Is There a Place for Independent and Charter Schools in our Education System?
CNN recently spent a great deal of on airtime on the topic “Fixing America’s Broken Schools.” This high profile discussion by a major news organization reflects the level of frustration on the quality of the education system in the United States. The title CNN selected is telling in that they are already assuming the premise that the education system is broken.
And it is not just CNN. There is a great buzz this year about the film WAITING FOR SUPERMAN. In his film, Davis Guggenheim puts forward the idea that good teachers make good schools and highlights innovative approaches taken by education reformers to attract and keep high performing teachers.
The desire to improve public education is so great that some politicians have even set aside ideology and have put forth common solutions. Probably the best example is when Al Sharpton and Newt Gingrich launched school tour earlier this year. If these two polarizing figures can come together with common ideas on improving education, anyone can. What I found most telling is that Rev. Sharpton and Speaker Gingrich selected a Philadelphia Charter school to kick off the tour.
The school was by all accounts failing. One report said that the quality of teaching was so low that it seems they did not even care about teaching. In 2006 it was taken over by Mastery Charter Schools and now scores higher on standardized testing than the affluent suburban schools.
In reading all these examples there seem to be a few simple things that exceptional schools have in common.
- Administration and the board take personal responsibility for the quality of education and focus on continuously improving the education level for each child.
- High expectations for performance. In every case, raising academic standards and taking no excuses for poor performance raises the quality of education.
- Parent, Teacher, and Administration work together on a common set of goals that are focused on student achievement.
- High-quality teachers who care about their students and enjoy their work.
These simple tasks can be difficult to put into place in a large school district like Philadelphia or Detroit where there can be a disconnect between the parents and the administration. Consider the barriers to change. There is a School level Administration, Teacher’s Union, PTA, District Administration, School Board, local politicians and in some cases private foundations all with different agendas trying to put forth different initiatives and programs.
In these cases, it may appear the easy thing is to simply give up on the public system and rely on a small group of stakeholders to fix the failing school. True small groups can more easily focus on the problem, react quickly and effect change. But want about the other schools? Just because the problem is big should we give up on the whole system and fix a school here and a school there?
In 1999 the board of the City of Atlanta Public Schools selected Dr. Beverly Hall as Superintendent. In 1999 the district was in a tailspin. For the most part, parents who wanted a quality education for their children had few choices. Many choose to pay $10,000 - $15,000 per year to send children to independent private schools. That year, over 400 students applied for 40 pre-first spots at a North Atlanta private school.
Dr. Hall made a promise to the city to transform the district from one of the worst to be one of the nation’s highest performing urban school systems. She did it by holding administrators accountable for the performance of their schools, by enacting sound business principals and by engaging patents and the community in the education of the children. Now people in Atlanta have a choice, they do not have to spend over $10,000 per year to an independent school to get a quality education.
The challenge for good public school districts is not to rely on good results in standardized testing and high graduation rates as a reason to keep doing things the same way. Many engaged parents want the best possible education and sometimes good is not great. The public school district should proactively work with all stakeholders to assure greatness at all levels. Not doing so can lead to frustration.
When the level of disconnect becomes so great between the school and the parents, some may decide it is just easier to start a new school rather than make a really good school into a GREAT school. Can you imagine, a group of parents becoming so frustrated and so disconnected where they would not work with an already good school to make it great? It is happening all over America. The danger to the public school is that the parents that care most about education pull out of the district taking with them, in most cases, high performing students. Over time those good test scores can slide and before you know it that good school is not nearly as good.
I can see how in places like Detroit and Philadelphia parents and educators turn to charter schools as a solution to failing schools. I understand that parents may need to rely on an independent school when the only other solution is a failing public neighborhood school. To me it is sad that, in some cases, public school systems put parents in that situation.
Parents, community leaders and public educators need to join together and assure that stakeholders feel connected to our local public school. So when they see room for improvement they will have a clear choice – the choice to harness that energy for improvement toward the good of the community and not just the good of a select few. Until that happens, there will still be a place for private and charter schools.
