of these very discrete populations - because if they did so and did so effectively - they might very well provide some serious competition for these two groups of kids. Why should that matter? Because these student groups are targeted for fairly significant chunks of program-specific federal money, that’s why. What State Ed. and the Regents are really all about, when push comes to shove, is protecting school districts’ revenue streams, whatever that takes.
Arthur Goldstein
March 31st, 2010 5:49 pm

Ms. Alpert:

Your contention that public schools do not educate ELLs is stereotypical and nonsensical. Perhaps you think those of us who teach them simply come in and read a newspaper all day. I’m not precisely sure who told you that, but please don’t bet the farm on whatever they tell you next.

It is indeed possible that people who don’t know English do not graduate within four years. However, it takes time to learn English, and anyone who has taken the time to study a language they haven’t known since childhood will agree, as will anyone with a passing knowledge of language acquisition. Perhaps you, like many politicians, thinks it’s reasonable to expect kids who arrived two weeks ago to read a two-inch thick biology book and pass the Regents at the end of the term. I assure you you could not go to Korea and do the same in their language, nor could I, nor could any post adolescent.

In any case, that’s hardly reason to vilify those of us who actually give these kids the skills they need–the ones that will enable them to not only survive and communicate, but actually pass those tests and graduate (with a little time).

Furthermore, there are schools, like mine, that take kids who are not expected to graduate and teach them skills that will enable them to support themselves, like how to work in a store. For this, we are penalized and our grade is lowered. It’s my feeling the hardworking teachers who devote themselves to helping these kids, as well as the schools that endeavor to do so ought to be rewarded rather than excoriated for their efforts. That is not the case, and every public school that takes alternate assessment kids is penalized for their efforts.

If you have a magic pill that makes kids learn English instantly, with no investment of time and energy, I’d love to hear all about it. It’s really hard, strenuous work teaching beginners. I love it but many of my colleagues do not. I understand why. You have to put out a lot but you’re rewarded with rapid visible progress. However, it can easily take two years for someone to really master verbal and written English to the point of being able to tackle genuine academics. It could be sooner or later, but much depends on the individual.

It’s kind of complicated. But it’s certainly not a waste of time to teach kids our language. If we don’t take the time now, ELLs can easily spend thousands of dollars taking remedial courses in community colleges to learn the same things I could teach them now. I’m sure of that because I’ve taught many of these college courses.

Really, if you feel like trashing public schools, go ahead. But there’s absolutely no truth to the contention that we’re wasting the time of ELLs. Ask one of the dozens of kids who’ve thanked me for being the first person who got them to read a whole book in English. Or ask one of the countless kids who’ve said the same to my colleagues. Or talk to one of my dozens of kids who couldn’t have talked to you in September.
CityPragmatist
March 31st, 2010 6:12 pm

Mr.Hoffman: You need to distinguish between for-profits and not-for-profits. Forgive the Blackberry brevity.
Dee Alpert
March 31st, 2010 6:57 pm

Mr. Goldstein - the data speaks for itself. ELL kids do horrifically and graduate in pitifully low numbers in NYCDOE schools, especially when one un-manipulates the NYCDOE numbers.

Please - give us the names of the research-validated programs of instruction for ELLs which you use. Then we can compare the results of the research when programs are implemented with fidelity v. NYC’s results.

As for kids who are not expected to graduate on time … I am sorry, but this is more of the tyranny of low expectations. If there is research showing that ELL kids can be gotten up to speed in English in schools, then the issue is why we’re not doing it here. If there is no such research, then and only then are expectations of less than excellent progress appropriate.
KitchenSink
March 31st, 2010 6:58 pm

Who’s the final arbiter here? Is there a God for public vs. non-public?
Arthur Goldstein
March 31st, 2010 7:48 pm

Ms. Albert,

I regret you have failed to comprehend a word I’ve written.

Your ridiculous demand I introduce some magic program that will rid my kids of the need to take the time to learn English certainly demonstrates that. Furthermore, so does your preposterous recitation of a platitude about low expectations for kids who don’t speak English.

I have studied many methods of teaching English, and over twenty years have examined countless textbooks. I do not have the method you seek, nor does anyone but the next up-and-coming snake oil salesperson. However, when you find it, I suggest you travel to a foreign country. Make sure it is one that uses a language with which you’re utterly unfamiliar.

Then, go to a college, or even a high school, and pass courses right along with the native speakers.

I will spare you the further adjectives that spring to my mind regarding your implication that kids ought not to need time to acquire a language. I can tell you, though, having made it a point to acquire a foreign language as an adult, that it took me time. I had to spend hours, months and years studying, I had to take multiple courses, and I had to travel several times to a foreign country, where I studied more. I did this specifically to know what my kids go through. I regret this does not meet your standard about the magic method you seek.

It was hard to do, but I did it, and if I can do it, my kids can do it too. I did not have low expectations, but realistic ones. I’m afraid I can’t say the same for yours.
HechingerEd | Charter Schools: Public? Private? Does it Matter?
March 31st, 2010 7:54 pm

[...] the Gotham Schools site in New York City, a Teachers College graduate student named Alexander Hoffman parsed the terms [...]
Akademos
March 31st, 2010 8:42 pm

It IS important how we are to think of charter schools, because that will help us all toward fair comparisons to traditional public schools (TPSs) and more realistic considerations of the extent to which TPSs can incorporate charter methods, themes, missions, admin. policies, etc.

The selection process for charters being based on parental initiative is a huge difference right there; plus, at this point, there is an expectation of excellence or something close to it with all of the hype (the whole highly politicized reform wave) and advertising and much-touted exemplars of success in Harlem.

We need to know how different and similar these schools are to understand the message, and its limits, of the charter schools and possibly what the future of education should or could look like.
Dee Alpert
March 31st, 2010 11:26 pm

Mr. Goldstein - I’ll be happy to provide you with some resources regarding research-validated programs. I know graduate faculty in this area and will ask one of them to get me a link for you. It’s unfortunate that you haven’t run across any to date. That does not mean they do not exist.

If you want to engage in personal attacks and bombast, I’m afraid you’ll have to look elsewhere.
Arthur Goldstein
April 1st, 2010 12:08 am

Ms. Alpert,

I did not say research-validated programs do not exist. Nor did I say I haven’t seen any, nor did I attack you personally.

Feel free to dismiss my notions as bombast, if that pleases you.
Alexander Hoffman
April 1st, 2010 11:11 am

KitchenSink,

I do not think that your arguments fail address the question I am posing. Moreover, I have noted a trend that when the charter proponents realized that they cannot respond effectively to my arguments that they then turn to the tactic of dismissing the question as unimportant.

The fact is that if charter schools are public schools, the public has a certain obligation to support them and a right to set expectations for them. But if they are not, those obligations and expectations are morally quite a bit more questionable. And the fact is that the only court case that I could find ruled that charter schools are NOT legally arms of the state, even though the state in question had a charter law that declared them public schools. Your suggestion that, “If it’s a legal question, charters must be considered public (that is, we are Local Educational Authorities eligible for stimulus money and to apply for federal grants bla bla bla).” But that is up to the federal courts to adjudicate, not you.

The issue there really is “If charter schools are like public schools for *this purpose*.” The courts can rule on this, and laws can change. While the moral questions and issues may be eternal, legal status is not.

Additionally, I would counter that my criteria are *not* arbitrary. I am going back to ideas of Jefferson and Mann, our country’s two great proponents of public education. If you think that my criteria is not only arbitrary, but also inferior or lacking, why don’t you or others offer superior criteria — and obviously i don’t mean criteria that fit your pre-ordained conclusions.

As for “the thousands of poor parents on waiting lists really don’t care what you or I think,” I am not sure how that changes the importance of this question. There are thousands of families on waiting lists for private schools throughout the city and state. There are thousands of families on waiting lists for season tickets for the city’s professional sports teams. They don’t make questions about the public’s obligation to support those organizations in any number of ways any less moot. In fact, the strength of support that a minority of the population has for these organizations makes it even *more* important that we be clear as to whether these organizations are public or private (or something else) when we figure out what the public’s obligation is to them.

For example, many people in this city LOVE the New York Yankees, and are more loyal to the Yankees than anything else. Does that mean that there are not important questions about how the state and city should support the Yankees? Zoning changes? The building of infrastructure? Tax breaks? Preferred this or altered that?

The questions that you ask ARE important, but I am not sure that they actually go anywhere, on their own. For example, if there is not significant and meaningful knowledge transfer, so what? I think that the question of whether charter schools are public plays a critical role in that next step. I think that the question of whether charter are (or are supposed to be) meaningfully public schools is critical to question how to charter schools SHOULD be held accountable. (Again, who care “how they are held accountable?” That question does not go far enough.) And the question of who charter schools serve and should serve? Is that really entirely distinct than my question?

