Charter Schools: Fragmenting our Communities

3/6/2015

A couple of days ago, The Project School, our only charter school here in town, put up a Facebook post urging their supporters to speak up to the legislature:

The link that went with that post enabled the reader to go to Hoosiers for Quality Education's site and write to legislators to ask the senate for more funding in the charter school facilities grant program: "It's time to give our public charter school students the funding they deserve."

Wow. And..*sigh*

Before I address what children "deserve," I want you to understand that Hoosiers for Quality Education is a PAC. Formerly known (and,perhaps more honestly named) as Hoosiers for Economic Growth, this group is interested in "school choice" through the promotion of vouchers and charters in an ever-increasing competition for public education resources and funding. Their money comes from primarily out-of-state wealthy donors (not Hoosiers at all) interested in the privatization of public education and the profits they can make on our kids and schools. They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on our state legislative races backing candidates who repeatedly vote for more test-driven "accountability," union-busting, voucher and charter school-friendly bills. To understand their agenda, you need only know that our former superintendent of public instruction, Tony Bennett, is now working for them as a consultant.

Let's talk about the model of charter schools overall. We know that charter schools across the country are no more successful as a whole than public schools are. There are also many charter schools who do a terrible job. Charter schools are not that new and we know that this "experiment" is failing children miserably all over the country where charter schools are multiplying.

An interesting piece was written recently by a superintendent who had once strongly supported charter schools. He now points out that charter schools inevitably "skim" their kids:

Charters do not serve students with the greatest challenges: Charters will be quick to point out they enroll high percentages of low-income students. Some do. However, the citywide charter lottery inherently skims. Every student chosen has someone (parent, pastor, friend) who encouraged and is advocating for her/him to apply and succeed. That fact by itself creates a select pool of students and a corollary depletion of those students in non-charter schools.

He also explains how the choice of charters harmed the kids in his regular public schools.

Charter funding is also negatively affecting regular public schools. Charter advocates rely on the premise that as money flows from a regular school to a charter school, the costs of the regular school go down proportionately. Sounds good; it's just not true. Costs in schools sending students to charters cannot shift as fast as students and revenue leave. The costs for the principal, heating, lights, building debt and many other things remain; thus, the remaining children face the prospect of larger class sizes and cuts to core academic programming, music, art and other inequities.

Charters are proliferating unchecked and supported by corporate education reformers for one reason: profit. There are movements in other parts of the country to try to make these schools more accountable, but overall it's not happening.

What is the end game? How does taking funding and families from public schools to charter schools (who are arguably not truly public schools) help the kids left behind?

I know that the very popular charter, the Project School, here in town is a place where the parents of their 270 students have found a community that they love. I have no doubt that it is a fine school. This does not mean that it has helped the children remaining in our public schools. Many of the 10,000 or so students in MCCSC have also found schools that they love.

As I have written before, the same reasons that many parents seek alternative schools (smaller class sizes, less emphasis on testing, freedom in the curriculum for kids to follow their passions) are coming from the top down "reforms" that groups like HOOSIERS FOR QUALITY EDUCATION are pushing! How ironic, then, that they find themselves on the same page.

Public education is the cornerstone of our democracy. Our schools are a reflection of that. Do we support a competition of three tiers of education: private religious schools, charters and public schools? How could we fund all of that? Or do we recognize that all children deserve a high quality free education? Clearly at one time we valued this so much that it is found as a right for all children in our state constitution.

Our schools (as with our society) are what we make them. Accountability in a democracy is found in the voting booth. How many parents helped and voted on the school board races last fall? (A school board that has no bearing on the Project School as it is a separate entity). How many parents concerned about testing voted for legislators who reject the drive for data over the education of the whole child? How many voted for Hoosiers for Quality Education-funded candidates who are now supporting the expansion of vouchers, the redirecting of public school funding to charters, and the rewriting of the school funding formula to take funds from poor districts and give them to the wealthy ones?

The competition for resources in our own communities will continue as long as we are unwilling to embrace the idea that all children deserve adequately funded schools and equal educational opportunity.

