Just What Exactly Is a Charter School?

One of the more consistent, ongoing suggestions for improving America’s educational system centers upon the creation of greater competition amongst public schools. The reason for the steady drumbeat centers upon a belief that a change to the free market system would be one of the best methods for creating better educational opportunities for children.

In direct response to the push for greater competition, forty states across America have now initiated legislation to allow the construction of new public schools called charter schools. Minnesota was the first state to pass laws regarding charter schools, doing so in 1991.

The concept is definitely catching on. Today, according to PublicCharters.org, there are 4,303 charter schools across our country educating more than 1.2 million children. The state of California, the second to enact such legislation, has more than 600 such schools educating about one-fifth of the nation’s charter school students.

While the number of schools continues to grow, large numbers of Americans, many even within the field of education, simply do not know what a charter school really consists of or how this new school concept differs from traditional public schools. Today at OpenEducation.net, we provide our readers the fundamentals of the charter school concept.

Creating a Charter School
The basic premise behind a charter school is quite simple. A group of people interested in creating a new public school petitions their local educational authority to construct another educational opportunity, in essence a new school. And by construct, we are talking about both the literal and figurative meanings of the word.

According to USCharterSchools.org, “People establish charter schools for a variety of reasons.” However, research indicates that school founders, those creating a charter school, most generally fall into three groups: grassroots organizations of parents, teachers and community members with a common vision of education; entrepreneurs who see the business potential in creating a school; or existing schools looking to reconstitute by converting to charter status. As for a more specific rational, a national study of charter schools has tabulated the top three reasons that founders create a charter school as follows: to realize a specific educational vision; to gain greater autonomy; or to serve a special population.

Once interested in forming a new school entity, the petitioning group sets up a charter with either a local school board or the state (depending on the legislation that has been enacted in that state). The group must agree to educate the students in their school to a mutually agreed upon standard though again that standard can be adjusted according to the school’s charter and mission. Of course, the petitioning group must meet the fundamental expectations of the respective charter legislation in that state in regards to the proposed mission and relevant standards selected.

Otherwise, charter schools in those states where legislation has been created are free of many other state rules and regulations. At the same time, the school must follow the regulations of the self-created charter and the founding group is responsible for setting up oversight to ensure expectations are met.

Critical to the charter school concept, the founding group must agree that charter renewal will be granted only if the school proves to its sanctioning board that the school is being successful. The length of time for which charters are granted varies, but most are granted for 3-5 years.

Once a founding group creates an approved charter to open a school, the funding mechanism for the new entity is the same as any public school, taxpayer dollars.

Competition Is Created
The broader rationale of support for charter schools comes from the belief that the creation of new public schools will actually create a healthy competition for existing students. Critics point to the current structure, in essence a basic monopoly, as one of the primary reasons that schools are in need of improvement. The feeling is that the traditional public school structure offers virtually no impetus for poor-performing schools to improve.

In addition, many educational and non-educational professionals insist that governmental regulations stifle the learning environment. By their very nature, charter schools are free to experiment with educational practices and curricula. For charter schools, creativity and innovation are not simply buzzwords: these concepts are expected to be the cornerstones of such entities.

Ultimately, when a charter school has been created, parents and even teachers have a choice, to choose the traditional public school or a charter school option. The choice could be based upon higher than average academic standards at one school or because of smaller than typical class sizes at another. The choice could be based upon the innovative approaches being implemented at one school or because the educational philosophy of another school is more in line with the philosophy of the parent or teacher.

Whatever the case, the charter movement is about creating options for students and school choice for parents. To complete the competition model, charter schools that fail to deliver a viable product should in theory suffer from a lack of students and go out of business very quickly. By the same token, strong charter schools could put similar pressures on traditional public schools to perform better or they would lose students and the funding associated with them.

Possible School Options
With the formulation of additional school options, communities can create schools that focus on the arts, either visual or performing, or music, or math and science. Critical to the charter concept, because a school is free to focus in a specific area, these new entities can offer in depth courses according to that respective focus and forgo offering courses that are less meaningful to those individual students.

Instead of a school trying to serve as the ‘be-all and end-all’ for the entire student population in a community, charter schools are free to focus on just one type of program if they so desire. Therefore, one school can offer a college preparatory focus for one group of students while a second school could offer technical offerings for another segment of the population.

All too often, trying to offer both options in a single school actually reduces class offerings for students overall. By creating two separate entities, technical offerings can be expanded at a vocational charter school while more advanced academic courses can be added at a school that focuses on a college preparatory program. In either case, students can truly focus on coursework that fits their desired career path instead of having to find other classes within the traditional high school curriculum that often serve only to fulfill credit requirements.

Lastly, charter school legislation has served to reduce the number of large urban schools. This step has been one of the biggest pluses of the movement, allowing for the formation of smaller charter schools within bigger urban districts. This has led to smaller class sizes and more individualized instruction, two critical components for students.

Editor’s Note: Next, a look at Raleigh Charter High School, a role model for the charter movement.

Flickr photo courtesy of egnowit.