As for “where is this whole charter thing going?” Well, it is going where the the public and the government takes it. Charters do NOT have lives of their own. It’s not like asking where a rampaging elephant is going — at least not in my view. WE, the public, get to decide where it is going. And our decisions in regard should be informed by a well-considered view of the status and nature of charter schools.
Alexander Hoffman
April 1st, 2010 11:28 am

Citizen,

1) Very few people in this country (relatively speaking) believe that their children’s schools are failing (2%). And very few people think that our suburban schools are failing. When asked about the nations schools, only (6%) think they are failing. (From PDK’s annual poll.)

So, it’s pretty clear that we do NOT ” is that public schools are failing.”

2) Yes, charter schools are clearly an alternative, but why are they a good alternative? Sending kids to Disney World would ALSO be an alternative that does not replicate the public school model. You need a better reason to support charter schools than that they are an alternative.

3) If so many public schools are clearly NOT failing, shouldn’t the question be why a small minority of them are failing? Shouldn’t we consider that question rather than assume that charter schools are an appropriate alternative? Why spend all that time looking at charter schools?

This language of crisis (”our schools are failing!!!!”) can push us to rash and poorly thought out action. The very purpose of the cap on charters in New York was to give us an opportunity to evaluate them. However, proponents seem have to have forgotten that.

If charter schools generally are not meaningfully superior to traditional public schools and do not act as public schools, why should the public support them? There is an opportunity costs there. Perhaps the energy and commitment of those who make some charter schools work so well would be better spend in some other way (e.g. in new public schools). If they make the job of the traditional public schools more difficult, rather than easier, aren’t we just robbing Peter to pay Paul?

These ARE important questions. We agree that there are problems with SOME of our public schools. But we should not take for granted that charter schools are the solution to that problem.

(Actually, I personally believe that virtually all public high schools are failing, but my standard is not one that most people subscribe to. I personally believe that our suburban and elite schools are failing worst, but would take that suggestions seriously.)
Alexander Hoffman
April 1st, 2010 11:43 am

Ms. Alpert,

I think that you and I agree that public schools DO have an obligation to educate ELL students and students with disabilities. I think that you and I are both appalled at how poorly we have done that, historically. I think that we agree that many or most schools could do better.

There are lots of reasons for those failings, and Mr. Goldstein is right that we also have many wonderful, talented and knowledgeable working in this area. I would bet that he agrees that many schools could do better than they do, though the two of you might disagree as to what causes these short comings.

You have pointed to a particular problem, one that needed to be addressed. But let’s be fair here; it WAS addressed. Regulation designed to push charter schools to serve a wider slice of the public has some unanticipated consequences. The reaction of the Board of Regents was to enforce regulation, as it should have. And the public did the right thing, pushing the government to revisit the regulation.

It would be great if we lived in a world where laws and regulations could be perfect the first time that are put into effect, but such a thing is not possible.

(As for parking and babysitting ELL and SPED students? Well, I would argue that most schools do this a large part of the year for most students. When we consider how much of what we “learned” in school is quickly forgotten — certainly not remembered even a single decade later — with supporting larger lessons or teaching students how to use their minds well, the problem you cite is hardly limited to these two populations. But, again, I hold a minority view.)
Akademos
April 1st, 2010 11:51 am

Alexander, what do you mean by ‘failing’ in your comment above? It’s interesting that you’re saying that “suburban and elite schools are failing worst”. It just makes me very curious about whether you’re talking about curriculum or methods or both, or whether you’re talking about more sweeping things like failure to keep up with technology and environmental/global issues and innovate or failure to truly instill critical thinking and reach meaningful, competitive world-class standards.
Alexander Hoffman
April 1st, 2010 11:56 am

I have been asked to address the for-profit and not-for-profit distinction.

I do not think that it is really meaningful. A not-for-profit school can spend large amounts of money on a vendors, even if the school is not-for-profit. The vendor can pay key personal (e.g. the founding director) large amounts of money, even if the vendor is not-for profit.

That is, even if all the organizations are not-for-profit, it is still possible for some people to make large amounts of money.

For-profit status merely means that if there is a surplus of money at the end of the year that owners or shareholders might get that money. But these days, relatively few stocks pay a dividend. Instead, they hold on to net income, perhaps to use as a buffer for lean years, perhaps to use for future R&D, perhaps to use for strategic purposes in the future. The owners of corporations are not paid the “profits,” even though in theory they have some claim to it. (And they could pressure the board of directors to get dividends, but most people are content with their stock valuations going up, instead.)

So, not-for-profit status does not prevent misuse of money or direction of money to perhaps overpay some key people — people who might not technically work for the school. And for-profit status does guarantee that some of the money will be diverted to owner’s pockets.

One could argue that Eva Moskovitz has found a good way to personally profit from a group not-for-profit schools. What do we want to do with that?

I DO think that this gets to the importance of democratic oversight, even with arbitrary authority. Perhaps if a series of traditional public schools had a contract with a vendor that operates like Ms. Moskovitz’s, then district officials could be pressured to void the contract. But I do not think that our current system allows our elected officials or their appointees to do that with these charter schools, short of revoking their charter — and I do not think that there is a legal basis for that at this time.
Alexander Hoffman
April 1st, 2010 1:01 pm

Akademos,

Something closest to your last suggestion, but i would not limit the goal to “world class standards,” as that presumes that other nations do it significantly better.

Obviously, this is entirely off topic…but I think that we spend an awful amount of time on coverage objections and broad/shallow curriculum, without really working on the meaningful lessons that are worth learning for a lifetime. Ted & Nancy Sizer wrote “Education is the worthy residue that remains long after the lessons have been forgotten.” Are we teaching with that in mind? I don’t just refer to the kind of forgetting that occurs shortly after the test that students’s crammed for, though. I mean that kind of forgetting that happens over the course of years or decades.

In other words, what are we teaching that will strengthen students’ minds and thinking 10, 20 or 40 years out?

Those schools that serve relatively high-SES families, families with strong educational background, are the ones I think are failing worst. Yes, their children can learn today’s lessons well. They can do well on their tests, generate high scores and go on to college. But that’s easy, and that’s disposable. How many of the lessons, units, courses, teachers, activities, etc.. really are changing their lives in the long term? If you can take the little lessons and standard tests for granted — and these schools really can — then what do they have the opportunity to do with these children and for society? I don’t just refer to critical thinking, though that is a start. Look at what Sizer and Meier have done around “habits of mind.”

If you’re with me this far, or at least understand what I mean, take this idea back to the other schools, including low-SES inner-city schools. What does this idea imply about what THEY should be doing? Sure, they are unable to replicate the kind of success that is so easy to do in the other schools, but so what? If that kind of success does not provide meaningful education for a lifetime, then why are we pushing them in that direction. Their students need the same kind of valuable education at the high-SES suburban students. And that means that we are judging all schools by the wrong standards.

So, if they are all failing — and that’s why i wrote years ago in my master’s thesis before my adviser made me change to language to “not succeeding,” then I hold the high-SES suburban schools at greater fault. At least the low-SES schools are trying to do something hard, something that others say they need to do better. The high-SES suburban schools are doing what is easy, and not thinking about the meaning of their apparent — and in my view short-term — successes.

I wish I could say I came up with this line of thinking, but I was too late to the party for that. Ted Sizer clearly beat me to it. When he wrote Horace’s Compromise, I was watching it around me in school. When I first read his stuff, I was glad to see that there were others who understand what I saw at our supposedly best schools. But today, 25 years, I am disturbed that not only have we failed to learn, but we are moving in the opposite direction.

Of course, this is all, as I have said, entirely off topic. Charter schools are response to this problematic dynamic of goals and expectations, but they don’t respond that differently than any other class of schools. Whether they are public or private, or something else entirely, they fall into the same errors.

(I will say this for private schools — and it’s not often that I say ANYTHING for private schools — some of them have taken advantage of their remove from democratic accountability to think along these lines. But most try to be outstanding schools by essentially the same criteria as public schools. And there have been public schools that have tried to do it, too. But it keeps getting harder.)
Stuart Buck
April 1st, 2010 3:47 pm

I have noted a trend that when the charter proponents realized that they cannot respond effectively to my arguments that they then turn to the tactic of dismissing the question as unimportant.

No one responded effectively to my point that charter schools are undeniably much closer to traditional public schools than they are to private schools. In substance, that is, regardless of what semantic label you feel comfortable using.
Alexander Hoffman
April 1st, 2010 4:21 pm

Mr. Buck,

That’s an unsubstantiated claim, not an argument.

