Charter Schools Gain Momentum

▪ 2004

      By 2003 more than 684,000 U.S. students attended charter schools—publicly funded schools that pledged better academic results and were unencumbered by many of the regulations governing ordinary public schools. The aim of the nearly 2,700 charter schools in the U.S. was to furnish educators with the freedom to create novel ways of organizing teaching in an effort to yield better student performance and greater parent satisfaction than that typically produced by regular public schools. Operators of charter schools were granted such freedom by committing themselves—in the form of a written charter—to a variety of conditions that, they predicted, would produce superior learning outcomes. The conditions agreed with those identified in charter-school legislation passed by state or local lawmakers.

      New England educator Ray Budde is often credited with having named and defined the concept of charter schools. In the early 1970s he suggested that small groups of teachers be given contracts or charters by their local school boards to explore new approaches to instruction. Budde's proposal was then publicized by Albert Shanker, president of the nation's second-largest educators' union, the American Federation of Teachers. Over the next two decades the proposal gradually attracted more enthusiasts until the first charter-school law was passed by the Minnesota legislature in 1991. By 2003, 40 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, had charter laws. States with the largest number of schools were Arizona (464), California (428), Florida (227), Texas (221), and Michigan (196).

      The success of charter schools has been mixed. Some schools operated smoothly and reported higher student test scores than those in ordinary public schools. On the other hand, some schools provided inadequate facilities, employed poorly prepared teachers, misused funds, elicited substandard student performance, showed an unwillingness to accept students with special learning problems, and were unable to attract or retain students. In addition, controversies arose over the desirability of having for-profit education-management organizations (EMOs) operate charter schools. A study in Michigan revealed that administrative costs in EMO schools were two-to-five times higher than those in regular public schools, which resulted in lower salaries for charter-school teachers, a shortage of extra services (e.g., counseling and special learning materials), and administrators' reluctance to limit class size.

      Nonetheless, charter schools were enthusiastically advocated by the federal government and endorsed by the nation's largest teachers' union, the National Education Association. In 1997 Pres. Bill Clinton called for the creation of 3,000 charter schools by the year 2002. That same year Pres. George W. Bush proposed $200 million to fund charter schools and another $100 million for a new Credit Enhancement for Charter Schools Facilities. Encouraged by such support, the charter-school movement seemed likely to continue growing.

R. Murray Thomas

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