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Charter schools are now an enduring part of American K-12 public education. It’s time for policymakers and K-12 stakeholders to stop the foolish argument about whether these schools should exist. They’re here and aren’t going away. The real question is what the next phase of chartering should aim to achieve.
There are several answers to that question. I think one at the top of the list is figuring out how to use the tools that chartering developed, like performance contracting, authorizing, school-level autonomy, mission-driven governance and better measures of student success, to modernize all of U.S. public education for a changing economy and society.
No doubt, some of this has already occurred, as the charter idea has increasingly shaped mainstream expectations about how public schools should operate. — for example, innovation zones and portfolio school management. The challenge now is to ensure that chartering becomes a quality-and-opportunity strategy for all of K-12 public education.
The original charter idea was straightforward: create a new type of public school that has the operational independence to design and run its own education program in exchange for being accountable for improved student results. Do this by allowing an organization called a charter authorizer to approve and oversee the schools. Over time, that approach expanded into a broader argument about flexibility, innovation, parent choice and pluralism in public education.
The growth of this new sector of public schools is substantial. Today, more than 3.7 million students attend 8,150 charter schools staffed by more than 251,000 teachers in states across the country, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam.
Research from Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes found that charter students gain the equivalent of 16 additional days of learning in reading and six additional days in math compared with peers in traditional public schools. The researchers also documented substantial variation in school quality.
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That variation is one reason the next phase of implementing the charter idea should focus less on sector growth alone and more on building stronger K-12 public education systems with many different types of independent public schools of choice that are accountable for results.
Here are five priorities that policymakers, community leaders and K-12 stakeholders can use to guide that effort.
First, use the charter authorizing process to learn how to renew faltering district schools. Good charter authorizers close persistently weak schools, replicate strong schools and maintain public trust. Expand this approach to all public schools, including strengthening current authorizing standards, improving transparency and making it easier for effective public charter and district schools to grow, while closing persistently ineffective schools.
Second, expand how school success is measured. Effective charters have proven that they can improve test scores. Many also have shown that this isn’t enough. Schools should also be judged by whether students succeed after graduation according to different measures, including employment, earnings, college persistence, military service, apprenticeship completion and civic participation. The next generation of K-12 accountability systems should focus more directly on using multiple measures to track student success in pursuing long-term opportunity.
Third, create more career-connected schools. Charters have shown how operational autonomy can make it easier for educators to design schools around real-world learning. For example, Da Vinci Schools in the Los Angeles area integrate project-based learning, college partnerships, industry alliances, work-based learning and career-connected education, making these opportunities central to students’ experience. Other charter models — including schools with early-college, apprenticeship and schools workforce-partnerships programs — show how high schools can better connect learning to work, further education and civic life. The educators and community partners who build these models can help the broader K-12 system understand what it takes to redesign schedules, create employer and college partnerships, and respond quickly to changing workforce and community needs.
Fourth, learn from charters how to think differently about building and using school facilities. Many charter schools lack equitable access to buildings and capital financing, diverting classroom dollars to rent and construction costs. This shortcoming has unleashed innovative models like the Building Equity Initiative, Nonprofit Finance Fund, LISC Charter School Financing Fund and Building Hope. Lessons learned from this process should spur districts to think differently about their approach to school construction and use.
Fifth, focus on a “more good public schools” strategy. Bridge the divide between charters and district schools by fostering collaboration that replicates effective charter models within districts, which creates more good public schools. This can be done in many ways, including innovation zones, charter-district collaboration compacts, joint facilities use by charters, district schools, and community organizations, and unified enrollment systems.
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All these efforts reflect a broader idea, which I call opportunity pluralism. A healthy and effective K-12 public education system should offer multiple high-quality pathways for young people with different goals, interests and talents. Charter schools are not the only way to create those pathways. But they remain one of the most flexible tools available for helping states and communities rethink how public education connects to opportunity.
The next phase of the charter school idea should not be about relitigating old ideological battles over public school choice. It should be about building a more flexible, accountable and opportunity-rich K-12 public education system inspired by the charter idea.
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