CHARTER SCHOOL LEGISLATION:

DISASTER, DETOUR, IRRELEVANT, OR REFORM TOOL

By

John Merrifield

University of Texas - SA

COB - Downtown Campus

501 West Durango Blvd.

San Antonio, TX 78207

Jmerrifield@utsa.edu

Legislation allowing chartered schools appears to be the school reform debate's path of least resistance.

But is the concept up to the Reform Challenge?

The answer to the question implied in the title could be that the United States includes some charter legislation that will fit in each category.

Analysis of charter laws, not chartered schools.

The first is the definition of appropriate reform: Policy changes that maximize the rate of improvement in what children know and what they can do.

May not be possible to change existing schools and systems enough to constitute appropriate reform.

· Not Ideology and Cynicism

· Huge Body of Evidence

THE POSSIBILITIES

The Disaster Scenario:

· charter laws hurt traditional public schools because budget cuts exceed the schools’ savings.

· The private school sector shrinks in size and quality.

· Reform efforts neglect better long-term strategies.

· Gains by chartered school users aren’t large enough to offset the damage to the private school sector and traditional public schools.

· Rivalry between chartered and traditional public schools is not that productive, perhaps even harmful.

BASIS

· Chartered Schools are Typically Few, Small, and Draw from Multiple Attendance Areas + Private Schools.

· Small enrollment changes would not lower traditional public school costs very much.

· Public School Dominance Creates the Potential for Destructive Responses.

· Shrink Private School Enrollments

· Reform Detour Effect

The Detour Scenario: Just the reform detour effect

The Irrelevance Scenario: Just the reform detour effect

· No Catalytic Impacts

· Charter Laws Pursued only as a Limited Escape Hatch

The Reform Agent Scenario: The Fast Track Scenario

· Modest Rivalry Effects and New Choices Enough to Prompt Major Improvements in Some Schools and Replacement of Others.

· Significant CopyCat Pressures to Upgrade the Weakest Laws

EVIDENCE

Private Schools: Many Conversions and Closures

· Conversions Not Necessarily Bad

Public School Systems: Some Modest Productive Responses, Some Indifference, and Some Destructive Responses

· Ability to Make Positive Responses Faces Many More Barriers

· Easier to Harass, Misinform, and Sabotage and those responses exist.

· Helps by Removing Outliers

· Helps by Easing Growth Pressures

Little Replacement: Slow Rate at Most

· Would Replacement Even Do That Much Good

· Significant and Growing Restrictions

· Little Potential for Genuine Market Forces

· New Zealand Experience

KEY HANDICAPS

Price Controlled

· Price Change is a Key Entry-Exit Regulatory, Surplus-Shortage Eliminator

· Key Incentive to Improve and Facilitator of Innovation

Open Admissions Requirement Inhibits Specialization

Revenue, Cost, and Longevity Uncertainty

Financial Handicaps

Non-Profit Only Usually

Less Money per Child Than Traditional School

Access to Fewer Centralized Services

IF CHARTER LAWS ARE NOT UP TO THE REFORM CHALLENGE, ARE EVOLUTIONARY IMPROVEMENTS LIKELY?

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

VERY USEFUL ESCAPE HATCH, BUT AT BEST IRRELEVANT AS REFORM CATALYSTS

Whether charter laws are more than irrelevant as reform catalysts depends mostly on what the organizations and activists pledged to K-12 reform would be doing and would have achieved with the considerable resources expended to tout charter laws. It also depends on how private schools are affected, and the long-term effects of further shrinkage in the private share of K-12. Charter laws will continue to shrink the private sector even if choice advocates focus their reform efforts on other strategies, and see chartered schools just as limited escape hatches that reduce the damaging effects of the status quo. Nevertheless, that is my preliminary recommendation.