Pondering Chartering: On Market Forces & Innovation?
One of the original premises of chartering as a competitive market tool was that introducing independently governed competitors and relaxing regulations on those competitors would induce innovation, which could then be shared for the good of the whole. This premise is flawed on many levels.
First, if innovation is to be induced by competition, there exists no incentive for competitors to share their innovations.
Second, if one subset of competitors is granted relaxation of regulations such that they can innovate, then that subset of competitors is granted an unfair advantage in that the regulations imposed on their competition (“district” schools) may inhibit their ability to “counter-innovate.”
Further, this system creates an incentive for the unregulated competitors to lobby for even stiffer regulation on their competition (“district” schools). [for example, lobbying in favor of test-driven teacher evaluation requirements to be imposed on “district” schools in a climate of public concern over the influence of testing – and then seeking exemption from those requirements for charter schools]
Of course, as I explained on a previous post, from ongoing writings, growth of the charter sector is hardly based on a competitive market model in the first place. Rather, that growth in many markets is already built on aggressive lobbying and manipulation of public policy:
It is important to acknowledge that charter school market shares are not, in recent years, expanding exclusively or even primarily because of market demand and personal/family preferences for charter schools. Traditional district public schools are being closed, neighborhoods left without options other than charters, district schools are being reconstituted and handed over to charter operators (including entire districts), and district schools are increasingly deprived of resources, experience burgeoning class sizes, reductions in program offerings sending more families scrambling for their “least bad” nearest alternative. [i] These are conscious decisions of policymakers overseeing the system that includes district and charter schools. They are not market forces, and should never be confused as such. These systems are being centrally managed without regard for equity and adequacy goals or the protection of student, family, taxpayer and employee rights, but instead, on the false hope that liberty of choice is a substitute for all of the above (including, apparently, loss of individual liberties). [ii]
Further, for all the talk that this model of competition (which really isn’t) would yield innovations not previously conceived, a growing body of research, including that most favorable to the charter sector Pondering Chartering: On Market Forces & Innovation? | School Finance 101: