Charter Schools

Abstract

Charter schools are a type of public school that enjoys more pedagogical freedom in exchange for greater educational outcomes. Unlike private schools, they do not charge tuition. Originally conceived in a maelstrom of the school reform movement of the 1970s as a school-within-a school wherein select public school teachers were chartered to innovate, the idea quickly became applied to entire public schools in the wake of the sobering results documented in the 1983 government report A Nation at Risk. As of 2023, charter school laws had been passed in forty-five different states, and, depending on the particular state, the schools are overseen by state education authorities, local school boards, nonprofit corporations, or even for-profit companies (Education Commission of the States, 2020). Parents can choose to send their children to charter schools as opposed to traditional public schools, though they often encounter waiting lists. As a moderate form of privatization in comparison with school vouchers, charter schools enjoy broad political support and were identified by President George W. Bush as a key part of the national educational reform strategy outlined in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. In 2015, the No Child Left Behind Act was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act, which included the Charter Schools Program to support funding for charter schools.

Overview

Charter schools are a form of public school authorized by a governing body, such as a local school board, state department of education, nonprofit organization, or (in several states) a for-profit corporation. They are chartered for a period of time, with renewals based on performance. Charter schools are distinct from traditional public schools in two respects: they are free of many bureaucratic entanglements, and they tend to use more innovative educational techniques. Put another way, charter schools are left "free to experiment in exchange for greater accountability":

"Free to experiment how? To lengthen the school day, mix grades, require dress codes, put teachers on their school boards, double up instruction in core subject areas like math or reading, make parents genuine partners in family-style school cultures, adopt any instructional practice that will help achieve their missions—free, in short, to do whatever it takes to build the skills, knowledge, and character traits their students need to succeed in today's world" (U.S. Department of Education, 2004, p. 1).

Unlike private schools, charter schools are public schools supported by taxpayers, and they are not wholly free of oversight by local school boards and state and federal education agencies. Supporters refer to them as "public schools of choice" (U.S. Charter Schools, n.d.) because it gives lower-income parents the opportunity to send their children to charter schools instead of traditional public schools. Like wealthier parents who choose to send their children to private schools, parents without those financial resources have a choice about where their children will be educated. Another important difference is that charter schools do not charge tuition. Finally, charter schools are distinctive in that they seek to defend and improve public education and do not challenge its legitimacy or efficacy.

Charter schools are a relatively new phenomenon in American K–12 education. While private schools, religious schools, agricultural schools, and military schools all have deep historical roots, the genesis of the public charter school idea began only in the 1970s. It was a time in American education when there was a growing consensus that the top-down, overly bureaucratic public school system was struggling to deliver the educational outcomes demanded by politicians, parents, and teachers. This was documented in A Nation at Risk, the sobering 1983 US government report on public education. There was also the sense that one-size-fits-all education was out of sync with accumulating evidence that suggested smaller class sizes and greater community involvement in schools are crucial to producing students ready to take on the challenges of a burgeoning knowledge-based economy.

Ray Budde & Education by Charter. Out of this intellectual ferment came an idea from New England educator Ray Budde. Budde (1988) recommended that school boards give teachers "charters" to empower them to try out new and innovative teaching methods. In his booklet Education by Charter, Budde (1988) stressed the importance of school district reform for educational reform, and he listed specific action steps for public districts to take. A few of the most relevant steps were:

• Teachers are given responsibility for control over instruction through the mechanism of educational charters. Educational charters allow groups of teachers to receive direct funding from the school board for planning and implementing plans for instruction.
• It is the responsibility of the classroom teacher to [help] students take responsibility for their learning and behavior in such a way that pupils develop skills and build attitudes to become lifelong learners.
• All principals should be "creating and maintaining a safe, positive learning environment within the school; supporting teachers in carrying out their responsibilities for teaching; and on occasion, being visible models of 'good teacher' and 'good learner.'"
• External monitoring of school progress.
• The creation of a "citizens education council" to "strengthen ties between education and business, labor, parents, and other citizens"(Budde, 1988, pp. 117–118).

Budde was not proposing what we know as public charter schools—he was envisioning small groups of "chartered" teachers working in a given public school. However, it was not long before others took his core idea about educational charters to a new level.

The public charter school idea went from theory into practice in the late 1980s when some public schools in Philadelphia created charter schools within existing public schools. The results of this experiment convinced other states that charter schools are an effective solution to the woes of public schools. In 1991, the first public charter school law was passed in Minnesota, followed a year later by California. By 1995, nineteen states had passed charter school laws. By 2009 there were public charter schools operating in forty-one states as well as the District of Columbia, the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and Guam. In 2006, over a million public school students attended more than 3,500 public charter schools across the United States (U.S. Charter Schools, n.d.) This was 2 percent of American schoolchildren (Kansas State Department of Education, 2006, p. i), or only one-fifth of the enrollment in private schools (Broughman & Swaim, 2006). In 2011, the number of charter school students had increased to 1.8 million, enrolled in 5,300 schools (National Center for Education Statistics, 2013). Approximately 3.3 million students attended a total of around 7,400 charter schools as of the fall of 2018 ("Public Charter School Enrollment," 2021). Only five states had not passed a charter school law after West Virginia became the forty-fifth state to do so in 2019. During the 2020-2021 school year, public charter schools served 3.7 million American students in 7800 schools (White, 2022).

Support for Charter Schools. For many parents and educators, charter schools hold great promise, and they have earned bipartisan political support since the 1990s. A 2007 report concluded:

"As a public-private hybrid, charter schools compose a relatively moderate reform when considered in the context of plans that would retain the long-standing policy monopoly in public education and proposals for almost complete privatization through a public voucher system. The diverse nature of the charter school reform has made it attractive to constituents of different ideological and political persuasions. Indeed, both liberals and conservatives have founded charter schools" (Vergari, 2007, p. 32).

Charter schools were identified as a key part of the national educational reform strategy outlined in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, as well as the Department of Education's Race to the Top initiative of 2009. Similarly, the National Education Association, the largest public school teacher's union, has argued that charter schools can be an important catalyst for educational change:

"NEA believes that charter schools and other nontraditional public school options have the potential to facilitate education reforms and develop new and creative teaching methods that can be replicated in traditional public schools for the benefit of all children. Whether charter schools will fulfill this potential depends on how charter schools are designed and implemented, including the oversight and assistance provided by charter authorizers" (NEA, n.d.). Given the fact that many charter schools have waiting lists, supporters hail them as the right solution to the problems plaguing the public school system, though skeptics have their doubts that any public education system can be agile enough to educate the twenty-first century workforce. Therefore the debate over public charter schools continues. Supporters and critics of charter schools agree, however, that education reform in American must succeed because our children deserve nothing less. As Crandall (1988) wrote in the preface to Education by Charter:

"Given the tendency of American education to swing from status quo to reform and back to status quo, we cannot help but wonder; Will the present education reform movement result in sustained improvement for all students? Or will it, before this century ends, sputter to a halt? And will some observer cry, 'American education never changes; and it never will?'" (Crandall, 1988, p. 8).

In 2015, the Every Student Succeeds Act was signed into law replacing the No Child Left Behind Act and included the Charter Schools Program (CSP). The CSP provides funding for the expansion of charter schools and gives charter schools flexibility in their spending and acceptance lottery in order to prioritize disadvantaged students.

Further Insights

What Makes a Good Public Charter School? According to the US Department of Education, a successful public charter school has certain characteristics:

"To be effective, a charter school begins with a mission and stays mission-driven: Everyone associated with the school knows what it stands for and believes in its vision. Each school engages parents as real, not nominal, partners. Each school fosters a culture that is highly collegial and focused on continuous improvement. And each effective charter school has a strong accountability system, not just to please its authorizers but also its 'clients,' the parents" (U.S. Department of Education, 2004, p. 5).

The US Department of Education (2004, p. 2–3) discusses the success stories of eight very diverse charter schools:

States with Charter Schools. By 2019, 45 states—plus the District of Columbia, the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and Guam—had passed legislation approving the creation of charter schools. This number remained unchanged in the 2020s.

Viewpoints

Public Charter vs. Non-Public Charter Schools: Research.

As with some other controversial topics where politics, money, and power are always in the background, it has been difficult to find studies of charter schools that hold up under close scrutiny. At best, according to those who have reviewed such studies, it was especially difficult earlier on to draw any long-term conclusions about the effectiveness of public charter schools versus traditional public schools. Hill, Angel, and Christensen (2006) noted the reasons why:

"We identified only 41 studies focusing on test scores, of which we were able to obtain copies of 40. None report on longer-term results like persistence in school success at the next level of education, graduation rates, or college attendance. Though 40 states and the District of Columbia have charter laws, the available research covers schools in only 13 states, with 5 studies on California, 4 on Texas, and 3 on Florida. Because state laws are so different, and charter schools differ from state to state in mission, funding, size, grade-level coverage, and independence from regulations and teacher contracts, the absence of evidence from many states makes it impossible to make definitive statements about charter schools in general" (Hill, Angel & Christensen, 2006, p. 139).

The consensus among researchers was that more nuanced studies were needed before one could determine the effectiveness of public charter schools—not only compared with traditional public schools but also when they were compared with private schools and even homeschooling.

This was precisely the point made in a 2006 report from the National Charter School Research Project (Betts & Hill, 2006). The authors noted several variables that had to be taken into account when studying the effectiveness of charter schools. First, they noted,

"It does not make much sense simply to ask whether the average child in a charter school is learning more or less than the average child in a district-run public school, because there are probably many factors other than the quality of school programs that could cause differences in results...The right question is whether students in charter schools are learning more or less than they would have learned in conventional public schools. This is a reasonable question, but it is easier to ask than to answer for three reasons" (Betts & Hill, 2006, p. 1).

According to Betts and Hill, those three reasons were:

• "There is no way to "observe the same students simultaneously in both charter schools and the schools they would have attended had charter schools not been available."
• There is no typical charter school—they all have different constituencies, funding sources, local politics, and so on
• Students succeed or fail in school because of many reasons, only one of which is the quality of the school" (Betts & Hill, 2006, p. 1).

"The researchers concluded that, given the number of variables involved, a variety of situational research methods should be applied, and no conclusions should be based on the results of just one study" (Betts & Hill, 2006, p. 4).

Despite continued analytical efforts, including such studies as the one conducted on behalf of Harvard's Program on Education Policy and Governance and published in 2020 that used information from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the debate over the ability of such research to definitively indicate the efficacy of charter schools remained into the 2020s.

Public Charter vs. Non-Public Charter Schools: Claims & Counterclaims.

There have been some more micro-level claims made for and against public charter schools, though again, it is important to recognize that these claims, in and of themselves, are either not decisive arguments for or against charter schools, or the data can be interpreted in several different ways.

Cornoy, Jacobsen, Mishel, and Rothstein (2005) summarized some of the arguments against the effectiveness of public charter schools:

• Because of reduced bureaucracy, there are not as many certified teachers in charter schools. Proponents of teacher certification argue that this makes the teachers less qualified.
• Charter schools, despite their claims to the contrary, tend not to serve as large a percentage of socioeconomically disadvantaged children as public schools.
• While charter schools were created to deliver better academic results, this has not been borne out by the standardized test data.
• It is not easy to close failing public charter schools, so they are no more accountable—or even less so—than traditional public schools (Cornoy et al., 2005).

Indeed, even supporters of charter schools acknowledge that public charter schools have had a mixed record. While some charter schools perform well, others need to be improved or, failing that, closed. As a report on the state of charter schools in Washington, DC, pointed out, charter schools face several challenges: "Many have been badly managed with the results reflected in poor student performance. Monitoring the rapidly growing charter sector has been a challenge as well" (Mead, 2005, p. 5).

Critics of charter schools make much of the fact that charter schools employ proportionately fewer certified teachers than traditional public schools. But research seems to suggest that charter schools have begun to attract more quality teachers:

"Charter and private schools make much greater use of pay innovations than traditional public schools, and there is some recent evidence that they have been more successful at recruiting teachers with higher academic credentials" (Kowal, Hassel & Hassel, 2007, p. 2).

Parental Choice & Satisfaction. While few doubt that middle-class parents are equipped to make the decision whether to send their children to a public or private school, some critics of charter schools charge that lower-class parents do not have equal access to resources to make such decisions for their children. Since many charter school parents are members of racial or ethnic minorities, supporters of charter schools detect a hint of racism in such fears. A 2006 study of 800 low-income charter school parents in Milwaukee; Washington, DC; and Denver who chose charter schools showed no significant decision-making differences with middle-income parents. The charter school parents:

• Ranked academics and the quality of teachers as most Important.
• Visited schools, consulted with other parents, surfed school websites, and looked at printed information.
• Preferred the best school for their children and not simply the neighborhood school.
• Talked with their children about attending a charter school.
• "are more likely to be very or somewhat satisfied with the schools chosen than parents who chose other public schools (97 percent versus 84 percent), and are as satisfied as parents who chose private schools" (Teske & Reichardt, in Lake & Hill, 2006, p. 2).

