AFT Study Reveals Charter Schools Not Meeting Expectations

7/17/2002

From: Leslie Getzinger of AFT, 202-585-4373 or 702-892-3448 (starting July 14)

LAS VEGAS, July 17 -- The AFT today released a report at its national convention that found the vast majority of existing charter schools have failed to fulfill their promise to bring greater achievement and innovation into the classroom.

Based on its findings, the AFT report concluded that policymakers should not expand charter school activities until more convincing evidence of their effectiveness or viability is presented.

"While some are successful and should be used as models, most charter schools don't improve student achievement, aren't innovative and are less accountable than the public schools," AFT President Sandra Feldman said.

In too many instances, charter schools are a distraction to meaningful reform rather than a model for effective change, Feldman noted.

Do Charter Schools Measure Up? The Charter School Experiment After 10 Years, studied the decade-long charter school movement. Charter schools are publicly funded schools that are operated by community-based groups, private business, or groups of educators and parents. The charter schools generally are freer from public school rules and regulations and often are held less accountable for student achievement than other public schools.

Former AFT president Albert Shanker first proposed the idea of charter schools in 1988, describing them as laboratories of innovation where new curriculum or teaching strategies could be developed without burdensome red tape. Shanker saw charter schools as a tool to improve instruction, student learning and raise achievement levels.

But, as the AFT report revealed, today's charter school reality is far from Shanker's vision. The report found that while some charter schools are working, the vast majority have not lived up to their promise.

The AFT report's findings show that the majority of the 2,119 charter schools currently operating:

-- Fail to raise, and sometimes lower, student achievement compared to traditional public schools in the same area; -- Fall far short of meeting expectations to bring innovation into the classroom and the public school system at large; -- Tend to sort children by socioeconomic status and; -- Spend more money on administration and less on instruction than other public schools.

The study also noted that these and other problems are often exacerbated in charter schools operated by for-profit companies. For-profit charter schools educate far fewer students who require special education, spend a higher percentage on administration than non-profit charters, which are often much higher than comparable school districts, and often use "cookie-cutter" curricula.

The AFT report placed some of the blame for charter schools' lackluster performance on overly broad state laws combined with minimal public oversight. Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan and Texas, for instance, all have open-ended charter school laws that allow nearly anyone to start a school. More than one-half of all charter schools are located in these five states.

Feldman said the public expects that schools using public dollars adhere to rigorous accountability measures. The American Federation of Teachers remains committed to supporting charter schools that have high standards, are held accountable like other public schools, and serve all children.

"The basic promise of less regulation for more accountability has been broken," Feldman said.

The cornerstone idea of the original charter school movement was to raise student achievement through innovation. However, as the report shows, where data are available charter schools generally are not more effective, and often less effective, than comparable regular public schools. Without a means of evaluating students' growth over several years, it is difficult, if not impossible, to point to progress or compare results to students in regular public schools. In Florida, for example, no student achievement analysis exists despite a 1996 charter school law mandating annual reporting to the state Board of Education and the Legislature, the report noted.

The report also stated that approximately 10 percent (or 206) of the 2,327 charter schools that have opened since 1992 have closed. Almost all of the 206 charter schools have closed because of financial mismanagement. When a charter school closes during the school year, parents and students must scramble to find new schools. The report found that this is especially disruptive because in most states the public dollars often do not follow the students back to the public schools.

The call for greater accountability in the new AFT report dovetails with a previous AFT study released in 1996. The earlier report addressed charter school laws and made several recommendations for policymakers who are considering new charter school legislation or amending existing law.

The 1996 report's recommendations included: -- Implementing high academic standards; -- Requiring the same tests for charter students as other students in the state and district; -- Announcing publicly charter school students' progress on state standards and assessments; -- Hiring certified teachers; -- Offering the right to collective bargaining; and -- Communicating directly with the local school district to encourage the spread of innovative teaching techniques and curricula.

The 1996 report is available at http://www.aft.org/research/reports/charter/csweb/sum.htm.

The 2002 Do Charter Schools Measure Up? The Charter School Experiment After 10 Years report will be available at http://www.aft.org/edissues/downloads/charterreport02.pdf.