“What the best and wisest parent wants for his child, that must we want for all the children of the community. Anything less is unlovely, and left unchecked, destroys our democracy.”-John Dewey

Project School parent

3/8/2015 01:58:03 am

In general Project School parents remain supportive of public education through neighborhood schools for the other children on our community. When MCCSC asks for more referendum dollars I will happily support them in spite of the fact the schools in our district are highly inequitable. I want more funding for all the schools, not less. This article feels like The Project School is being used as a politcal football. Throughout the years as dollars have been stripped from education we should be demanding more money. Instead of villifying our school as a scapegoat, shouldn't the collective 'we' stand for all schools in the community to get more funding? I don't want my children to have 'your' piece of the education pie. As a society we need to demand more damn pie.

HFQE would not be my first choice of a political ally, but are YOU going to support TPS, a school of children in your community, just as I support your children in MCCSC? That would be such a breath of fresh air.

Jenny Robinson

3/8/2015 06:54:35 am

Dear Project School parent, thank you for posting here. I have kids in MCCSC and I am very glad that you are supportive of an MCCSC referendum. I think I am supportive of the Project School in the sense that I recognize that it is serving its families very well. It is a good educational option for those who are accepted through lottery. I have no wish to see it diminished in any way. We need to have excellent--nurturing, challenging-- and publicly available educational experiences for all children in our county.

As you say, our own public school system has inequities within it. We need to make sure we elect board members who are willing to recognize those inequities and who will try to address them. I may be wrong about this, but I would characterize TPS parents as highly engaged and interested in their children's educational experiences. We came very close to electing a current MCCSC parent to our school board this year but did not quite reach the votes we needed. I believe that a number of TPS parents were tuned in to that election--two canvassed repeatedly for that candidate--and I'm grateful for that. I can't help but think more TPS parents would have been more active (on behalf of all 10,000 children served by our schools) had they a sense of being immediately affected by the results of that school board election.

The resources in our schools are not just personnel, facilities, and technology. Families themselves are incredible resources. When families leave the public system (as of course they have a right to do, and the needs of children are immediate and paramount--I recognize that) we all lose.

Why do I have trouble thinking of charters as public schools?
--They don't have democratic local oversight in the form of elected boards.
--Does CATS record the board meetings? Does the H-T report on them? Not that I'm aware of.
--Is the budget and are personnel decisions presented publicly to the community?
--Are the teachers represented by a union?

I fully believe that TPS is valuable, it's established, it's beloved by its families, and it's here. But please, be aware that Seven Oaks is renewing its application for a charter. TPS is considering expanding to include a high school. These expansions would chip away at the health of our public schools that serve all children, without enrollment restrictions or lottery. In Indiana, the pie is small. Our legislature has embarked on funding three separate educational systems--public, voucher, and charter--while at the same time increasing funding for schools at historically low levels.

Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer

3/9/2015 02:24:44 am

Dear Project School Parent,

I second Jenny Robinson's comments. It isn't a matter of not supporting the Project School or a debate of whether or not TPS provides a great experience for its students. It's a question of policy and the rift it creates within our community.

I don't agree that TPS is being used like a political football in the post. It is merely pointing out the irony and discrepancies between policies that benefit TPS and ones that benefit all children in the public schools. Many folks who love TPS then believe that the charter movement is something we should support. This is a post meant to show the inherent troubles within that model.

When TPS, in its policy advocacy, is aligning itself with Hoosiers for Quality Education--a group (as articles linked above highlight) whose intent is to dismantle public education.

As a group, we at ICPE do not call for an end to the Project School. We do not feel that its intent is financial benefit with the dollar as the bottom line like many other charters. As a citizen, I am truly happy for my friends who have found a loving community for their children. Most of my friends in town know that it is painful for me to be on opposing sides of this debate. However..

We are not on the same side when you are supporting the policies of Hoosiers for Quality Education. Maybe it's not your first choice, but it's there. We cannot support H4QE because to do so is to agree that public education should be abandoned for a system of "choice" and competition.

I don't want any child to lose in that competition. I want us to address the inequity within our system and strive toward having all children enjoy excellent high-quality educational experiences. The collective "we" can't do that if helping your school involves tearing down another's.

