Thomas Ultican, who retired last year as a teacher of advanced math and physics in California, has studied school reform in many districts. He concludes that charter schools, created supposedly to improve education, especially for the neediest children, is a failed experiment.
He reviews the origins of the charter school idea and shows how AFT leader Albert Shanker became disillusioned. The premise of charters, he writes, was based on an illusion. Reagan’s “Nation at Risk” report unleashed a long era of handwringing about public school failure, but as he points out, NPR reporter Anya Kamenetz documented that the conclusions of that report were predetermined.
He writes:
Some powerful evidence points in the opposite direction and indicates that the results from US public schools in the 60s and 70s were actually a great success story.
One measuring stick demonstrating that success is Nobel Prize winners. Since 1949, America has had 383 laureates; the second place country, Great Britain, had 132. In the same period, India had 12 laureates and China 8.
Stanford’s Center for Education Policy Analysis report on education achievement gaps states, “The gaps narrowed sharply in the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, but then progress stalled.”
The digital revolution and the booming biotech industry were both created by students mostly from the supposedly “soft public schools” of the 60s and 70s.
Ultican then reviews the study by the Network for Public Education of charter school instability and closings.
“Broken Promises” looked at cohorts of newly opened charter schools between 1998 and 2017. Ryan Pfleger, Ph.D. led the analysis of charter schools closures utilizing the Department of Education’s Common Core of Data (CCD).
Before 1998, the massive government data base did not uniquely identify charter schools and the last complete data set available for all schools in American was 2017.
Startup charter school cohorts were identified by year and the cohort closure rates were tracked at 3, 5, 10 and 15 years after opening. The overall failure rates discovered were 18% by year-3, 25% by year-5, 40% by year-10 and 50% by year-15.
The NPE team discovered that half of all charter schools in America close their doors within fifteen years.
Many new charters do not survive their first year of operation.
It makes no sense to continue to expand a 30-year “experiment” whose results are so meager.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Excellent post by Thomas. Another good one to share with those people who look at you as if you are a lunatic for opposing “school choice.” My only quibble is that they were never “experiments” if one uses the Merriam-Webster definition: an operation or procedure carried out under controlled conditions in order to discover an unknown effect or law, to test or establish a hypothesis, or to illustrate a known law. Charters fall more under definitions of “ideology,” “grift,” or “graft.”
nicely said: pushing invasive change for the intent of graft is not an experiment — except in the fact that if one push for invasive change doesn’t bring in the big money the grifters will move on quickly to their next opportunity
Despite the fact that charter schools have been mediocre at best, charter expansion continues because privatization is a political issue with lots of money behind it. I recently read an excellent article about Dallas. Mike Morath, education commissioner in Texas, is allowing charter expansion in areas of Dallas in which the public schools are highly rated and successful. This expansion makes no educational sense. The article shows how charter expansion will drain so much money from quality public schools that it will reduce the services and support that the public schools can provide. Logic will not deter determined politicians from destroying good public schools. As long as there are systems that allow illogical, political charter expansion, public schools will be on the losing end of the equation. The report on “charter expansion” has clear graphics on how charters game the system for ever increasing political expansion whether such private schools are needed or wanted.https://667097c0-9ae4-499d-9cb9-50df50930d4c.usrfiles.com/ugd/667097_2dfafeae0aef40f18b32dd1ab946790b.pdf
This is the original alert from which the graphics came.https://www.kirkpatrick4disd.com/post/charter-action-alert
Charter Schools… trying to do the wrong thing “righter”.
I can only speak to the issue as it relates to my home state of NJ. In 1995, the state’s legislature passed enabling legislation to permit the creation of charter schools. My purpose is not to take issue with the description offered in this piece. Rather it is to add an additional dimension to the discussion.
I experienced the “charter movement” both as a superintendent who had explored the possible of creating a themed charter schools within my district and as an assistant commissioner in the NJ Department of Education where my division was in charge of both the application for new charters as well as the renewal of existing charters.
