Charter Schools Didn’t Change the World—Now Let’s Move Beyond That Tired Debate
A quarter century later, the verdict is in: Charter schools aren’t the panacea their proponents hoped. Now let’s lay down our arms and help the kids.
The recent LA teachers strike, and the school board’s vote to recommend a moratorium on new charter schools, reignited the a long-standing debate on charter schools—one that seems so dated.
The strike brought back memories of my first experiences with education policy as President of SEIU, America’s largest non-teaching union. It was around 2005. I replaced Sandy Feldman, then president of the American Federation of Teachers, as a judge for the LA-based Broad Foundation prize for urban schools (later I became a board member). Unions promoted education reform—but different kinds. The AFT’s iconic president, Al Shanker, backed “the greatest possible choice among public schools,” while the competitor union, the National Education Association, promoted charter schools’ role in “incubating innovation within the existing public education system.”
A man named Mike Garcia was then the president of the SEIU’s janitors union in Los Angeles. Though he headed a militant immigrants’ union, he became committed to a role for charter schools after learning that his members’ highest priority—after wage increases—was for the union to assist in the educational success of their children. Janitors’ kids lacked the opportunities of the city’s wealthier parents to move to better-funded or higher-performing school systems, manipulate the public system, or enroll in a private school. Mike went on to serve on the board of union charter operator Green Dot Public Schools. And as a board member, I became familiar with many dedicated charter school missionaries pushing against the status quo to advance their vision of educational excellence and equity.
But now, 25 years since Minnesota passed the country’s first charter school law, I think it is time for a candid evaluation, from both reformers and opponents, of charters’ role in the future of education and 21st century innovation more broadly.
THE MATH IS CLEAR—CHARTERS ARE NOT THE FUTURE
Despite two decades of world-class effort, startup capital for facilities, and massive philanthropic support for curriculum, college prep, leadership development, and technology, along with the support of high-quality talent organizations—Teach for America, The Broad Center, and TNTP, formerly known as the New Teacher Project—today’s charter school report card is the following:
1) The total number of public charter schools is approximately 7,000 out of nearly 100,000 schools. CONTINUE READING: Charter Schools Didn’t Change the World—Now Let’s Move Beyond That Tired Debate