However, in fact, I have put forth the rebuttal that in requiring families to go outside the normal school enrollment process, a difference that I think is quite substantial, charter schools are more like traditional private schools than traditional public schools. In their unresponsiveness to arbitrary oversight, decision-making and second guessing by elected officials and their appointees, charter schools are more like private entities — including traditional private schools — than they are to traditional public schools.

So, your claim that “charter schools are undeniably much closer to traditional public schools than they are to private schools” is false, even if simply on the grounds that I have denied it. But more importantly, I have raised multiple ways in which charter schools are more like traditional private schools than traditional public schools.

What we have here is privately managed, publicly financed schools that have far less oversight than traditional public schools, an entry process that is more like traditional private schools than traditional public schools and treatment of teachers that is usually more like traditional private schools than traditional public schools in most states, among other notable differences.

Even more generally, I pointed out that the areas that you specifically cited — unlike your more generally assertion here — are not necessarily the ones that everyone think are most salient. For example, like traditional private schools, charter schools may take responsibility for no more students than they wish, whereas the public schools must take responsibility for all students in their geographic area, regardless of their wishes. In my view, there is no more substantive obligation than that.

I do not know else what I might do to “respond effectively” to your unsubstantiated claim. Moreover, I have specifically addressed the charge that I am just arguing about semantics, without anyone — and certainly not you — engaging with those arguments.
Akademos
April 2nd, 2010 12:25 am

Alexander, I see what you mean about your standards for schools placing you in the minority. I always saw the habits of mind as something sort of thematic or like a set of tools or blueprints in the background. To actually expect to inculcate all or most of them . . . in mere mortals, via mere mortals . . . Suffice to say, failure to do so, in my mind, is more societal than scholastic. I think that “successful” people in this society do use many of those habits, but only in their specialized fields and only to fairly limited extents and with myopias and blind spots that actually assist them, while those who use them most of the time in their lives are our highest-echelon thinkers, philosophers, artists and pioneering academics, and I think that is primarily due to the repeated striking of only a few familiar chords that result in resonance in the vicinities of those various “habits”, with, again, myopias and blind spots that may thwart or inspire, or both. But, putting aside our greatest minds, the more specialized and splintered our professions become, the more superficial much of the way we function becomes due to info management and time constraints. In short, I’d say that contemporary society baits but fails to support deep reflection or philosophical thought, at work or play. And it’s too bad. I really wish we could one day end all needless cramming and pressurization and high-stakes assessments of all kinds.

Then again, charter schools could be the perfect incubation chambers for habits of mind. The company-sponsors could choose which habits are most successful and meaningful to them and provide near-immediate real-world applications. Of course, we still exist in an era ruled by standardized testing and curricula driven by it, and to it; so it would be difficult for now to properly develop those chambers.

By the way, by ‘world-class’, in my previous comment, I meant ‘highest possible’.
Alexander Hoffman
April 2nd, 2010 9:50 am

Akademos,

Staying off topic….

But isn’t that the goal of schools, to teach students to use their minds better than they do? To create “highest-echelon thinkers, philosophers, artists and pioneering academics,” in addition to everything else? If we are not ADDING value, and just leaving people to their naturally inclined modes of thinking, are we doing anything more than baby-sitting?

What I think schools ought to be doing is not easy. But if we have the kids for 6 hours/day (plus homework), 180 days/year, for 12 years, doesn’t that seem like enough time? Why else do we need them so much, if not to strengthen their minds?

It seems really hard, because we don’t see how to teach this stuff in one lesson, one unit or one year. But we have them for 12(!!!!) years.

Ted’s list of Habits of Mind (perspective, analysis, imagination, empathy, communication, commitment, humility, joy) does not precisely match my own, but I can live with his. If our goal was to teach these lessons, with the traditional content serving more as means (i.e. rather than the ends which we know will be forgotten), do you really think that we cannot do that in 12 years? Think about the whole school experience, from the richness of a strong traditional kindergarten to through the academic subjects and out to extra-curricular activities. Isn’t there fertile ground to inculcate this stuff there? Shouldn’t THAT be the goal? Great teachers are already doing it!!!

Is the failure societal? In part, sure. Schools do need community support to do these things. But it’s not that hard a sale. The thing is that this does not require sacrificing traditional content, SAT scores or college acceptance. The traditional content and other traditional elements of school are a wonderful platform on which to teach this stuff. It’s just that educators would understand that the content is the means, not the ends, and therefore they would be working together to teach children rather than working alone to teach material.
KitchenSink
April 2nd, 2010 11:36 am

Alexander, reading your comments, I’m not sure you grasp the urgency with which change is needed in our educational system. I hear tones of complacency and a sense of, “What’s the big deal with the public schools? Let’s not tinker too much because what we end up with might be worse than what we have.”

To the contrary, even Sen. Bill Perkins during his Morning Joe experience agreed that we simply don’t have the public schools that we want serving our kids.

Charters are ONE of many ways to introduce new life, new energy and new ideas into the system. Public, private, quasi-public, whatever, the parents on waiting lists IS the point. Because while the state has no responsibility to provide parents Dalton replications for those seeking Dalton, and no responsibility to provide seats at Yankee Stadium, it does have an obligation to provide a sound, basic education.

AND IN PLACES LIKE HARLEM, THE STATE UNEQUIVOCALLY IS *NOT* DOING THAT.

Decades of well-meaning reform have not changed that fact.

You’re right - only fools rush in, and using panic as an excuse to invest public resources recklessly would be wrong. But there is a process in place to prevent that recklessness in this case; it’s called the New York State Charter Schools Act of 1998 (as amended), and it provides a very high bar for the initial authorizing of a charter school, as well as strict rules for oversight and renewal/closure. This is not a reckless endeavor.
KitchenSink
April 2nd, 2010 11:57 am

If I may make one more observation, Alexander, what you appear to be doing repeatedly is pointing out the design flaws in public education as-we-know-it (schools cannot maintain a stable enrollment, elected officials can arbitrarily interfere in areas affecting mission and vision, and on and on) and stating that because the charter law has limited the impact of those deficiencies on classroom instruction in charters, they are not public.

That smells like a non-sequitor to me. Could it happen the other way around? Could the TPS system learn from charters, on a macro level?

What would happen if, for example, all public schools could control an enrollment cap the way charters currently can? Would it leave some families out in the cold? Or would someone come up with a smart solution to this problem - unfettered, hopefully, by the bureaucratic nonsense that currently characterizes state oversight of public schools? The solution - one that equitably meets the criterion that all children have equal access to a sound, basic education - would have to include a more clear and transparent forecast of student mobility (I don’t know about you, but OSEPO is one damn impenetrable black box to me, and I certainly don’t get the sense that its data warehouse is publicly available), and a purposeful distribution of the disruption caused by student mobility, to the extent that there is such a thing.

But that would require a re-imagining of admissions procedures to public schools. So we can’t fix that problem - the school system wouldn’t be public anymore, right? Oh, well, I guess we’re just left with the system we started with. Luckily, it’s not that bad, right? I mean, we’re not in a crisis or anything. Never mind that there are more black people in this country in prison right now than in college. Never mind that there are still people running around district schools in poor neighborhoods telling black and brown kids that they’ll never make it, and their parents are to blame, and they’re stupid and won’t go to college. We have a few more decades to do some tinkering around the edges to fix this thing, right? That is, as long as I get my papers published and I get MY degree…
Akademos
April 2nd, 2010 2:43 pm

Apologies all around for remaining off-topic. I’ll be really brief.

Alexander: “Great teachers are already doing it!!!” Terrific, yet forces me to question the extent of the results (inculcation) and the conventionality of it. If the habits of mind are taught separately and/or systematically, I question whether they in themselves hold the key to their natural emergence and use, especially if they are linked to and ultimately become akin to conventional modes of thought.

12 years. 12 years to lay down the formative basics; encapsulate and make accessible all key points and issues that civilizations have learned and grappled with so far, which grows, I’m pretty sure, at something like an exponential rate even as things get discarded; and at the same time provide the norms of critical thinking and creativity that lead to high SAT scores, successful university experiences and careers, or at least functionality, responsibility and awareness. Yes, I’d say it takes about 12 years for the overwhelming majority, and a lot of this is not just content but ways of thinking, progressions of thought and perspectives. Not that it must all be this way, but I don’t think it’s merely a matter of blending the habits into the content and getting them to be both the means and the ends, though that would be great! (though I have my doubts about them.)

