The Small Schools Workshop, National-Louis University & Catalyst present:

 

Unions Organizing Charter School Teachers

 

A conversation with charter school activist Steve Barr and union leaders Marilyn Stewart and Jo Anderson

 

 

 

 

TEACHERS UNIONS & CHARTER SCHOOLS:

NEW PROSPECTS, NEW CHALLENGES

 

 

 

"If union bosses start patrolling their hallways, that’ll be the death knell of charters, as it has been for public schools." --Charter school advocate Clint Bolick

 

______________

 

 

"We could have and probably should have organized the Green Dot schools...They started with one charter school, now have 10, and in short order they’ll have 20 schools in Los Angeles, with all the teachers paying dues to a different union. And that’s a problem.”--UTLA President A.J. Duffy

 

__________________

 

 

 

In Los Angeles, Steve Barr founded the Green Dot Public Schools, which currently operate 10 high-performing, unionized public charter high schools. They are about to start a new high school in New York in collaboration with the UFT and its president, Randi Weingarten. Is Chicago next? How will local unions respond?

 

 

 

The Small Schools Workshop's Michael Klonsky will moderate a panel discussion with Green Dot CEO Steve Barr, CTU President Marilyn Stewart, and IEA Executive Director Jo Anderson, exploring the role of teacher unions in charter schools in Chicago and other Illinois districts.

 

Wednesday, August 15th, 6:30 - 8:30 pm

 

Nationall-Louis University downtown campus, 122 S. Michigan Avenue, 2nd floor Atrium

 

 

This event is free of charge and open to the public.

For additional information:

 

Call: 773-384-1030 

smallschoolsworkshop@yahoo.com

Comments

Now let's see how "GREAT" charters do!! HAHA, the end is near.

[Forgot about LSC]

Hey what about LSC's

[Charlie]

Not really sure what effect charters would have on student performance. A few things could happen, I suppose. Unions could come in and force charters to shorten their school day/school year or compensate teachers relative to the extra amount of time they are working when compared to traditional CPS teachers. This of course would negate the gains made by a lot of schools based on extra time spent on task.

However, this could make teachers at charters happier and make them more likely to stay at a school and that increased consistency could hep student performance.

I think we'll soon see firsthand what happens. I think it is fine as long as the teachers at each charter school are the ones who decide whether they form a union or not, rather than a group like INCS coming in and trying to broker a deal on behalf of charters everywhere. I'm sure there are more than a few charters where the staff would jump at the chance to unionize, but I also know of a few where most of the teachers honestly don't feel the need. That's what happens when teachers feel a fair amount of respect from their administrative and are part of relatively transparent compensation discussions. That, and whether it is true or not, a lot of us who have taught in CPS and moved to charters still see unions as something that unnecessarily protect bad teachers.

I went to this to hear what would be said and it was a waste of time and parking fee, $18.00. Vague info, no answers. One of the panelists actually said that our charters are doing well in comparison to other states and should be looked into to learn from for other states developing charters. The pitch was that charters are bottom up leadership, teacher collaboration, instead of top down autocratic and therefore better. If that was true, I might agree. I worked in a charter and I saw top down cooersive leadership, no teacher input. They did say that only 10% of charters are good and to look to them, and some charters are really bad but didn't talk about how to get rid of the bad ones. There was a pitch to increase charters from 60 to more, many more. Marilyn was there and made some good points for reasons for unions. I once believed the answer to better education was charters but now...forget it.

Yeah, the parking was expensive, but I disagree with the poster who thought last night was a waste of time. I don't think any of the panelists (the charter guy from Green Dot included) suggested that charters were a panacea. But all of them (the union people included) said there's the potential for charters to be done right and play a role, if they are teacher-led, involve parents through community organizing, honor teachers' right a union contract, and position themselves as catalysts for improvement within (rather than as substitutes for) the broader public school system. And I was glad to hear all four speakers tell the story of how the teachers union gave birth to the idea of charter schools, and what happened when right-wing and corporate types adopted the idea as their own. I don't think everybody knows that history.

