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Commonwealth Charter Schools are the wrong way to go

Providing parents with increased public school choice is a laudable goal, but there is a right and a wrong way to implement any policy. In Massachusetts there are two very different types of charter schools, Horace Mann and Commonwealth Charter Schools.

Horace Mann Charter Schools:

• Operate within the public school system.
• Do not drain resources from other public schools.
• Are staffed by certified teachers.
• Are created with approval of local school committee and teachers.
• Prohibit management by for-profit management companies.

Commonwealth Charter Schools:

• Mean no local oversight or control over siting and operation.
• May be managed by for-profit companies. 
• Operate independently of local public school districts.
• Siphon money away from local public schools because of an unfair funding formula.
• Are staffed by many teachers who are uncertified.
  

Unfortunately, we are out of step with the rest of the country when it comes to state-mandated Commonwealth Charter Schools. Massachusetts is one of only four states in the country where there is no local school board approval or oversight of these Commonwealth Charter Schools.
 
Commonwealth Charter School supporters claim that "innovative and flexible approaches" are being created in charter schools. Yet there has not been one replicable innovation that has come out of a Massachusetts charter school that has not already taken place in a traditional public school.  

Commonwealth Charter Schools also claim they are outperforming district schools on the MCAS test in most communities. What they fail to mention is that public school district scores including special needs and vocational education students. An unbiased apples-to-apples comparison would be between regular education students in the district and the charter school. By that measure, charter schools are doing no better than public schools. National studies by the Brookings Institute and other organizations have also found that charter schools do not perform significantly better than other similar-sized public schools.

Supporters of charter schools also imply that they receive the same per pupil tuition as public schools. That is not the case. The reality is that charter schools are doing less with more. The state diverts the average K-12 per pupil cost, rather than the actual per pupil cost. Studies by the State Auditor and Inspector General have found that charter schools avoid the expensive-to-educate children in programs such as special, bilingual and vocational education. That means fewer resources for traditional public schools, which keep the most expensive students at a time of decreasing state assistance. Expanding the number of Commonwealth Charter Schools in this climate would devastate our public schools, which the vast majority of Massachusetts students attend.

If the state truly thinks Commonwealth Charter Schools are a worthy experiment, then it has an obligation to fund them, rather than passing the buck and forcing already squeezed local budgets to pay for another unfunded state program.