The do-your-own-thing curriculums that are a feature of charter schools are poorly suited to our mobile society.
Are charter schools the "last, best hope" for public education? Will they "break up the logjam" that has blocked school reform in the U.S. for over 20 years? That's what supporters say, but charter schools are, at best, a partial answer to the problems that afflict our schools.
About eleven states now have charter school legislation, and some 140 schools are up and running. Though the laws governing charters vary, all permit groups of people to set up new schools or retool existing ones. Charter schools are financed just like other public schools. The difference is that they are not under the authority of the school board or the central office. Depending on the state, people who run charter schools have the freedom to create their own curriculums; they can decide whom to hire and how to spend the school budget; and they can make most of the daily decisions about how to run their school. The idea is that releasing them from bureaucratic rules and regulations -- and thus unleashing their creativity -- will lead to innovative schools where learning will flourish. And, the theory goes, these new schools will rejuvenate public education.
This sounds terrific, but as I suggested last week, the do-your-own-thing curriculums that are a feature of charter schools are poorly suited to a mobile society where many kids attend several different schools in the course of their K-12 years. It's tough enough now for a teacher to adjust the curriculum so it suits the needs of two or three new students as well as the kids who have been there all along. What will happen when one of the youngsters transferring in has come from a school without walls, another from a school with a traditional curriculum and a third from an Afrocentric school? The basic premise of charter schools ensures that whatever common ground schools now share will disappear.
There are other problems, as well. Supporters of charter schools assure us that innovative curriculums and techniques and new ways of organizing the school day will make dramatic improvements in student achievement. But as long as there are few such schools, it will be hard to tell whether improvements are the result of innovations or a selected student body.
Given the current enthusiasm for charters, a school that has not yet opened may have many more applicants than it has places. If these schools select their students according to criteria like grades, interviews and student and parent interest, they will be able to pick kids who are likely to do well -- the way private schools do now. Even in states where the law requires charter schools to use a lottery to decide among applicants, self-selection will undoubtedly give charters highly motivated student bodies. It will not be remarkable if these kids achieve at high levels, even if a new school does nothing new or creative.
And what about the kids who are not motivated to apply to special schools where they will have a special learning experience? Will charter schools help us do a better job of educating all our students -- which is what we must do if we are to salvage public education? Or are they an escape valve to keep those who are dissatisfied from deserting the system?
Charter schools also fail to solve a serious problem for teachers. Creating a new curriculum is not the same as making sure that teachers can teach it. The idea of freeing teachers from bureaucratic rules and regulations assumes that they will finally be able to do what they want in the classroom and that this freedom will make an enormous difference in the way they teach. I doubt it. Basically, teachers are already free. They are alone in their classrooms with the students. If they are not doing things differently or better, it is because they don't know how. And when you lift the rules, you are likely to get what you already have.
Teachers mostly teach the way their teachers taught them. Of course, they've had some methods classes and practice teaching, and the principal has poked his nose into class once a year and mumbled a few comments. But few have ever had the chance to discuss and analyze their work with colleagues -- how to build a lesson or how to put across a particularly difficult concept.
Charter schools will do little or nothing to solve this basic problem. If you really want to change the quality of teaching, telling teachers to do their own thing -- and making sure they are loaded down with the tasks associated with setting up a new school -- is not the way to do it.
Charter schools allow a lot of scope of enthusiasm, but they will leave untouched many of the biggest problems facing our schools