I haven't looked closely enough at the Green Dot schools to know whether they're as wonderful as people say they are. But if sincere school reformers and union folk are talking to one another about ways to work together, I don't see how that can be a bad thing.

It is a bad thing because as charters stand right now there is no accountbility and transparency. You are right, the initial idea sounded good.

It is a bad thing because as charters stand right now there is no accountbility and transparency. You are right, the initial idea sounded good.

[Charlie]

People talk a lot about no accountability and no transparency in charter schools, but seldom give examples.

Let me give you some examples of accountability for charter schools:

First and foremost they are accountable to the parents who choose to send their children to charter schools. Without parents making this choice, charter schools can't exist. And if charters don't do their job at least as well as the neighborhood schools, then sooner of later they are not going to have many parents choosing to enroll their students. (Here's where someone argues that these parents aren't savvy enough to see through the glossy charter marketing machine, even though the same people will argue that charters have the advantage because their student's families are more invested in their education, simply by going out of their way to enroll in a charter. Which is it?)

Secondly, and also unlike traditional public schools, charters have to have their charter renewed every five years. This process involves a fairly rigorous third part school observation and a written application for renewal. (If anything I think traditional public school principals should have to go through a similar process at least every five years).

If you want to see a lack of accountability look at Ohio or Arizona or California where they have so many charters there is no possibility that anyone is really keeping track of them.

I agree that there should be more accountability and more transparency in charters (I feel exactly the same about traditional public schools), but to say that there is none, is at the very least an exaggeration of the present situation.

Some day we'll be able to have an honest conversation about charters, without having to resort to spreading what amount to urban myths. Although I don't see it happening at this blog anytime soon.

charter's and transparency? just try to find out what the average salary, years of experience and turnover rates are for charter teachers. next, try to get your hands on a detailed budget to see how these "innovative" schools are spending their money so innovatively.

look, i think charters have the potential to transform the troubled district. but they're less than transparent in chicago. that's a major problem.

[Charlie]

CPS is collecting all of that information right now from charter schools through Ren10. And I agree that information should be more readily available. Although, outside of average salary, its not as if CPS is 100% transparent about these things themselves. George, himself, has decried the efforts it takes to get public information from CPS. Charter schools are not inherently broken, but in Chicago they are a small part of a broken system.

Is there any place on the CPS web site that you can find average salary, experience, turnover and detailed budgeting for individual schools? Because that is basically what you are asking for from charters.

"Is there any place on the CPS web site that you can find average salary, experience, turnover and detailed budgeting for individual schools? Because that is basically what you are asking for from charters."

No. And that's a problem. Line-item budgets should be posted on the district's website.

But, you can go to one place with a FOIA request to get all such data for more than 600 schools. With charters, you'd need to FOIA 40+ schools, and follow up (fight) with each one to see the requests through.

Now charters are great in large part because they're independent. I wouldn't want to see them tied down with unnecessary paperwork. But we need more, easily accessible financial information on them. I don't think we've achieved the right balance yet.

[George Schmidt]

I agree with most of what the previous person says. It's difficult enough at times to get accurate data out of CPS under FOIA. (Try for example to decipher that goofy listing of contractors where some are listed by first name -- honest! -- and others by other designators. But at least the information is there.

CPS is only covering up a few things at this point, and one of them is the actual complete cost of its charters, the qualifications of charter staff, and the parameters by means of which charter "performance" is truly being measured.

For nearly a decade, Chicago has given its approval to one of the most dishonest pieces of official reporting in the public sector -- the annual charter report. That report claims that Chicago charters "outperform" their local schools (without mentioning that charter schools are selective enrollment -- and selective kick the kid out -- schools).

Charter staff are hired, fired, and shuffled around on the basis of clout. As "at will" employees, charter teachers are always under the gun to grind away and not ask whether they have any rights. Imagine a CPS public schools where an administrator regularly referred to one group of his young teachers as "eye candy" and ask yourself what the Sun-Times would do with that story. But instead the Sun-Times helped that school slander and libel a teacher who asked about teachers' rights (like the children asking for more food in a Dickens novel).

Teachers suffer, but can move along, learning the hard way that the dream was a deception and that their professors may have lied about what's really going on in urban public schhools.

