Charter Schools

New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to increase the number of charter schools in the Big Apple has generated a lot of buzz since Bloomberg announced it last week. Charter schools are independent public schools that are publicly funded, publicly accountable, and free of charge to students, but operated by independent nonprofit boards, rather than school districts. In late September, Harvard researchers released a study showing that predominantly disadvantaged students who attend New York City’s public charter schools are making more progress towards closing the achievement gap with their suburban peers than a control group of NYC students who remained in NYC public schools.

Mayor Bloomberg has proposed a number of steps to expand the number of charter schools in New York City, including raising the state cap on the number of charter schools, raising additional funding for charter school facilities, and co-locating charter schools with public housing projects.

KIPP, a network of high-performing charter schools serving low-income, predominantly minority students, recently announced plans to dramatically expand the number of KIPP schools operating pre-k and elementary programs.

Founded in 1994 by Mike Feinberg and David Levin, KIPP has focused primarily on serving disadvantaged students in the middle school years--grades 5-8--where Feinberg and Levin saw kids slipping through the cracks in the public education system. But, like a growing number of high-performing charter networks, KIPP has realized that many of the youngsters it serves arrive at fifth grade already behind grade level, and has begun focusing increased attention on the early elementary school years. Currently, the KIPP network includes seven elementary schools in Houston, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C. Schools in Houston, New Orleans and Washington operate programs starting in pre-k. And that number's about to get a lot higher.

Paul Tough, whose blog on education is rapidly becoming one of our favorites, writes about some of the challenges facing New Haven's Amistad High School. Amistad is part of the Achievement First network of high-performing charter schools and opened two years ago to serve students coming out of Amistad Academy middle school. Amistad Academy is one of the highest performing open admission public middle schools in New Haven, despite its predominantly low-income, minority student population. Yet even as the middle school's students demonstrate excellent academic achievement, many are still struggling to cope with the rigorous standards of Amistad's new high school program. One potential problem: Even though Amistad students learn a lot in middle school, academic deficits from the poor quality elementary schools they attended may hinder their progress in high school. Tough writes:

Last week the Rhode Island legislature passed legislation to allow the creation of "Mayoral Academies," a new type of charter schools that would allow Mayors to recruit high-quality, nationally proven charter school operators to open new charter schools in their cities. Its a great idea that should help foster quality growth in what's currently a relatively weak charter school sector in Rhode Island. Previously, all charter schools in Rhode Island had to be approved by the State Department of Education, and that, combined with a moratorium on new charter schools that is set to expire this month, have kept the number of charter schools small. Evidence from Indianapolis, where the Mayor is authorized to grant school charters, suggests that enabling Mayors to authorize charter schools can produce good results.

This week, May 4 through May 10, is National Charter Schools Week. Charter schools, charter school authorizers and charter school associations across the country are holding events to raise awareness about charter schooling and celebrate the successes and growth of the nation’s 4,300 charter schools, as well as the 1.2 million students they serve.

We’ve written previously about the often overlooked potential charter schools have to improve early education. Charter schools are independent public schools of choice that are publicly funded, free of charge to students, and accountable to the public, but operated by organizations other than local school districts. Many charter schools are already delivering high-quality early elementary school programs, and are a valuable source of potential capacity as states seek to expand pre-kindergarten programs.

We've spent a lot of time over the past two weeks talking about the Democratic presidential candidates' early education agendas, so today we're going to devote some time to the Republican candidate, Senator John McCain. So far, McCain hasn't said much about education issues, and hasn't offered any sort of education policy agenda. That's hardly surprising, as McCain has never been particularly involved on education issues in the Senate, and education issues were not a major issue in the Republican primary campaign. Richard Whitmire reports that McCain's advisors are about to start unrolling a series of education proposals-but predicts they won't include a significant early education component.

There are lots of good reasons for McCain's advisors to incorporate an early education component in the education agenda they're formulating. For starters, it would be counterintuitive, and it would also help cast a more positive light on some of the areas where McCain is weaker.

Further, it's probably easier for Republican politicians to support innovative ideas on early education than on K-12 reform right now. Conventional wisdom within the pundit class holds that teachers unions make it difficult for Democrats to advance compelling school reform ideas. But the politics of school reform are equally fraught for many Republicans. The conservative base loathes NCLB with a passion to rival that of the most strident teacher unionist and strongly opposes any expansion of the feds' role in schooling. Moderate Republicans know that the suburban parents they represent aren't thrilled by NCLB or reforms that might shake up a status quo that works pretty well for them now. And, as the Sol Stern controversy demonstrates, the conservative constituency for education reform is increasingly divided between choice-niks who think vouchers are the only answer, and devotees of curricular reform. In other words, for a politician who's never evinced a particular passion for education issues, the waters can't look too appealing in K-12 reform.

A growing number of charter schools across the country are offering high-quality pre-k programs, and charter schools can be a valuable source of pre-k capacity as states expand publicly funded pre-k. But in too many states a variety of policy barriers prevent charter schools from playing a role in state pre-k programs. In a new policy brief on the Democrats for Education Reform website, I argue that it's time to break down these barriers and build partnerships between the charter school and universal pre-k movements to support quality and alignment in early education.

Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman devoted her Huffington Post column last week to singing the praises of Excellence Charter School, an all-boys school in Brooklyn, New York that seeks to combat the high-dropout rates for African American men by providing a strong academic curriculum in an environment that supports students' social and character development. Excellence, a member of the Uncommon Schools network, currently serves 220 boys in kindergarten through fourth grade. [slideshow]

Wright Edelman is clearly impressed by the school, which she proposes replicating in thousands of urban and rural school districts nationally. She and the organization she runs have also been strong advocates for quality early education, including universal pre-k. But, ironically, the school Wright Edelman praises here is barred by law from providing the kinds of pre-k services CDF has advocated for.