Are Charter School Students Worth Less?

In advance of the release of its 2012 Model Public Charter School Law rankings, NAPCS will chronicle some of the most critical—and contentious—aspects of the model law that played out in the past state legislative cycle. This guest blog by Eileen Sigmund, President and CEO of the Arizona Charter Schools Association, examines issues with funding equity (Model Law Component 18).

Are some students worth less or worthless?  When it comes to Arizona's antiquated school funding system, students are treated differently. Charter students are funded, on average, $1,500 less per student than their district peers.

These funding disparities are unjust, and an Arizona lawsuit seeks a basic American principle: that all children in public schools receive an equally good education, backed by similar, adequate resources. A recent ruling by the Maricopa County Superior Court in the lawsuit Craven et al. v. State of Arizona et al. confirmed that Arizona's public charter school students are Arizona public school students entitled to the Arizona Constitution's educational privileges just like the state's public district school students.  

This ruling came after the State and others argued that public district school students and public charter school students are not members of a similarly situated group of citizens. The State has maintained that Arizona's pubic charter school students occupy an inferior, secondary supplemental level in Arizona's public school hierarchy. The recent ruling rejects that argument. 

In light of the ruling, the remainder of this litigation will focus on the determination of whether Arizona's K-12 student finance scheme is constitutional. To be upheld, the system must be rational, reasonable and not arbitrary, discriminatory or capricious. Trial is set for Fall 2012. 

We cannot treat some students as if they are worth less than others. For more information, visit www.studentequitynow.org.

CCSA’s "Portrait of the Movement" Report Gets National Recognition

NAPCS supports the work by the California Charter Schools Association, and others in the field, to advance the accountability of the public charter school sector. We encourage others to follow CCSA’s lead by setting high performance expectations for the public charter schools in your state.

This week, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) presented the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) with the “Award for Excellence in Advancing Knowledge” for the Portrait of the Movement report, the cornerstone of CCSA’s accountability work.

Accountability has been a top priority for CCSA for many years, and when we released the first Portrait of the Movement report last February, we did so knowing that the data would help the charter movement identify schools that we all can learn from, and those that need a second look. 

Through this candid and comprehensive snapshot of peformance, CCSA is looking to raise the performance bar and to support the expansion of those charter schools that are having a high impact on their students’ futures.

Perhaps the most significant findings in the first annual Portrait of the Movement report were that California charter schools are accelerating the closure of the achievement gap between low-income and affluent students, and that charters serving low-income populations are generating better academic results than traditional public schools.  These results tell us that charters are successfully weakening the link between poverty and under-performance.  Yet there is work to be done.  Too many charters are also underperforming, and it is here where we are taking action. 

Portrait of the Movement introduced a performance framework, which streamlines and improves upon the existing assessment system in order to strengthen academic accountability for underperforming charters. The Portrait of the Movement report plays an important role in advancing knowledge about the state’s charter schools, as the report features movement-wide analyses to aid efforts to assess, monitor and improve the academic performance of all charter schools, including tools schools can use directly to assess their strengths and weaknesses.

As a movement, we need to ensure that all students are getting the quality education they deserve, and need.  We cannot make improvements if we exempt charter schools that are not delivering or producing solid results.

CCSA aims to remain the preeminent source for California charter school performance data in order to inform strategic school support and advocacy at the state and local levels and will continue to publish an annual Portrait of the Movement.  Our next report is due in February 2012.

We are truly honored for this award, and we thank NACSA for their support.

NOTE:  NACSA’s annual Award for Excellence in Advancing Knowledge recognizes the authors of a scholarly report that thoughtfully examines critical issues within the charter sector.  Last year’s winner was the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools for How State Charter Laws Rank Against The New Model Public Charter School Law.

California's Portrait of the Movement - A Closer Look At Charter School Academic Performance

Education reform has taken center stage in many debates around the nation over the past couple of years, as parents, students and communities demand better educational outcomes for all students from public schools. 

Generating those better outcomes while closing the achievement gap between low-income and affluent students is a daunting challenge but not an impossible one. Members of the California Charter Schools Association believe, like I do, that we must be relentless in our pursuit of ever-higher academic performance if charter schools are to contribute even more significantly to making high-performing schools a reality for every student in California.

For almost two decades, charter schools in California have offered parents, students and communities options for a better education.  Our state now has the largest concentration of charters in the country.  At 912 schools, we saw our most significant growth ever this school year, with 115 charters opening across the state.  But growth alone isn’t enough.

While we know the state has some of the best charter schools in the country, we are also aware that there are weaknesses within the movement.  That is why the California Charter Schools Association is taking unprecedented and proactive steps to ensure that all students attending charter schools are getting an education that will help them succeed as adults.

This week our first annual Portrait of the Movement report, which details the academic performance of charter schools, provides a framework to press for higher accountability for low-performing charters.  The report reveals reasons for great optimism in the areas where charter schools are excelling and for greater resolve in the areas where charter schools need to improve. 

The most significant finding in Portrait of the Movement is that California charter schools are accelerating the closure of the achievement gap between low-income and affluent students.  This finding is supported with ample evidence that charter schools serving low-income populations are generating better academic results than traditional public schools serving students with similar demographics.

These results are cause for celebration, proving that charters are breaking the link between poverty and under-performance. For far too long, too many within our traditional public school system have believed that poverty and underperformance are inexorably linked and there is little schools can do to help students overcome the various social barriers they face.  This paralyzing belief – undergirded by a self-perpetuating view that only some students, and not all students, are actually able to learn at high levels – has been used by many as justification for the various objections they raise to proposed reforms of our public education system.  The performance of California’s charter schools – from classrooms in South Los Angeles to Oakland and San Diego to Sacramento – demonstrates that the possibility of transformational change is within our grasp if we have the courage to embrace reforms which serve the interests of students.  

Another important finding with Portrait of the Movement is more charter schools are over-performing than under-performing, and that, in terms of numbers of students served, more than two times as many students attend over-performing than under-performing schools.  We are also encouraged to see that the number and proportion of under-performing charters appears to be decreasing over time.

With that said, the Portrait of the Movement also clearly reveals that there are simply too many underperforming charter schools and we must as a movement act with commensurate courage to improve academic accountability systems.

While current state law calls on charter authorizers—school districts, county offices of education, and the State Board of Education—to close schools that have not met minimum academic requirements, the process has not been a consistent one, and under-performing charters have slipped through the cracks.  CCSA is proactively working to close these loopholes and has established minimum performance criteria for charter renewal to ensure that charters are delivering on the promise of a high-quality education for all students in California,

In tandem with the release of Portrait of the Movement, CCSA is activating a series of Web-enabled tools to help families and the public understand the picture of performance for every single charter in California that opened before fall of 2010. An interactive map provides the public access to the performance record of all charter schools as well as all traditional public schools in their surrounding areas, giving families for the first time a highly detailed look of the options available to them based on a measure that renders a picture of added value.

For more information, visit www.calcharters.org/portraitofthemovement.

Submitted by Jed Wallace, President and CEO, California Charter Schools Association