The most absurd and heartbreaking breaches of citizens' rights in the Charter School World of Chicago is against the parents and children. They are basically told to sit down, shut up, do whatever they are told to do, and get out if they don't like it.

In Chicago, charter schools are covering up most of the most important information about themselves. Arne Duncan and CPS are allowing -- actually, encouraging -- this massively expensive cover up. There is an entire hugely expensive CPS department devoted to hyping CPS charters, covering up the breaches of democracy, and snuffing out citizen questions about this whole scam.

Basically, the charter schools in Chicago -- all of them -- are firmly opposed to public information about their key operations.

Give me the name of one of them that has its Position File anywhere accessible to the public. Name one that has listed the actual qualifications and certifications of every one of its staff (not those vague fairy tale summaries you get from some of them).

The cover ups from Chicago's charter schools are vast and scandalous.

At this point, though, it's clear that the cover ups and deceptions are public policy in Chicago. So this discussion is a major public policy question with national implications (since the "Chicago model" is so often cited by right wing market fanatics from New York to New Orleans to Oakland) as an example of how to do it "right."

The cover ups include personnel qualifications, personnel costs, and -- very importantly -- the profit margins and annual profits that go to their "management" companies.

The privatization profits are put into this location and a couple of others -- like administrative salaries -- and then covered up because of the fact that charters wrap themselves in all that rhetoric about "market" forces while hiding under the deregulation covers.

It's not even worth talking about whether charter school parents have any real power, because they don't.

In CPS real public schools (with the exception of the military ones), parents have power. How we use it it another question. But the LSC is power, not simply cookies and then go home.

The power of parents in Chicago charter schools consists in the same power that all of us have: market power. If you don't like the meat at Dominick's, shop at Jewels, etc. If you don't like processed foods, go to Whole Foods.

But that's a very unfair thing to put on families in a nation where public school tradition says that certain public services are carried out in a certain way (and in a city where most suburbs provide those services in that traditional way without Chicago's delusional market nutsiness).

"Market rights" really mean the wealthy have power and everyone else has to scramble for what's left. Rich people don't utilize their "market" rights to get their meat at Moo and Oink. The whole thing is a slick but sick joke on the poor and working class.

As a parent in a charter school, you have the right to enroll your child, keep your mouth shut, and get kicked out if you ask too many questions. (Most of the charters have you sign a form that allows them this power over you; try to do that in a real public school).

That's the history of the majority of Chicago charter schools today.

Not one of them will be taking in unscreened students when school opens for the 1007-2008 school year. Not one of them will have to "reorganize" programs like all of the general high schools will during the fifth or sixth week of school. The charters are privileged public private schools, not real public schools.

Chicago can and should provide an excellent education for every child. That means not only test scores, but a range of extra activities from sports to cultural stuff.

I just graduated one of my sons from public high school in Chicago (Whitney Young) and have another going into first grade (at a north side elementary school).

Disagreements at both schools take place, and are aired and dealt with democratically. Principals in real public schools have a difficult job, and have to be tough, not pushovers. But they are also accountable to various realities, from union contracts to parent power to student rights.

Not so our privileged but unaccountable charter schools, and especially their hype departments -- the marketing people.

By contrast with real public schools, Chicago's charter schools are little autocracies, with petty tyrants lording over parents, teachers, and children.

At both schools where my sons attended, parents have power through the Local School Council, and at both we've utilized that power. It's a very democratic thing.

Parents who object to the policies of Chicago's charter schools, on the other hand, have been told, basically, to take their complaints and shove it. For the teachers, it's often worse in some very classical ways (that some of us thought we'd gotten rid of until deregulation and privatization came back in force).

Parents of students in real Chicago public schools immediately know whether their child's teachers are "highly qualified." The thought that my son would get someone standing in front of a "calculus" or "statistics" classroom who was unable to understand -- let alone teach -- the subjects is absurd. Real qualified teachers eventually led him to pass both those classes -- and the rigorous AP exams.

