$4 million -- for starters -- will be going to a group of people who are eager for public funds but could care less about public education.
A key idea behind charter schools, the latest movement in education reform, is that many terrific opportunities to improve public education are lost because they are squelched by school bureaucracies. Charter school laws, which have been passed in 12 states and are pending in 9 or 10 more, are supposed to allow teachers and others the chance to establish public schools that are largely independent of state and local control. Supporters say that throwing away the rule book will unleash creativity and that the fresh, new ideas developed in these charter schools will revitalize all public schools. But it's not so easy to draw the line between encouraging schools that have the freedom to experiment and ones where doing your own thing has nothing to do with improving public education.
This problem is already obvious in Michigan. Charter school legislation goes into effect this fall, and the first "school" out of the gate will be the Noah Webster Academy, which is nothing but a clever scheme to get public money for children who are already being educated by their parents -- at home.
According to reporter Steve Stecklow's story in the Wall Street Journal (June 14, 1994), Noah Webster's founder, a lawyer specializing in home schooling cases, has signed up 700 students -- mostly Christian home schoolers -- for a school that is actually a computer network. The students will continue to study at home the way they do now, but every family will get a taxpayer-paid computer, printer and modem, and there will be an optional curriculum that teaches creationism alongside biology.
Does this actually fall within the Michigan charter school law? Barely. Stecklow quotes a Michigan state administrator who says it is "push[ing] the envelope .. .just about as far as you probably can." Critics had predicted that something like this would happen, and the response was that charters would be issued by school boards or colleges and they could be trusted to be responsible.
But Noah Webster's founder discovered a tiny, impoverished school district -- it has 23 students, one teacher and a teacher's aide, and it nearly went broke a few years ago. It agreed to sponsor his school, and give it a 99-year charter, in return for a kickback of about $40,000. Based on current applications, Noah Webster, which is eligible for state funds to the tune of $5,500 per pupil, will get something in the neighborhood of $4 million of public money in the coming academic year.
Last year, Michigan suffered a big educational and financial crisis when the state decided to stop using property taxes to pay for education and had to scramble for other ways of financing its schools. The previous system gave a big advantage to wealthy districts, and the new one has provided some measure of equalization between wealthy districts and poor ones. Nevertheless, kids in wealthy districts are still getting more public money spent on them than kids in cities like Detroit. And now, the charter school law, which is supposed to be about using public money to test ideas that could improve education is troubled schools districts like Detroit, is giving $4 million -- for starters -- to a group of people who are eager for public funds but could care less about public education.
Most charter school supporters genuinely believe that by trying out ideas that have been ignored in conventional schools, charter schools will improve public education. But this strategy won't work if the legislation permits these schools to be totally unconnected to the school district that sponsors them. Charter schools must have autonomy to get where they want to go, but they must also be part of a system that has a central purpose -- and that means a system that has decided what kids need to know and be able to do. Otherwise, they will end up like all those alternative schools of the 1960s -- relevant only to themselves and useless to the system as a whole.
But there are other supporters of charter schools whose real aim is to smash the public schools. Unless charter school legislation is carefully crafted and controlled, charter schools will not lead to improved public education. Instead, we will see the money used to pay for educating kids whose parents are already looking after their education at home or to finance what are really private schools. And all of this will take place without any public debate and totally out of the public eye -- while other youngsters still struggle in school districts that need the kind of help charter schools are supposed to provide. The public is very unlikely to have supported the notion that $4 million should go to a "school" like Noah Webster Academy when these glaring needs exist.