On topic: TPSs and charters both with strong meaningful themes and missions could play important roles here. I hope they can learn from each other without inappropriate mimicry or maladapted methods, but my feeling is that, for better or worse, we have yet to really glimpse the future of education.
KitchenSink
April 2nd, 2010 3:41 pm

Nice comment, Akademos. (From which Greek cave did you emerge?) That last point is particularly well stated, “strong meaningful themes and missions…”

My point, Alexander, is that in places like Hunt’s Point, Harlem, Bed-Stuy, TPS’s with strong meaningful missions are in exceedingly short supply.

When I taught in a district school, the mission was something the principal put on the wall when the state PASS reviewer was coming to visit, and she told us to pretend it was there all along. It was neither strong nor meaningful. And certainly not relevant.
Stuart Buck
April 3rd, 2010 11:45 am

“However, in fact, I have put forth the rebuttal that in requiring families to go outside the normal school enrollment process, a difference that I think is quite substantial, charter schools are more like traditional private schools than traditional public schools.”

Substantiate this please. My kids have attended a traditional public school and a public charter school. In both cases, we had to fill out enrollment cards. I saw no meaningful difference.

Anyway, you’re identifying one or two ways in which charter schools are like private schools, but my original claim, which you do not and cannot refute, was that if you list ALL of the characteristics and regulations that are applicable, charters are more like traditional public schools.

Just to do that here:

1. Public schools: Have to enroll anybody who signs up, subject to enrollment limits. So do charters. Private schools do not. [You can quibble about how the public school district has an obligation to find space for kids somewhere, but that absolutely is not true for individual schools.]
2. Public schools: cannot teach religion. Same for charters. Private schools can teach whatever they want.
3. Public schools: Subject to oversight and monitoring from a state board of education. Same for charters. Private schools: Not nearly as much.
4. Public schools: Kids have to follow state standards and take state accountability tests. Same for charters. Normally not the case for private schools.
5. Public schools: Normally cannot discriminate on the basis of gender (i.e., single-sex schools). Same for charters. Not usually true for private schools.
6. Public schools: Publicly funded, with all of the incredibly rigorous oversight that is attached to anyone who is spending public funds (i.e., regular reporting to state authorities, regular independent audits, etc.). Same for charters. Not true for private schools.
7. Public schools: Must be governed by school boards, which themselves are subject to extensive regulation (i.e., financial disclosure). Same for charters. Not true for private schools, as far as I know.

Now as you’ve repeatedly pointed out, there are a few ways in which charter schools resemble private schools:
1. Can hire uncertified but otherwise qualified teachers.
2. Personnel aren’t as readily fired by state authorities.
3. Not subject to a public school district’s authority to reassign students there.

I’m dubious, however, of any claim that charters are more like private than public schools in their ability to get rid of troublesome students. Check out zero-tolerance laws, or public school suspensions in general — traditional public schools most certainly have the power to rid themselves of troublesome students one way or another.

My conclusion, which I think is much more reasonable than the alternative, is that charter schools have more in common with public schools than with private schools, although you’re quite right that they share a few things in common with both.
Alexander Hoffman
April 3rd, 2010 12:50 pm

There is a lot here for me to respond to, and I will do so later.

For now, let me say that no one is questioning the urgency or the need for better schools in many of our nation’s poorest neighborhoods — especially those dominated by minorities. And I am not even saying that the fact that charter schools are NOT public schools is a reason to do away with them.

I appears that charter proponents take disagreement with them as an attack on their reasons for existing.

I will get to Mr. Buck’s claims later, but I want point out one more difference between charter and traditional public schools — one that KitchenSink is making clear. The public schools are like airplanes in flight in that they cannot shut down or stop to for massive overhauls. The public schools have an obligation to education every child right now — one that they meet with variable success, of course. Only those outside the public schools would seriously all public schools adopt enrollment caps. Even if something popped up in response to the problems that would create, there obviously would be a lag. And during that period of lag — probably years, in many cases — countless children would lack a school to attend.

The most basic obligation of the public schools prevents that from being an option. It is a luxury that only charters can imagine.
Stuart Buck
April 3rd, 2010 2:24 pm

You have to be completely unfamiliar with charter school financing (and the struggles many schools face) to think that an enrollment cap is a luxury.
Akademos
April 3rd, 2010 2:29 pm

KitchenSink: A grove, not a cave.

Stuart Buck: Why isn’t #1, on your list of the ways charters are like private schools, the fact that charters are run by private organizations? It’s not even on your list. And while it may or may not be the death knell to your entire argument, in this climate of big money and big business people getting deeply involved in education and depts thereof, it opens the door to the potential death knell to public education. And the problem with that is that corporate society has not evolved, and has little motivation to do so, beyond a survival-of-the-fittest ideology. High competition tends to hurt the most vulnerable. The law of the jungle, really, and a giant leap backwards. Not to mention an invitation to types of unwanted influence and corruption we can hardly imagine right now. But I’m not arguing that charters are a bad idea, just that they’re categorically different from what we’ve known as typical public schools. And that difference is extremely important in our being aware of what’s going on in education and what could happen next.
Stuart Buck
April 3rd, 2010 2:34 pm

Fair enough. Charter schools are managed by private individuals or organizations, not by people who are literally getting their paychecks directly from the state.

I don’t see why that’s dispositive, though.
Dee Alpert
April 3rd, 2010 3:15 pm

Akademos - Before positing that charters are run by private organizations, whilst public schools are not, I suggest you take a long, hard look at the school support organizations/networks that effectively do a lot of the running of many NYCDOE schools.

Oh … one can’t look at these SSOs because although they exist pretty much on public money, they are not required to disclose much of anything. Not what they do with the public money they receive; not what precise services they do (and do not) supply; which schools they have provided which services, and, perhaps most importantly, what are the results - objective - of their support “services.”

When you have public schools being run, often almost totally, by these shadow organizations, it’s hard to make many accurate comparisons between public and charter schools.

Most of the discussions I’ve read re the NYC DOE’s public schools are about 5 years out of date in terms of this phenom. Whether it’s significant or not, I can’t say, and neither can anyone else. Transparency is desperately needed. The perhaps we can start talking about accountability (or as I prefer, “responsibility” as in “you fail; you get fired”). ‘Till then it’s kind of like shooting moving targets in the dark. Let the sunlight in.
Akademos
April 3rd, 2010 3:16 pm

I’m not surprised. And I didn’t say it was necessarily dispositive, though it should have topped your list.

Don’t conflate the city and state’s possible failures to ‘publicly run’ institutions with the idea that an individual paid by the state may as well be a private organization.
Akademos
April 3rd, 2010 3:32 pm

Dee Alpert: Yes, I think that phenomenon is part of what we need to be aware of. The fact that the public schools are becoming less and less public all the way around.

Must we fight corruption and stagnation with privatization and its frequently attendant abuses of power, especially in the absence of true arbiters of what failure or success or the right directions are? How will we know where one corruption ends and the other begins?
KitchenSink
April 3rd, 2010 3:49 pm

Akademos, it all starts with the state legislature and the governor. The judges are not in the news enough for me to have an opinion. I go around touting the charter law, but the state assembly and senators are a bunch of self-interested clowns that I would like to see all voted out of office. If the Romans knew we were using the word senator for these people, they would be throwing stones.
Dee Alpert
April 3rd, 2010 5:52 pm

Akademos - if you’re right, then there are no solutions and we all might as well give up and shut up. As it happens, there are very clear laws and regulations which can deal with corruption at the public school and charter school levels - they are simply not enforced. Same goes true for finding out whether particular things - programs; school models, and the like - are effective or not. Many of the “evaluations” done in NYS public school districts, including the NYCDOE, do not evaluate anything objective about real outcomes for the kids. Instead, they “evaluate” how well staff and administrators liked the program. I am not kidding - you have to read these fatuous concoctions to believe them.

For starters, since a recent large-scale NYU evaluation of the NYCDOE’s Title 1 program found that it did exactly zero good (and may have done some harm), why not insist on having those responsible for this disaster be held really, truly responsible by being fired or demoted? Ditto for the NYCDOE’s Reading First program, according to the audit Comptroller Thompson did last year.

Seems like the NYCDOE works on the motto that “if it’s broke, don’t fix it. Just apply for a new grant so the same people can do pretty much the same thing and fail the children again.” At least with charter schools, if parents feel they’re failing their kids, they can pull them and look for schooling elsewhere.

Remember - within the NYCDOE, parental choice was and is a fiction because the “good” schools - good according to parents - are so overcrowded that parents outside a select area, or without serious connections, pretty much can’t get their kids into them. And the NYCDOE’s efforts to create a large number of new good schools, or radically improve its poor ones, haven’t gone anywhere much. There are occasional exceptions, but they are exceptions, not the rule.