Meanwhile, Chicago's charters are disappointing families every damned day because, at "the end of the day" (to use once that odious Yuppie cliche) when the poor kid tries to take and pass the BC calculus exam, it's enough to make her cry. Like the poor charter school baseball team that went up against the public leagues teams in the city finals last spring.

At some point, these delusions harm real children and real families in real ways. But the screaming market crowd just try to drown out those voices, or worse.

Fraudulent kinds of stuff is taking place at Chicago charter schools every day. Frauds in teacher and administrator qualification. False flagging course content and the ability to deliver, from classes to extra curricular programs.

At it's all covered up by deregulation and a complete lack of transparency, which Arne Duncan promotes by not demanding that the charter schools provide the same information in the same form through the same routes as everyone else has to.

Parents of children in real Chicago public schools know that the administrators in their child's school have advanced degrees and administrative certificates.

Ditto counselors and others.

Chicago charters have been hiring anyone -- from the "top" on down -- without any accountability except to the charter operator. The world of Chicago charter staffings is as deregulated as the mortgage markets were until the recent crashes began. Josef Nurek (Google him if you're new; and don't miss his unctuous testimony to the House Education Committee a couple of years back when he was still a golden boy of Chicago charters) is not alone. Deregulated schools are an open door policy to abuse and abusers.

No accountability to the law regarding certification.

No accountability to common decency, letting parents know how the teacher is qualified to "teach" in that subject for that grade level.

Finally, the big one: budget.

On Tuesday, when I noted in my remarks at the first budget hearing that CPS, once again, had buried the cost of charter schools under "contractual services" or "tuition" in the big budget, and others noted that the school-by-school data presented in the CD section of the budget didn't provide any personnel data on Chicago's charters, we were told that it's really in there (I was referred to page 111, which is a glob summary).

No it's not.

At any point during the school year, anyone can find the current position file information about anyone working in the school system.

There is no comparable document for how more than $300 million of our dollars are being spent in Chicago charters. And both CPS and the charters refuse to provide that information.

It's in fact a huge scandal, hundreds of millions of dollars spent every year on an unregulated and virtually untested product, overseen by a bunch of unregulated amateurs (the "New Schools" market zombies) through an bizarre ideologically driven program ("Renaissance 2010") that opposes equitable democratic public schools for all Chicago children.

Ask me how much Arne Duncan or your local school's principal was budgeted to earn last year. Ask me how much they paid taxes on last year.

I can tell you in less than a minute.

And the same is true of any parent who asks that question at any real public school in Chicago.

Ask me how much the three "kings and queens" (three administrators in one middle school with 600 -- or fewer -- children) of the Aspira Haugan Middle School were paid last year and my answer would be that Aspira tells any parent who asks that question to get out and not come back. That's what happens.

Now let's make it a political issue, 2007 style in Chicago in real time.

More than half of Chicago's aldermen have encouraged the placement of charter schools in their wards. Usually, it's been done behind the public's back, often as a favor to a powerful Catholic parish that wants to get a few bucks from an underutilized parochial building, and behind closed doors -- until it's too late. For the rest of us.

The most recent is the Immaculate Heart of Mary Charter School (er, Chicago International Avondale "Campus") which as we speak is raiding the students from Murphy and Reilly elementary schools up in this end of town. (Byron and Spalding is where CPS gave the latest subsidy to the Catholic Church after a parochial school was closed down. Go visit if you don't believe me).

The aldermen and alderwomen who have cuddled up to the charter schools from the far south side to the far north side would be babbling if it came out in the press that they have one set of "public" schools in their wards where everyone knows everything about the staff, budget, etc.

... and another set of "public" schools where all the key information is TOP SECRET -- even from them.

Marge Laurino (39th) let Good Counsel (Peterson and Pulaski) be chartered through the back door (and allowed suburban kids to get a CPS education without paying tuition during the first two years!). Then she allowed the Haugan community to be screwed when Aspira clouted to grab the brand new Haugan Middle School building behind the back of the community (with the connivance of "New Schools", which is embedded in each of these scams at every point, including the cover up when the "public" hearings are not really public).

