Dreaming about education - US charter schools

Not too far away in time... the realm of public schools.

A few years ago families went to the neighborhood school. In this context, families could only choose a school if they could decide the neighborhood in which they lived and the housing market capitalized part of the added value of education. Literature in the last two decades has spoken of the benefits that the greater choice of center would have for the performance of children, schools and the equity of the system. In parallel, more than half of the OECD countries have expanded the possibility of choosing through voucher programs (school vouchers) or allowing families to access school.

A taste or an illusion of free choice? public, charter or private schools?

Letting families go to their favorite school is not always feasible given that for some schools the capacity of the classrooms is limited, less than the number of families that want to access them. Therefore, to let them choose supposes to also establish criteria that define who is going to accede to an over-demanded school and what other options will have those that do not enter in their wished option. 

Nowadays, a parent knows perfectly well that public education is widespread and that the percentage of immigrants that populate public classrooms does not stop growing. If the family is of upper socioeconomic status, they will not have problem in paying for their children a private education. If the family is of middle or lower socioeconomic status, the charter school will suppose one of their best options to offer them a quality education at a more or less affordable price. What if the family is of the lower socioeconomic status? Most likely their only option is a public school whose decline in recent years is undeniable. And yet, even if some authorities want to hide it disguising the statistics, public education is still winning the game to private education where it hurts the most, in the official tests like STAAR in Texas.

Who, What, Where, When, and Why: Demographic and Ecological Factors Contributing to Hostile School Climate for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth
J Youth Adolescence (2009) 38:976–988 DOI 10.1007/s10964-009-9412-1

Why are charter schools considered one of the best options?

The educational offer in charter schools are presented as "à la carte" where parents can choose their preferences and interests for their children. There, parents are going to be listened and their opinions considered in a significant way, far from what usually happens in public schools -or at least, that´s the idea of most parents-. 

Public schools have more money to invest in their system, but something is happening when most parents, including middle and low-middle socioeconomic status ones, have their options for a charter schools. Charter schools follow the (global) trends of education and they are more opened to "innovative" ideas that can fit what society demands in the moment, what as for public schools it seems to take longer and whose processes present many obstacles.

Besides, "charter" parents´ concerns about education differs from the "public" parents since they are more worried about their children´s learning developments than obtaining higher scores. They think, according to some polls and surveys, that their children are going to be better formed and more educated since their curriculum are going to fit their interests, like bilingual education based on linguistic immersion, for instance.

Another important issue to be mentioned is that one about behavior. Most charter schools don´t face really behavioral problems with their students due to the students´ parent involvement and participation in school that is higher than the one in public schools. This could be explained because of the money they spent on that school what means a more serious responsibility, or at least, it could be considered like this. 

"Not surprisingly, there is an underlying assumption that charter schools involve more parents both quantitatively and qualitatively. The theory posits that charter school parents, because they actively choose to send their child to a charter school, will be more involved than parents whose children are automatically assigned to a district-run school "

(Goldring & Shapira, 1993)

Some points to take into account:

The lack of central or federal control on the part of the autonomous states (especially with the charter and private schools) entails the existence of certain "peculiarities" of our system that, in other places, do not exist.

The demographics of the neighborhoods where the schools are located, that is, the design of the school map. This design by neighborhoods or districts will create a new concept of the quality of educational centers. What is relevant is that this advantage in the "options" allows them a different strategic behavior and that generates a negative effect in the rest. Specifically what happens with the current mechanism is that families with resources have more incentives to apply for places in the best public schools (because they risk less) and that means that they are over-represented in these schools (regarding their size in the population ). Therefore, low-income families will tend to concentrate on the worst public schools.

As for the arguments that the system favors those who can afford a private school, it would be interesting to see how the crisis, which will have reduced the number of families that can afford a private school, would affect those results.

Now, getting this point look at this picture

http://www.capenet.org/pdf/Outlook421.pdf

After that, if the survey shows that "charter" parents are not the most satisfied with teachers who are the ones that direct their children´s educational trajectory, then where is the satisfaction coming from?

Interview about Charter schools by Sarah A. Cordes


Websites:

• http://web.cortland.edu/andersmd/psy501/charter.pdf
• https://blog.ed.gov/2014/04/department-of-education-releases-new-parent-and-community-engagement-framework/
• https://www.educationnext.org/what-americans-think-about-their-schools/
• https://www.educationnext.org/charters-and-common-good-spillover-effects-charter-schools-new-york-city/
• http://www.capenet.org/facts.html
• http://www.capenet.org/pdf/Outlook421.pdf
• https://www.the74million.org/a-huge-for-profit-charter-network-uses-the-same-approaches-as-high-performing-nonprofits-the-results-are-impressive/

References:

• Kosciw, J.G., Greytak, E.A. & Diaz, E.M. J Youth Adolescence (2009) 38: 976. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-009-9412-1 DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-009-9412-1 Publisher NameSpringer US  Print ISSN0047-2891 Online ISSN1573-6601

• Shaun M. Dougherty. (2018) How Measurement and Modeling of Attendance Matter to Assessing Dimensions of Inequality. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk (JESPAR)23:1-2, pages 9-23.

• Ruth Curran Neild & Robert Balfanz (2006) An Extreme Degree of Difficulty: The Educational Demographics of Urban Neighborhood High Schools, Journal of Education for Students Placed At Risk, 11:2, 123-141, DOI: 10.1207/s15327671espr1102_1

• Lipman, P. (2013) Chapter 3 Desmantling Public Schools, Displacing African American and Latinos/as in The New Political Economy of Urban Education: Neoliberalism, Race, and the Right to the City. New York. Taylor & Francis (Ed.)