3/9/2015 06:57:52 am

All great points in the comment above. I should start by stating I am a proud product of public education and my family attends a traditional public school. However, this article gives a skewed view of charters as a whole and promotes a divisive rhetoric of 'us vs. them' and has led to a polarizing debate. Why can't the conversation be more about quality options? Every parent is a parent of school choice regardless how they've chosen to educate their child. There are great charters and their are bad charters. The same could be said about every type of school.

Here are some facts missing from this article:

- Charters are public and must accept every student that applies, if more apply than they have room for they hold a random drawing.
- Charters do not use local property tax dollars, they are only provided money given to each of their students. If traditional public schools where only given this source of funding you'd be advocating for the same thing. Charters must divert student allocated funds to pay for capital projects. That money should stay in the classroom. On average, traditional schools get $3,000 per student for capital projects. Charters are asking for half of that (not from property taxes) from new sources of money.
- More than 58% of charters are independently run by non-profit boards. All charters must adhere to Open Door policies. Less than 15% are associated with for-profit groups. That's less than 9 of the almost 80 charter schools in the state.
- Charters have higher accountability. After four years with an 'F' they are closed. More than 12 charters have closed since 2008. Traditional public schools have after 7 years before facing intervention. They are most definitely not running 'unchecked' as the author stated.
- Charters in Indiana serve special education students, in fact 13 percentage points higher than traditional publics, and minority students (32 percentage points higher) based on a report I found online published in 2014 about the charter movement in Indiana.

Many of the points here are based on conspiracies and misinformation leading to 'doom & gloom'. There are more charters out there like TCS doing great things for children. I support ALL types of public education and those that provide it. There is no one-size fits all. There is nothing to fear with school choice..if you have a good, compelling school with a strong community no one will leave. In fact, many studies have shown that due to multiple options traditional schools are able to lower their overhead costs and put more focus on funds going into the classroom.

Another parent

3/9/2015 03:31:45 pm

- “Charters are public and must accept every student that applies, if more apply than they have room for they hold a random drawing.”

Research on charter schools has shown they struggle to meet the needs of all students. Special education is an area where charter schools struggle, as they have to contract out services (with public money) to provide for children with special needs – speech language pathologists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and so on. Research studies have shown that parents of students with special needs are less likely to choose to apply to charter schools, especially students with autism and students with a speech or language disability. Equal access issues are commonplace in state/federal reports.

I know personally as a former parent of a child at the local charter school that there is a struggle to meet the needs of children with special needs. Despite the expectation/mandate that a qualified, trained professional administer, interpret and write the report used to determine eligibility for special education services, my child’s evaluation was conducted by a college student (with some oversight by a college professor who ever met my child) as a cost saving measure. When I inquired about this shortcoming, I was told it was an issue of being able to afford to hire a qualified school psychologist. As a parent, I believe this is one harmful example that challenges the notion that charters are for all students, as they are isolated islands that attempt to cobble together the services necessary to serve students well.

What about the money? How it is used? Given the limited funds available for education, is it used wisely? I noticed while navigating special education services at the local charter school that public money was used to hire a CEO of an independent company in Indianapolis to be the “compliance” person at IEP meetings. At that time, she was their contracted Special Education Director. Did public money pay for the expense of traveling over an hour to attend an IEP meeting? What does a CEO of a private company cost as compared to the cost of a special education director at a public school? Over time these experiences caused me to question the use of public dollars to run schools on a separate track – a track that I realized first hand was not truly designed to serve all children because they are small islands using public funding to exist. It’s one thing to talk about serving all children and it’s another thing to actually do that.

- “Charters have higher accountability. After four years with an 'F' they are closed. More than 12 charters have closed since 2008. Traditional public schools have after 7 years before facing intervention. They are most definitely not running 'unchecked' as the author stated.”

The other sad reality I experienced during my few years at the school was how special education teachers could not maintain themselves longer than a year at the school. They were overworked, stressed out and were forthright in describing how overdone their caseload was in the charter environment. If this trend in retention continues, where is the accountability on this island?

My experience is that when I had real concerns about the running of this charter school there was no one to turn to. You can call the State Charter Office over 100 miles away to file a concern but there is no action taken – you speak to a person on the phone to describe your concern. It felt like trying to get a Comcast representative on the phone – not an elected official whose job it is to be accountable to the community. I don’t think this limited, distant oversight is higher accountability.

