Two recent, lengthy reviews on charter schools are both worth taking a look at.
One is a series of articles by the Arizona Republic reporter Craig Harris, who visited seven states to put together a big picture look at the charter school scene. Harris is probably the most even-handed reporter I’ve read on the subject. Most writers, including me, come at charter schools with some set agenda, which means the analyses are shaped by the writers’ educational preconceptions. That’s what makes Harris’ reporting so refreshing. He detests charter waste and fraud and has gone after financial corruption in Arizona’s charter sector with a passion. But when he looks at schools themselves, he tries to evaluate them on their merits. He finds things to like and dislike.
Harris’ most recent investigative report focuses on charters in states other than Arizona which have a record of increasing the performance of students from low income families. The article links back to the earlier articles if you want to read the whole series.
The other important piece of investigative reporting comes from the Network for Public Education, a group begun by educational historian Diane Ravitch and others which has grown into a significant force in the educational battles raging across the country. NPE is decidedly against education privatization and the so-called “education reform” movement in general, which means you’re not likely to hear much from them in the way of praise for charter schools. The recent report from NPE details the $1 billion in federal money wasted on charter schools which either never opened or closed since receiving the funds.
One thing that jumps out from both Harris’ articles and the NPE report: Charter schools spend a lot of money. Not all of them, but enough to say that charters, especially those with a record of success, spend more money than comes in from state funding. In fact, charters that get a lot of press for their student achievement tend to outspend the district schools in their areas by a considerable margin.
Which leads me to two conclusions. First, the long-standing claim by “education reform” advocates that charter schools are lean and mean, that they can give students a high-quality education without all the “wasteful spending” of “failing government schools,” has been proven false by the schools themselves. Second, more money may not guarantee students a better education, but if you want to provide top-quality schools, you have to spend money. Education can’t be done on the cheap.
Harris’ recent article focuses on two charter school chains: IDEA (Individuals Dedicated to Excellence and Achievement), with 96 schools, and KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program), with 242 schools. Large chains like these are becoming the norm. Mom-and-pop charters are still around, but they’re being edged out by Big Charter.
IDEA and KIPP both serve mainly lower-income students, and both have shown themselves to be successful, often more successful than nearby district schools with similar student populations. I tend to question the value of head-to-head comparisons between district school students and those in nearby charter schools with records of success. The students may look identical when it comes to socioeconomic data, but the charter school parents have demonstrated a willingness to go the extra mile by enrolling their children in charters, and the children agree to abide by the school’s demands of stricter discipline, longer school hours and more school work. Otherwise, the children end up back in the traditional public school system. But that being said, evidence indicates that students who stick with charters like IDEA and KIPP benefit from the schools’ approaches to education.
In his article Harris makes it clear, education at IDEA and KIPP schools doesn’t come cheap.
IDEA schools have received a quarter of a billion dollars in grants from the federal government over the past decade. They also get lots of donations from philanthropic groups, about $71 million this past year alone. My back-of-the-envelope estimate is, IDEA schools received an extra $2,000 per student last year above and beyond the regular funding they receive from the state.
KIPP schools have received $130 million in federal grants, and they have a well-oiled fundraising machine for tapping big-bucks donors around the country.
Like all charters, the IDEA and KIPP schools are tuition free, but they spend significantly more than those supposedly wasteful district schools which are their neighbors.
Where does the extra money go? According to Harris, KIPP’s first year teachers make $52,000 to $56,000 a year, about $20,000 more than Arizona’s beginning teachers. (Even with the higher salaries, teachers find that the longer school days and other demands on their time can be so stressful, many of them leave after a few years.) KIPP schools also give their students free breakfasts, lunches and to-go dinners.
That brings us to the NPE analysis of the federal government’s ongoing efforts to prime the charter school pump with generous grants. Since 1995, the Feds have poured $4.1 billion into funding new charters and expanding existing schools. Last year alone, the figure was close to half a billion dollars. Remember, charters only educate 6 percent of the country’s students.
Of that $4.1 billion, a billion was wasted on schools that either never opened or have closed since they opened their doors, according to the NPE. In Arizona from 2006 to 2014, 26 percent of the charters receiving federal money, to the tune of $12.6 million total, either never opened or have closed since.
This article appears in Dec 26, 2019 – Jan 1, 2020.
Can we contrast that to what percentage of TUSD schools have closed or should be closed?
According to TUSD:
The Tucson Unified Governing Board approved the 2019-2020 Certified Salary Schedule by increasing our beginning teacher salary to $40,200. Our first-year teachers hired in FY15-16 have seen an $8,000 increase (23%) to their compensation over the past four years.”
That’s much better than the private sector.
A whole lot of numbers don’t add up here. Why can we never get the truth about actual costs?
“IDEA schools have received a quarter of a billion dollars in grants from the federal government over the past decade” –
WOW, that comes to $25 million per year or roughly $500k for an average state. Arizona’s K-12 budget is just shy of 6 billion dollars per year so my quick math shows this is 0.001% of the state budget. Hardly worth talking about.
Victoria, it’s not about math. Thank you for showing our analytical skills….. The point however is that were we to put that money towards our public schools, the benefit to the students we fund could be just as good. Why make schooling a capitalistic endeavor. Have we proven that the results from the charters are better because they are profit motivated ? School are supposed to be for public good.
Why go to another state to find out about charter public schools? Arizona has over 200,000 students in charter public schools, over 18% of total k-12 enrollment, by far the nation’s highest market penetration.
Talk about test scores? Charter school Black, Hispanic, White and Asian students outscore District Black, Hispanic, White and Asian students. I am certain that the academic gains of each demographic slice are at least equal to district gains otherwise it would have been blasted to the skies in publicity.