It's likely that next week Arne Duncan is going to move to give away the newest half of the Moos school to Aspira, even thought there has never been a public disclosure of any of the key factors of the Aspira charter schools. Like virtually all of the other Chicago charter schools, Mirta Ramirez (which is angling to take over Moos) is long on rhetoric and marketing BS and very very very short on facts.

And that is typical from the Chicago Math Science Academy (which borrowed the prestigious name from IMSA in a marketing ploy) on the far north side all the way out to Chicago International "Prairie" (the old St. Anthony of Padua) way out on 115th St.

These are not public schools. You can't move into a community, bring your phone bill, and get your child enrolled.

These are public private schools, with more private than public at every point. The coverups are vast from one end of town to another, and before anyone tells me (for the 100th time) to "see the truth for yourself" know this:

I'll visit any charter that will answer every one of my questions -- from budget and salaries to staff qualifications and histories -- before I walk in the door.

My son leaves this week for Berkeley, where he will be studying engineering (on a serious scholarsrhip) after getting a very very good public school education at Burbank, Beaubien, and Whitney Young. Thanks to real public schools, he'll be taking the second year calculus course when he arrives there. Thanks to real public schools -- not hyped privatization schemes -- he has passed (with fours and fives) eleven Advanced Placement course, from both English to calculus and statistics.

Every time I talk to a parent who was deceived by the Chicago charter hype, it makes me more angry. Every one of those parents deserved serious educational opportunities for their children.

Because CPS gives its trademark to Chicago charters (and then weighs in with mendacious "studies" that can't survive peer review) "proving" how good Chicago charters are, Chicago parents are being deceived every day.

But this is not a simple market based "caveat emptor" situation. This is the government approving schools that are, virtually all of them, undereporting key facts (not only budget) about themselves while over-hyping their meager accomplishments.

I'm glad I didn't waste parking on the Green Dot show the other night.

[Kat]

Try going to the CPS web site to see the reports on the recent round of testing in the Chicago Public Schools- the last time I checked, the Charter
results were not included there. I found them on the State web site.

[Charlie]

Profit margins? Are you kidding me? Do you really think charter schools have stumbled upon some amazingly profitable industry. First of all, most of them are not run by outside management companies. Calling Noble Street, Perspectives or even UNO management companies would be a bit more than stretching the truth. CICS and Aspira, I might give you.

But do really think these schools are out there fundraising 24/7 because they're turning a profit. Most of these schools have to get millions of dollars a year in grants and donations just to keep their heads above water. Go to guidestar.org and type in the names of these schools, look at their 990s and you'll start to get a sense of how their money is budgeted. That or request any of their annual reports, which will have their most recent audited financial statement.

These schools are part of CPS, as soon as CPS starts gathering this info from charters and posting it you will see it. In the meantime, don't expect them to spend the time making every last bit of information available on their web sites, because as I said before its not as if you can pick any other public school in the city and see all of this very same information with the click of a mouse.

Every time I hear a biased rant against charters I get angrier and angrier. Some them are not very good, some them are ok and some of them are great...just like traditional public schools. George is angered by parents who are "deceived by the charter hype," and I'm angered by the parents who are let down every day by their traditional neighborhood schools on a daily basis.

If you want to send your kids to a charter school. Do your research first. Look at the state report card. Call the individual schools and ask them lots of good questions. If they won't answer your questions, then don't send your kid to that school. Parents have the choice and the power, whether they realize it or not. They also have the responsibility to ask the tough questions before they send their kids anywhere.

And based on the retention numbers where I work, I would say we have between 8 and 9 satisfied parents for every dissatisfied one.

Two questions...

George, how many charters have you actually called or emailed and asked these questions?

Kat, where are you looking on the CPS web site that you're not finding charter stats? If it's not there, it's not because of charters...they get their numbers from CPS like every other school.

[cermak_rd]

I keep hearing this story about how Charter schools kick out bad students. Is this true? Are there any stats regarding this? Is it possible that the children themselves decide they don't like the atmosphere at the Charter school? Are there stats showing the actual drop off rate of students in Chicago charter schools?

It seems a lot of assumptions are made without any actual numbers to back them up. I'd like to see those numbers.

