Charter Schools: Sifting Through the Fog

Charter schools have been one of the most debated topics in education.  Making sense of the endless squabbling, however, has been difficult.  Among the discourse there are just as many truths as there are myths.  The purpose of this article is to evaluate why charter schools produce scores that are similar (though sometimes worse) than public schools in an attempt to separate truth from myth.

What is a charter school and why where they created?  Charter schools were created by Ray Budde, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1974.  Charter schools can be found in any environment, whether rural, suburban, or urban).  Since they are supposed to be "saving American education," however, they are mostly frequently found in low socio-economic and rural areas, typically with low national test scores.  Since charter schools are privately owned they are not required to follow mandatory state curriculum, disciplinary rules, and can pick and choose which students to admit.  Charter schools are designed to bring ingenuity into the classroom because they are free from state curriculum mandates.

Charter schools have an admissions program that filters students who will best fit into the school's atmosphere.  There is often a comprehension test on subjects like Reading and Math, a personality test, and an essay that is completed to find the best and the brightest while eliminating children who may bring down the school’s average test scores and with it, the school’s credibility.

This simply makes no sense.  If charter schools are supposed to aid children in rural and low socio-economic areas, then excluding students most in need of a good education undermines the very goal charter schools profess to achieve.  English-as-a-second-language learners, children with disabilities, and children with bad grades are typically excluded from charter school admission.  The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report stating that while 11% of students in the U.S. have disabilities, charter schools only enroll 8% of them.

So this leads back to the main question, are charter schools better than public schools?  The truth is that most charter school students do not score higher or even the same on national tests than public school students.  In some instances, they scored lower than their public school peers.  In the District of Columbia, Louisiana, and many other states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina, students in charter schools barely made any progress over their public school peers in Mathematics and in English.  

Why are charter school students not gaining ground against public school students?  Mainly, it is due to the curriculum. Charter schools rely on high stakes testing and therefore, often “teach to the test” based on a set schedule.  Charter schools also often move quickly through curriculum and do not take the time to "re-teach" the subject until the test review days.  Charter schools also have a high teacher turnover rate.  If students perform poorly on tests, the teacher will often be fired or leave their jobs after only a couple of years.

In my view, the worst part about charter schools is the quality of education the students are receiving.  A good education system is supposed to created lifelong learners and spark an interest in the student.  If a child is being force-fed information and is not learning to enjoy that subject or dive deeper into it to and learn outside of the classroom, then we are stifling the passion within that child..  The most critical topics our education systems address must be discussed outside the classroom.  Complex problems and ideas like Global Warming, the Pythagorean Theorem, the Civil War and works of Charles Dickens need to be discussed beyond our schools’ four walls.  If we restrict our children’s learning to simply what they learn in school and fail to create passionate, life long learners then we simply will not be preparing the next generation to solve the many difficult problems that they will face.

So why are we pouring money into charter schools when they are not effective?  One reason might be that many people are grossly under-informed about the failings of charter schools.  They are often placed on a high pedestal and without critically examining what they actually produce.  It just goes to show that if we dive deeper, not just in education, but in life, we will solve more problems than we create.

Sites: Ravitch, Diane. "Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools." Barnes & Noble. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 May 2017.