Charter school backers want measure on November ballot
May 22, 2012, 7:22 PM | Updated: May 23, 2012, 11:03 am
Children take part in a music class at the Mott Haven Academy Charter School, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP)
(AP)
Washington voters have rejected charter schools three
times, but backers are ready to try again. The paperwork
has been filed with the state to start the petition
process. They need 241,000 valid signatures by July 6
for the measure to get on the November ballot.
It has been eight years since the last time a charter
school measure was put on the ballot. Some think there
might be enough support in Washington this time around.
Others say it is never a good time to pull money away from
our existing public schools.
The Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at
Stanford University is often cited as compiling one of the
most comprehensive reports on the outcomes of charter
schools.
“We were interested in finding out whether the charter
school policies that have been enacted were creating
outcomes for kids that were better than what they would
have experienced had they just gone to their regular,
traditional public schools,” says Director Macky Raymond.
The Center looked at 16 states with charter school
legislation. They found 46 percent of students at charter
schools had outcomes similar to what they would have had
at traditional public schools.
Students who were low income or English language learners
tended to benefit more from charter schools, while average
students did not. But, Raymond says, the most interesting
thing they discovered did not have much to do with kids at
all.
“State policies matter a lot. So, when we actually looked
at how charter schools did, breaking them out by their
states, that average is all over the map,” Raymond says.
States where they had stricter rules and regulations for
charter schools, CREDO found much better results for all
students. Raymond says this is especially true regarding
the entities that authorize charter schools to operate.
“Where there’s rigorous, serious authorizing both in terms
of who they let in at the front door and what they do with
schools when they come up for review… where there’s
strong authorizing the results are much, much stronger for
kids,” says Raymond.
The report also found there is a strong connection between
the success of charter schools and the strength of the
organizations that support them. Having a state
association that can help charter schools with the
paperwork and permissions they need to operate allows the
schools to focus more on instruction.
Since the report came out in 2009, CREDO has continued to
examine charter school performance. Raymond says states
that have equitable funding also seem to do better. For
example, some states require charter schools to finance
their facilities using their per-student funding.
Traditional public schools get a separate budget for
capital improvements.
“Where facilities don’t have to be financed, there’s a lot
more resources available to the school to actually focus
on curriculum and instruction,” Raymond says.
She says Washington is in a good spot in that we can learn
from the mistakes of others.
“If you’re going to pursue a charter school policy, you’ve
got a chance to put the proper conditions in place that
would lead to better outcomes for kids,” says Raymond.
Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes will
be coming out with an updated report on charter schools
later this year. It should be just in time for the
November election.
You can read the full report here.