Arizona’s 8th grade math scores for Blacks, Hispanics, Whites and Asians in the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress ranked 2nd, 19th, 10th and 11. The average of those four numbers is 10th.
If NAEP broke the Hispanic test score down by Foreign Born and Native Born Hispanic, each of those Arizona groups would rank in the top 10 in the nation instead of the 19th of the melded category.
Cost? According to the NEA Rankings and Ratings, Arizona’s spending per student ranks 46th in the nation.
Average academic rank? 10th Cost rank 5th.
Would be a cool grand slam to be first in both rankings.
Soon.
Education quality is more than math and reading scores, especially when you get to high school. One broader look at quality is parents who get a good look at our schools. For forty seven years, the Gallup corporation surveyed parents having them grade their eldest child’s school quality. In 2011, that rating hit an all-time high of 36% of parents grading their chilld’s school an “A”. By 2015, that score has sunk to a 47 year low of 24%.
Since 1998, my local school district, Chandler Unified, has contracted with Westgroup, having them survey parents and answer the Gallup question, grading their child’s school. From 1998 to 2018, that grade rating rose steadily from 38% in 1998 to 75%.
The Mesa district has seen a similar increase over that same stretch of time. When you tour their schools, you can understand why. World class Career and Tech Ed classes, Dance, excellent sports programs, brimming with scholarships to Ivy League universities.
Tucson Unified, not so much, only 38% excellent, much better than national averages but 20 years behind Chandler.
80% of all school districts in Arizona manage around all aspects of quality as measured through that parent rating as well as academic gains.
We can also look at violent crime by public school students. In 1992, the year before charter public schools started in Arizona, k12 public school age students murdered 70 people. In the last five years, with triple the at-risk k12 population, murders have averaged 20 per year, a much more dramatic decline of violent crime than occurred nationally.
Some charters are good, others are not so good, but all seem to have found a basic wellspring of funding. So, “Charter schools spend a lot of ‘PUBLIC TAXPAYER’ money” in order to operate. Therefore, the salaries of all “executives” from Charter Schools that received public taxpayer funding should be reported in public records somewhere for all to see. Teacher salaries in charters are one thing, but unreported administrative costs that can go right out of our state, are another matter. The money that goes into the pockets of ALL principals, superintendents, CEOs, CFOs, and any/all profit engineers needs sanitized by open books and legal public reporting. Despite all the arguments both good and bad about results, administrative overhead numbers remain secret.
Huppenthal, your comments when in office indicated that you obviously hated public school systems, and your long winded defenses are still accusatory and predictable. You are pure as mud.
“Hated Public School Systems…”
Nope. Charter schools are public schools, I love the great ones, I love the movement. I love great districts also. Have sent a number of letters to the editor praising the Mesa Unified School District, the bond consultant for the Vail School District told people my endorsement was key to getting their bond issue passed, went to a Chandler Unified School district board meeting to detail their incredible results over the last 20 years, recently went to a Phoenix Elementary Board meeting to praise them for their great results.
Personally donated $10,000 to the Sunnyside Unified School District Dollars for scholars program which went for a college scholarship for a Dreamer and for laptops for students.
Knowing that school choice improves district schools is not hatred. Knowing that districts were developed to keep minorities out of good schools is not hatred. Knowing that minorities are capable of much more is not hatred.
Served without pay on a public school board for 10 years.
Your statement that charters “spend a lot of money” is false.
Arizona Charter public schools spend less than $7,500 per student. That makes them more cost efficient than any state in the nation.
Your statement that I was “long winded” is also false. I didn’t waste one word in detailing out all of hte benefits of school choice. It’s just that there are lots of verifiable benefits.
Perfect response to the blinded progressive public school leftists jhup. Truth is their kryptonite.
Stop the back and forth vitriol! If we are going to provide a quality education for ALL students, we must work together with respect.
Here are facts from azmirror.com that show disaggregated data from Expect More Arizona:
https://www.azmirror.com/2019/12/18/who-are-the-forgotten-students-betsy-devos-claims-she-wants-to-help/?fbclid=IwAR2PK1kznI4qw7uzHe75DQ2Unm0lq9g_aWbwMtW0F6gBhE-PAdhAsrR3IFs
“Stop the back and forth…”
No. Only through enlightened argumentation in which the truth is relentlessly presented can the truth emerge.
You refer to a story in the Arizona mirror by Julie Erflie. In that story, Erflie(sp?) refers to an analyiss of Arizona NAEP scores by Expect More Arizona. Expect More spends a lot of money every year. They should present more scientific results. Expect more analysis compares our average results with the nation’s average results.
That approach is not remotely a scientific analysis of Arizona’s results or proper comparison.
Here is the NAEP data for Arizona, properly compared:
8th Grade Math Scores
………………………………….Arizona…..Nation
Black……………………………..267……….260
Hispanic………………………..269……….268
White…………………………….295……..292
Asian…………………………….314……..313
8th Grade Reading Scores
……………………………………..Arizona…..Nation
Black………………………………….244……..239
HIspanic…………………………….251……..252
White…………………………………273……. 272
Asian…………………………………..NA …… 284
Spending
per student…………………….$8,123….$12,602
Arizona delivers better or similar results than the nation for $4,475 per student less, a savings of $5 billion per year.
That reduced burden on our economy enabled Arizona to create 700,000 jobs for our graduates since 2000, job growth of 34%, more than double the nation’s job growth of 16% in the same time period.
Eighth grade scores reflect a much greater exposure to our schools and school quality than do 4th grade scores.