Charter Experiment Skews the Big Picture
Posted on: Saturday, 19 July 2008, 00:00 CDT
By Julie Korenstein
WHY does the Los Angeles Unified School District have charter schools?
In 1992, legislation created a pilot project for an innovative program of schools that were not restricted by all of the California Education Codes and would therefore allow more flexibility at the school site. In the first few years, there was a cap of 100 charter schools for the entire state. Shortly after that, there was new legislation to lift the cap and allow 100 new charter schools each and every year. By comparison, the state of New York allows only 100 charter schools for the entire state.
At the beginning, there was a sincere belief that this was a valuable experiment. But no one in their wildest dreams thought that within a few years there would be 147 charters in the LAUSD alone, with new ones added every year. Currently there are about 54,000 charter school students in the LAUSD geographical area.
Now why should this make any difference?
Let's begin with the loss of state ADA funds (average daily attendance) per child leaving LAUSD to go to charter schools. The loss of funds to the district is approximately $300 million per year.
This is a loss to all of the children. This money could help the 680,000 students attending traditional schools. While the LAUSD may have fewer students to teach, only a few students leave each school, and the district still has to pay for staff and for the cost of maintaining the school facility.
Each charter has its own board of directors that makes all the decisions for the school. The LAUSD board of education has no decision-making power over charters. The LAUSD charters the school and can take the charter away or renew it, but the LAUSD does not run the charter school.
Charters are now a money-making endeavor. There are some companies that run multiple charter schools, as many as 18 charter schools in LAUSD alone. In addition, an entire cottage industry of charter-school supply companies and management organizations now feeds off California taxpayers.
Charter schools most often do not have as many special-education students as traditional schools. This is significant because when test scores are compared between charter and traditional schools, charters may look like they are doing better, but the reality is they have far fewer learning-disabled students.
Also, when charters are compared to traditional public schools, charters have fewer students -- often no more than 500 -- and are compared to traditional schools with 3,000 or 4,000 students. Again, skewing the scores.
Anyone could choose 300 or 400 students from any large school in the LAUSD and come up with similar scores, especially if selecting the best students. Furthermore, few charters reveal how well their students did when in traditional schools. We don't really know if they improved as a result of their charter-school education.
It is time to put politics aside and look at what is good for all of the children, not just a few. At present, the charter experiment does not address the needs of all of the children. Should taxpayers' money be used in this way?
On the other hand, the LAUSD has had a phenomenal magnet education program for years. We should be expanding existing magnets as well as adding more. Magnet schools are the original choice program, benefiting thousands of children.
It is imperative that we as educators learn from one another, but also understand that, although some of the charter-school students may have a good educational experience, there will be many who will not.
What will be the long-range impact on their lives?
(c) 2008 Daily News; Los Angeles, Calif.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: Daily News; Los Angeles, Calif.
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