I do believe that traditional public schools are struggling, particularly in low-income districts, and that many parents who choose a charter want a choice for their child due to the struggles caused by the “train wreck of public policy” in Indiana – what’s bad for schools and kids has been the trend for some time now in this state.

I would like to see public schools funded well so teachers can address the needs of children – lower class sizes are a must, more physical options for learning are a must, a commitment to the whole child, a commitment to the teacher as a professional, a great community network for addressing the array of social needs (i.e. poverty wages, joblessness, homelessness, stressed parenting) in our community. To the degree we see a one-size-fit all approach in public schools has a lot to do with the funding issues that are plaguing public schools. When you have 30 kindergarten children “learning to do school” under the charge of one classroom teacher, you have to figure out a way to manage the absurdity of that situation. Many teachers have no choice but to implement a one-size-fit all survival system in their classroom. We h

Another parent (Try again)

3/9/2015 03:46:24 pm

- “Charters are public and must accept every student that applies, if more apply than they have room for they hold a random drawing.”

Research on charter schools has shown they struggle to meet the needs of all students. Special education is an area where charter schools struggle, as they have to contract out services (with public money) to provide for children with special needs – speech language pathologists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and so on. Research studies have shown that parents of students with special needs are less likely to choose to apply to charter schools, especially students with autism and students with a speech or language disability. Equal access issues are commonplace in state/federal reports.

I know personally as a former parent of a child at the local charter school that there is a struggle to meet the needs of children with special needs. Despite the expectation/mandate that a qualified, trained professional administer, interpret and write the report used to determine eligibility for special education services, my child’s evaluation was conducted by a college student (with some oversight by a college professor who ever met my child) as a cost saving measure. When I inquired about this shortcoming, I was told it was an issue of being able to afford to hire a qualified school psychologist. As a parent, I believe this is one harmful example that challenges the notion that charters are for all students, as they are isolated islands that attempt to cobble together the services necessary to serve students well.

What about the money? How it is used? Given the limited funds available for education, is it used wisely? I noticed while navigating services at the local charter school that public money was used to hire a CEO of an independent company in Indianapolis to be the “compliance” person at IEP meetings. At that time, she was their contracted Special Education Director. Did public money pay for the expense of traveling over an hour to attend an IEP meeting? What does a CEO of a private company cost as compared to the cost of a special education director at a public school? Over time these experiences caused me to question the use of public dollars to run schools on a separate track – a track that I realized first hand was not truly designed to serve all children because they are small islands using public funding to exist. It’s one thing to talk about serving all children and it’s another thing to actually do that.

- “Charters have higher accountability. After four years with an 'F' they are closed. More than 12 charters have closed since 2008. Traditional public schools have after 7 years before facing intervention. They are most definitely not running 'unchecked' as the author stated.”

The other sad reality I experienced during my few years at the school was how special education teachers could not maintain themselves longer than a year at the school. They were overworked, stressed out and were forthright in describing how overdone their caseload was in the charter environment. If this trend in retention continues, where is the accountability on this island?

My experience is that when I had real concerns about the running of this charter school there was no one to turn to. You can call the State Charter Office over 100 miles away to file a concern but there is no action taken – you speak to a person on the phone to describe your concern. It felt like trying to get a Comcast representative on the phone – not an elected official whose job it is to be accountable to the community. I don’t think this limited, distant oversight is higher accountability.

I do believe that public schools are struggling, particularly in low-income districts, and that many parents who choose a charter want a choice for their child due to the struggles caused by the “train wreck of public policy” in Indiana – what’s bad for schools and kids has been the trend for some time now in this state.

