On Thursday, the Maine Association of Charter Schools is sponsoring a forum at the Augusta Civic Center to "1) share the key components of MACS' Charter School Bill as it is currently proposed; 2) solicit feedback from participants before the final language is drafted; and 3) provide a networking opportunity with people from across Maine and beyond interested in supporting a high-quality public charter school sector in Maine." Lots of statewide stakeholders will be there, as well as Todd Ziebarth of the National Association of Public Charter Schools, which created the national model charter law which I've referred to here several times.
Judith Jones and Roger Brainerd of MACS have flown the charter school flag in Maine for over 15 years now, coming quite close to passage several times. Joined recently by Dorothy Havey in the run-up to the election, MACS has written and re-written the proposed legislation many times. MACS has also built a coalition of legislators, parent advocates, and educators - all of whom see some promise in a law that enables PUBLIC school choice in Maine.
As with any coalition, folks come from a wide variety of perspectives and experiences - in my case, teaching in three Maine high schools (Noble, Freeport, and Poland); playing a variety of roles in several major school reinvention initiatives in Maine (CSRD, Great Schools Project); being part of the founding of two start-up public schools in Maine - Casco Bay High School in Portland and Poland Regional High School. My advocacy for PUBLIC charters is also informed by first-hand experience with charter schools in several states (Massachusetts, Ohio, and New York quite deeply, others less so). In addition, as a parent I've had my kids in three public schools systems (Brunswick, AOS 93, and Portland) one private school (the Center for Teaching and Learning in Edgecomb) and one public/private academy (Lincoln).
My overall critique, then, is meant in that context - NOT as a theoretical or ideological stance, but as a deeply practical one. Maine CAN educate more kids well with a combination of charters and traditional public schools. But, as we've seen in other states, a charter law can UNINTENTIONALLY create schools that, rather than serving the students MOST in need of options, do the opposite. Good intentions are rarely enough in the world of school reform. So here are my specific concerns, which I've shared with the folks at MACS and I have confidence we'll be able to work out as the bill makes it way into law.
1) As I read the bill, the two suggested authorizers - existing public school systems (or collaboratives of multiple districts) and 4-year degree granting colleges - are accountable primarily to themselves for setting criteria (within some parameters), evaluating applications and then granting the charters. Once the schools are opened, those authorizers are charged with holding them accountable for results. That, to me, seems too much like a closed-loop system. We KNOW that some charters will succeed and some will fail - the best charter laws are those that, after a reasonable period of time, are able to say, "this school is not performing to standards." Much as I'm fan of self-refereed games, my brothers can tell you why that's not always a good idea.
My suggestion:a state charter commission or oversight office. This need NOT be an expensive new bureacracy at all, in fact could be added to the purview of an existing bi-partisan entity like the state Board of Ed, or it can be an "advisory to the commissioner" board convened by a state office of Charter Schools once a year. Such a board need only be able to say, INDEPENDENTLY of financial interest in the success of the charter, "This one is working, this one needs more time, this one we're shutting down." One way to think of it is as an "authorizer of authorizers."
2) The language regarding which students are served is, for my blood, way too fuzzy. Several provisions (open to all students, open to a maximum of 10% of students, OK to serve a defined subset of students, and, as you'll see below, the special ed provisions) seem to exploitable in ways that could produce what I call "boutique" charters. Such schools, rather than being affiliated with networks that have track records, strong professional development, and established pedagogical practices that can transform learning for under-served learners, instead tend to focus on arts, environmental ed, math and science and other "magnet" functions. While I'm not at all against something that magnetizes kids to come to school, there are PLENTY of such schools in the charter movement that serve primarily kids of privilege. The reasons for that are complex, but it is not enough to say simply that a charter is open to any student that applies. If a school's founding philosophy, teaching staff, and parent body are all aligned with a "boutique" mission, the only kids/parents likely to apply are those who feel they're already part of that group.
My suggested solution: Charters can only be granted to schools that agree to "replicate the demographics of the sending area." Such a provision was built into Casco Bay High School's original memorandum of understanding with Portland schools, and is built into all Gates Foundation funded small school start-ups. That means that charters can neither cherry-pick nor become dumping grounds for students whose current schools are not working for them. There is no question this is tricky territory - but it is territory that can and has been successfully negotiated - especially if there is some accountability to an outside agent of some kind.
3) As written, the charter school applicant has the choice of agreeing to serve special ed students or not. 15 to 20 % of Maine students have a special ed diagnosis – and I can't pull punches here - the vast majority of them - ADHD, “executive skills deficits,” “emotionally challenged” or other labels are MUCH more about the school’s deficits than the kid’s. With only twenty charters to be awarded during the 10-year pilot program, why would we say to the kids MOST likely to benefit from the kinds of things charter schools can get good at that they can't go. The provision above would take care of that. We should use these first 20 charters, to the extent possible, NOT to further separate the haves and the have-nots. As I wrote in a recent letter to MACS and NAPCS, otherwise we may end up 10 years from now telling one of the two stories that get told about charters all the time: They "pull privileged kids from public schools,” or “don’t close the achievement gap.” We can't afford the former, and if we don't do the latter, then why bother?
My last concern is not specifically with the MACS proposed law, except to the degree that any law must map on to the EPS provisions and the recent consolidations initiatives. I've written about this elsewhere, but here's the short version: charter funding MUST be seen as within the overall context of public school funding in Maine - and MUST be equitable. It makes NO sense to start with underfunded charters, but there's a pretty strong set of lobbies that will argue for just that. Our school superintendents and school boards are charged with educating all the kids in their districts, and our funding mechanisms need to be collaborative, rather than competitive systems - so that those school committees and superintendents have both incentive to join and equitable funding structures to do so.
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