Gabrielle Gurney, an experienced journalist, has written one of the clearest analyses of the fiscal impact of charters on district public schools that I have ever read. The article appears in The American Prospect.
Many people have pointed out that the expansion of charters means budget cuts for district schools. Students in Boston recently took to the streets to protest the loss of teachers and programs caused by diversion of funds to charters.
Gurney says ways that charters were supposed to create excellent schools for the state’s poorest students but that hasn’t happened. In some parts of the state, charters serve as semi-private schools for the middle class.
The he political class who run the state love the idea of charters, and they don’t seem to give much thought to collateral damage to the district schools where most students are enrolled (charters serve less than 5% of the state’s students).
In Brockton, for example, the local comprehensive high school has won national praise for its successful programs. But the state decided to open a charter school in Brockton, over the objections of school leaders. This will mean budget cuts to Brockton High School.
Massachusetts’ leaders seem to be bent on disruption of its state schools. In their rush to innovate, they jeopardize their successful public schools, which other states envy.
Read the article and let me know if you can explain why the state is determined to force their public schools into a competition for students and resources.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There are several problems with charter expansion in Massachusetts and elsewhere as well. First, they seem to be expanding into areas where they really are not needed. Charters are also contributing to increased levels of segregation. Smaller less affluent districts are being drained of resources and unfairly left with the most expensive and hardest to educate.
In my opinion a better and more equitable way to address the issue of “choice” is to create county wide magnet schools which would be less expensive and more efficient than creating a new parallel system of schools. Bergen County, New Jersey operates county wide magnets for special education, vocational education and specialized career academies in science, business, graphic design, computers, and culinary arts. I don’t know if the offerings have change since my son attended this magnet school ten years ago. It provides young people several options without harming public schools. They also try to balance out admissions so that students represent an amalgamation of students from various districts in the county.
I don’t really think charters are needed anywhere. Maybe the ones Al Shanker conceived of back in the day, but the ones we have now have “evolved”.
The Bergen County magnet schools destabilize traditional public schools and communities and “cream” away motivated students–BCA, in particular, takes very high-ability children away from their zoned schools, maybe not the end of the world at Ridgewood or Tenafly, but not a good thing for lower-performing districts.
Funding for magnet schools comes directly and entirely from each student’s home district. If you believe that charters siphon off money from district schools, the mechanism in place for magnets is no different.
The only appreciable differences between the magnets and charters is that charter schools are open to all whereas some of the magnets (certainly BCA, with a 16% acceptance rate) have gatekeeper exams, and the magnets are staffed with NJEA members.
The passive acceptance of school models like Bergen County’s magnets, NYC’s selective and SHSAT high schools, NYC’s gifted-and-talented schools, and NYC’s unzoned lottery schools like the Brooklyn New School have made me very skeptical about claims that charter schools are bad for kids and bad for traditional public schools.
Tim,
Charter schools are bankrupting traditional public schools. Read the post this morning about Massachusetts. Charters are notorious for excluding ELLs and special education kids with the most severe disabilities, leaving them for the real public schools. They drain money away from public schools while taking the easiest to educate students.
Don’t make me write this anymore. You know the response you will get.
So write a post calling for an immediate closure of schools and programs like the Bergen County magnets, the SHSAT and other selective high schools, the NYC DOE gifted and talented schools, and unzoned DOE lottery schools like Castle Bridge, MSC, and BNS. Admittedly, it wouldn’t change my mind about charters, but it would make your argument against them much more logical and intellectually consistent.
Massachusetts’s reimbursement policy means the cost to educate a child outside BPS is much less than it is to educate her in it. Saying that charters are bankrupting BPS isn’t accurate. The real issue here is that charters–which are public schools, and which would cease to exist if parents didn’t choose to send their kids to them–are a threat to the interests of the BTU and the MTA.
Al Shanker’s idea was that charters would be a great place to park the small number of chronically disruptive students–1-2% of enrollment, maybe 5%, tops–who were robbing their peers of their education and creating an intolerable work environment for his members. Don’t take my word for it, you can go straight to the source (search under “discipline and disruptive pupils”): http://source.nysut.org/weblink7/Browse.aspx
I have no doubt that Shanker would condemn modern-day charter schools. I am equally sure that he wouldn’t think much of “restorative practices,” or that the kids with the lowest chances of having disruptive kids in class are the very wealthy or those in schools with an entrance exam.
Tim here in Union County NJ we also have a campus of specialty schools. The only students they are ‘creaming’ are those who have specific vocational goals early on, and want to get career training and develop related work skills while in high school. It’s the only way to provide access to all interested in training for trades; individual districts cannot afford commercial-grade facilities. Sure the IT/ Tech magnet ‘creams’ early high-achieving STEM types, but many more of the same type want a more well-rounded curriculum and remain in the district. Ambitious students can get both with half-days at both places. And the county career-oriented magnets draw on nearby state schools for courses and facilities. I don’t see a down side. It’s not comparable to just raising a cap on charters & let any type of charter willy-billy arrivé in the district & start diverting funds.
The appeal of BCA is that while they are selective, they are also offering students something different, a chance to major and specialize early in their careers. Most charters in middle class areas are not providing a service that is much different from the public schools. They are parallel schools in competition with public schools, and their existence drains from the public schools.
“. . . let me know if you can explain why the state is determined to force their public schools into a competition for students and resources.”
You had previously answered your question, Diane:
“Vouchers have been promoted by the fringe right for more than half a century. They have the support of rightwing think tanks, the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, ALEC, and red-state governors. The goal is to replace public education with a free market, and to rightwing ideologues, evidence is irrelevant.”
The religious right, thoroughly freaked out by the sixties anti-war, make love & peace, challenge the establishment, god is dead turn against supposedly American “values” made a concerted effort in the 70s and 80s started by folks like Jerry Falwell and other televangelists with groups like the “Moral Majority” “Christian Coalition” “Family Research Council and Phyllis Schlafly’s “Eagle Forum” among others to attempt to bring America back (sic) to it’s supposedly Judeo-Christian foundation. These groups differed from prior American religious movements in that they explicitly embraced the political world and set up institutions, think Liberty University and think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and began a long term strategy starting with getting religious right people elected, first to school boards and local politics and on to state and national levels. We have been seeing the rotten fruition of the religious right since the 80s.
Here on Cape Cod we’ve seen a steady outflow of students to Sturgis Charter Schools in Hyannis, leaving Barnstable High with higher percentages of ELL and SPED students, students requiring school lunch assistance and minorities. A look at the Mass DESE website confirms this — just look at the district numbers since Sturgis opened its first campus. Sturgis operates with about 50% of the teachers highly qualified and licensed, and skims off the easiest-to-educate students from the public high schools. School choice in Mass. makes all of the high schools here compete for the students with the highest likelihood of earning high test scores; Sturgis just makes the competition more fierce and operates at a distinct advantage. They have graduated almost no ELL students.