I would like to see public schools funded well so teachers can address the needs of children – lower class sizes are a must, more physical options for learning are a must, a commitment to the whole child, a commitment to the teacher as a professional, a great community network for addressing the array of social needs (i.e. poverty wages, joblessness, homelessness, stressed parenting) in our community. To the degree we see a one-size-fit all approach in public schools has a lot to do with the funding issues that are plaguing public schools. When you have 30 kindergarten children “learning to do school” under the charge of one classroom teacher, you have to figure out a way to manage the absurdity of that situation. Many teachers have no choice but to implement a one-size-fit all survival system in their classroom. We have to move beyond these problem

Kelly Walsh

3/8/2015 03:21:10 am

While I believe that the Project School, no doubt, does some good, it drains public education funds...I know, the Koch brothers funded HFQE will claim public school status. Governor Taliban has insisted on increasing these opportunities. The Indiana Supreme Court ruled that charters did not constitute religious endorsement, yet 92% of charters parents surveyed noted religious education as a primary reason for seeking these services at tax- payer expense. This is criminal!

Jenny Stevens

3/8/2015 03:47:32 am

This is an excellent article that explains a very broad picture of the implications of charter schools on the public school system. Locally, our community is supportive of the project school, but with a referendum now on the books since TPS founding, I personally believe any future charter schools erode in dangerous ways the broad and diverse educational options mentioned in the article, arts, PE, music, extra-curriculars, librarians. However, what seems most ludicrous in this entire situation is the fact that charter schools would get a $ 1500/student increase. To advocate for that seems self-serving, how about advocating for the fact that all charter schools will fall in place and get the same funding as their local district, that they will be accountable as a subset to the local board in their broad policies, and that they will take the same assessments as their public education peers and follow similar grading of schools and teacher practices. If charter schools aren't willing to play the same game and by the same rules, then they are not fully embracing their place as a public school. I will continue to recognize TPS school as a great option for children, but let's not fool ourselves or our neighbors and support legislation that proves harmful to the public schools used by the majority of families in our community. More $ from the state under different rules comes off the top of money sent to public schools, should local community members pay for an increased referendum to make up the dollars the statehouse is sending to charters and voucher schools??? I think not!!!

3/9/2015 06:29:13 am

I think you are confusing charter schools with the voucher program. Public charter schools are public schools...there is no religious connection at all. Vouchers are only accepted at participating private schools.

Voter

3/9/2015 06:24:28 am

Who is the author of this blog post?

3/9/2015 06:31:26 am

I am.

tps mama

3/10/2015 05:27:57 am

I follow the Parent Community Network of Monroe County, and appreciate the information it provides and often write letters to my representatives to advocate for all of our children based on the information provided.

TPS is a local school, and the reason it is popular is a local issue. I don't believe that they are doing anything that couldn't be done in MCCSC. When our local school board listens to parents and educators, when school administrations treat parents with the respect and consideration with which we are treated at TPS, then I'll consider taking my kids back - as we've had to make sacrifices so that our children can attend TPS.

As to the state issue of funding, I stand side by side with MCCSC parents in demanding that education be funded properly and assessed in a meaningful and appropriate way. My votes and my letters benefit the larger community more than they benefit our school. I didn't write the letter that our school suggested we write for the additional funding - even though it would help my kids, one of which has special needs.

I think that as a community network, it would help to clearly distinguish these local vs. state issues and not confuse them. If the government can succeed in fragmenting a community over the funding tied to 230 students, how strong were we to begin with? The point was brought up that maybe if the parents at tps were still parents of mccsc students, that maybe there'd have been more political gain for our children in the last local election. Maybe. Or maybe if we weren't made to feel like public school judases, we'd have been (even) more active.

Just because we made a personal choice for our children, doesn't mean we need to be fragmented as a community on broader issues.. we all know that. And yet, it seems that the parent community network of monroe county seizes the opportunity to bring up this local example of tps to be the face of injustice in monroe county education every few months or so. What of the voucher schools? Where's the personal name references to St. Charles or Clear Creek Christian or Lighthouse? I'm just saying, for all the lip service given to the respect for what tps is doing and how most of us are friends, it seems like we get a lot of bait to polarize us in this group.

You can still count on me to show up in red shirt for rallies, storm twitter, write letters, etc.. but yes, maybe you'd get more from me and mamas like me if we didn't see headlines like "Fragmenting our Community" with a copied and pasted post from our school as evidence.

