Special Report
Federal Opinion

Congress: Spread the Wealth to Charters

By Richard Whitmire — February 10, 2009 4 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Educators are downright giddy these days with billions of dollars in stimulus spending likely to come their way. A Christmas-in-February funding surge could help rehire laid-off teachers, prevent further firings, and build new schools. Big payoffs would result from the investment, educators promise.

But a far more significant education payoff is unfolding, one that draws little federal money and yet promises to emerge as the biggest success of the school reform movement: charter schools.

As little as five years ago, the phrase “charter school” brought to mind dingy basement classrooms where students never managed to outscore their peers in regular schools. For years, that was somewhat true, which probably explains why so few have noticed the recent breakthroughs. In fact, these recent charter successes appear to have escaped the U.S. Senate, which ignored them in its stimulus bill.

In Los Angeles, the Green Dot charter group is turning around that city’s gnarliest school, the infamous Locke High School. In Philadelphia, Mastery Charter Schools did the same with violence-plagued Shoemaker Middle School. And the Knowledge Is Power Program, or KIPP, charters, which now number 66 schools in 19 states, are taking students slated for failure and sending them off to college at the astonishing rate of 84 percent.

These developments have been recent and involve only a few of the best charter operators, which in addition to KIPP, Green Dot, and Mastery include Aspire Public Schools, Achievement First, Uncommon Schools, and a few others. Among the nation’s 4,000 charter schools, probably no more than 300 qualify for this elite status.

The critics who downplay these schools’ successes, suggesting they can never go to “scale” and educate entire cities of urban children, have a point. KIPP for example, won’t compromise on teacher and principal quality. Adhering to that principle, KIPP can expand only with very deliberate speed.

So why are these breakthroughs possibly more important than the billions in federal dollars about to be shoveled into schools? Because these elite charters are proving it is possible to take average children from tough neighborhoods and get them enrolled in college at very high rates. Until recently, that just wasn’t thought possible. The breakthrough is sending a message to regular public schools that they should adopt some of the innovations pioneered in these schools.

Some examples:

• In Massachusetts, 10 schools recently lengthened their instructional days by 25 percent. Employing longer school days (with the time used wisely) is a hallmark of these successful charters. Those traditional schools in Massachusetts are seeing a boost in state scores in math, English, and science in all grades.

• In Denver, the Bruce Randolph School won the authority to set its own course on hiring, pay, and structuring the school day. The newly won freedom appears to be contagious in that city. In the successful charters, the authority to hire, train, promote, and fire is considered the most important ingredient.

• In the District of Columbia, Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has drawn a line with the teachers’ union, demanding the authority to purge ineffective teachers—a tool she knows she must use to compete with charter schools, which already educate a third of Washington’s students and have that authority.

• In New York City, an innovative teacher-training program designed by the elite charter school operators there (KIPP, Uncommon Schools, Achievement First) and housed at Hunter College will soon expand to take in teachers on their way to traditional city schools. These charter founders pioneered classroom-management techniques that explain why visitors to their schools see lively but intensely focused classes with few discipline problems.

And yet, in spite of these breakthroughs by charter schools, and the spinoff lessons for traditional schools, there’s a chance the massive stimulus bill will bypass charter schools. Only the House of Representatives’ version of the legislation offers charters assistance.

The ability of successful charters to expand is linked directly to their facilities. Unlike regular public schools, charters must build or rent their own space. Aspire Public Schools, for example, wants to convert two abandoned warehouses in South-Central Los Angeles into schools. Hundreds of Latino parents have signed up for the schools. The problem is, Aspire can’t afford the 6 percent to 7 percent interest rate on construction loans. A simple loan guarantee from the federal government would take that rate down to a doable 4 percent.

The first task of the stimulus package, of course, is to stimulate the economy. School construction qualifies. But why not also stimulate the education system that for decades has failed our neediest children, by spreading the wealth to the charter school operators who are serving them so well? Barack Obama gets the importance of these schools. It’s no coincidence that the president and first lady Michelle Obama earlier this month chose a charter school to visit and read The Moon Over Star. Does Congress get it?

A version of this article appeared in the February 11, 2009 edition of Education Week

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Reading & Literacy Webinar
The Future of the Science of Reading
Join us for a discussion on the future of the Science of Reading and how to support every student’s path to literacy.
Content provided by HMH
Mathematics K-12 Essentials Forum Helping Students Succeed in Math
Student Well-Being Live Online Discussion A Seat at the Table: The Power of Emotion Regulation to Drive K-12 Academic Performance and Wellbeing
Wish you could handle emotions better? Learn practical strategies with researcher Marc Brackett and host Peter DeWitt.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Federal Trump Admin. Says Undocumented Students Can't Attend Head Start, Early College
The administration issued notices saying undocumented immigrants don't qualify for Head Start and some Education Department programs.
7 min read
Children play during aftercare for the Head Start program at Easterseals South Florida, an organization that gets about a third of its funding from the federal government, on Jan. 29, 2025, in Miami.
Children play during aftercare for the Head Start program at Easterseals South Florida, an organization that gets about a third of its funding from the federal government, on Jan. 29, 2025, in Miami. The Trump administration said Thursday that undocumented children are ineligible for Head Start and a number of other federally funded programs that the administration is classifying as similar to welfare benefits.
Rebecca Blackwell/AP
Federal How Medicaid, SNAP Changes in Trump's Big Budget Bill Could Affect Schools
The bill will stress a major funding stream schools rely on, leading to ripple effects that make it harder for schools to offer free meals.
6 min read
President Donald Trump signs his signature bill of tax breaks and spending cuts at the White House on July 4, 2025, in Washington.
President Donald Trump signs his signature bill of tax breaks and spending cuts at the White House on July 4, 2025, in Washington. The bill cuts federal spending for Medicaid and food stamps—cuts that stand to affect students and trickle down to schools.
Evan Vucci/AP
Federal Opinion A D.C. Insider Explains What’s Changed in Education Policy
The biggest thing that people don’t understand about federal education policy? How much the details really matter.
7 min read
The United States Capitol building as a bookcase filled with red, white, and blue policy books in a Washington DC landscape.
Luca D'Urbino for Education Week
Federal What Superintendents Think About a Steady Clip of Federal K-12 Changes
A state superintendent and two district leaders shared their thoughts on the latest changes coming from Washington.
4 min read
From left, Quentin J. Lee, superintendent of Talladega City Schools, Keith Konyk, superintendent of Elizabeth Forward School District, and Eric Mackey, Alabama's state superintendent of education, discuss the latest K-12 policy changes at the ISTELive 25 + ASCD Annual Conference 25 on July 2, 2025.
From left, Quentin J. Lee, superintendent of Talladega City Schools in Alabama; Keith Konyk, superintendent of Elizabeth Forward School District in Pennsylvania; and Eric Mackey, Alabama's state superintendent of education, discuss the latest K-12 policy changes at the ISTELive 25 + ASCD Annual Conference 25 on July 2, 2025.
Kaylee Domzalski/Education Week