Charter Schools: Freedom to Choose
– By Howard Sierer –
The best predictor of a K-12 student working up to his/her potential is parental involvement in a child’s education. Publicly-funded, privately-operated charter schools give parents freedom to choose schools that are the best fit for their children.
The concept of school choice, as explained by education policy analyst Adrianna Villavicencio, views parents as “consumers.” Hence, charter schools are particularly responsive to parents’ concerns and aspirations. For example, some charter schools offer emphasis in specific areas: science and math or the arts or vocational training.
Importantly, charter schools provide an alternative for educators, families, and communities who are dissatisfied with educational quality and school district bureaucracy at their assigned traditional schools. Charter schools in low-income areas with under-performing public schools are a lifeline to a better future for these children.
Villavicencio says there “is little evidence that parents of different races and social classes value fundamentally different qualities in schools.” Minority enrollment in charter schools tells the story. Of the 3.4 million students in charter schools nationwide, 33% are Hispanic, 32% are white and 26% are black with other minorities making up the balance.
Do charter schools work? The National Bureau of Economic Research found that educational outcomes demonstrated by test results were improved on average for charter schools’ students. Interestingly, test results also improved in the traditional public schools they left behind, belying claims that charter schools “cherry pick” only the best students and leaving traditional schools with the rest. Researchers attributed both improvements to inherent competition between school types.
Since they are privately run, some charter schools fail and are closed because they are unable to attract enough students, have financial difficulties, or don’t meet their educational goals. Closures, when they happen, show that just as in any free market, charter schools must either offer a superior product or fall by the wayside.
Contrast these closures with traditional public schools that face the same challenges especially in lower-income areas. Big city, traditional school results show that spending more money per pupil in traditional public schools isn’t the answer to poor performance. Even with the highest per-pupil spending in the nation, fewer than 20% of black eighth graders in big city traditional schools were proficient in math and English with some districts showing proficiency in the single digits.
Parents whose children attend underperforming traditional public schools are prime candidates to send their children to charter schools. Sadly, in response to intense pressure from teachers’ unions, many states and cities have arbitrarily limited the number of charter schools they allow.
The resulting pent-up demand has led to lotteries to admit students. At one point, as many as a million students were on waitlists around the country for charter schools, leaving many parents frustrated by union intransigence.
A shocking statement by Albert Shanker, former president of the American Federation of Teachers, explained union opposition to charter schools and other common-sense school reforms: “When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.”
Yet even a majority of public school teachers don’t support union opposition to charter schools: 38% of teachers favor them, and 35% are opposed.
What’s not to like about charter schools? Kids do better and parents across the country are in favor: 74% of Americans support school choice.
I’ll take freedom of choice – and less union influence in schools – any day.
