Sherri votes...
and so should you!
November 2004:
Engrossed Second Substitute House Bill (ESSHB) 2295 would authorize the establishment of a limited number of charter public schools operated according to the terms of their charters. A charter would be a five-year contract negotiated between an eligible nonprofit corporation and a local education board. Charter schools would be subject to certain state laws relating to public schools, and exempt from others. Charter schools must admit educationally disadvantaged students. Admission may be limited based only on age and grade level.
I recommend a NO vote on Referendum 55.
The other day, I was on hold with my doctor’s office, and while on hold, they played various recorded health tips. One of the tips discussed diets, in particular the low-carb diets currently in vogue. They mentioned that diet trends tend to repeat about every 10-15 years, because none of them really work. The only way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more. It’s that simple and that hard.
It struck me that education is like that, too. There are always fads running around education that are going to solve whatever the problem of the day is considered to be. But maybe, just like with diets, there is no magic solution to education. The job the public school system takes on is to educate everybody who comes through the door. The only way we’ve found to do that is to have good teachers and enough resources, with small enough classes and schools so that kids don’t fall between the cracks. It’s that simple and that hard.
Charter schools are slightly different than some of the other magic solutions. Charter schools aren’t about educational philosophy or educational innovation; they’re about administrative philosophy and innovation. Essentially, charter schools claim that regulations and teachers unions are stifling educational philosophy and innovation. Innovation sounds good; I like innovation. But is there any evidence that regulations and teachers unions are really stifling innovation?
There are approximately 3000 charter schools in operation currently across the country. What have we learned so far from the charter school experiment? Not much. There is so much variation among charter laws from state to state that making general statements about the effectiveness of charter schools is really hard. However, so far there’s not much compelling evidence that charter schools are making dramatic differences. Most of the studies done on charter schools have concluded that students in the charter schools are performing at about the same level as their counterparts in public non-charter schools. The only significant difference that shows up is in measure of parental satisfaction; parents of students in charter schools are generally happier with charter schools.
For me, the question is, are charter schools an efficient use of the limited resources available to educate our children? Do they do a better job of educating children than non-charter public schools? Are we seeing successful innovations from charter schools being implemented in non-charter schools? Is competition from charter schools resulting in better performance in non-charter schools? From what I can find, the answer to all of these questions is no.
Until we have enough money to provide small classrooms in small schools, to pay teachers enough and provide them the support and mentoring to be good teachers, until we can put qualified teachers in every classroom, I don’t think Washington should take money away from the public schools to spend on an experiment that hasn’t yielded significant results in other states.
Referendum 55 is sponsored by the state teacher’s union, the WEA. It essentially is a vote on ESSHB 2295, which would authorize the formation of 45 charter schools in the state. In an interesting and somewhat confusing twist, the sponsors of the referendum are hoping for a "no" vote on the referendum. A "yes" vote would confirm the bill passed by the legislature, and a "no" vote would overturn it.
Charter schools are schools funded with public money, but run by private (in the case of this law, non-profit) organizations. They’re free of many of the regulations that apply to public schools, but also free of much of the oversight of public schools. Teachers in charter schools are not generally members of the teachers’ union. Washingtonians have rejected two previous statewide initiatives to allow charter schools, in 1996 and 2001.
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http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1700/ - a study of the effectiveness of charter schools in California
http://www.nea.org/charter/sidebar.html - the NEA’s guidelines on what makes a good charter schools law.
http://www.edreform.com/_upload/charter_school_laws.pdf - a charter school advocacy organization’s guidelines on what makes a good charter schools law, many of which conflict with the NEA’s ideas.
http://www.wastatepta.org/programs/Legislation/charter_schools_brief.pdf - an overview of charter schools by the Washington state PTA.