Freedom Line Blog

Nationwide, there are 5,277 charter schools serving 1.6 million K-12 students.

But not all of them are urban minority, low-income students.  Some serve suburban middle class families looking for an alternative to the curriculum on tap in a traditional public school.

For example, Hillsdale College is spearheading a national campaign to create at least one charter school in every state with a classical education curriculum.  Readers of the school’s popular Imprimus publication won’t be surprised to learn that that “These schools will be based on a classical liberal arts model and have a strong civics component that will equip students to understand and defend the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution,” according to the college’s website.

So far, three parent groups have partnered with Hillsdale to create this distinctive new brand of charter school in Georgia, New Mexico, and Texas.  The Texas version, Founders Classical Academy in Lewisville, began construction in 2012, and expects to start classes this fall.

Hillsdale’s involvement shows that the real genius of the charter school option is that it allows any community of families, regardless of socio-economic status, to opt out of a public school system overburdened by bureaucracy, unions, and questionable curriculum standards.  The charter school option gives local families the choice to spend their tax dollars to, in the words of Founders Classical Academy, “provide a well-rounded education that is distinctively classical, that pursues knowledge, promotes virtue, and prepares students for prosperous lives in a free society.”

What more could a conservative education reformer ask for?

Adam Schaeffer of the Cato Institute argues a provocative thesis about the effect of public charter schools:

How can charter schools spend less money on average than regular public schools and yet cost taxpayers more overall at the state level? How can charter schools increase educational options and diversity in the public school system and yet decrease options and diversity in education overall? And how can some charter schools outperform regular public schools on average and yet decrease achievement overall?

I call these outcomes the Charter School Paradox, but it is only a paradox if we take a very narrow view of the effects of charter schools. When we expand our perspective to include their effects on private education, we find that these seeming contradictions are really the unintended consequences of inadequate, public-sector-only reform. On average, charter schools may marginally improve the public education system, but in the process they are wreaking havoc on private education. Charter schools take a significant portion of their students from private schools, causing a drop in private enrollment, driving some schools entirely out of business, and thereby raising public costs while potentially diminishing competition and diversity in our education system overall.

Schaeffer’s commentary is based on a larger study published by Cato colleague Richard Buddin.

Some of the key findings of Buddin’s study are that public charters in urban areas draw one-fourth to one-third of their student bodies from private schools.  The direct cost of these private-to-public migrants is estimated to be $1.8 billion a year (as of 2008) in new spending.

According to Schaeffer and Buddin, unless education reformers enact “good private school choice reform, such as education tax credits,” expanding the number of public charter schools could “cannibalize the private sector, increase public costs, and decrease options and competition.”

Conservative governors like Indiana’s Mitch Daniels, Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal and others have been rightly praised for reforming their public education system by increasing the school choice options for parents.  Going forward, they and others would do well to continue pursuing policies that protect private education while improving its public counterpart.

Maybe there’s a Midwestern Miracle in education reform unfolding.  Outgoing Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (R) was hailed last week for getting an expansive school vouchers program passed.  The Detroit public school system is seriously considering allowing 41 of its schools to become charter schools.  Now, Illinois is within a majority vote of its state House of Representatives of curbing the power of teachers’ unions.  The chief beneficiary of this latest reform: newly elected Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Right now, Emanuel’s people aren’t talking, preferring to let state lawmakers take heat for giving the new Hizzoner the right to extend the school day and weaken the teacher tenure system.  Though I think Emanuel is far from the best potential education reformer, I won’t be surprised if he extracts some serious concessions from teachers unions.  If the bill weakening Illinois’ educators’ “rights” to disrupt the education of the children they serve passes, the moment may be ripe for Illinois – through Emanuel – to return a shard of the public school spotlight where it belongs: on the pupils.

Conservatives are rightly convinced that private sector initiative is the key ingredient to almost every major improvement, be it economical, cultural, etc.  But before individuals can make big changes, they must be legally allowed to do so.

Thanks to Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top program, states like California opened up their public school districts to more parent involvement.  (These kinds of reforms are necessary to qualify for Race to the Top funding.)

According to Parent Revolution, a Los Angeles-based organization helping parents maximize their rights under the law,

The Parent Trigger is a historic new law that gives parents in California the right to force a transformation of their child’s current or future failing school. All parents need to do is organize – if 51% of them get together and sign an official Parent Trigger petition, they have the power to force their school district to transform the school.

If successful, parents have five options:

1) Charter conversion:

If there is a nearby charter school that is outperforming your child’s failing school, parents can bring in that charter school to transform the failing school. The school will then be run by that charter school, not the school district, but it will continue to serve all the same students that have always attended the school.

2) Turnaround:

If parents want huge changes but want to leave the school district in charge, this option may be for them. It forces the school district to hit the reset button by bringing in a new staff and giving the local school community more control over staffing and budget.

3) Transformation:

This is the least significant change. It force the school district to find a new principal, and make a few other small changes.

4) Closure:

This option would close the school altogether and send the students to other, higher-performing schools nearby.  Parent Revolution does NOT recommend this option to parents – we believe schools must be transformed, not closed.

5) Bargaining power:

If parents want smaller changes but the school district just won’t listen to them, they can organize, get to 51%, and use their signatures as bargaining power.

Parents get to pick which option they want for their children and their school. For a much more detailed overview of each one of these options, please click here.

All public policy needs to do is create space for private initiative to occur.  Once it does, the ingenuity of the American people will make the most of the opportunity.

For more on Parent Revolution, click here.

For every crisis there is an opportunity.  The Detroit public school system is in a fiscal state of emergency with a mandate to eliminate its $327 million deficit.  At first, leadership planned to close 40 of the district’s 142 schools.

Now, more innovative heads have prevailed.  Yesterday it was announced that instead of closing schools the district would convert 41 of them into privately-run charter schools.  Estimated savings to the taxpayer: more than $28 million.  Estimated benefit to parents looking for a hand-up out of failing classrooms: priceless.

Of course, teachers’ union advocates bristle at the idea that nearly one-third of their Detroit membership will be laid off and required to reapply for jobs without costly pension funds and tenure protection.

But the data doesn’t support the status quo.  Since Louisiana lawmakers transformed New Orleans into the only public school system where a majority of students attend charter schools, scores on student achievement exams have risen dramatically.

Louisiana’s reform was made possible by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.  Michigan’s ongoing financial crisis may be just the opportunity Detroit families need to get the education – and the tax relief – they deserve.