Issue Brief: A Parent’s Guide to Charter Schools
INTRODUCTION
The charter school idea was born in the 1970s out of a desire for more innovation in education. The first charter school was established in Minnesota in 1991. The following year, California was the second state in the nation to legalize charter schools with the Charter School Act of 1992.
Over the last three decades, charter schools have seen tremendous success: There are over 7,600 charter schools in the U.S. and over 1,300 in California. During the 2021-22 school year, California charter schools served over 670,000 students, more than 11 percent of the state’s public school student population.
Charter schools are public schools — not private schools — funded with taxpayer dollars and are tuition-free for all students. Furthermore, charter schools may not cherry-pick students; they are open to all.
Charter school performance and minority students
In 2020, Harvard University’s Program on Education Policy and Governance released a charter school study analyzing student performance data. While charter schools have proved to be a success for students of all demographics, test scores show that Black and Hispanic students especially benefit from charters. A 2019 charter study meta-analysis found that some locales reveal “‘statistically significant, large, and educationally meaningful achievement gains’ for low-income students, students of color, and English language learners,” and that “African American students at charter schools made greater gains on reading and math tests than their peers at district schools.”
In 2016, at the national level, it was found that on the National Assessment for Educational Progress’ (NAEP) national science test, “low-income Hispanic 4th-graders at charter schools scored 10 points higher than their low-income Hispanic peers at non-charter schools.” As more data rolls in about charter school performance, it becomes increasingly clear that overall, charter schools are excelling in their goal to effectively educate students.
In 2021, only 31 percent of California parents said they would choose public schools for their children if all other options were open to them. In 2022, 66 percent of California voters and 72 percent of California parents said they want more public school choices. In an age when parents are seeking empowerment to do what’s best for their kids, support for charters is rising: 70 percent of California parents support charter schools, including a majority (63 percent) of Spanish-speaking Latinos.
While minority students often suffer academically at union-controlled schools, charter schools have had tremendous success in minority and low-income neighborhoods. A report from Innovate Public Schools in partnership with the University of Southern California found that in Los Angeles County, 45% of top public middle schools for low-income Latino students in math are charters, and 52% of top public high schools for low-income Latino students are charters. In the Bay Area, 62 percent of top public middle schools for low-income Latino students in math are charters, and 87 percent of top public high schools for low-income Latino students in math and English are charters.
Charter school accountability
To establish a charter school, an application must be submitted to a designated “authorizer,” such as a school district board or county Board of Education. The charter agreement between the authorizer and the school’s organizers (who might be parents, teachers, or a whole community) outlines the specific goals of the charter school.
The main difference between charters and ‘traditional’ public schools is that charter schools often operate outside of the control of the state’s teachers unions and bloated government bureaucracy. Instead, charters report to their own boards that oversee their administration.
As a result, charters have more flexibility with teaching methods and curriculum, and greater freedom to innovate to meet student needs.
Teachers unions intentionally mislead the public about charter schools. For example, the California Teachers Association (CTA) disingenuously claims that charter schools are “exempted from some of the same standards of accountability and transparency of traditional public schools.” The California Federation of Teachers (CFT) criticizes charter schools by referring to them as “industry” schools.
In reality, California’s charter schools are all not-for-profit and are required by the California Department of Education to have highly-credentialed teachers in all core subjects. Furthermore, charter schools are held to a high degree of accountability. If a charter school fails in its performance or mission, its charter can be revoked by the authorizing district, county board, or the California Department of Education (or the authorizer can refuse to renew it at the next renewal). Traditional public schools rarely face such accountability, and are often allowed to continue despite abysmal student performance scores for decades.
The teachers’ unions’ claim that charter schools are exempt from performance assessments is false. The California Department of Education explains: “Charter school pupils are required to participate in all statewide assessments that are applicable to pupils in non-charter schools,” and “Charter schools are required by California Education Code Section 47605(d) to administer [CAASPP] tests following the same procedures and requirements for test administration as required of non-charter schools.” Thus, charter school performance is just as transparent as any traditional public school in the state.
Finally, charter schools have independence and flexibility that ordinary public schools don’t have. Rather than one-size-fits-all programs, charters offer a variety of concentrations and opportunities. Some are STEM-focused, while others are language immersion schools with instruction in Spanish, Mandarin, Hebrew, French, or other languages. Some center on civic engagement, while others are fine arts focused. Some specialize in preparation for a specific field or career, and others tailor the instruction to each student. Additionally, the California Charter Schools Association reports that in 2022, there were 117 virtual or hybrid charters in California, as well as 146 “At-Promise” charters which serve at-risk students who dropped out of school, were/are incarcerated, are teen parents, etc.
Charter schools are therefore uniquely positioned to serve the needs and interests of the families in their neighborhoods to a degree that’s not available in traditional schools.
California’s Parent Empowerment Act
From 2010-2017, California had a law called the Parent Empowerment Act, sometimes referred to as a “parent trigger law.” The Parent Empowerment Act required local educational agencies overseeing “persistently lowest-achieving schools” to implement intervention if at least half of the parents signed a petition to do so. One of the available options was the conversion of the school into a charter school.
Three schools that underwent Parent Empowerment Act transformations were 24th Street Elementary and Weigand Avenue Elementary (both in Los Angeles), and Desert Trails Elementary (in San Bernardino County). Weigand remained unionized and was not converted to a charter school; the principal was replaced, but in response, “Weigand teachers quit to protest the trigger law.” Test scores at the school “flatlined.” On the other hand, 24th Street and Desert Trails were both converted to non-unionized charter schools, and test scores at both schools “soared.”
A fourth example is Palm Lane Elementary in Anaheim, which was the first school in Orange County to be converted to a charter school under the Parent Empowerment Act. In 2017, when parents won the fight against the district to convert the school, only 17.27% of students met state ELA standards and 13.06% met state math standards. Two years later as a charter school, scores had nearly doubled for ELA (31.21%) and more than doubled for math (32.85%).
The Parent Empowerment Act is no longer viable in California. This is because in 2017, the state transitioned to a new school accountability measure, implemented through the California School Dashboard. According to the California Department of Education (CDE), “due to the transition to the Dashboard, the CDE can no longer identify those schools who are subject to the Parent Empowerment provisions.” Therefore, the Parent Empowerment program is now considered a program “no longer administered by the CDE.”
But this hasn’t stopped parents from getting charter schools established in their neighborhoods. If you are a parent or teacher interested in what it takes to start a charter school, check out How to Start a Charter School in California.