JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY OF EDUCATION, VOL. 49

CHARTER SCHOOLS REVISITED

James J. Van Patten

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

Alternative schools have a long history. The district school, the Latin Grammar School, the academy, the consolidated comprehensive high school, public and private schools systems were all examples of alternative school concepts. Each movement was an effort to meet the needs of changing societal conditions requiring increased options for educating the nation's youth.

With an increasing fragmented society, alternative school systems reflect an effort to meet varying parental concerns. These concerns include curriculum content, values, discipline, rejection of consensus aims in education and distrust of educational policies. Questioning of curriculum content has been intense particularly in Bible belt areas of the country. Intense opposition to teaching methods that focus on socialization, diversity, sexual preferences, and aspects of postmodernism is also reflected in parental call for alternative schools.

Chaddock (1998) noted that when corporate leadership became involved in educational reform their aim often was to start from scratch. It started as a classic top down initiative from Washington, D.C. with business and education leaders touting a new world order for education. Last week The New American Schools Development Corporation closed down, and maverick entrepreneurs and charter-school operators differ from the corporate elites who launched whole-school reform. Chaddock notes that George Bush in 1991 called on business leaders to work for public school improvement. They pledged $42 million and Walter Annenberg added another $50 million as part of a $500 million grant to help public education. The goal was to develop new educational designs to help all students meet world class standards in at least five core subjects. New American school designs are currently in use in more than 1,000 schools and 31 states. Chaddock reports that there have been successes but everyone involved in school reform efforts are beginning to realize the complexity of school cultures and the impossibility of solving complex issues through cheap quick technological fixes. Bottom line assessment of student achievement, test scores, and reforms suggest meager results. Throwing money at a problem will not resolve it, some are finding. Perceptions of what needs to be done vary. Louis Gerstner, CEO, of IBM said we can declare some success, but have a system that is failing our children and resisting change. The mood, he continues, in the business community is not good. It is not going toward the reform of U.S. public education but toward its replacement. The performance of our schools is not any better than when we started in 1991. Chester Finn, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, finds two grand strategies--one is systematic reform through a centralized top-down management-style improvement and a competition, diversity and choice strategy. The big national CEOs favor systemic reform while venture capitalists favor choice and competition, but both strategies need to intersect for real change to occur (Chaddock: B 5).

Mellor (1998) found that the June 10 Wisconsin Supreme Court decision upholding the nation's first school choice program against legal challenge may lead to a wider array of choices for parents and students. The Wisconsin program allows up to 15,000 low -income children to use state funds in private or religious schools. The court upheld school choice programs (1) as long as the program is neutral between religious and secular options and (2) parents direct the funds.

Careilli, Mauro, Kronholz (1998) noted that the Supreme Court on November 9, 1998 denied a review of an appeal of the Wisconsin Supreme Court Decision. By denying appeal the high court gave no decision and set no national precedent. The issue is sure to be raised in future litigation. The National School Boards Association and Americans United for Separation of Church and State had supported a challenge of the Wisconsin school choice program. As Careilli noted, supporters of school choice programs are sure to see the high court's denial of review as a green light to expand the voucher plans. Meanwhile Congress is exploring a national voucher program, and legislatures in half the states have considered such programs. Kronholz found that vouchers are central to the Republican education policies at both the state and national level. Although their power has been weakened by Democratic gains in congress, some see the high court's refusal to overturn the Wisconsin Court's decision as a victory for vouchers. Vouchers are government issued tickets that allow children to attend any school of their parents' choosing, with the government paying part or all of the bill. Wisconsin's Department of Public Instruction said 6,100 children are enrolled in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, filling all available seats in the city's 84 participating private schools. But 3,000 of those children had already been attending private schools at their family's expense. Meanwhile, the city's public schools are losing $4,950 for each student who didn't enroll in public schools (Kronholz: A 2). As Mauro notes recent Supreme Court rulings have cast doubt on a 1973 decision that struck down a voucher program because public money was used to "subsidize and advance the religious mission of sectarian schools."

Although research results vary, independent studies at Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Texas have shown significant improvement in math and reading scores in voucher-supported schools. The ACLU, the National Education Association, People for the American Way, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the NAACP plan on appealing the Wisconsin decision to the Supreme Court.

