Charter Schools

In the last week, a number of reports have come across my desk regarding charter schools. These publically funded schools have been allowed to operate outside many of the rules, regulation and statutes that apply to traditional public schools in return for a guarantee to deliver on pre-agreed goals such as student performance and graduation rates. Two decades after the first charter school law was passed in Minnesota, it is still unclear whether they are a better option for our students.

For parents seeking escape from a failing school, charter schools provided a viable option. The National Education Association 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.”

The Department of Education Report, “Impact of Charter Schools on School Districts,” reported that half of traditional school districts created new programs in response to charter schools. But while charters do create competition and encourage innovation, they come in a wide variety of types and sizes. And like traditional schools, some are successful and some are not. The question is how to measure their potential, effectiveness and success.

The data on charter schools is fuzzy at best, and this lack of adequate data has made charters an extremely polarizing issue. As part of their assessment of fourth-graders in reading and math, The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) conducted a pilot study. The results showed, “in mathematics, fourth-grade charter school students as a whole did not perform as well as their public school counterparts. In reading, there was no measurable difference in performance.”

A new report by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) comparing charter and local school district financial resources calls into question the true costs of being educated by a charter school. While some advocates of the charter school movement claim a better education for less, successful charters can spend a great deal more per student. In Houston, that would add up to a 23- to 30-percent cost increase. But once again, the data is fuzzy at best. The report states that, “data quality and financial reporting remain significant barriers to conducting accurate and precise comparative expenditure analyses across traditional public and charter school sites.”

So until there is better data available, the question of whether charter schools are the better option will remain unclear. 

Featured

  • Springfield Breaks Ground on $53.7M Pipkin Middle School Rebuild

    Construction is underway on a new, state-of-the-art Pipkin Middle School in Springfield, Mo., a major step in Springfield Public Schools’ (SPS) long-term facility improvement plan, according to local news. The $53.7-million project officially broke ground in early June, following years of planning and community input aimed at modernizing aging infrastructure and addressing student capacity concerns.

  • ProTeam Launches GoFit 6 HEPA Backpack Vacuum

    Technology leader Emerson recently introduced the new ProTeam GoFit 6 HEPA backpack vacuum, according to a news release. The vacuum was designed to capture 99.97% of particulates down to 0.3 microns—including atmospheric hazards like lead dust, mold spores, and other particulates—through an advanced filtration system.

  • California High School Starts Construction on New CTE Building

    Analy High School, part of the West Sonoma County Union High School District (WSCUHSD) in Sebastopol, Calif., recently broke ground on a new Career Technical Education (CTE) Building, according to a news release. The 15,000-square-foot facility will offer specialized facilities for students in engineering, welding, culinary arts, agricultural sciences, and design thinking.

  • modern college building with circuit and brain motifs

    Anthropic Introduces Claude for Education

    Anthropic has launched a version of its Claude AI assistant tailored for higher education institutions. Claude for Education "gives academic institutions secure, reliable AI access for their entire community," the company said, to enable colleges and universities to develop and implement AI-enabled approaches across teaching, learning, and administration.

Digital Edition