Getting Smart About the Risks of District-Charter Collaboration

In 2011, the Austin Independent School District had a problem. Allan Elementary School had 200 students enrolled in a school that had capacity for 700, and although it was meeting state performance standards, the middle and high schools it fed into were struggling.

Given the high cost of running a half-empty school and the pressure to increase the school district’s graduation rate, the reform-minded superintendent needed a way to improve academics, attract students and keep the school open.

Meanwhile, IDEA, a successful charter school organization operating several schools about 300 miles south in the Rio Grande Valley, was interested in expanding to Austin.

The school district issued an RFP, which IDEA answered, and the superintendent and charter founder presented a proposal to the Austin school board that IDEA would take over the operations of Allan Elementary as an in-district charter school. In a 5-4 vote, board members approved the proposal, and a few short months later in summer 2012, a bold collaboration between the Austin district and IDEA was in full swing.

But in the haste to get the proposal approved and the school opened, almost no time or effort was spent soliciting feedback from or even making a case for IDEA with Allan families or the broader community. As a result, few Allan families remained in the school and some saw the nonprofit Texas-based IDEA as an outsider that threatened to privatize public education. An opposition group swiftly and successfully rallied the larger community to overturn the school board and oust board members who voted for the in-district charter.

Six weeks after the election, and just a few months into IDEA’s first year, the new board voted 5-4 again, but this time to sever ties with IDEA.

Delicate Balance
Austin shows the real-world ramifications of a collaboration gone sour for all parties. When the school board cancelled its contract, IDEA was given six months to find a new building, so it opened across town as a nondistrict charter school. For the district, the shift to nondistrict status meant a loss in rent revenue and enrollment. The charter school’s rising test scores turned a partner into a competitor.

IDEA eventually opened five schools in Austin, all independent of the district, but ultimately, the community lost. The 500 families that enrolled in IDEA faced initial uncertainty, followed, for some, by a doubling of their commute. For the neighborhood, five years later, there is still no elementary school in the district building. And any hope of either side sharing what works for the marginalized populations that both IDEA and the district serve was also lost.

Undoubtedly, embarking on collaborative efforts with charter schools comes with risks. Not only can a sloppy launch erode what is often already fragile trust with key constituents, but teachers and central-office staff may rightly worry what an arrangement will mean for their job security and parents can be left in the dark about how to access new options. So why would district and charter leaders even attempt such a risky venture?

After five years of research, my colleagues at the Center on Reinventing Public Education and I have learned that in many cities, well-timed and locally attuned collaboration can reap tangible benefits for families. Furthermore, in cities with a large charter school footprint, coordination in school accountability, discipline, enrollment, transportation and special education is no longer just a nicety, it is a necessity.

How do school districts answer the call to collaborate for the benefit of students and families, while avoiding the landmines that Austin stepped on? Success, we have learned, comes from a keen sense of timing, tailoring the approach to respond to local challenges and ensuring buy-in extends beyond the core education powerbrokers.

Formal Partnerships
Over the last seven years, district and charter leaders in 25 cities have signed Collaboration Compacts. In every case, the sectors made some initial progress in working together. But 10 of these cities saw their progress erode to some extent, with six, including Austin, losing all ground.

The three most common reasons for the failed relationships were these:

» Leadership turnover coupled with lack of support for collaboration across the district or charter sector;

» Lack of a clear, detailed roadmap for collaboration that includes goals, timelines and responsible parties; and

» Failure to solicit community support and buy-in beyond the immediate two parties, such as community organizations or Compact committees run by a neutral third party.

Collaboration always will be a risk, but assessing the timing and tailoring the approach can increase the chances that the efforts will bear fruit. Based on our research, below are six key factors that district administrators should consider when assessing how ready their community is to dive into a serious partnership between the district and charter schools.

» No. 1: Be willing to both champion and prioritize the cause.
A strong stance from district (and charter) leadership on collaboration sends an important signal to all employees that engaging across sectors is expected.

In Cleveland, Ohio, the district CEO and charter leaders regularly talk up collaboration, which has helped set the tone for sustained cross-sector cooperation such as sharing instructional practice, levy dollars and school performance metrics.

» No. 2: Ensure each side gets a win.
Altruism almost never supports the weight of this politically tenuous work.

In Indianapolis, charter schools leasing a district facility get a win by having a suitable building in which to expand. The district wins by targeting neighborhoods where traditional schools have struggled the most.

» No. 3: Assess benefits and costs fairly.
District leaders must weigh the time, political will and real dollars at play and put these precious resources to work on programs where benefits outweigh costs.

Lobbying at the statehouse is something both district and charter sectors do regularly. When Chicago Public Schools and the state charter network aligned their advocacy, little added work resulted in a large payoff.

Using a coordinated strategy, the district and charter sector pushed for the August 2017 passage of legislation that would benefit both sectors. Among other benefits, the new law means a rise in per-pupil dollars for school districts and it allows them to go above the current limits on property tax increases to raise local dollars. The legislation also allows for funding parity for charter schools.

» No. 4: Recognize that collaboration is a long-term effort.
Too often, collaborations hinge on a superintendent or other leader who champions the effort, but these leadership posts will turn over. Initiatives should be vetted for their ability to withstand district and school board change as well as other challenges.

Both Spring Branch, Texas, and Central Falls, Rhode Island, sustained their collaboration with charter schools even after losing their original championing superintendents. In these cities and others, the support for continuing cooperation was so broad that superintendent applicants were judged in part on their willingness to maintain the collaboration work. In Boston and Philadelphia, the base for collaboration was broadened by including Catholic schools and the mayor’s office in citywide collaboration talks.

» No. 5: Commit to devising a way to govern cooperation.
Like any other complicated endeavor that relies on busy individuals, effective collaboration takes organization and governance. This means someone must take the role of scheduling meetings, creating committees to move the work and helping hold parties to the promises they have made as concretely as possible.

Boston’s neutral third-party facilitator, which the district and the charter sectors work together to secure grants to fund, has been instrumental in sustaining collaboration. The facilitator schedules meetings, makes agreements public, ensures follow-through of members who pledge to act and communicates successes broadly.

While this role is rare (Boston and Cleveland are the only cities we know of with such a position), the neutral support can validate the work and mean the difference between success and failure.

» No. 6: Find funding (internal or external) to launch and sustain the work.
All collaboration takes time. And time is money.

The district and charter sectors in some cities, such as Washington, D.C., have seen enough positive impact from cooperation to continue funding efforts even without the aid of a grant or other incentive. But we’ve seen collaboration wither in cities like Minneapolis and Nashville when national foundation money earmarked for collaboration dried up. In other cities, like Philadelphia, we’ve seen local philanthropies take up the collaboration cause.

School districts would be wise to assess what elements regional and local philanthropies are interested in to see whose mission aligns with the collaboration work districts want to do.

A Stark Divide
Addressing these six factors is what we believe separates the school districts that have effectively harnessed collaboration and those that have not. District leaders must weigh how the local context lends, or does not lend, itself to various initiatives. They must work hard and smart to move forward.

The stark divide between charter schools and the district in most communities confuses parents, wastes resources and stifles innovation. Providing a consistently high-quality education is not something either sector has mastered, so while there are risks involved, pooling knowledge and realizing efficiencies across education sectors can and should be done for the sake of all children.