Federal strings on education could help charter schools
In another example of how the federal government is flexing its muscles in telling states and localities what to do on education. The Obama administration is making noises that federal stimulus money for education, money sorely needed by states trying to close huge budget deficits, will be endangered if the states have caps on charter schools. There are other requirements that states need to pay attention to if they are going to be able to rake in the federal stimulus funds. Last month, Arne Duncan warned Illinois legislators of what they'd have to do to get the federal money.
>>> "Business as usual, to be clear, would basically eliminate Illinois from competition," Duncan said. "But we're not looking just at past track record. We're looking at folks who are really willing to challenge the status quo."
Duncan said funding inequity, a limit on the number of charter schools, marginal efforts to police teacher quality and other old-school ways put the state at risk of disqualification from future innovation funding. <<<
Now there is the opportunity that states will have to lift their cap on charter schools in order to get the federal money. This leaves open the possibility that some very successful charters such as the KIPP schools can move into Boston. As Scott Lehigh writes, Boston's teachers unions have been blocking the expansion of charter schools and the politicians have been yielding to the unions. But if that cap gets lifted, KIPP wants to move into Boston and provide more schools for poor minority students. (Link via Eduwonk)
Even though I usually favor minimizing the federal government's role in state business, there is a parallel to the historic role that federalism played in ending the southern states blocking civil rights for African Americans for too many generations. A decent education has become as important a civil right as voting and, in too many states, teacher unions are standing in the way of needed school reform. I have my doubts that the Obama administration will do anything to shake the union hold on our schools, but they have my best wishes if they can force states and local districts to lift the cap on charters. Perhaps they could see more success such as David Brooks wrote about last week when he wrote about the charter schools operated by Harlem Children's Zone. These charters have, according to a Harvard study, have succeeded in erasing the achievement gap between white and black students.
>>> Let me repeat that. It eliminated the black-white achievement gap. "The results changed my life as a researcher because I am no longer interested in marginal changes," Fryer wrote in a subsequent e-mail. What Geoffrey Canada, Harlem Children's Zone's founder and president, has done is "the equivalent of curing cancer for these kids. It's amazing. It should be celebrated. But it almost doesn't matter if we stop there. We don't have a way to replicate his cure, and we need one since so many of our kids are dying — literally and figuratively."
These results are powerful evidence in a long-running debate. Some experts, mostly surrounding the education establishment, argue that schools alone can't produce big changes. The problems are in society, and you have to work on broader issues like economic inequality. Reformers, on the other hand, have argued that school-based approaches can produce big results. The Harlem Children's Zone results suggest the reformers are right. The Promise Academy does provide health and psychological services, but it helps kids who aren't even involved in the other programs the organization offers.
To my mind, the results also vindicate an emerging model for low-income students. Over the past decade, dozens of charter and independent schools, like Promise Academy, have become no excuses schools. The basic theory is that middle-class kids enter adolescence with certain working models in their heads: what I can achieve; how to control impulses; how to work hard. Many kids from poorer, disorganized homes don't have these internalized models. The schools create a disciplined, orderly and demanding counterculture to inculcate middle-class values.<<<
My husband has more on charter schools today including a link to a study that shows that, contrary to critics' favorite objection, charters don't cream the best students.
Betsy's Page (11 May 2009)
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