July 21, 2000

ARE CHARTER SCHOOLS MAKING OTHER PUBLIC SCHOOLS IMPROVE?

One of the arguments for charter schools is that other public schools will improve because they have to compete for students.

Is that happening? Changes resulting from charter competition are not very significant so far, says a new study for the Manhattan Institute, in part because districts and schools have largely been sheltered from financial pressure. But changes are more likely in districts where superintendents are strongly supportive of charter schools.

The study focuses on five districts -- Springfield and Worcester in Massachusetts; Trenton and Jersey City, New Jersey; and Washington, D.C. The authors are Paul Teske and Mark Schneider, professors in the Department of Political Science, SUNY at Stony Brook, along with Jack Buckley and Sara Clark, graduate students in the department.

Because this is a case study rather than a statistical analysis, it doesn't rule out the existence of districts where competition is powerfully effective (or not effective at all). But it does suggest: first, that state legislators and boards of education should reconsider policies that tend to insulate schools from charter competition; and second, that districts wanting the maximum impact from their charter schools should seek or encourage superintendents who favor them.

Among these five districts, District of Columbia administrators were the most hostile to charter schools. In fact, the researchers discovered that principals there had been ordered not to cooperate with the study, not even to fill out a questionnaire.

Charter schools in D.C. enroll around 9 percent of the city's students, no doubt because so many of the noncharter schools are so dismal. Washington typically ranks near the top in spending and the bottom in performance in comparison with the states. But organizers of charter schools there have struggled with the district administration's uncooperative attitude, on everything from issuing charters in the first place to reneging on deals to lease or sell surplus school buildings.

Though the charters have a growing share of enrollment, total enrollments are also growing, so the noncharter schools haven't seen their student numbers or their budgets fall, yet. But Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, recently tapped to head the San Francisco schools, has said making her schools compete for resources isn't fair.

The district with the most sympathetic administration is Springfield, the researchers say. Superintendent Peter Negroni actually sits on the Board of Directors of the Sabis International Charter School, along with a member of the city's elected school board and the mayor. When Sabis was converted from a regular public school, in 1995, it was one of the weakest in the district, with only 38 percent of students at or above grade level. After two years, with similar students, it had reached 62 percent.

What's more important is that it has brought other schools along with it.

Five of the 10 Springfield schools that score better than Sabis have improved to that point since it began.

"Beating Sabis" is a mantra for the district, Negroni said, and the competition energizes all the schools. Several schools have initiated Saturday study programs like those at Sabis. In addition, the district is adding a Montessori school and one that builds its instruction around the use of laptop computers, as Edison schools do.

Whatever the superintendent may prefer, the researchers' survey of school principals provided evidence "that the sound of parent footsteps heading to charter schools" is being heard at the school level. Principals who expect to lose students to charter schools implement more reforms in their schools, devote more time to improving their school's efficiency and increasingly complain they don't have the authority to do what they see needs to be done.

The authors recommend that state school finance policies should ensure that money follows students, so districts don't receive funding from the state, or schools from their districts, for students they don't educate.

That's the true test of whether competition motivates schools to improve.

(645 words)