What Can We Learn From Charters Serving High-Poverty Students?

The director of a Stanford-based research center sees schools that have ‘cracked the code’ in low-income places

A recurring daydream about the best public school district in the world has served over time to keep me energized when I tire of educational challenges or when I hear yet another story of audacious injustice or inequity faced by too many of America’s K-12 educators and students.

But the school district of my dream isn’t in a shining edifice on a hill. Rather, it sits in a gritty community where families struggle toward lives of dignity, purpose and connection. It operates under today’s constraints of resources, talent, leadership and community support.

And yet … in my daydream, all the schools have autonomy to address the needs of the students they serve. In each school, the teachers strive to deliver rich content in effective and engaging ways. They provide a safe and caring environment for students and treat parents as true partners, regardless of education background.

All students are supported at their current level of performance, encouraged to work hard and aim for mastery. Teachers’ professional growth is supported by school leaders and is valued by the entire school community, which networks to inspire strong academic gains for their students, particularly high-needs students with economic, language or learning challenges.

The district of that dream already exists in many urban settings. What schools operate like that? They’re called charter schools, and many are affiliated with national or regional networks under the scenario I envision. As of last fall, 6,825 charter schools operated nationwide. About a third are organized into networks. The charters educate more than 2.5 million students in 52 states and the District of Columbia. Over 60 percent of them are in urban areas serving disproportionately large numbers of minority and economically disadvantaged students.

Perhaps after 25 years of heated debate and active resistance toward charter schools, their time has come.

Letting Data Speak

Our team at Stanford University, the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, or CREDO, has studied the performance of charter schools in the United States for more than a decade. We take no position on the political issues of school choice. Instead, we apply the most rigorous and balanced tests to study these schools. Our guiding mantra is “We let the data speak.” It is important to provide reliable and trustworthy evidence concerning student outcomes when discussions take place at the local, state and national levels.

Most of our studies address the question, “How does the academic progress of students in charter schools compare to identically situated students in district schools?” Over time, the results illuminate a growing share of charter schools that have “cracked the code” on educating all students, regardless of background.

Consider the following:

 On a national basis, learning in the average charter school improved by 14 days of learning a year from 2009 to 2013. In reading, charter school students have outpaced their district peers, while in math, the increase in days of learning brought them on par with district schools.

 The average charter school students in the United States who are economically disadvantaged advanced 14 days more in reading and 21 days more in math than their district peers. When students have multiple disadvantages, the effects are even stronger.

 In urban environments, the effects of charter school education for students with economic disadvantages doubles. Charter school students in poverty advance an extra 28 days of learning in reading and 40 additional days in math each year they attend a charter school. As with the national picture, students with compound challenges are helped even more.

The media is full of the raging debate about these findings and those of other researchers. The debate also includes charges of pervasive discrimination by charter schools against students. Although the allegations are widespread, in fact they have very low incidence. Only a small fraction of charter schools have students selectively signaled in or out; have disruptive students counseled out or expelled; or are bankrolled by billionaires. These claims do not apply to the majority of charter schools, so from a strictly empirical perspective, they cannot explain away the findings.

Charter Frameworks

A better focus would be on the policy framework under which charter schools operate. ”Flexibility for accountability” gives a school the latitude to allocate talent and resources in ways that most effectively benefit their students. In exchange, the schools are held to performance standards that are regularly reviewed. The framework serves as a gateway to a terrain that charter schools inhabit but most district schools do not. This is where the most fruitful conversations about improving education for all students in every school can be found.

To be clear, the charter bargain differs from site-based planning or district-level autonomy. This degree of autonomy makes many education administrators nervous. Still, a growing number of districts have chosen the approach. Schools are responding to varying degrees but on balance are inspired and energized to bring new ideas and solutions forward.

All schools can be places of high-quality instruction and developmental support for students if allowed to operate under the same frameworks permitted to charter schools. This requires that district administrations advocate for greater autonomy. If a school wants to reorganize its class schedule or adopt a different learning program, its efforts are supported. If another school in the district seeks to collaborate with local engineers to launch a science and math focus two afternoons a week, the district strives to facilitate the partnership.

It also requires central administrations to make the shift from compliance-driven to resource and support organizations. Districts become facilitators, collaborators and solution supporters in the course of helping schools adapt to their particular students’ needs. Also, central offices should be clear and unwavering about the requirement that all schools use their increased discretion to improve learning for students. Needed support and true accountability for results must be part of the policy.

Supporting the operating choices that school teams make and protecting their autonomy to make those choices is one side of the coin. Regular review and authentic accountability is the other.

Fantasy to Reality

Simply giving school teams greater autonomy is not enough, as we have seen from the charter school experience. Discretion is wasted if it is not used effectively. School districts can “act charter” and realize the same results as the successful charter schools upon which they model themselves.

And this is where my fantasy school district comes to life: All educators, regardless of how their school is governed, place primary importance on the education of all their community’s children. Professional respect and appreciation for the commitment and effort of high-quality educators becomes the norm. Shared ownership of the entire student population replaces territorial disputes. The well-being of each student trumps bureaucracy, politics and pride.

In practical terms, this means the long-standing divide between charters and district schools must be replaced with urgent and authentic collaboration. The days of peeking over fences and listening at doorways should give way to a joint compact that places maximal student learning at the center of the table.

The best charter schools have built many of the features that all schools need to ensure their students develop the cognitive and noncognitive growth to prepare them for future instruction. This type of organizational knowledge should be shared as a public benefit. As examples, innovative and effective school and classroom practices are documented and freely available from Democracy Prep (http://democracyprep.org), operating 17 charters and one program in New York, New Jersey, the District of Columbia and Baton Rouge, La. Also, Aspire Public Schools (http://aspirepublicschools.org), which runs 38 schools in California and Tennessee, shares its career development and training materials without restriction.

The obligation falls on both sides of the charter-district divide. It will take courage and audacity to buck the historical patterns of hostility. Charter school leaders need to embrace their obligations as public servants. District leaders need to demonstrate leadership and vision. Higher-ordered thinking can move institutional interests out of the way in favor of the interests of students.