Let’s start with School Support Organization Report Cards, so that parents can at least know which SSOs seem to produce client schools which do X, if X is what parents think their kids need, and which produce Y if Y is what parents think their kids need, assuming that both X and Y have, as baselines, that the kids learn to read and do math adequately.

The reason the laws which require (if enforced) serious auditing, audit follow ups and negative audit finding corrections, and meaningful actions taken when program evaluations show they’ve failed to meet stated objectives, are not enforced is because the NYS Ed. Dept. has no intention of enforcing them. It really doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense to discuss things like different models for schools (public; charter; voucher; private) in NYS because the laws have nothing to do with what any of these types of schools actually do, or are required to do. Without a system in which laws, regulations, etc. are given some meaningful effect, knowing there’s corruption is almost irrelevant to the problems the public education system obviously has, and this includes the charter schools - in NYS.

Since State Ed. only answers to the Regents, and since the Regents are selected by Shelly Silver, in his sole and secret discretion (although discretion may be too charitable a word - contribution receivership might be more appropriate), Shelly Silver should be the focus of efforts to improve the public schools. If one can get that, the pressure for, and excuses for, charters will disappear up in smoke.
Dee Alpert
April 3rd, 2010 5:58 pm

Kitchen sink - it doesn’t start with the Legislature and the Governor. The Gov. only has some financial power over NY schools because he can do the kinds of things he’s been doing lately. Basically, the power is in the Legislature, which in the case of education, means Shelly Silver. There is no Inspector General inside NYSED which can at least police the worst conduct; the NYS Inspector General has no jurisdiction over NYSED, and the NYS Comptroller can report NYSED misconduct and irregularities in audits ’till he’s blue in the face, but he has no power to make NYSED correct one single thing he finds wrong. Only the Legislature has authority over NYSED, and it is typically used in support of the political infrastructure, not in support of decent education for kids.

When NYS applied for its economic stimulus funds, Paterson signed the certifications re NY complying with all the fed. laws surrounding ARRA. It was pointed out to the USDOE OIG that Paterson did not have the legal authority to make NYSED and NY’s schools comply with any laws at all. The feds. were taken aback; asked a few questions … and then after researching the matter, had to strike a deal with NYS that worked around this fact. They were under the misapprehension that the Gov. appointed the Board of Regents and thus had control over NYSED.

I wonder who gave them the misleading information in the first place. I know who corrected it.
KitchenSink
April 4th, 2010 7:07 am

Which is why it’s very wise for the UFT to go after and have Sheldon Silver in its pocket.

Dee Alpert, I have one bone to pick with you: there is one agency that is enforcing anti-corruption and oversight laws that are on the books, and that is SUNY’s Charter Schools Institute. I can’t speak for the other state charter authorizers (NYCDOE, NYSED/Regents), but SUNY is most definitely not asleep at the wheel. In fact, you can read comprehensive annual reports about each of the approximately 100 schools SUNY authorizes on their website (www.newyorkcharters.org).

You can also read about the 6 to 10 schools that SUNY has closed down for poor performance or mismanagement. Unlike in NYCDOE, there is a clear, consistent and transparent process for this happening…and schools can see it coming for five years.

Unfortunately, the governor has proposed pulling all funding from SUNY in his latest budget! I can’t imagine this seriously happening, as SUNY is a leading authorizer nationally and essentially closing it down would mean NYS has ZERO chance of securing Round 2 RTTT funding. It would also be akin to telling thousands of parents, “So what if your school is successful in a poor neighborhood? We’re going to take what’s working, and STOP doing it!”

Alexander, if you think Dee Alpert and I are off topic, remember that these are public issues we’re discussing in the corner over here, not private ones.
Akademos
April 4th, 2010 12:09 pm

Dee Alpert,

I don’t believe that cautioning against total privatization (and the end to public education as we know, or define, it) is suggesting that there are no solutions.

Also, the kinds of corruption I’m most worried about are the kinds that exist within the fabric of our society, often within the misguided creation and use of those rules, legislation and agencies that you’re talking about. I mean, yes, outright corruption is a major problem; stupidity and arrogance are bigger and deeper.
Dee Alpert
April 4th, 2010 12:23 pm

Kitchen Sink - I agree w/you that the SUNY charter folks do a very good job. They’re nationally recognized for this. Perhaps that’s one reason Paterson wants to pull their funding. Leaving all chartering issues to State Ed. would be a very good way of insuring that all charter schools were subject to the legislature’s direct patronage politics via the Board of Regents.

Unfortunately, NYSED has final authority over many things about charters, even with the SUNY Charter Institute involved. Which is why you can have such whopping scandals, a la State Sen. Malcolm Smith.

By the way - the Bd. of Regents, being what they are, recommended earlier this year that a bunch of charters (I think they were SUNY charters not under NYSED’s direct control) not have their charters extended because there was no evidence that all their staff had received fingerprint clearance. Can’t have pedophiles and child abusers working with our kids, right? Suuure. Except that the NYS Comptroller has reported on numerous occasions that public school districts and BOCES haven’t complied with all fingerprint clearance requirements and NYSED has yet to recommend that any disciplinary action whatsoever be taken in those cases. NYSED’s bureaucrats just write these districts and BOCES a letter. So apparently it’s just awful to have kids molested or abused in other ways in charter schools, but quite fine to allow it in regular public schools and BOCES programs.

If we want to improve the public school system in NYS to the point where we don’t need to have these discussions re charter v. public v. private schools, the single most important thing we could do is drastically revise NYSED’s governance so that it was just a regular part of the NYS government. And then hold the Gov. seriously accountable for what it does. Right now, the sole “responsible” person for this mess is Sheldon Silver, who makes new Reegies pop up in the Spring, like mushrooms on rotten logs in the forest. Except the log they sprout from is made of campaign contribution money.
Dee Alpert
April 4th, 2010 12:49 pm

Akademos - If you study our public education system in detail - and I mean doing the really boring things like going through how funds are really spent at the school building and district level, and how regulations are really enforced or not enforced - in NYS, what you wind up seeing is that the corruption protects the arrogant and stupid - to the point where they are the majority because the folks who aren’t run like mad to get out of the system. It’s the old rotten-apple-in-the-barrel syndrome. That’s one reason the NYC public school system (and to a large extent, large urban systems nationwide) don’t like parents of kids in gifted programs. They do NOT lightly tolerate stupid, arrogant people in their kids’ classes, programs and schools.

And at the peril of being flamed bigtime, remember that it’s been widely reported over the last two decades that the SAT scores of the folks who go into education these days are dismal. Then pundits go on about how the women’s movement, etc. have resulted in the smarter women having other options than teaching. They never come out and say outright that a higher proportion of people in education, esp. at the elem. and middle levels, have SAT scores well below average than … the average. Translation: not very bright. Dumb. Stupid. In fact, we should be screaming like crazy to get the very smartest people into pre-school and early education programs. But we don’t. One reason so many education “leaders” don’t like using numbers (and collecting data and analyzing it properly) is because they themselves can’t do the numbers and don’t understand them. Been there; done that too many times to recount. As long as you have a system with very dumbed-down entry requirements, you get a dumbed-down system, which surely doesn’t produce anything but dumbed-down kids … unless their parents have made sure they’re not. And what you get when you have not-very-bright people in decisionmaking positions who are protected by inherently corrupt systems is arrogant, stupid people in authority.
Alexander Hoffman
April 4th, 2010 7:24 pm

KitchenSink,

I am always concerned when people say “If you don’t agree with my preferred solution, then you do not care about the problem.” And it seems like that is what you are saying.

I AGREE that our central offices have HUGE issues. And there are countless district offices around the country that have huge issues, in addition to the districts offices that DO support their schools and the people who work there.

You clearly believe in charter schools as a solution to any number of problems and issues facing education. Nowhere in either this post or my previous post (or their comment thread) have I addressed that, and yet you are arguing as though I have. We have privatized or contracted out any number of government services, and sometimes that has proven to be a better solution. Medicare pays doctors in private practice, and those doctors deliver high quality service to largely satisfied customers. Charters might be a good answer, or a good piece of the what we need.

However, the fact that there IS a need does not make charter schools any more public, or any less. Rather, both the need and publicness of charter schools are issues that we need to take into account when thinking about what to do with and about charter schools.

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

The language of crisis also concerns me. Is this an educational crisis? Or is it an ongoing failure? Are we REALLY doing worse?