The Future of Charter Schools. What is the future of public charter schools? Those observers of perhaps a more pragmatic nature argue that it will not be educational results that decide the future of public charter schools but something much more familiar:

"Political and scholarly debates about the academic performance of charter schools are certain to continue. However, the future of charter school politics will be shaped not by student achievement data but rather by the values, self-interest, mobilization efforts, and lobbying power of participants in the political arena" (Vergari, 2007, p. 33). Indeed, by 2020, some commentators were reporting that political support or criticism of charter schools was often shifting, even during the administration of President Donald Trump, who had named Betsy DeVos, long seen as an advocate of charter schools, to the office of the Secretary of Education. Such analysts also argued that many Democratic politicians had become opposed to continued federal funding of charter schools by that point (Green, 2020). DeVos was a vocal advocate of expanding charter schools; however, despite proposing $400 million to do so in 2018, Congress failed to pass her initiatives. DeVos also failed to divert federal funds to private schools and attempted to reroute money set aside during the COVID-19 pandemic. While charter schools once had bipartisan support, under the administration of President Joe Biden, support for charter schools wavered. While charter school enrollment continued to increase in the US, it was apparent that studies and reforms would need to be ongoing (Turner, 2020).

Terms & Concepts

A Nation at Risk: A 1983 government report on public school education in the United States that ignited the school reform movements of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Charter School: A special type of public school that enjoys less political oversight in exchange for great academic accountability.

Education Reform: An umbrella term used to describe efforts to improve the quality of education—both public and private—in the United States.

Private School: A type of school that does not admit all students who apply, is not funded by taxpayers, and operates with a minimal amount of state or federal regulation and oversight.

Public School: A type of school funded by public funds collected through taxes. Public schools are legally obligated to accept all students seeking an education. Some public schools serve students in their community, while others serve students from a wider geographical region.

School Vouchers: Same-as-cash coupons, paid for with taxpayer dollars, that are given to parents to use toward the tuition of private (secular or religious) schools.

School-within-a-School: A term used to describe a single public school in which some teachers and students are operating under charter school rules and procedures.

Bibliography

Arsen, D., & Yongmei, N. (2012). Is administration leaner in charter schools? Resource allocation in charter and traditional public schools. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 20 , 1–24. Retrieved December 5, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=84358437&site=ehost-live

Betts, J. & Hill, P. T. (2006). Key issues in studying charter schools and achievement: A review and suggestions for national guidelines. October 27, 2007, from the National Charter School Research Project http://www.ncsrp.org/downloads/NCSRP%5FAchievementWP%5Fweb.pdf

Bradford, D. (2018). The charter-school movement: how the mom-and-pops can help the sector diversify and grow. Education Next, 18(3). Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=129950661&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Broughman, S. & Swaim, N. (2006). Characteristics of private schools in the United States: Results from the 2003-2004 Private School Universe Survey. Retrieved September 22, 2007, from the U.S. Department of Education: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2006319.

Budde, R. (1988). Education by charter: Restructuring school districts. Andover, MA: Regional Laboratory for Educational Improvement of the Northeast and Islands. Retrieved October 27, 2007, from http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED295298.

Cornoy, M., Jacobsen, R., Mishel, L. & Rothstein, R. (2005). The charter school dust-up: Examining the evidence on enrollment and achievement. New York, NY: Teacher College Press.

Crandall, D. (1988). Preface. In R, Budde (Ed.), Education by Charter: Restructuring school districts. Andover, MA: Regional Laboratory for Educational Improvement of the Northeast and Islands. Retrieved October 27, 2007, from http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED295298.

Dobbs, M. (2004). Charter vs. traditional: Two types of D.C. public school are not easy to compare. Washington Post, B1. Retrieved October 27, 2007, from the Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A647132004Dec14.html.

Erickson, M. J., Larwin, K. H., & Isherwood, R. S. (2013). Examining a decade of reading and mathematics student achievement among primary and secondary traditional public school and charter school students: A meta-analytic investigation. Journal of College Teaching & Learning, 10 , 213–222. Retrieved December 5, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=90605725&site=ehost-live

Gentzel, T. J. (2017). The uncharted way forward. American School Board Journal, 204(1). Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=120759527&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Green, E. (2020, February 25). Charter schools in surprise political fight as Trump and Democrats turn away. The New York Times. Retrieved June 9, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/us/politics/charter-schools-trump-devos-democrats.html

Hill, P. T., Angel, L. & Christensen, J. (2006). Charter school achievement studies. Education Finance and Policy. Retrieved October 28, 2007, from MIT Press http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/edfp.2006.1.1.139. Kansas State Department of Education, Department of Planning & Research. (2006). Literature review: Charter schools.