As the author notes, much of the rationale for the need for alternatives to traditional public schooling was related to the perceived low performance of schools, largely located in the state’s urban centers. Based on the metric in use at the time, the state’s mandatory large-scale assessment, there was considerable pressure to provide parents with choices of educational opportunity not available in the majority of urban systems. There was an additional rationale for the development of charters, based on the assumption that, were schools freed from the onerous and overly limiting state oversight procedures and given the freedom from such regulations, new and different types of schooling would be created and accessible to parents in these failing districts. Essentially, in both instances, rather than work to improve choice options within the district schools, there was an assumption that charters would offer parents choices unavailable to them in traditional schools.
What resulted from this attempt at problem solving – i.e., resolving the lack of meaningful choice within the traditional schools – was an example of what Russell Ackoff described as the as the difference between “doing things right” and “doing the right thing”. Solutions which are based on doing the wrong things “righter” typically get us further from an effective solution. In the case of determining that creating the choice which was unavailable within the traditional schools via the creation of “liberated” charters and determining the continued operation of such schools based on large-scale assessment scores, we “begged” charter founders to “game the system”… limiting the enrollment of traditionally underperforming or high expense students, etc. We also inadvertently created a textbook example of mis-defining the problem and, thereby, pretty much guaranteeing the failure of “the solution”.
In New Jersey, taking us even further from defining the “right thing” and focusing instead on trying to “do things right”, the enabling legislation sought to protect the general public from assuming the debt of unsuccessful charters and, therefore, did not allow charters to fund their capital need via the traditional bonding route. Afterall, who would want to buy long-term bonds for a school that might not survive its first evaluation and lose its charter? Again, a poorly defined cause/effect relationship resulted in a work-around based on the use of charter management companies.
We identified the problem, but offered the wrong solution. The main problem in urban areas in my opinion is under funding. By allowing students to bypass under funded public schools, we opened up Pandora’s box to widespread statewide disinvestment. The impact on public education was never a major consideration, and there was no plan to help public schools left with stranded costs and returning students. There was little attempt to provide accountability in charter schools, another huge oversight. The federal government wasted over a billion public dollars on failing schools or schools that never opened. Naive educators did not have any understanding of the political football education would become once the charter lobby set up shop in every state. Charters were perhaps a well meaning attempt to help vulnerable students, but they wound up helping investors and charter management companies a whole lot more.
The main solution to disinvestment is investment. Poor urban schools require more investment. Integration provides more equitable opportunities for poor minority students. Community schools with wrap around services show great promise as well. Instead, we have been on a twenty year “bird walk” to privatize the common good and destroy the schools that helped build this country. Charters have spawned vouchers, which are worthless, but spreading across the South due to the interests of influential conservative groups.
Nothing in so-called reform is evidence based. The billionaires and politicians have taken public schools hostage. Lots of poor students are worse off from disinvestment, and privatization is national policy with few people ever voting for it. Bypassing public education was a systemic design flaw and failure of the whole charter school plan. Consequences matter!
It never made sense to fund two or three different school systems with public dollars.
Public schools are paying the price for this reckless policy. Lots of students are worse off today than they were twenty years ago.
“The main solution to disinvestment is investment. Poor urban schools require more investment.”
But it’s important to keep in mind that schools can only do so much to improve the lot of poverty-stricken students living in urban ghettos or rural enclaves of generational poverty. A number of studies say it’s 14%. Wrap-around services can beef that up to what– 20%? 25%? At best, well-funded schools w/wrap-around services can provide an oasis of security from which more than just a paltry few will emerge to grab a toe-hold on a better way of life. Certainly worth fighting for, as it’s all we’ve got.
But voter activism has got to be focused on the bigger picture. As long as we have a declining mfg base, virtually zero private-sector unions, large majority of national assets owned by a few & socked away in tax-sheltered countries, unlimited campaign donations from the 1% & abroad– etc etc– our % child-poverty (already near 20%) will continue to grow, & local/ state school-funding resources will continue to shrink, regularly reducing the ability of schools to improve the situation.
Yes, fight to dump charter schools (& voucher schools) first– a continual leak of vital funds to even partially address the problem. But I still see that as just bailing more efficiently on deck while we take on water from a huge hole in the hull.