That's because charters are autonomous. They don't need to share actual numbers.

[Charlie]

I know there are charters who more or less counsel parents into making the decision to transfer their students to a different school. I'm sure different schools use different levels and types of pressure in these situations, but I've seen this happen in two of the traditional public schools that I have worked in as well.

One place to look is the state report card. It will show you the mobility rate (you can also find that number here: http://research.cps.k12.il.us/resweb/qt ), which can be helpful. Although, many charters do not accept new students after ninth grade (something I think CPS should step in and change) so you probably won't see as many transfer ins (which effect the mobility rate) as you would at a traditional public school.

Someone with the time and inclination could also look through a few years of state report cards and compare the number of students tested in each grade to come up with a general idea of how many students might be leaving charters.

Let me state one more time though that charter schools are not selective enrollment schools. If they were, you would see much better test scores across the board. By and large charter schools are dealing with populations of students far more similar to the average neighborhood schools that to any selective enrollment school.

Anyone who knows of charter schools that are using grades or test scores to weed out students during the enrollment process should start naming names here.

Profits will not be shown because the monies get paid out in high salaries to specific people and become part of the operating costs as well as other misused monies. Nobody from charters is going to come forward to talk about the abuses because they will lose their jobs and if one did that career in any area of education would be over because nobody likes a snitch. We live in a world where the me comes first. We need jobs to pay our bills. Being jobless is a lot worse than turning a blind eye to abuse and this is old news.

The charter evaluation teams who track and visit charters are ineffective. They've been to my school and never sat in classes, talked with teachers, students, or parents. Their visits are announced and teachers are told to show the best and that's what they do. The visits are superficial and these visitors are only interested in reporting the best because it serves them well and probably wined and dined afterwards. Nobody wants to report failure or problems that would make the charters look bad especially the evaluation teams because the idea is to make all charters look good. That's why they get paid. The evaluation teams are spineless and only interested in keeping their jobs. What is that old saying, "don't bite the hand that feeds you".

[Clyde B.]

George,

First, parsimony and hypocrisy are two words you really need to learn.

I'm amazed to hear that you sent your child to Whitney Young and are now praising WY to the skies. I remember when you first launched your attack on magnet schools like Young as "havens for the privileged" back in the 1980s. Did you think we'd forget?

I guess when it's your child, your rhetoric cools down a bit. What's the difference between Whitney Young and a charter school? Can anyone walk into WY and register their kid with just proof of address?

Maybe when you think about options for your own child, you can understand why other parents line up around the block to send their children to a Green Dot Public Charter School in L.A., rather than Jefferson High. And guess what? You don't have to test into Green Dot the way your kid tested into Whitney Young.

George hates school reform (ie. fixing existing high schools) and he hates charters(alternatives to those failed schools). Now we know why. He got his own child into a selective enrollment magnet school where fewer than the top 1% get in and where his white kid gets tracked into the honors and AP classes while most of the rest are tracked into the lower level classes. Screw the rest of us, right George. We can just wait until public schools are adequately funded and stocked with great teachers.

I'm one of those people that have sent all my children to private schools because they are just average learners and didn't get accepted to SE or magnet schools and the CPS website reports on the local school was sad.

The private schools adhered to discipline codes and learning standards and my children thrived.

I became a certified teacher and wanted to teach in the public school system because I thought that all children deserved a safe and good education and I might be able to contribute to that. I was in both public and charter schools and was dismayed at what I saw. Discipline codes and learning standards are not adhered to and teachers are helpless to do anything about it. There was a burning desire to to show good performance at schools and learning standards and discipline codes went by the wayside.

All my students had the potential to do better but that potential was stifled because administrators only cared about showing good test scores and wouldn't support teachers when facing obstacles. I watched as teachers watered down their curriculum and became silent about disruptive students. Tough teachers were ridiculed and had little support from anyone. It was an injustice to all students because they learned less and the disruptive students didn't learn that their actions would hinder their future success.

These are really desperate times in the field of education when exceptions are made to high standards and people accept the mediocre or less as the norm.

Teacher Magazine has an interesting article about learning standards that is worthwhile reading and to keep in mind when teaching.