Lynn (1998) finds the Wisconsin Court decision strikes a blow against the separation of church and state and a historical commitment to public schools. He also finds that some $14 million will be diverted from needed programs in public schools. Lynn fears that state dollars may be spent for programs ranging from Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, Neo-Nazi Christian Identity Groups or local fundamentalist churches. Lynn fears government regulation of religion will come with demand for accountability in the use of public funds.

Baldauf (1998) finds the Wisconsin court ruling to be a significant victory for school choice advocates. Parents and politicians pushing for greater choice in the type and quality of schools, have led some legal scholars to find that vouchers violate the First Amendment's separation of church and state concept. Other court cases are pending in Vermont, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Maine and Ohio. Shlaes (1998) points out that school choice is not a new idea but academies were formed by New England educators and philanthropists in the early 1800s. When public schools emerged, rural town leaders saw no need to repeat their work and arranged a voucher arrangement with the academies called "tuitioning out." St. Johnsbury in Vermont is an example of such an academy with a 10-1 teacher-student ration, 1,000 resumes from teacher candidates, a tuition of $7.090 lower than public school costs per student, a vocational program, serving disabled and special education students, students performing at the 90^th percentile on Advanced Placement tests for English, European and American History, and biology, and a larger percentage of the student body going to college than any public high school in the state. School vouchers and choice have a long and often unknown history. St. Johnsbury serves and responds to community needs for facility use as well as for new courses to serve local business and industry needs (Silaes 1998).

Overview of Charter Schools

Wood (1998) explores an Arizona Charter School, one of 783 others across the United States. The Center for Excellence Charter High School in Phoenix has no lunch room, gymnasium, or library. For reports, students use a bookmobile that parks blocks away. For an occasional art class, they walk to a nearby elementary school. There is one teacher for every 15 students working in carpeted, quite rooms. There are no electives but there is an environment that makes it impossible to escape learning. Concentration is on English, math, social studies and science. Wood finds Arizona to be a laboratory for charter schools since their origination in 1994. Supporters cite reduced bureaucracy, restoration of local control, and empowerment of teachers, while detractors cite problems of accountability, questionable standards, elitism and even segregationism. Both supporters and detractors find that Charter Schools have broken the public school monopoly. Some Arizona Charter Schools have been shut down due to various abuses, but the Hudson Institute and the Educational Excellence Network found that Charter Schools may be the most vibrant force in American education today.

Walters (1997), the author of Charter Schools: Creating Hope and Opportunity for American Education, finds such schools challenge the existing power structure. Charter Schools also tap into American values such as opportunity, choice and responsibility. In addition Charter Schools are more appealing than vouchers for private schools. While magnet schools have admission tests and spend more money per student than other public schools, Charter Schools are not allowed to have admission tests and spend exactly the same per pupil as other public schools.

Charter Schools-Litigation

Charter Schools, like all other school systems in our country, are not immune from litigation, a growing problem for educators. Seligman (1998) pinpoints the challenge of proliferation of lawsuits for educators. He provides several examples of current lawsuits that divert funds needed for education. In 1995, Texas adopted a Robin Hood plan which had the legislature providing makeup funds to school districts with below-average resources. Every year since 1995 the plan's adequacy has been challenged, and a report in the Bond Buyer indicates the Texas comptroller is now talking of a need for another $8-$9 billion to equalize standards. New Jersey had three major lawsuits challenging its equalization formula. One of the suits has been brought by a coalition of middle-class school districts claiming that the formula is forcing them to raise property taxes to levels for above the state average. New York and Vermont are facing lawsuits dealing with spending disparity. Vermont's plan to shift educational resources from richer to poorer districts is under litigation from poor families who live in rich districts and offering major tax breaks to rich families in poor districts. Seligman notes the 35-year-old Coleman report's conclusion that educational outcomes or what kids actually learn are decisively affected by family background and only marginally affected by spending on schools. Seligman further finds further proof of the validity of Coleman's findings in an article (March 1998) in The Economic Policy Review by Eric A. Hanushek of the University of Rochester. Pointing to increased spending and little increase in student achievement, Hanushek found that:

There is little reason to be confident that simply adding more resources to schools as currently constituted will yield performance gains among students. Charter schools will not be left out of our lawsuit mania. Fister v. Minnesota New Country School (8^th Circuit 1998) suggests additional costs in the future for Charter Schools. In this case 12 year old Mary Fister solicited information from classmates to supplement her Internet project focusing on deformed frogs. Subsequently one of the parents of a student who provided Mary a quotation sent a letter to Mary asking that her daughter's quote be removed. Mary posted this letter near her desk near a sign that read Making a Mountain Out of a Molehill. School officials ordered her to remove the letter, but Mary kept putting it back up. She was suspended twice for this behavior and eventually expelled for one year. The District Court's finding that there was not violation of Mary's constitutional right to free speech nor was it a violation of an equal protection claim since there was not evidence Mary was treated differently from other students. These lawsuits come with a cost to the school and will be a financial challenge into the foreseeable future. Charter schools will surely face increased bureaucracy due to these lawsuits and thus lose one of their rationales for existence.