BTW since we are responding to an experienced NJ school admin [thanks for the input, rteneyck!!], here comes my usual 2cts on NJ pubsch funding. We are one of the very few “Robin Hood” states that sweeps in excess state taxes from rich areas & doles them out to poor schdists. I’m proud of that. My chi-chi town gets 4% state school aid; nearby Newark gets 80%. We raise our prop taxes to a height unaffordable to many, to maintain a truly excellent schsys on a par w/any private school– yet our schdistr can get by on way less [like $8k less] than the state ave $per-pupil. [That’s all about NJ’s crazy segregation by SES– we’re an enclave of highly-educated folks– but that’s another subject.]
BUT I have been very unhappy that thanx to Christie’s admin, a bunch of my sacrificed state school aid has gone to propping up One Newark [& Camden, Paterson coming] as*h***ular “school choice” charter expansions. That is not an efficient use of my $.
& back to my original point. It is understandable that many NJ taxpayers see this system [& its accompanying pubschsys-killer, the 2% prop-tax cap] as throwing tons of taxpayer $ down a hole, as enough$ is never enough for a poor schdistr… & I think that’s right, per my previous post.
Getting rid of charters that force the public schools to be less efficient is a step in the right direction. BTW I lived in a chi chi New Jersey school district and paid the taxes for twenty-four years. We cannot continue to dilute resources and expect better results. Most states are not Robin Hood states. New York where I worked has very high taxes as well, but the urban schools are not well funded. We have to continue to work towards equity and stop evaluating schools based on test scores.
Ha retired teacher so much in common! 😀 I paid taxes in NY too (lived in NYC 20 yrs). Way back then the taxes seemed too low to support the needy public schools. Now the city looks like a castle with serfs, the royalty is probably getting off cheap. Meanwhile robbing Peter to pay Paul w/ charters colocated for free, grr. But we didn’t touch on where the $ goes, in Newark it’s clearly not to the classroom. Regardless, in any context school choice is a cynical name for divide, conquer, & rip off.
As far as I can tell, 16 of those US Nobel Laureates were black (and only one in other than literature or peace); hardly a success story in that respect.
Also, ignoring the CREDO Urban Charter study, the results in Newark, the Boston Charter School study, KIPP’s Mathematica report, etc. does not make them go away. It just points out that the author is doing exactly what he accused the authors of “A Nation at Risk” of doing; knowing the desired outcome and then cherrypicking facts that support it.
It’s a fact that charters are being more successful with students of color and low income students
I call BS. The charters are “successful” with students of color whom they cherry-pick. They don’t accept the low-testing students and they kick out those who don’t get high scores. Success Academy just paid out $1.1 million to students who were on the SA “got to go” list.
It also should be mentioned that the CREDO studies are quite biased toward school choice advocacy. Many researchers have pointed to their ludicrous days of learning metric and the modeled similar students as very problematic. Their data selection methods favor charter schools over public schools by selecting out the most successful public schools. I agree with Diane “BS.”
CREDO always has a credibility problem because it is funded by Walton and its leader is married to Rick Hanushek, a prominent supporter of choice.
Hanushek, part of the never-met-a-billionaire-they didn’t-want-to-help Hoover Institute. Also, associated with Hoover, Chester Finn (Fordham Institute originally).
Btw- Does Hanushek’s cv list the source of his grants in its 37-page length?
Is Stanford a university In the sense of having any higher ideals or is it a billionaire-funded think tank with students?
The Hoover Institution is on the campus ofStanford University but it is technically autonomous from Stanford. Hoover has its own board of trustees, its own president, its own endowment. Stanford, like most great universities, does not have a political identity. It includes professors of all political stripes. Hoover is decidedly conservative. Its senior fellow range from center-right to libertarian right.
Universities have prohibitions based on ethical grounds and require certain standards be set and met.
My view related to Stanford-The Stanford Social Innovation Review and what critics label, the Stanford Institute for the Evisceration pf People’s Retirement, are examples of collectives that are in no way objective. Secondly, there are faculty at Stanford who feel entitled to refuse to identify their funders. Evidently, someone at Stanford felt the need for action great enough that a unique committee with an overall purpose of ethical review was created. Whether it functions with any significant impact would be a good question for assessment.
And, while universities have, on occasion, scandals, there seem to be three in the news, more than others, for behavior at both the dean/higher levels and, at the individual faculty level, the University of Southern, California, Stanford and harvard.
