Charter schools are a lot like Italian restaurants

My thanks to Dr. Gary Wray for his provocative response to my column last week about charter schools.

I had written about Sen. Bryan Townsend’s concerns about charter schools and education in general, which he considers the No. 1 issue in Delaware. I agree, despite our never-ending concerns about land use and sea level rise.

Dr. Wray dismissed Sen. Townsend’s concerns about more charter schools leading to divisiveness in New Castle County. He offered a vigorous, full-throated defense of charters.

I began looking for articles and research about charter schools.

The first one I checked, from the Slate website, sounded promising: “Do charter schools work? A new study of Boston schools says yes.”

This study concluded that students at some high-performing city charters delivered higher test scores on standardized tests. The article noted, however, traditional suburban schools also scored well. What does that mean for rural and small-town Delaware?

A Washington Post Wonkblog piece said research showed that competition among schools worked, but that it took much longer than expected. In Arizona, for example, students initially did worse at the charters, but, in the long run, those schools were more likely to close. The charters gradually improved, though they weren’t necessarily superior.

A recent article in the Economist said that New York City charters were performing well. A May 14, 2014 Washington Post article said charters, overall, were doing badly in places like Pennsylvania and Milwaukee.

There have also been cases of corruption. This recently happened at a Delaware charter, where administrators are accused of using school credit cards to buy fine watches and concert tickets.

I found myself agreeing with Jonah Rockoff, an educational researcher at the Columbia Business School, who said that saying charter schools are good is “like saying Italian restaurants are good places to eat - some are and some aren’t.”

And as I read the articles, an obvious truth emerged: Charter schools are no longer new.

The first one opened in St. Paul, Minn. - in 1991. For nearly a quarter century now, we’ve had charter schools in this country.

When politicians and “educational reform” advocates discuss charter schools, they speak in rapturous terms about the fruits of “freedom” and “innovation” and “competition.”

In the beginning, the idea was that charters, freed from the restrictions of traditional schools, would blaze new educational pathways. Other schools, charter and traditional schools alike, would learn from these innovators and introduce innovations of their own. All schools and all students would benefit.

That has not happened. If it had, we would not be having this conversation. The advantages of charter schools would be clear. Instead, we have mounting evidence of charter schools as a mixed bag - just like Italian restaurants.

At five years, even 10, supporters could plausibly say charters haven’t had enough time to prove themselves.

At 15 years, intellectual honesty demands asking hard questions.

At 20 years and counting, it’s time to admit: The charter school movement is not working as originally intended, as an incubator for new and wonderful educational strategies.

Sussex Academy administrators, in their recent Cape Gazette article, spoke of the need for a “student-centered environment” and “keeping the best teachers.” Sussex Academy may be a good school, but there’s nothing innovative about those ideas.

Given this history, we’d be foolish not to take Sen. Townsend’s warnings about divisiveness seriously.

Dr. Gray brushed aside Townsend’s warning. He said, “Life is all about making choices” and offered the inane comment that Townsend and I “like others making our choices for us.”

Actually, “choice” is why I’m writing. I want a choice - or at least a say - in how my tax dollars are spent.

Townsend’s conclusions are straightforward and, I think, inescapable. In New Castle County, as elsewhere, schools used to be the heart of the community, a unifying element. When our son was young, we met other parents in our neighborhood through the Capital School District schools our kids attended. We attended school programs and cheered the school teams.

Now, Townsend said, upstate children in a single neighborhood may go to as many as nine different schools. A spirit of community is lost. The problem is: You never know you’ve reached a tipping point until it’s too late to do anything about it.

And a sense of divisiveness is born, as all of those schools begin chasing scarcer resources.

Which brings us to an unfortunate topic: money. It’s great to say all students deserve a choice, but that doesn’t mean the state can afford to offer all students a state-funded private school experience. We need to make choices about how our money is spent. (More on this topic later.)

This doesn’t seem to concern Dr. Wray. He says we need more charter schools. He even argues for more school districts.

There’s not much evidence this would improve education, but one thing is clear. It would provide more jobs for school administrators. One might even call it the School Administrator Full Employment (SAFE) approach.

While the jury is still out - after all these years - on the efficacy of charter schools, one educational factor has never been challenged: the need for good teachers.

We used to draw on a vast pool of highly qualified women whose career options were limited. Those days are gone.

Finding good teachers will cost more money. We can spend money on more administrators or on good teachers. What’s it going to be?