The issue here — and I REALLY not want to get into an argument about what “crisis” means — is that crisis denotes a particularly difficult period. But the failures of American education actually are nothing new. The failures of American urban education are nothing new. The failures of American education for minorities are nothing new.

And so, times do not call for extraordinary measures. We don’t need a temporary problem to fix a temporary answer. We need to do deep thinking and make some fundamental shifts in our how public schools work to address these historical problems — problems that we have really only just begun to address.

I get that you think charters are part of that answer, but you don’t need to claim crisis to do that.

You don’t need to cite such convoluted ideas as there being more black people in prison than college in this country. Even if that is true, there are such differences between the two that it is impossible to compare. You are comparing something that is not supposed to last more than 4-6 years with something that often is intended to last a lifetime.

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

And last, I hope that wasn’t a shot at me. I am not in this for a degree or to public some papers. I left the classroom only because I was looking for a way to get greater leverage to address the systemic problems I saw. You clearly don’t have the least clue what kind of changes I would like to see, if you think I am just for tinkering around the edges.
Alexander Hoffman
April 4th, 2010 8:27 pm

Mr. Buck,

You seem to think that regulation is what makes a school public or private. I think that there are a few flaws in this reasoning, and then more with your lists of comparisons.

First, regulation does not make something public or private. Nuclear power plants are incredibly heavily regulated, but that does not make them public. The financial industry is regulated — and hopefully about to become much more so — but that does not make those firms public. The pharmaceutical industry is highly regulated. Pfizer is not public, nor is Eli Lilly.

Second, the way you explain your examples seems to miss the point of such comparisons. I won’t get into every problem, but your use of the word “normally” totally undermined both examples in which you use it. The fact is that your “normally” indicates that something is NOT true as rule. And if it is NOT true as a rule, then it is not something to be said of charter schools overall. I am not looking at this one charter schools, or that one, or the best ones. I am looking at charter schools as a group, as a class. You also seem misinformed as to the nature of public funding for private schools. Many private schools do take public funds, whose use is (supposedly) highly regulated. For example, it may be used for transportation or lab equipment, but not religious instruction. If charter schools are entirely publicly funded — or almost entirely publicly funded — then the fact that their activities are regulation is entirely consistent with being non-public schools. Virtually all non-profits (e.g. 501c3) must have boards, and are subject to appropriate laws (i.e. regulation). Most of your list just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Third, you appear to think that private schools are entirely unregulated. But they are regulated in many many ways. They have to follow building codes, employment regulations, pollution laws, etc.. Heck, there are even laws relevant to their admissions procedures. The ADA applies to the “public accommodations” aspects of even private schools. Give all of the regulations that private organizations face, your whole argument begins to fall apart. There are different regulations that apply to public schools, of course. But some laws that apply to private organizations do not apply to the government. So, you have cherry picked regulations that make your case without really examining the wider swath of regulations that various classes of schools face.

Last, and most importantly, you clearly think that the level of regulation is the most important issue when thinking about whether charter schools are public or private, but have provided not explanation for why that is the dispositive issue.
Alexander Hoffman
April 4th, 2010 8:31 pm

Mr. Buck,

In what cases AREN’T enrollment cap a luxury? I understand that many charter schools do not have the luxury of such caps being relevant to their operations, but that does not in any way diminish my claim.

It IS a luxury to have an enrollment cap. It is a luxury that the public schools (neither collectively as districts nor as individual schools) do not have. However, many private schools DO have that luxury.

But I don’t think that that makes charter schools private schools, either. It just is something they have more in common with private school than public schools.
Alexander Hoffman
April 4th, 2010 8:39 pm

Ms. Alpert,

You make an excellent point out the outsourcing of school support by the NYC DOE. This city is unusual in many way, and I generally try NOT to use it as a generalizable example, but in this case it is quite interesting.

Clearly, this Bloomberg and Klein is pushing for less public system, with increasing decentralizations AND increasing outsourcing/privatization. Without declaring whether that is generally good or ill, it DOES raise questions about the role of responsiveness to democratically elected authority. (Of course, elected officials should not be allowed to say “I don’t want to do this part of my job.”)

I would remark, however, that SSO’s do not in any way hamper Klein or Bloomberg’s authority to make arbitrary decisions over schools. They are outsourcing much of the work, and maybe they are trying to duck some of the responsibility. But they keep the power. (They already have the money, and Tony Montoya says that the “weemen” are next. So, look out, ladies!)

Corruption is clearly an issue, both in the public and the private sector. The stated theory (or atleast one of them) behind Bloomberg’s first shake up of the old BOE was to reveal up some of that, bring it into the light and get new/clean systems in place. But there remain issues, of course. And this state’s dysfunctional legislature — and state government generally — poses particular problems. But, once again, I am trying to make broader statements about the nature of charter schools generally, not just New York specific ones.
Dee Alpert
April 4th, 2010 9:45 pm

Mr. Hoffman - One thing we haven’t discussed, and which I think has great importance in discussions re the nature of charter schools, is school structure. What I’ve seen - and I look across the country at various education-related issues - is that the basic way that public schools and their host systems are structured are pretty much alike. From what I can gather, when people take courses to credential them as school/district administrators, they all seem to take pretty much the same courses with minor variations on state/local color, flavor and taste. But it’s very much top down, i.e., here is how you structure THIS, given legal and financial constraints and sources. And since most charter officials come from the very same grad schools of education, they do things the same way, generally speaking. Sure there are variations - longer day seems to be one - and differences in mantra and attitude, but structurally, it’s X classes (boxes) which will hold Y students, with Z number of this kind of “support” personnel and A numbers of administrators, all based on reasonably similar formulae. From what I can gather, charters were supposed to allow more freedom to explore variances in, inter alia, structure, but seem not to have done so.

Thus (at least for me), it’s not surprising that charters don’t have results seriously different than public schools.

When Gates, et al. did the new, new, new small school schtick, I kind of thought it wouldn’t make much difference - old wine; new bottles - and when the hard numbers started coming in, looks like I was right. I was and am similarly unexcited by the idea of charters for the same reason, and only support them because differences in color, flavor and taste can be incredibly important for a particular individual child. But overall, en masse? Nah. (NB - The “color, flavor and taste” thing is from an old friend who worked at one of the major ad agencies in the 60’s and 70’s. His client was one of the large cereal companies. He was pretty up front with us, friends, socially, and said these companies all manufactured “odorless, colorless, tasteless gunk.” And that his job was to figure out what color(s), flavor(s) and taste(s) would make the gunk sell.

I’m seeing charters for the most part as being his colored, flavored and taste-infused gunk. What I’m not seeing, and I’m very disappointed, is much of anyone looking at doing things a radically different way - starting with looking at a group of potential students, for example, and figuring out what each of them individually would need, and then trying to build some structure and program to facilitate that. Not happening. The business about enrollment caps, accepting all enrollees, etc. is, for me, still very much marginal to going for real change and seeing what it can produce.

So for me much charter is old wine, new bottles and decidedly flat.
Alexander Hoffman
April 4th, 2010 10:24 pm

Ms. Alpert,

I think that we generally agree on all that.

Staying off topic….

I don’t think that charter schools are or will be generally better than traditional public schools. They will be about as good, with about the same proportion of good and bad schools, for the reasons you lay out. There’s been some interesting work looking that the conflict that charter schools face when they try to balance the need for perceptions of legitimacy and efforts at innovation. It’s complicated and difficult.

And so, not surprisingly, there are great charter schools — as there are great traditional public schools. But these schools are in the minority. My worry about charter schools is that so much more burden is put on them — without the support that good district central offices provide — that they will be a little bit worse on average for that additional burden.

My own work focuses on the relationship between schools and district offices, examining ways to make that relationship more supportive of the work that schools do — the work of school leaders and faculty both, to say nothing of students. KitchenSink is right, there are major problem with many of our schools and our traditional district structure has plainly not be serving the students and families.

KitchenSink apparently thinks that the best answer is to give up on districts, and focus his efforts on one school and the students in that school. He’ll have a larger impact on those kids than I will. But I am trying to address some the sorts of issues you have raised — and some others — to have an impact on more kids. I want radical change, and I am working to figure what might be done, and how quickly it might be done.
Dee Alpert
April 4th, 2010 10:48 pm

Mr. Hoffman - I’ve rarely run across a district office that worked particularly well. I’m not seeing that training for administrators teaches (or demands) the level of logic, analysis and serious managerial skills needed for a LEA office to actually provide meaningful support for … and then there’s the question of who district offices are really supporting, i.e., staff or teachers. I mean, I’ve run across maybe 1 in 1,000 LEAs (and that’s being charitable) where there was someone who actually knew how to read, understand and evaluate “research” - or what passes for it - much less get to how to put anything seriously good into effect. With that kind of “leadership,” public education is doomed and the rationale for charters lies in hoping that non-educators can throw away all the regular models and try things which are both research-validated and drastically different.