Economic and education centers driven by billionaires’ agendas face community backlash at universities. Any backlash at Sanford targeted at Credo, SSIR, or SIEPR?
John-
You value the prizes won mostly by white men? You devalue the fields where recipients are inclusive? The record for contributions from economists- embarrassing.
“The gaps narrowed sharply in the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, but then progress stalled.”
Did anyone notice that progress stalled after the release of President Ray-Gun’s flawed and fraudulent “A Nation at Risk” report?
Imagine what OUR public schools would have achieved if “A Nation at Risk” had never happened.
Republican presidents starting with Nixon and the racist Republican Party that Reagan era built have done almost all the damage that this country has suffered since the progressive era ended with LBJ who declared war on poverty and not drugs and also legalized the Civil Rights movement. After LBJ, the GOP has done everything legally and illegally possible to cripple both of his major accomplishments.
Before President Ray-Gun (PRG), the US was paying down its debt from World War II.
After PRG, the debt became a terminal cancer that won’t stop devouring the U.S.
PRG closed federal hospitals that housed many of our mentally insane and released them giving birth to serious homelessness.
Under PRG, we lost the Fairness Doctrine and the first Bush made sure it stayed dead.
Once the Fairness Doctrine was gone, the alt-right, always lying, conspiracy theory generating, racist media machine was born and became another terminal cancer leading to the election of Donald-Eek Thinly-Skin Always Lying Trump.
Under PRG, the medical system became a for-profit industry, another terminal cancer that is eating America from the inside out.
This list could be a lot longer.
A Nation at Risk started us on the wrong path.
Political historians, correct me if I’m off-base here. These are phrases from Rachel Cohen’s article (cited by Tultican), describing the originators of the charter-school response to “A Nation at Risk.”
They sound to me like descriptions of what happened to the Democratic Party post-McGovern.
“business leaders, moderate Republicans and DLC [Dem Leadership Council] leaders looking for Third Way solutions that couldn’t be labelled big-government liberalism…”
“business-oriented moderates and technocrats, focused on deregulation, disruption, and the hope of injecting free-market dogmas into the public sector…”
“Progressive reformers are stuck fighting against the tide in a campaign that has, from the start, looked at public institutions, labor, and government with a wary eye.”
Bill Clinton ran the McGovern campaign in TX. I have read that both Clintons were so anxious to find a way forward for the Dem Party after McGovern’s crushing defeat they scrambled for policies that could not be described as “liberal.” No doubt they were not alone among Dem Party leaders in that regard. But the resulting ‘Third Way” politics seems crazy to me as a reaction against McGovern’s defeat &/or Carter’s failure at re-election. McGovern’s “liberalism” lay mainly in his anti-VNWar position. His platform was not noticeably pro-big-govt, nor did he give a big voice to unions at the convention. And Carter was a deregulator and union-buster.
Well I’m way out of my depth 😉
Continuing into out-of-depth, strictly layman territory…
What has always seemed all-wrong to me about the direction both parties have taken since 1970’s [toward neoliberalism/ privatization]… There never seemed to be any attempt to to take the bull [simultaneous rise of Asian mfg strength & digital-revolution-acceleration of automation] by the horns. We caved immediately. It’s all over, folks, we have to compete w/3rd-world countries going forward– forget “buy American,” lower US wages post-haste– so let’s drown govt & all public goods in the bathtub [i.e., cut OH to the bone], bust unions [who needs them if there’s no mfg], tweak tax system so as to send all assets to the finance/ brokerage sector & let the $cloutiest grab the biggest pieces of the shrinking pie [at which point they’ll be in position to continue siphoning $ from the public carcass via purchasing future govt policy].
It was never a plan for the future of a nation, just a cannabalistic reaction to external threat. And it’s unsustainable.
What I find interesting is that Europeans had to deal with globalization too, but many European countries seemed to have done a better job looking out for their people by providing strong social safety nets, pensions and a higher rate of union membership. Yes, they pay more in taxes, but people get something back in return. We have much greater income inequality because the wealthy pull the government strings. to create policies that favor the wealthy. The rich get socialism when they rig the system, and everyone else gets harsh capitalism.