Kowal, J., Hassel, E. A. & Hassel, B.C. (2007). Teacher compensation in charter and private schools: Snapshots and lessons for district public schools. Center for American Progress. Retrieved October 27, 2007, from the Center for American Progress http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/02/pdf/teacher%5Fcompensation.pdf.

Lake, R.J. & Hill, P.T. (Eds.). (2006). Hopes, fears, & reality: A balanced look at American charter schools in 2006. Seattle: National Charter School Research Project, Center on Reinventing Public Education, Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs, University of Washington. Retrieved October 27, 2007, from the University of Washington http://www.ncsrp.org/cs/csr/download/csr%5Ffiles/hfrdec1%5Fweb.pdf.

Mead, S. (2005). Capital campaign: Early returns on District of Columbia charters. October 27, 2007, from the Progressive Policy Institute http://www.ppionline.org/documents/DC%5FCharter%5F1004.pdf.

National Center for Education Statistics (2013). Fast facts: Charter schools. National Center for Education Statistics. Institute of Education Sciences. U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved December 5, 2013 from http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=30

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Public charter school enrollment. (2021 May). National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved June 9, 2021, from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cgb

Resource title: 50-state comparison: Charter school policies. (2020, January 28). Education Commission of the States. Retrieved June 26, 2023, from https://www.ecs.org/charter-school-policies

Turner, C. (2020, Nov. 19). The legacy of education secretary Betsy DeVos. NPR. Retrieved June 26, 2023, from https://www.npr.org/2020/11/19/936225974/the-legacy-of-education-secretary-betsy-devos

US Charter Schools. (n.d.). Answers to frequently asked questions. Retrieved October 27, 2007, from US Charter Schools http://www.uscharterschools.org/pub/uscs%5Fdocs/o/faq.html#3.

US Charter Schools. (n.d.). History. Retrieved October 27, 2007, from US Charter Schools http://www.uscharterschools.org/pub/uscs%5Fdocs/o/history.htm.

U.S. Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement. (2004). Innovations in education: Successful charter schools. Retrieved October 27, 2007, from the U.S. Department of Education http://www.uscharterschools.org/resources/scs/report.pdf

Vergari, S. (2007). The politics of charter schools. Educational Policy, 21 , 15–39. Retrieved October 28, 2007 from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Premier. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=23886456&site=ehost-live

Villavicencio, A. (2013). "It's our best choice right now": Exploring how charter school parents choose. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 21 , 1–19. Retrieved December 5, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/ login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=91720483&site=ehost-live

White, J. (2022, Dec. 6). 1. How many charter schools and students are there? Charter School Data Dashboard. Retrieved June 26, 2023, from https://data.publiccharters.org/digest/charter-school-data-digest/how-many-charter-schools-and-students-are-there

Suggested Reading

Collins, T. (1999). Charter schools: An approach for rural education? Charleston, WV: ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools. Retrieved October 27, 2007, from http://www.ericdigests.org/1999-3/charter.htm.

Every student succeeds act. (2018). National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Retrieved from https://www.publiccharters.org/our-work/federal-policy/every-student-succeeds-act

Glynn, T. R., & Waldeck, S. E. (2013). Penalizing diversity: How school rankings mislead the market. Journal of Law & Education, 42 , 417–500. Retrieved December 5, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=88929274&site=ehost-live

Hill, P.T., et al. (2006). The future of charter schools and teachers unions: Results of a symposium. Retrieved October 27, 2007, from the National Charter School Research Project http://www.ncsrp.org/downloads/charter%5Funions.pdf.

Knaak, W. C., & Knaak, J. T. (2013). Charter schools: Educational reform or failed initiative?. Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin, 79 , 45–53. Retrieved December 5, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=88216774&site=ehost-live

Murarka, S. (2004). Charter schools vs. traditional public schools: Comparing schools that work with students of limited English proficiency. Honors thesis. Stanford University. Retrieved October 27, 2007, from Stanford University http://www.stanford.edu/dept/publicpolicy/programs/Honors%5FTheses/Theses%5F2004/Murarka.pdf