Have you taken any organization theory? I don’t mean in a grad school of ed. - a real, serious organization theory course in a real, serious graduate dept.? Let me suggest you do. I did and after having done so, (dogs years ago, I might add), I find that perspective on LEA/IEA/SEA and USDOE organizational functioning very useful. F’rinstance, I’ve come to the conclusion (and this is from org. and/or govt. theory) that most SEAs and definitely USDOE are captive regulatory agencies, in the classic sense (which is pejorative). The kinds of demands these captives put on their real clients are actually minimal, at best; at worse … well, we’ve got USDOE and NYSED as examples of what not do do, and how not to do it.

Matters greatly in terms of talking about what charters are, or are not, because the SEAs and USDOE (when you look at what program office people do, not what their talking heads say) simply protect the structures and organizations already out there and are actually loathe to support radical alternatives in any meaningful way. Again, they talk the talk, but when it comes to walking the walk, they’re missing in combat.
Doug Hering
April 4th, 2010 11:34 pm

I admit that I didn’t read all 52 comments before me, but it seems that if you create a definition of public school that eliminates charter schools from that definition, then, of course, charter schools won’t be public schools.

The fact is that in many states the law says that these are public schools. The truth is that it is the legislature that determines what a public school is not Alexander Hoffman. Therefore, by definition, in states where the law says that charter schools are public schools, they are public schools.
Stuart Buck
April 4th, 2010 11:34 pm

In what cases AREN’T enrollment cap a luxury

In virtually all cases. FYI, charter schools need revenue to survive, and the only way they get revenue is by signing up students. Enrollment caps are most certainly not a luxury if you’re a charter school trying to scrape together the money for a mortgage (most states don’t pay for facilities for charter schools) and your budget doesn’t work out unless you sign up X number of students. I’d suggest doing a little fieldwork (if not getting involved in a charter school for yourself) before presuming to tell other people that what they may see as their greatest burden is actually a luxury.
Alexander Hoffman
April 4th, 2010 11:51 pm

Ms. Alpert,

Pick your school of ed carefully and your courses carefully, and you can get a wonderful education. Don’t paint with too broad a brush. So, while I know that Bolman & Deal passes for org theory at most schools of ed, but I’ve had a lot more than that.

I think that you are going off in a very different direction from what I am trying to address in this post. There are real questions about what the relationship between district offices and schools ought to be. *I* believe in strong roles for district offices, but most of their work should be in supporting school level leaders to better be able to support those who do the core work of schools (i.e. teach students). In other words, supporting teachers is hard, challenging and complex work, and school level leaders need a variety of supports to do that well. I believe that building level leadership is key, and my work is geared towards figuring out what can be done to make it more effective (systemically).

The kinds of radical change i truly and deeply want is not the least bit likely, I know. So, while I am prone to go off on rants about it, I try to focus my real work on figuring out what is actually possible.

However, I generally do not pay a lot of attention in my real work the USDOE or state DOEs. The action is on the district/local level, for the most part. One worry I have with charter schools is that the supposed democratic oversight comes from a geographically diverse population who cannot elect their own representatives. Local school boards and/or local mayors are elected by the same communities whose educational systems they are responsible for. Most people who vote for state legislatures or governors do not send their children to charter schools, and charter schools are a small part of state government’s responsibilities. There’s far more democratic accountability with local control because of the congruence between LEA’s and local electoral districts.

When thinking about state DOE’s, you’ve got to realize that their capacities are very low relative to the scope of education in their states. The simply don’t have the man power or talent on hand do address issues in schools and districts across the state. So, understanding them is its own puzzle. But also understand that NY has such a dysfunctional state that it should not be considered typical of other states.
Dee Alpert
April 5th, 2010 12:27 am

Schools and districts are just organizations. While the education industry likes to pretend that it’s so different, so totally sui generis, that even the laws of gravity apparently don’t apply within the rarified environment of a class or school, that’s just not the case. The field of organizational behavior fits what they and their incumbents do quite nicely. Group psychology tells what happens in classes, which are just groups at heart and follow all those rules.

As for the SEAs, USDOE, etc., unfortunately you need to understand them and the structures they (really) impose on the organizations they control. Look up captive regulatory agencies - gives you a very nice understanding of the freedom, and lack thereof, imposed on districts include what they do, can’t do, etc. in support of their schools.

Or to put it more bluntly, the fish rots from the head. =)
Voices of the Dropout Nation: Teacher Quality This Past Week
April 5th, 2010 8:01 am

[...] — Hechinger Institute boss Richard Lee Colvin on the constant (and often, rambling ed-schoolish dribble) efforts of some to argue that charter schools aren’t public schools. The answer is: It [...]
Alexander Hoffman
April 5th, 2010 10:07 am

Mr. Buck,

I am not sure if we disagree on this last point, or if we are misunderstand each other. So, let me try to be a bit more explicit in my argument.

I think that — for this purpose — we can split charter schools up into four groups.

A) Charter schools that have have hit their enrollment caps, have waiting lists and whose finances ARE well in order.

B) Charter schools that have hit their enrollment caps, have waiting lists and whose finances are NOT well in order.

C) Charter schools that have not hit their enrollment caps, but whose finances ARE well in order.

D) Charter schools that have not hit their enrollment caps, and whose finances are NOT well in order.

* I would argue that groups C & D do not have meaningful enrollment caps, at least not at this time. Their enrollment caps exist on paper, but they do no impact any of their operations. I generally feel that things that exist on paper but do not play out in operations are NOT something I care about. There is plenty of “policy” that is ignored, and plenty of standard and openly acknowledged practices that are not written down anywhere. In my view, C’s & D’s “enrollment caps” might as well not exist. They are dreams, and little more.

* A has the luxury of an enrollment caps. They can plan, do their hiring, set up their use of their facilities and all the rest with confidence, knowing exactly how many students they will have.

* B is bad management and/or a bad proposal in the first place. If, having hit their enrollment caps, they are still unable to pay their bills, they should be shut down. (And, as I understand it, financial mismanagement is the #1 reason for charter school closings.)

I believe that you are referring to group D, schools that have not yet attracted the minimum number of students they need to make their financial plans work. Is that right? If it is, you are not talking about an enrollment cap. They need more students, and would be allowed to enroll more students, if only they could attract them. Their enrollment caps are not a burden for them, because their enrollment caps are not the reason for their falling short of meeting their enrollment goals (i.e. having at least X students).

If you are referring to group B, however, then we plainly disagree. Charter schools that have met their enrollment goals and are up to their enrollment caps but STILL are having financial problems? If they can’t make with their original plan, then why trust them with MORE students? Clearly, their planning and/or management is deficient. Should we trust them with more students without a plan? Or should they submit a new proposal with higher caps?

Can you clarify which groups you are referring to? MY point was that all charter schools can aspire to being in that first group (A), where they have a stable number of student that they have set, and their finances can be managed within the budgetary limits that that many students allows. The public schools have a very different dynamic. Districts must accept all new students, and the additional local taxes that a family with one or two kids pays when they move to a new district does not cover the cost of schools their children. It’s just a different dynamic.
Alexander Hoffman
April 5th, 2010 10:21 am

Ms. Alpert,

I am not a structuralist. I do not believe that structural reform will repair our schools. Education happens in schools, and mostly in classrooms. I do not see how school size or district size or the manner of regulation is going to change what is happening in classrooms. Nothing that I have seen indicates that it will. Education is simply, to use a technical term, too loosely coupled a system. (Or, at least the sorts of structural reforms that are the LEAST bit plausible. We can all dream, of course, but that doesn’t mean that our fantasies can be made real.)

Furthermore, I do not think that your explanations of certain dysfunctions point us towards actions that will help classrooms.

KitchenSink and others have a prescription for better schools: Cut them off from district control and usually from unionization.

I have my ideas, geared towards focusing on improving school leaders’ abilities to support the growth and development of teachers in their schools. (The gets to how we select school leaders, how we train, how we support them, how we evaluate them, etc.. It’s about focusing districts on ensuring that school have the capacity to build their own instructional capacities, or “second order capacity building.” That’s where the get to engines of continuous improvement.) It’s not just that I don’t challenge the existence of school districts, I actually see a critical role for them in supporting the very difficult work of school leaders (which is to support teachers, so teacher can do the core work of schools.)

