Caprice Young is vice president of education for the Laura and John Arnold Foundation in Houston. Before that, she was involved in education in California, where she once served as chair of the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District. A public school advocate, Young also founded the California Charter Schools Association. I exchanged emails with her this afternoon about charter schools, which were the subject of a hearing today on SB 2. GOP Sen. Dan Patrick introduced that legislation as a way to expand charter schools across Texas, while also closing down low-achieving ones. Young provided these answers during our exchange:
The Texas Senate’s education committee heard testimony today about SB2, which would change how Texas deals with charter schools. One feature of the bill is that it would get rid of the cap on the number of state-authorized charter schools. In other words, we would have no limit on the number of charters. Why is that a good idea since the state already has a good number of charters that have not exactly knocked it out of the park academically?
Charter caps have never made any sense. Why would anyone want to limit the number of great schools for our kids? As a parent, educator and community leader, I want every neighborhood to have as many high quality schools as possible of all types.
Nationally, areas with a higher concentration of charter public schools also have higher quality schools overall because they inspire each other to do better. In addition, non-profit organizations spring up that help the schools succeed by providing professional development, back-office services and financing — this creates a vital overall ecosystem that helps the schools thrive academically.
The ways to improve charter schools also are part of SB2. These are changes in the law to make it easier to close failing charters and to support the growth of great charters. Plus, SB2 includes the creation of an independent charter oversight authority — a national best practice in managing charter public schools well.
Here in Texas, charters have become vital learning environments for more than 150,000 students and 100,000 more are on waiting lists and eager to have an opportunity to attend a charter public school.
But what would you say to those who think that charters essentially skim off the most engaged parents? They have taken the initiative to get their children in charters, but that could leave traditional schools with less engaged parents and self-directed students.
People say that because they figure that any parents who take the time to research where to send their children to school are naturally more engaged and therefore you would expect their kids to do better. This would also be true of students that applied to get into charters through the lottery process but weren’t selected.
But several studies have now been done comparing how the children of engaged parents who went to charters did versus the children of engaged parents who ended up in non-charter public schools because they weren’t selected in the lottery. The kids who go to the charters do consistently better than those who don’t— same engaged parents, very different academic outcomes. This means that we need more high quality charter schools so that parents don’t have to leave the fate of their children to lotteries.
One way to improve charters is to close down the under-performers. My understanding is that the state of Texas has only revoked 15 charter licenses since 1998. Are there any states that are doing a good job of this?
Yes, several. New York, California, Florida and Michigan all have better track records and are working towards getting better themselves. Arizona once had a proliferation of low-performing schools and turned their situation around.
The key is having clear criteria and a fair process for closing the schools that don’t succeed. That process includes helping students find other places. Nobody likes closing schools of any type, especially when closing a charter means forcing the kids into lower performing or less safe neighborhood schools. But maintaining high standards is important.
Of course, it can’t be only about test scores. Only 28% of charters in Texas are explicitly college prep schools. Forty percent are theme-based (like Arts or Science), 11% are pre-K or elementary schools, and 21% target dropouts or kids in juvenile detention centers.
It is common for charters to provide unique education services for special niche populations of kids not well served by traditional public schools. Those charters need to be judged by rigorous measures unique to their mission.
Another critique of charters is that they don’t offer a soups-to-nuts education. They give you academics, but they don’t give you athletics, band, dance, etc. But you had a different experience when you were head of the L.A. school district’s board and a charter took over a traditional high school. What happened there?
California has had several traditional comprehensive high schools become charter schools (including my alma mater!). In every case, the academic outcomes improved. In the case of Locke High School, the one that you mentioned, the graduation rates grew five-fold.
Keeping kids in school is an important part of solving our education crisis. They still have challenges, though, as the entering 9th graders are coming more troubled than ever before. They’ve gone to 60% entering below basic to more than 80% entering below basic in their scores. Now the middle school is considering becoming a charter so they can have the freedom to made the changes they need to succeed.
Most charter schools want to have comprehensive programs like band and sports. However, in Texas, access to facilities is difficult — charters don’t get money for or access to facilities. In other states, public charter school students are required by law to be given access to facilities just like every other public school student. SB2 would help some because it would require school districts to make unused space available to charters.
A final question here: One part of SB2 would make it easier for charter schools to locate in buildings that school districts either don’t use or don’t use very much. Is there any data that suggests charters that “co-locate” in a traditional school bolster the host school?
Yes! When the principals of the two campuses collaborate, great things can happen.
In Spring Branch ISD, KIPP and Yes Prep charters are co-located with traditional schools in something called the SKY Partnership. All of the campuses are sharing professional development, special education and enrichment programs while maintaining their unique academic programs.
Elsewhere in the country, co-locations have led to positive rivalries that caused all ships to rise with the tide. Co-location is not uncommon among non-charter public schools— magnet schools co-located with traditional public schools, for example.
The key to success is the grown ups — when they enter these relationships with maturity and positive purpose, they work wonders for the kids.