What’s a charter school?
They are public schools with free tuition run by private organizations or through a public school district, that have greater flexibility to teach various subjects and often have smaller class sizes.
Parents choose to enroll their children in charter schools, often with a random lottery process when schools get oversubscribed.
Georgia has more than 100 non-system charter schools with more than 325,000 students, nearly 20 percent of the state’s public school enrollment. Some are start-up charter schools. Others were converted into charter schools from traditional public schools. There are also some charter schools that were approved by the state’s education department after having been denied by a local school board.
Charter schools have specific performance standards they must meet. If the school doesn’t meet those standards, a state or school district can close it.
Although they receive public funding, they can also accept private donations.
Georgia charter school demographics
white 45%
black 32%
Hispanic 14%
Asian 5%
two or more races 3%
Source: Georgia Department of Education 2015-16 report on charter schools.
Georgia charter school demographics
white 45%
black 32%
Hispanic 14%
Asian 5%
two or more races 3%
Source: Georgia Department of Education 2015-16 report on charter schools.
Charter schools, which allow smaller class sizes and flexible teaching options, have long been a popular option for many African-Americans frustrated with the quality of traditional public schools. Recently, though, they’ve come under greater public criticism within the black community.
The NAACP as well as The United Front, an umbrella group that includes the Black Lives Matter Network, separately introduced a resolution and a platform within the past month either demanding a moratorium on charter schools or restricting taxpayer funds for privately-operated charter schools.
The demands stem from news accounts of some charter schools felled by fiscal mismanagement, such as Atlanta's Latin Academy Charter School, whose founder was arrested in April on charges he stole an estimated $600,000 from its coffers, and concerns about the schools becoming another form of segregation. A slightly greater percentage of white students and smaller percentage of black students attend Georgia's charter schools than traditional public schools. Comic John Oliver's video on charter schools brought the issue more attention.
The critics’ greatest concern? Low-income black students being inadequately educated; and they do not believe charter schools are part of the solution.
“We have to change the system and recognize that the least of those need more help,” said Richard Rose, president of the NAACP’s Atlanta branch.
Charter school proponents defend them as a critical option, noting traditional public schools have had similar troubles. In Georgia, a state law was adopted that requires charter school finance managers to take annual training or risk losing their charter.
“While it is a reality that many charter schools lack diversity, we have witnessed segregation in traditional public schools for decades,” said outgoing state Rep. Rahn Mayo, D-Decatur, who authored the bill requiring the training. “The resolution highlights the existence of conflicts of interest, fiscal mismanagement and weak oversight in charter schools; to which I say, we have witnessed scandals, theft and corruption among traditional K-12 elected and appointed leadership for many years.”
It’s uncertain what impact some of the other demands, such as a moratorium on privately run charter schools, will have in Georgia and across the nation. There were 51 charter schools in Georgia with a waiting list last school year, according to a state report. Enrollment is about 325,000 students and growing. They’re a popular concept here.
There are about three dozen Georgia charter schools with student bodies that are majority black. About two-thirds of those schools fell below the state's most recent College and Career-Ready Performance Index score, which some describe as Georgia's school report card. The ratio is similar among charter schools statewide. Kindezi, which has class-size limits of eight students and two Atlanta campuses, had an above-average CCRPI score this year.
Atlanta parent Stefani Ingram Hazell said she’s had troubling and terrific experiences with charter schools.
The first charter school her son attended made her feel like he was a number.
“What’s your child’s name?,” she recalled a teacher asking.
The current one, The Kindezi School at Old Fourth Ward, offers yoga classes in the morning, has teachers who tell her son, a sixth-grader, they love him, and he’s taking advanced classes such as one on civil engineering and architecture.
“We love it,” she said.
Political leaders, particularly Republicans, have sought to make inroads with black voters by pushing charter schools as an alternative to struggling public schools. The Obama administration has also embraced charter schools, vowing to double funding.
For several years, though, some black community leaders have worried the growth of charter schools was hurting traditional public schools, as more middle-income black families enrolled their kids in charter schools and left poorer black students behind. Compounding those fears were complaints about vouchers taking funding from public schools, noted Clark Atlanta University associate political science professor William Boone.
The complaints about charter schools highlight the expansion of the concerns of Black Lives Matter activists from protests about police brutality, Boone said.
“The Black Lives Matter movement is in the process of maturing and determining how they are trying to attack certain issues,” he said. “They’re looking across the broad spectrum of issues that impact the African-American community.”
The NAACP’s board, which introduced a similar resolution in 2014, is scheduled to vote on this version in October.
Rose, the Atlanta NAACP leader, believes more equitable spending of public school dollars is key to help low-income students. Gov. Nathan Deal wants to change the state’s school funding formula.
“We are not facing up to the realities of how did we get here and how we can get out,” he said. “Charter schools do not address the problem.”
Ingram Hazell says everyone is entitled to their opinion about the effectiveness of charter schools. She wasn’t specifically looking for a charter school, just a good school, when she found Kindezi. Hazell volunteered at the school and now works there, as the office specialist. She paused during a telephone interview to give a student a hug.
As for concerns about fiscal mismanagement, Ingram Hazell said that with Kindezi’s small class sizes, “we couldn’t be about the money.”
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