What do you think that you diagnosis indicates should be done?
Dee Alpert
April 5th, 2010 11:16 am

“I do not believe that structural reform will repair our schools. Education happens in schools, and mostly in classrooms.”

Right. And medicine happens in doctors’ offices and hospitals. If you’re correct, then why did we just go through this national trauma to get some health care system reform when all we needed was more study about physician-patient interaction?

Alexander - a very wise, internationally reknowned and respected professer I had once many years ago said something I’ve never forgotten: When you don’t know what to do and are looking for solutions, get every single bit of information you can, from all sources, analyze it, and then make the decision which will most increase the store of human dignity.

The history of education in the States is simply overflowing with new models for school management and staff support. All of which have basically failed. That’s because they ignore the rather complex matrix of laws, norms, etc. in which individual teachers and their classes full of children actually function. That’s because they ignore the rules which govern not educational interaction and organization, but rather, ignore the rules of human interaction and organization, of which education is only a very small subset.

Those who ignore this history and knowledge are condemned to repeat it. In the meantime, the failure of new models which ignore this matrix is, depressingly, predictable.

It’s like the blind men grabbing something, but they don’t know if they’ve gotten the tail of a mouse or an elephant. Which does matter if you want to make the elephant walk a different road.
Stuart Buck
April 5th, 2010 12:19 pm

I have in mind the following possibilities, both of which I am familiar with in real life, not just as hypothetical abstractions:

1. A charter school that needs extra money to add on to existing facilities, but is shafted by $1,500 per student per year (in that the state doesn’t give building funds), which means that the only way to pay for new buildings is to expand enrollment.

2. A charter school that is way oversubscribed and way too small (400 applications for 60 seats) and that would like to serve more people interested in its particular curriculum (heavy on science/math).
Dee Alpert
April 5th, 2010 1:13 pm

Mr. Hoffman - Below find an edited version of an email notice I just rec’d from the federally-funded IRIS Center at Vanderbilt re “fidelity of implementation” of new programs/methodologies in schools. It notes that when new programs are brought in by administrators (at district, school levels), hypothetically providing staff “development” and sometimes alternative staff “support” models, these are often implemented so poorly by teachers that they have little or no positive impact. The issues you’re interested in (how to support teachers in class) are intimately bound up in the issues of why teachers don’t implement effectively, and also the structural issues of why administrators can’t require teachers to do so. You may find these of interest. Note that charters, which are not bound by union contracts for the most part, have more freedom to insist on full implementation. Since charters are not producing obviously and significantly improved results, the reasons may lie elsewhere. In this case, I would posit that since charter school administrators are, for the most part, trained in the same grad. schools of ed. as are teachers, they are not able to proficiently select appropriate programs for staff development and paradigm change/model change and thus inflict ineffective ones on staff. Structure, unfortunately, controls what you think of as the intimate workings of an individual teacher in an individual classroom. Organizational theory and organizational behavior rule. And those who do not study the history of what results from particular structures are undoubtedly condemned to repeat it.

Dear IRIS Family,

The IRIS Center is pleased to announce the posting of our latest STAR Legacy Module, Fidelity of Implementation: Selecting and Implementing Evidence-Based Practices and Programs, developed with the invaluable guidance of George Sugai (Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports) and Lisa Sanetti (Neag School of Education, University of Connecticut).

In today’s classrooms, teachers are expected to use evidence-based practices and programs. Sometimes, though, selecting and implementing such practices and programs can be more difficult than it sounds. Often, when school personnel implement new instructional and behavioral practices, they do not always see the improved outcomes in their students that they expect. Some school staff attribute this lack of success to the practice or program itself, believing it to be ineffective or suspecting that its advertised claims are misleading. Others wonder whether they could have implemented the practice or program in a different way, or whether more effective training would have led to greater student success.

Designed for school leaders, professional development providers, and anyone who oversees the implementation of evidence-based practices and programs, this module first describes how school personnel can identify an evidence-based practice or program and highlights the importance of matching it to the school’s specific needs and resources. Next, the module underscores the importance of implementing the practice or program with fidelity, or as it was intended. It then discusses a number of actions that school personnel can take to increase the likelihood that education professionals will implement the new practice or program with high fidelity. To demonstrate how school personnel can put these actions into practice, the module provides three fictional school examples: Paige Elementary School (progress monitoring), Grafton Middle School (reading program), and DuBois High School (PBIS).

In addition, to these school examples, the module contains step-by-step demonstration movies, activities that allow opportunities to practice the skill, and numerous audio interviews by leading experts: …

To learn about fidelity of implementation and for an examination of the actions that school personnel can take to increase the likelihood that their practices and programs will be implemented as designed, please go to http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/fid/chalcycle.htm

As always, we encourage you to share all of our materials (http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/) with your colleagues and students. If you have any questions concerning IRIS materials, please contact Kim Skow at 800-831-6134, kimberly.a.skow@vanderbilt.edu, or iris@vanderbilt.edu.

Sincerely,
The IRIS Center
Vanderbilt University
Peabody College,
230 Appleton Place, Box 275
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN 37203
iris@vanderbilt.edu
615-343-5610
615-343-5611 (fax)
http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu
Time to Move Beyond the School District Model of Public Education
April 6th, 2010 7:03 am

[...] may be “quasi-public” schools, but they are not to him public schools. Why? You can wade through this piece if you so choose. I”ll do the Mickey Kaus method and save you the time: The sum of the [...]
Akademos
April 6th, 2010 9:53 am

This debate is not academic. Nor is it legalistic or political in the usual sense.

It is about understanding the significance of what is happening right now in education.

Some people think schools should be run as businesses or factories, others think they should not.

Some think all schools must be run privately in order to circumvent stultifying dysfunction; others think public schools must remain public in order to preserve a certain degree of humanism in the education and development of minds, as opposed to adding value to products or providing a clear-cut service.

And then there is everybody in-between. What exactly do they think when they think ‘charter school’?
Alexander Hoffman
April 10th, 2010 1:48 am

Mr. Buck,

I owe you an answer. Sorry for the delay.

I think that we may have different interpretations of the word “luxury,” but I see the point that you are making. Let me try to respond to your two examples.

1. I think this is really much like my class B. If they “need” new facilities then that is a failure of their own planning. However, I will grant that we can hypothesize about a case that does NOT fit into B. Say that we have a school that is VERY success by every measure, and remains open for a long time. While we can argue that many expenses often claimed as capital expenses for amortization purposes are really more like consumable operational expenses (e.g. computers), there remain REAL capital expenses. Let’s say redoing a roof or upgrading wiring to handle the additional power load of lots more technology in the classroom. I’ve not heard of that happening, at least not exactly, but it will be an issue.

I would respond, however, that the problem here — and a problem you yourself mention — is not in the enrollment cap, but rather in the lack of access to building funds or capital budgets. I’m not saying that I believe that charter schools SHOULD get access to these funds, but if you want to make the argument, I think that that one is going to be lot more successful.

(Why might they not? Well, if the model is to be little labs of innovation, why should any of them exist for that long? Shouldn’t we do the experiments, figure out the lessons, and then apply them elsewhere? This is slightly off topic, of course, but i that’s not the model for charter schools, I am not clear what the argument for their existence is, other than their popularity among some underserved populations.)

2: I don’t think that the school you mention is actually hurt by the cap. It’s not like a for-profit business where more customers leads to more profits. In that case, capping the customer list DOES hurt the company. But how is a school actually harmed? Sure, there might be some opportunity cost to the community, but what is the damage to the schools. The advantages that I listed remain, and the cap does not actually hurt.

I think that you read “luxury” much more broadly than I intended. I meant that it “provides rare benefits without actually causing harm” (to the school, of course). But I think you read it as “pure good without downside of any sort.” Again, I think that the harm you cite in example #2 is opportunity cost (as opposed to actual harm) and is not actually to the school.

More importantly, however, I do not think that I have claimed that enrollment caps are always a luxury — though I came close as was clearly quite ready to go that far. Rather, my point was that insofar as they are a luxury (and I believe that when they matter at all that they almost always are), they are a luxury that only charter schools have, and only someone who doesn’t take the the public school’s obligation to educate every student to heart would apply them to every school.

Of course, that wasn’t your point, anyway. it was KitchenSink’s.

Getting back to the point of this post, I think that we can agree that charter schools lie somewhere between traditional private schools and traditional public schools, even if we disagree which they more resemble — and we might even — at times — agree about that. My point, however, is that there are substantial differences between charter schools and private schools AND there are substantial differences between charter schools and public schools. I have never argued that they are MORE like private schools than like public schools. Rather, I believe that the differences are important enough that it is wrong to group them with either.

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Charter Schools Are Still Not Public Schools

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