Charter School-Positives

The following information is based on an article by Mulholland and Bierlein (1997). They report that Charter Schools integrate reform movements and develop highly autonomous and accountable learning environments. Educators are forced to question conventional management and instructional practices. Organizers may be teachers, parents, or others from the public or private sector, and sponsors may be local school boards, state education boards or some other public authority. Each school charter includes instructional plans, specific educational results and their measurement as well as management and financial plans.

Ideally Charter Schools:

• Enhance educational options
• Encourage true decentralization
• Focus on results, not inputs
• Remain public schools
• Offer new professional opportunities for teachers
• Foster a more market-driven educational system

Charter School Research on School District Impact

Rofes (1998) conducted a study of Charter schools' impact on school districts in eight states and the District of Colombia and included cases studies of 25 school districts affected by Charter Schools. The study conducted in 1997 and published in a 1998 report How Are School Districts Responding to Charter Laws and Charter Schools, included the following findings of their impact on schools districts.

• School districts lost students and financing. They lost a particular kind of student to niche-focused charter schools. There was the departure of a significant number of disgruntled parents with shifts in staff morale as well as the redistribution of some central office administrators' time and increased difficulty in predicting student enrollment and planning grade-level placement.
• Of the 25 case-study districts, almost half experienced either strong or moderate impact from charter schools and slightly more than half had experienced either no impact or mild impact. Large urban districts had experienced significantly less impact from charters than rural, suburban and small urban districts.

School District Response to Charter Schools

• The majority of districts carried on business and usual but some 24% significantly altered their educational programs.
• Few superintendents, principals, and teachers in district schools were thinking of charter schools as educational laboratories or were attempting to transfer pedagogical innovations from charters to district schools.
• Charter schools and laws may have contributed to statewide reform efforts that had no formal connection to charters, such as new systems of school accountability, drives for site-based management, and changes in school financing practices (p.1-2).

Whether Charter Schools fade away in the future as other educational innovations and experiments have in the past remains to be seen. Charter Schools have provided a historical continuity for alternative schools.

Summary

Public schools in a pluralistic society based on a consensus require a commitment to universal free education for all of the nation's youth. John Dewey called for continued reconstruction of experience through public schooling. He saw the schools as a reflection of the larger society facing the same kind of struggles, issues and challenges. George C. Stone (1997) finds in Dewey's theory of community the central purpose of education. This purpose is not just individual growth but for individuals to learn that each of us belongs to many communities and that we move from one community to another during any given day. Each person must learn that he or she has an obligation as a responsible citizen in a democratic social order to act ethically as we move from one community to another. By acting ethically we continually build the great community.

Charter Schools may be seen as attempts to build a great community through alternative routes to learning. They may also be seen as the result of a concerted effort to implement an industrial/business approach to learning and education. Conservative groups have varying agendas to deal with perceived failings in public schools including emphasis on diversity, sexual preferences, third world postmodern orientation, sex education, gender issues, and value education. As Thorstein Veblen noted at the turn of the century, "education apes business" (Van Patten and Fisher 1997).

Public schools face challenges not of their own making. The Imperfect Panacea notes that the public schools have been asked to solve all manner of religious, social, national, and even intellectual problems. Public schools have been lighting rods for discontented critics of the right and left of the political spectrum. Litigation has influenced educational policy and led to increased costs for education. Universities have been seeking to build status through increasing the amounts of grants. Faculty members frequently use public schools as a research laboratory for grant acquisition and implementation requiring increased teacher time on tasks other than teaching. Central public school administration frequently seeks to implement the latest fad in the field. Currently some elementary school teachers in our city have to start the new year by using three different methods of reading instruction and were required to attend a variety of workshops three to four days before faculty planning days, unpaid, and on their own vacation time. First grade teachers are required to use the latest technology including computers in instruction as well as deal with the latest bureaucratic mandates such as frameworks.

