Debunking the Myths About Charter Public Schools

The Pioneer Institute of Massachusetts (the host of the lunch at which
I'm speaking on Thursday) recently released a new report, Debunking
the Myths About Charter Public Schools, posted at:
http://pioneerinstitute.org/pdf/100104_debunking_charter_myths_pb.pdf.
He's the summary and the first two of 10 myths debunked (some of this
is MA-specific, but much of it applies to charter schools everywhere):

Debunking the Myths About Charter Public Schools

Contact Jamie Gass at 617-723-2277 ext. 210, or jgass@pioneerinstitute.org

BOSTON — A new report, Debunking the Myths About Charter Public
Schools, dispels many of the criticisms repeated by charter opponents
since the creation of charter public schools in Massachusetts in the
mid-1990's. The criticisms, especially regarding unfair funding and
student achievement, have been a fixture of the charter debates and
unfortunately many reporters have simply picked them up because they
are repeated so often by superintendents, unions, and school committee
officials. Debunking provides data on 10 top myths about charter
public schools and shows these criticisms to be without basis.

Charter public schools have existed in Massachusetts since 1995, after
the landmark Massachusetts Education Reform Act (MERA) of 1993.
Conceived as laboratories for educational innovation that could offer
choices for families as well as competition for traditional district
schools, charters may not discriminate as to whom they accept. In
fact, aside from their often higher levels of academic achievement,
charter public schools differ from their district counterparts in only
one major way: they enjoy some freedoms and autonomies that district
schools do not, in exchange for being subject to additional
accountability requirements.

MYTH #1: CHARTER SCHOOLS DRAIN FUNDING FROM OTHER PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Detractors would have the public believe that charter schools drain
funding from their district counterparts. Charter public schools may
attract students away from other public schools, but they do not drain
those schools of funding. In fact, when students leave district
schools to attend charters, district schools continue to receive
funding for those students even though they are no longer being
educated in the district.

On top of that, if there is a drop in charter school enrollment from
one year to the next, a district may actually receive even more in
reimbursement funds than was transferred from its budget to cover the
cost of tuition. In reality, the district is still eligible for 60
percent of the 100 percent of reimbursement from the prior fiscal
year. In this sense, the loss of students to charter schools actually
increases district budgets for a period of time. In Fiscal Year 2009,
district schools received $50,891,777 in the form of reimbursements
for students who chose to attend charter schools.

MYTH #2: SOME LOCAL COMMUNITIES LOSE ALMOST ALL OF THEIR STATE
EDUCATION FUNDING BECAUSE OF CHARTER SCHOOLS IN THEIR DISTRICT

Critics who believe that charter schools drain funding and resources
from other public schools also believe that some local communities
lose all of their state education funding to nearby charter public
schools. Not only is this a myth because of the per-pupil system that
Massachusetts employs to fund charter schools, it is also a myth
because the state caps the amount of tuition that a given district can
lose to a charter school in a given year.

Although the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association points
out, some communities that "fund their schools mostly with local money
and do not receive much state aid will see a high percentage of their
state aid deducted." Such communities are certainly not normal in
Massachusetts. These are generally suburban communities where the bulk
of charter schools do not exist. Even these communities will not see
all of their state education funding deducted; the amount deducted
will only be equal to the amount that it would cost to educate charter
school students in the traditional public setting.

"With states across the country lifting charter caps and showing a
more aggressive posture on difficult district reforms, Massachusetts
must break out of its funk on education," says Jim Stergios, executive
director of Pioneer Institute. "With hundreds of millions of dollars
on the line, we have long passed the time when we can rest on our
laurels."

As U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has stated repeatedly (see
here and here) a failure to lift caps on charter public schools would
put states "at a severe competitive disadvantage to receive the $5
billion in Race to the Top money." Massachusetts is likely to apply
for more than $250 million in RTTT funding, the majority of which
would go to district schools. More importantly, failure to lift the
charter caps would tell the thousands of students in failing inner
city schools that 16 years after the education reform act, another
generation will remain without educational opportunity — a clearly
delineated state constitutional right