Another day, another article detailing how Charter Schools hurt our overall education system. But I don't want to focus on the specifics of that article. I just want to enumerate why the charter system is intrinsically detrimental to the overall public education system. First, the charter system does not have to be removed. There is a place for Charter Schools in the country. Charter Schools exist so new pedagogy and educational philosophies can be tried outside the public education system. Through this experimentation, public education can possibly pick up useful techniques and advice in order to better themselves. The issue comes when charters expand into huge networks that essentially take the cream of the crop, leaving the most vulnerable students to the public education system. One might think the lottery system in Charters prevents this kind of cherry picking, but with suspension rates at Charters far outpacing that of public schools, it's no surprise that their iron clad management systems are effective at maintaining classroom management. Couple this with several of the famous charter systems being adept at finding private donors, and you have the perfect environment to propagate a myth of charter excellence. The reality is that charters are excellent because they remove students with behavior issues and they have full access to the resources necessary to teach. Of course all Charters are not created equal. Plenty of charters function like public schools and achieve similar, if not worse, results.
People might argue that at the end of the day the achievement created by these charters far outweighs any negative externality created by the sprawling charter system. However, there are some institutional downsides. Charters with more money to develop find themselves able to hedge prime locations for their schools, often pushing out potential public schools from being created. The brain drain effect is something that has not been explicitly researched and may be creating a system where teachers in public schools are bombarded with students who need academic assistance. If we're playing the numbers game, the question might be is it worth creating 600 exemplary students or about 800 above average, 100 exemplary, and 300 below average students. Of course those numbers are estimates, but the hypothetical set up is the true question posed by the charter problem. Do charters hurt the public education system enough so that their contribution of exemplary students does not outweigh the unintentional harm done to public education students? If the answer is yes, we need to reform the charter system. If the answer is no, then we need to spend time figuring out a threshold where charters need to be kept at. But the notion of expanding charters without any limits is a foolhardy one. There's an issue when one of my students, who attends what's considered the best public school in her neighborhood, talks about how her mother wishes she had been placed in a charter. Teachers know they're being shortchanged. Students know they're being shortchanged. The only people pretending they're doing no harm are the charter schools themselves.
People might argue that at the end of the day the achievement created by these charters far outweighs any negative externality created by the sprawling charter system. However, there are some institutional downsides. Charters with more money to develop find themselves able to hedge prime locations for their schools, often pushing out potential public schools from being created. The brain drain effect is something that has not been explicitly researched and may be creating a system where teachers in public schools are bombarded with students who need academic assistance. If we're playing the numbers game, the question might be is it worth creating 600 exemplary students or about 800 above average, 100 exemplary, and 300 below average students. Of course those numbers are estimates, but the hypothetical set up is the true question posed by the charter problem. Do charters hurt the public education system enough so that their contribution of exemplary students does not outweigh the unintentional harm done to public education students? If the answer is yes, we need to reform the charter system. If the answer is no, then we need to spend time figuring out a threshold where charters need to be kept at. But the notion of expanding charters without any limits is a foolhardy one. There's an issue when one of my students, who attends what's considered the best public school in her neighborhood, talks about how her mother wishes she had been placed in a charter. Teachers know they're being shortchanged. Students know they're being shortchanged. The only people pretending they're doing no harm are the charter schools themselves.
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