Why Maine needs Charter Schools

Why Maine needs public charter schools

Maine is one of only 11 states in the nation that does not allow the creation of public charter schools. These innovative, autonomous public schools are widely seen as centers for educational innovation.

What are public charter schools?

How are public charter schools governed?

What are the advantages of public charter schools?

Why doesn’t Maine have charter schools?

Did my legislator vote for or against charter schools last year?

Where can I find out more about public charter schools?

How can I help the effort to bring charter schools to Maine?

What are public charter schools?

The non-partisan Education Commission of the States defined charter schools in a 2005 report as:

“semi-autonomous public schools, founded by educators, parents, community groups or private organizations that operate under a written contract with a state, district or other entity. This contract, or charter, details how the school will be organized and managed, what students will be taught and expected to achieve and how success will be measured. Many charter schools enjoy freedom from rules and regulations affecting other public schools, as long as they continue to meet the terms of their charters. They can be closed for failing to satisfy these terms.”

Charter schools, therefore, are public schools which operate independently of the existing school bureaucracy. As public schools, they are free, non-sectarian, and must be open to all applicants, though they may focus on a specific population, such as at-risk students. Because they are “schools of choice,” students cannot be assigned to a charter school as they are to a traditional public school, so charter schools must attract parents and students and keep them coming back by offering quality educational programs.

How are public charter schools governed?

Whereas traditional public schools are funded and managed directly by municipalities or school districts, charter schools are governed by their chartering document, which describes how the school is to be operated. As the Maine State Board of Education described in a 2003 study of charter schools, the charter document might lay out the school’s “purpose and mission, governance, organization, funding plans, degree of autonomy, relationship to the authorizer, monitoring responsibilities and procedures, outcome goals, accountability, innovative practices in teaching and learning programs.” The charter document also establishes the standards by which the success of the school will be measured, and the grounds upon which a decision might be made to close a charter school. This is a primary way that charter schools differ from traditional public schools, which never close as a consequence of failing to meet the needs of students.

A charter school’s “authorizer,” by the way, is the entity that approves and oversees the school. In many cases that entity is an existing school district, though alternative authorizing bodies, such as universities, state education agencies, regional educational authorities, or non-profits have established charter schools in many states. More information on how charter schools are run can be found at the website of the Maine Association for Charter Schools.

What are the advantages of public charter schools?

The number of public charter schools has increased dramatically over the past decade because they have a number of advantages over conventional public schools. The Maine Heritage Policy Center outlined these advantages, which include the following, in a 2007 paper on charter schools.

Educational Innovation. Because charter schools operate independently of the public school establishment, they tend to embrace more innovative approaches to management and instruction. In a recent report on charter school innovation, for instance, the Center on Reinventing Public Education found that “studies of charter school innovation show that charter schools are doing many things differently than other public schools. [They] seem to be more likely than other public schools to experiment with unconventional staffing, scheduling, and compensation arrangements and to be responsive to family preferences and needs.” A 2003 study by the RAND Corporation found much the same, concluding that public charter schools offered more instruction in “subjects such as fine arts and foreign languages” than did comparable conventional public schools, had higher levels of parental involvement, and were more likely than conventional public schools to utilize progressive approaches to meeting the needs of students with learning disabilities. That was the finding as well of a 2000 study by the Manhattan Institute, which found that public charter schools were more likely to adopt all eight of the innovative education approaches the Institute studied, including extra student programming before and after school, additional student tutoring, broader integration of new technologies, and greater parent and teacher involvement in decision making.

If Maine is to compete globally in this new century, it will need to dramatically improve the performance of its schools, which will require innovative new approaches to teaching and learning. The research clearly suggests that charter schools are exactly what President Obama said they were: centers of "innovation and excellence." More on the innovative aspects of charter school can be found in a 2009 report by The Maine Heritage Policy Center.

Effectiveness at reaching at-risk students. Though charter schools are public schools and open to all students, the Center for Education Reform finds that “an average of 75 percent of students in charter schools fall into categories defined as “at-risk.” In fact, many charter schools have been developed specifically as a means of providing schooling to students who have otherwise failed to thrive in more traditional settings. The increasing popularity of these schools nationwide is a testament to the success many have had at bringing achievement to students who have struggled elsewhere.

Greater accountability. Public charter schools are far more accountable for student outcomes than conventional public schools. In fact, as The Maine Heritage Policy Center pointed out in a 2007 paper on charter schools, such schools are accountable to a number of different parties.

Charter school authorizers, for example, are given the power to sanction and even close a charter school for failing to meet the conditions of its charter. In fact, a 2004 Public Impact study found that charter authorizers have indeed “proven willing to close under-performing schools.” In the 50 cases the study analyzed, they found “only one case in which the authorizer failed to close a school despite clear evidence of underperformance.”

Charter schools are also uniquely accountable to parents. Charter schools are schools of choice, which means that if they are unable to provide a quality product, parents will move their children to other schools, and the charter school will close. Conventional public schools, because children are forced to attend them, are never under any competitive pressure to improve and never close because they have failed their students. As a result, students across the nation continue to be ill-served by failing conventional public schools. Charter schools, by contrast, have to perform or face closure.

Academic excellence. The evidence is pretty conclusive that despite the fact that they typically serve a student population that is disproportionately classified as “at-risk,” charter schools regularly outperform competing conventional public schools. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools has authored a policy brief outlining the mountain of research supporting charter schools, while the National Charter School Research Project at the Center on Reinventing Public Education hosts a web page with links to 77 different research studies on charter school effectiveness.

That the number of charter schools continues to grow as more and more parents seek out this innovative approach to learning is a testament to the academic excellence so commonly found in public charter schools.

Why doesn’t Maine have charter schools?

Charter school legislation has been put before the legislature several times, but has never passed. This past legislative session, four groups testified against the latest charter school bill: the Maine Education Association, the Maine School Superintendents Association, the Maine Principals’ Association and the Maine School Board Association. These groups have been stalwart opponents of charter schools and have used their considerable influence in Augusta to prevent the passage of charter school legislation, most recently this past spring when charter school legislation failed enactment by a slim margin.

Did my legislator vote for or against charter schools last year?

In 2009, the Maine legislature narrowly defeated a charter school bill, LD 1438. How did your state senator and state representative vote?

Click here a list of state senators and representatives by town.

Click here to see the final Senate vote on LD 1438. A “yea” vote is a vote AGAINST charter schools.

Click here to see the final vote on LD 1438 in the House of Representatives. A “yea” vote is a vote AGAINST charter schools.

Where can I find out more about public charter schools?

There are a number of organizations, both here in Maine and elsewhere, which are great sources of information about charter schools.

The Maine Association for Charter Schools

The National Alliance for Charter Schools

The Center for Education Reform

National Charter School Research Project

How can I help the effort to bring charter schools to Maine?