Learning Curve: Tough charter choices

By Maureen Downey

Ever go to a movie where all the other viewers left the theater raving about the film except you? Somehow, they all saw something extraordinary in the movie that eluded you.

That’s how I felt Friday at the Capitol as I watched at least 1,500 students, parents and politicians celebrate charter schools and demand more of them.

“I want to say to the legislators who have not been supportive of charter schools that I wish you saw this sea of faces of children in charter schools,” said state Rep. Alisha Morgan (D-Austell), noting that charters now enroll 60,000 students in Georgia.

My response to Morgan and to other lawmakers at the rally: What are you doing to improve the education of the 1.6 million Georgia children who are not in charter schools?

Why aren’t we talking about improving teacher quality, expanding early childhood education and enhancing math and science performance for students, whether they attend charters or traditional schools?

I applaud charter schools, which are tax-funded public schools that operate independently of many state and central office dictates in exchange for promises of enhanced student performance.

And, certainly, there’s room for many more charters in Georgia than the 122 now operating.

But there’s no magic in a charter school that conjures higher test scores or better-prepared students.

Top charters succeed for the same reasons that top traditional public schools do: Visionary principals, committed and competent teachers, adequate funding, relevant curriculum and involved parents.

That’s what we should rally for at the Capitol — especially the adequate funding considering the deep cuts to education over the last two years.

Charter school legislation dominated the last two sessions of the General Assembly, eclipsing any discussion of more meaningful and consequential reforms, such as teacher quality.

The Legislature has adopted a strategy of renaming schools rather than reforming them, and it’s sticking to it.

Because it’s easier than doing the hard work of true reform.

We could designate every school in Georgia a charter school today, grant them greater flexibility and still end up with dismal results.

If the formula for school transformations were that simple, Ohio would be No. 1 in the country.

Ohio showed an out-sized faith when it began allowing charters in 1998, haphazardly approving 328. However, Ohio imposed a moratorium and tightened oversight on its charters schools in 2005 after more than half earned a D or an F on the state report card.

Now, if an Ohio charter school fails two years out of any three — after a two-year starting period — it has to close. (The state is now considering a bill that would remove some of obstacles to charters in the wake of the U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan call for more “high-quality” charters.)

In its unbridled zeal for charter schools, Georgia’s Legislature enacted a law last year that allows an appointed state commission to approve charters over the protests of the local boards of education and to direct local taxes to the charter.

The appointed commission has no accountability to local voters for its actions, although it confiscates local funds.

Arguing that the law usurps their constitutional powers, many school boards are now suing the state.

Understandably, charter schools want to keep those local dollars coming, which was the main reason for the rally.

Before the enactment of House Bill 881, if a charter-school application was rejected at the local level but approved by the state, it could collect only state dollars. Now, it gets all the money.

“The districts that are suing care more about dollar signs than children,” Morgan said. “It’s about color, not black-and-white color. It’s about the almighty green dollar.”

Interestingly, a General Assembly that complains when federal government meddles in its business had no qualms about hijacking local decision-making and local money.

The Legislature’s defense for its pre-emption is that it’s not the school board’s money to withhold from charter schools. It’s the parent’s money.

I have had four children in public schools. My taxes — as high as they are in my town — covered only two months of my children’s schooling each year.

It’s the community’s money that underwrites public education, and the community elects a school board to decide how to spend that money.

I am not going to argue that school boards act responsibly or even rationally with budgets, but the solution is not to turn the reins over to politicians in Atlanta. If residents want more charter schools, they ought to storm school board meetings and demand them.

If the state Legislature feels so strongly about a charter school application that it wants to overrule a local school board, it ought to fund the school fully out of state money rather than snatch up local dollars.