More regulation of charter schools is inevitable

Commonwealth Journal

June 25, 2009 10:47 am

— The beauty of charter schools, according to their advocates, is their flexibility. Charter schools — alternatives to established public education systems — operate by their own set of rules. And they are supposed to be able to alter or adjust those rules as deemed necessary to improve the educational process.
But what happens when bureaucracy kicks in? What happens when charter schools are required to adhere to systems not of their own making? Can they still be the catalyst for academic excellence their creators envision?
The nation may soon find out.
President Obama is a supporter of charter schools. However, his path to the presidency enjoyed the strong support of organized labor, including teachers unions. Now, at least one union, the American Federation of Teachers, is pushing to represent educators at charter schools in major cities.
And the AFT is urging the Obama administration to make sure its support for charter schools is accompanied by insistence that they be properly regulated.
Yet regulation and unionization would seem to be contrary to the concept of charter schools, that are supposed to achieve progress by operating outside the strictures public schools deal with on a routine basis. Naturally, not everyone involved with charter schools thinks unions are desirable.
The way we see it, increased regulation of charter schools is inevitable, because that is the nature of things.
It is naive to think that every organizer out there involved with establishing a charter school will produce excellence. Some will be incompetents more interested in their ideology than education. Others will be charlatans hoping to make a quick buck off the money flowing to experimental schooling.
As certain charter schools fail — and some already have — there will be a reaction. Government will be called on to step in and demand more from these schools and their backers. The faces of students whose educational opportunities were shattered by flawed charter efforts will propel these moves.
In discussing charter schools, it’s also worthwhile to consider their impact. Are they likely to play a key role in education reform? Or will they prove to be just curiosities at best, serving a select few students while the majority in troubled education systems see no difference?
And if the impact of charter schools is limited, are they worth the resources they inevitably take from the rest of the public education system?
Maybe the real value of charter schools is in the message they reinforce: That public education has structural problems which need to be addressed. Running away from those problems by forming charter schools or developing other alternatives won’t work, because the flaws in education will gradually migrate with the students.
Rather than run, people who believe a stronger education system is necessary must stand up and fight for it.