Criticism of public schools can be found throughout our educational history. "Soap and schooling are not as sudden as a massacre, but are more deadly in the long run." said Mark Twain. His opinion of schooling is matched by Margaret Mead's, "My Grandmother wanted me to get an education, so she kept me out of school," and Ralph Waldo Emerson's response to Horace Mann's lecture in 1839 crusading for the public school. Emerson said: "We are shut in schools-for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing." (Gross, 1975). Vouchers and Charter Schools are the result of increased public school criticism. Both vouchers and charter schools are viewed by their supporters as routes to breaking what is seen as public school monopolies. As of September 15, 1998 there were some 34 charter school laws in the United States, with some 166,000 students in 26 states and the District of Colombia. Charter School states with strong to medium strength laws include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin. Those states that have weak charter school laws include Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Wyoming (1998, The Center for Education Reform)

Charter Schools may be a worthwhile experimentation to get away from bureaucratic rules and regulations but the influence of a business community determined to implement competition in schooling leads one to question the viability of Charter schools over time. The business community's ruthlessness is seen every day in the mergers, restructuring, downsizing, and laying off thousands of people. Organizational loyalty to and concern for long time dedicated workers are things of the past. In turn employees loyalty to their organization is lessened. Charter Schools, however, represent a strength in that they are public schools oriented toward serving young people regardless of economic, cultural or ethnic backgrounds. Charter schools will face increased scrutiny as they become more prevalent on the American educational landscape. Public school teachers may be eager to teach in charter schools with less bureaucracy after having faced an ever growing and incessant level of rules, regulations, mandates, untried, untested, curriculum and programs. These factors are often designed, disseminated and implemented with little if any input by teachers whose support is needed if they are to be successful in practice.

It may be worthwhile remembering Henry Steele Commager evaluation of American Education by stating that no other people ever demanded so much of education and none other was ever served as well by its schools and educators (Pierce, 1975).

REFERENCES

Baldauf, Scott (1998, June 12). School-Voucher Movement Gets Boost From Wisconsin Court. The Christian Science Monitor: 14.

Careilli, Richard (1998, November 10). Supreme Court Passes on Vouchers. Tulsa World: A 8. High Court Turns Away Voucher Dispute: Debate Rages On. Northwest Arkansas Times: A 8.

Center for Education Reform ( 1998, September 9). Charter School Highlights and Statistics. http://edreform.com/pubs/chglance.htm.

Chaddock, Gail Russell (1998, November 3). The Business of Change. The Christian Science Monitor: B1, 4, & Gross, Ronald and Beatrice (1975, March). A Nation of Learners. American Education: 2

Kronholz, June (1998, November 10). Wisconsin School Voucher Plan is UpheldThe Wall Street Journal: A 2.

Lynn, Barry W. (1998, June 29). Church-State Breach Perils Public Schools. Sun Sentinel: 7A.

Mauro, Tony (1998, November 10). Court Allows School Vouchers. USA Today: 1A, 4 A.

Mellor, William (1998, June 29). School Choice Benefits Poor, Minorities. Sun Sentinel: 7 A.

Mulholland, Loria A. and Bierlein, Louann A. (1997). Charter Schools. in Walling Donovan R., editor, Hot Buttons: 85-114.

Pierce, Wendell (1975). America's Evolving Role. American Education: 28.

Rofes, Eric (1998, April). How Are School Districts Responding to Charter Laws and Charter Schools? Berkeley, California: University of California: 1-2.

Seligman, Dan (1998 June 15). Ignoring the Facts. Forbes: 104,106.

Shlaes, Amity (1998 October 1). School Choice Isn't a New Idea. The Wall Street Journal: A 22.

Stone, George C. (1997). Interdependence in Dewey's Theory of Community. In Van Patten, James, Stone, George C. and Ge Chen. Individual and Collective Contributions Toward Humaneness in Our Time: 23-24.

Van Patten, James and Fisher, Bill (1997). Veblen's Views on Society and Education. in Watersheds in Higher Education: 173-182.

Walters, Laurel Shaper (1997, March 3). Proliferation of Charter Schools Signals Their Growing Success. The Christian Science Monitor: 12.

Wood, Daniel B. (1998, June 2). Arizona's Big Stakes in Charter Schools. The Christian Science Monitor: 1, 10.