STANFORD -- As charter school authorizers from across the nation gather for a meeting today in San Diego, the Hoover Institution’s Koret Task Force on K-12 Education is releasing an important new assessment of the state of the charter school movement. Charter Schools against the Odds (Education Next Books, 2006), edited by Paul T. Hill, gives an authoritative analysis of current laws and policies that are curtailing the growth of charter schools in states around the nation. 

The complete text of Charter Schools against the Odds is available online at www.KoretTaskForce.org.

Charter Schools against the Odds makes the case for dramatic policy changes that will create a level playing field for charter schools in the face of adversarial political forces that have tilted the field against them.  

Charter schools have many advantages over schools run by politically controlled bureaucracies: discretion over use of funds, ability to use time, money, and instructional technologies in innovative ways, and freedom to hire teachers and to compete for people of high ability by offering attractive compensation packages. A profoundly hostile regulatory environment, however, makes it difficult for schools to exploit these advantages; because so many obstacles are rooted in public policy, individual schools cannot overcome them.

The three greatest barriers to charter school development are poorly crafted charter laws, inequitable funding, and the failure of many authorizers -- school districts and other government agencies that approve charter applications and oversee schools -- to take their responsibilities seriously. Yet, despite these obstacles, charter schools have managed to survive and turn some former opponents into allies. Support is growing among the superintendents and school boards in some of America’s largest cities, where conventional school systems have been unable to meet the higher academic standards set by state and federal governments. Charter schools allow cities such as New York and Chicago to create new educational options when school district bureaucracies cannot, which has led to the rise of a strong pro-choice movement among African Americans and Hispanics in many urban communities.

Yet opponents continue to tilt the playing field ever more steeply against charter schools. If state legislatures stick with existing caps on school numbers or support proposed legislative changes that create a bias toward unionization, or if funding arrangements and government authorizers’ duties are not made fairer and more neutral, the promise that charter schools hold for reforming American public education could be destroyed. 

Against this backdrop, Charter Schools against the Odds proposes real-world solutions that will enable the charter school movement to achieve its full potential.

From Charter Schools against the Odds (Education Next Books, 2006)

1.            Ensure that public funds are allocated equitably so that the same amounts are spent on educating children in charter schools as on children in district-run schools.

2.            Empower new authorizers, including colleges and universities, mayors, and qualified nonprofits in states where school boards hold a monopoly on authorizing charter schools.

3.            Protect charter schools from arbitrary denials of applications by establishing appeal processes to a state agency or independent body in each state.

4.            Hold authorizers accountable, both for creating the opportunities for chartering and responsibly overseeing schools once chartered.

5.            Support a multiple authorizers policy, allowing charter applicants to avoid hostile or negligent overseers.

6.            Eliminate arbitrary caps on the number of charter schools. Amend state laws so that the number of charter schools depends only on the availability of competent and willing school providers.

7.            Eliminate fixed terms for charter schools, in favor of provisions that make it clear a school’s charter is valid only as long as it can demonstrate student learning.

8.            Eliminate bans on for-profit firms holding charters directly, in favor of common funding and oversight provisions for all charter schools, no matter who runs them.

9.            Allow an organization holding one charter to operate multiple schools as long as all its schools meet agreed-on performance expectations.

10.       Allow charter schools to employ teachers and administrators in whatever numbers and with whatever mixtures of skill and experience necessary to deliver the school’s instructional program.

 

Paul T. Hill, a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and a member of the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education, is the John and Marie Corbally Professor at the University of Washington’s Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs and director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education. Contributors to Charter Schools against the Odds are John E. Chubb, Chester E. Finn Jr., Paul T. Hill, Caroline M. Hoxby, Eric Osberg, Paul E. Peterson, Brad Smith, and Nat Torinus.  On the basis of the findings in this volume, the Koret Task Force makes a series of recommendations about how to improve policies and practices affecting charter schools.

The members of the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education are among America’s foremost education scholars, brought together by the Hoover Institution with the support of the Koret Foundation. More information about the group can be found at www.KoretTaskForce.org.

The Hoover Institution, founded at Stanford University in 1919, is an interdisciplinary research center for advanced study on domestic public policy and international affairs, with an internationally renowned archives. For more information on the Hoover Institution, visit www.Hoover.org.