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/unwrapping_the_gifted/

I run a charter school and we do not screen students. It is first come first serve. If more people sign up than we have seats for we do a lottery. I know several charter principals and they do not screen students--they have public lotteries.

Tens of thousands of CPS students are scoring 2-5 grade levels behind by the time they get to 8th grade. These students and their parents deserve better options.

It scares me to think of what the future will be like if we continue to have an elementary system that is not preparing kids to be competitive with anyone outside of their low-income neighborhood.

A college degree is more important now than it was when I started writing this entry. We need to vastly improve the achievement in CPS schools.

Charter schools are not the panacea, but they do provide a better education for Chicago kids generally than non-charters. We need to do whatever works.

[Skalinder]

Re: Charter selectivity

Charter schools *are* selective enrollment schools.

The only real question is how that selection is made. And that comes down to two types of selectivity - active and passive.

Active selectivity is obvious and similar to magnet schools: An admissions process guided by test scores and other academic or non-academic evaluation of the student and family.

But passive selectivity is *always* in effect and that's important to recognize. So, what is passive selectivity?

Unlike true neighborhood schools, where students are enrolled essentially by default, charter schools enroll students with parents who have the foresight, knowledge, motivation, time, and sometimes money to enroll their student in a charter. The mere fact that charters are not the default school for students makes them selective, even if that selection is not actively determined by charter policy. For instance, how did the parent find out about the charter? Do all parents know about all charters? Are parents aware that they have choices? Do parents care about improving a child's opportunity for success? Has the parent researched the charter? These issues and more all touch on ways in which charters are passively selective.

Research clearly and consistently shows that the more active parents are in a child's education, the greater success that student will have in school. Charters select for a higher degree and/or higher incidence of parental involvement even if only taking the act of enrollment into account.

But, you may say, parents can always choose to send their children to a different neighborhood school and that makes all neighborhood schools passively selective. No. That new neighborhood school is still, by default, primarily populated by neighborhood children. Charters are 100% schools of choice.

Some charters are fabulous, some not so much, just like neighborhood schools. Some have good principals, some don't. Some have good teachers, some don't. And so on and so on. I don't think charters are a bad idea, though I would prefer that those teachers have the option of CTU membership. But because they are true 100% schools of choice, given the reasons above and others, they *are* selective. And that holds true even if populated by 95% neighborhood children.

[Skalinder]

2:41, you wrote:
Charter schools are not the panacea, but they do provide a better education for Chicago kids generally than non-charters.

I agree that charters are not the panacea. And I believe they are a legitimate strategy for improving schools. But your second claim about charters, even generally, providing a better education is incorrect.

Your claim might stand if charter schools were, in fact, educating the same students as true neighborhood schools. But they're not. Given the differences in student enrollment I mention in my previous post it is simply not an apples to apples comparison. Even so, research data, when taken as a *whole* rather than cherry-picked for its ability to support one side or the other, is inconclusive about the effectiveness of charter schools when compared to neighborhood schools. Do a google or ERIC search for meta-analyses of research on this topic and you'll see that it is entirely inconclusive.

[Rod Estvan]

In special education there has been a long history of public school district relationships with private special educaton schools that were run by not for profits. So Access Living and most other advocacy organizations for students with disabilities have no problem with school districts subcontracting with private schools.

But we do have real concerns about the numbers of students with disabilities attending some charters, with numbers as high as 14%. The services these students need are in many cases simply not there. This creates a dynamic where charters who have enrolled seriously emotionally disturbed students for example try to find a way out of keeping the child. Not because they do not want to have these students, but rather because they feel abandoned by the school district. This results in counseling out in some cases. I have had two such cases at Access Living in the last year and I am sure there are more.

The CPS needs to be transparent in presenting the special education funds going to charters either on the basis of per teacher reimbursment or on the basis of CPS special ed teachers who are assigned to charters by OSS. The CPS needs to be public in providing data on unfilled special eduation positions in charters and turnover rates for teachers in charters. Parents need this information in order to make informed choices for thier children. The CPS is not providing this information currently.

Rod Estvan
Access Living