3/10/2015 08:51:55 am

Dear TPS mama,

I appreciate that there are parents at TPS who are active in the fight for public education. I am friends with some of them. I am grateful that there are some parents in TPS and other non-public schools who still advocate for public education as a common good. I wish there were more people in ALL schools who cared enough to try to go door to door with us for school board, local legislators, who tried to rally the parents together to fight for equity, and so forth.

The point of the blog post is to show that the contradiction between believing you are helping public education and supporting Hoosiers for Quality Education. They are at polar ends of the spectrum. It is painful to see HQ4Ed link on the TPS website when we spend so much energy trying to enlist parents and citizens to stop their agenda and help vote out their bought politicians--to no avail.

I want people to understand that, despite the loving school that families have found at TPS, the charter model as a whole is working toward the privatization of public education. It is not helping protect, let alone improve, public schools. Just the act of pointing it out in this post doesn't cause the fragmenting in my mind. It's already there. It's just naming it.

Are you suggesting that we should allow other charters to open if they desire? Did you support the Green School and Green Meadows before that? Seven Oaks? Do you support expanding TPS to include a high school? Because this is where the fragmenting occurs. More schools opening means more parents leaving and "choosing," and competing. What happens to the kids behind? Advocating for more money for charters means (in our legislature and Congress, for that matter) less money for public schools. What happens to the de-funded schools? The kids that remain there?

The frustration and fragmentation comes from the continual struggle to keep more parents from seeking alternatives instead of working to improve our schools for all. It comes from the struggle to keep the money we have right now from leaving so that our kids can enjoy the stuff that the state considers less important: the arts, librarians, science labs, etc. And the constant struggle to stop more charter schools from starting up and thinning out our resources is energy-depleting and emotionally draining...when we should ALL be working on helping our public schools already in existence here improve and be well-funded--let alone keep from being privatized by the state.

With the charter movement and vouchers and big money like groups like HQ4Ed, the fight for public education is a real uphill battle. Vouchers do suck money off of our public education pot, it's true. They take from the top at the state level and it lessens the rest. Usually those folks are going to go to private religious school anyway. Perhaps our local voucher schools will expand so they can get more funding…

But in this blog, I merely wanted us to think about the very popular TPS, not as a political football or filled with public school judases, but in this context: that the end game of charter proponents (for the most part) is a competition for precious resources and not at all about strengthening public education as a whole. Is TPS an exception? Will they say that there is enough “choice” and not enough dollars or engagement for improving what we already have? Or will they say, now we need a high school for our kids because we don’t like the other choices? Where TPS families fit in this paradigm and how we can advocate together, that is what we each need to think about.

These tough questions and the conflicts of interest are what makes me think of us as being fragmented or divided instead of cohesive. Thus the title.

I appreciate your willingness to talk about all this. It’s important.

Rick

3/10/2015 06:31:45 am

I have said this time and again: the aims of TPS are admirable, as is its dedication to the students who are there. I also believe it is no better than our public schools here in Bloomington, though I understand some students might find a better fit there. The parent who said we "should all demand more pie" might be right. However, that is not the political reality, not in Indiana. The additional money to be spent on charters -- which for all the reasons Jenny Robinson mentioned are not public schools in the traditional sense -- comes from the public school pie. We can parse this any way we want, but this is a zero-sum pie. The Orwellian named HFQE is the wrong bedfellow for TPS to partner with if it wants those of us who advocate for public education to accept that we ultimately share the same goals -- because that organization is dedicated to the ultimate privatization of education for profit. And I would also like to give this warning: organizations such as HFQE might seem like expedient allies, but if its goal of destroying traditional public education comes to pass, they will come after the next entity that uses educational tax dollars -- charter schools. If HFQE is a partner, it is the one using you as a political football, not advocates for traditional public education.

3/10/2015 10:08:29 am

A couple of other interesting posts have sprung up from this post and our discussion. Here is one from local blogger and former HT education reporter, Steve Hinnefeld:

https://inschoolmatters.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/teachers-union-and-advocacy-group-not-two-sides-of-same-coin/

And this one is from a public education advocate in Fort Wayne:

http://bloom-at.blogspot.com/2015/03/2015-medley-8.html

Comments are closed.

Charter Schools: Fragmenting our Communities

Categories

Archives

Friends