Charters a national hot topic; what about here?
I got a phone call Thursday from a reporter for a national news organization. He was interested in what the Wisconsin budget for the next two years might do for school choice programs.
He was particularly interested in an idea from the Republican caucus in the state Senate. It would allow something called the Office of Educational Opportunity, which is part of the University of Wisconsin System administration, to authorize charter schools anywhere in the state. The office, created two years ago, now has the authority to do that only in Milwaukee and Madison (and hasn’t launched any charters yet).
He said it sounds like charter expansion is coming. My guess: Not exactly. Across the nation, charters are hot, hot, hot. Los Angeles just had the most expensive school board elections in American history and charter schools were the central issue. (Pro-charter candidates won.)
The Trump administration is pushing controversial ideas for increased federal support of charter schools. Massachusetts had a heatedly contested statewide referendum a few months ago on charter schools. (Charter opponents won.) The NAACP national convention passed a resolution a few days ago generally unfriendly to charters.
Around here? There are a bunch of reasons why you’ve barely heard the word “charter” in the news or public discussion. There’s really not much new.
Before we go on, a short primer: A charter school is a publicly funded school that operates with a pretty high degree of independence from a school board or other authorizing body. (In Milwaukee, that includes city government and the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.)
Charters generally hire their own teachers and choose their own educational programs. Few charters are unionized and opposition to charter schools is often connected to teachers’ unions. Each charter student is supported by public funding. Charter schools cannot be religious.
Many charter schools are excellent. Many are not doing better than more conventional schools. Some are bad (fortunately, many of those around here have closed). Charter success is a complicated subject.
The charter movement arose in the early 1990s and has spread to more than 40 states, with more than 2.5 million students enrolled. In Milwaukee, more than 16,000 students were enrolled in independent charters last year, about 13% of all the students in the city. U.S. News & World Report recently rated a charter school, the Carmen Schools of Science and Technology, 1712 S. 32nd St., as the top-rated high school in Wisconsin.
Charters begin to stall
But the movement around here seems to have hit a period that isn’t so rosy. Evidence of this:
Charter growth has slowed. Only one new school, a small high school called Pathways, is opening in Milwaukee this fall and the forecast is on the slow side for coming years.
Important sources of support for launching charter schools, including federal and state grants and big money from the Walton Family Foundation, have dried up.
Organized advocacy for charter schools both in Milwaukee and statewide is weak. The statewide charter association disbanded several years ago. The Milwaukee charter association has a weak pulse now, and no longer has a full-time executive director.
Compare this to the private voucher movement and the influential School Choice Wisconsin organization and you get insight into why there is way more attention paid in the Legislature to vouchers than charters.
There appears to be very limited appetite for charter schools beyond the Milwaukee area. I’d suggest several reasons for that, including: There aren’t that many parents seeking programs outside of their school districts. Some districts (Kettle Moraine and Green Bay come to mind) have done a good job creating innovative options within their systems. Public school advocates have resisted outside operators coming on to their turf. And community dynamics lean to support of existing parochial schools rather than bringing in new, non-religious schools.
These reasons feed my thought that the forecast for creating independent charters outside Milwaukee isn’t strong, no matter what state law says.
Under Gary Bennett, the UW System charter office has moved carefully. It does not want to create angry politics around schools in Madison or elsewhere. With the exception of plans to open a special charter school for up to 15 teenage opioid addicts somewhere in Wisconsin, the first charter schools created by the UW office are unlikely to arrive before 2019, if any come at all.
What’s likely to be in the state budget for charters? Not much different than for any other schools — increases of about $200 per student in funding in each of the next two years. That would raise the per-student amount in 2018-'19 to a bit over $8,600, which is less than conventional public schools get.
And the Milwaukee scene, in broad strokes? Chartering by city government has pretty much come to a halt. The UWM charter list includes some very good schools, but the prospects for new charters are iffy.
That leaves MPS. More charter schools have affiliated with MPS and more may want to. But tensions within MPS leadership about charter schools make prospects uncertain. The School Board recently renewed contracts with the three high-performing Carmen schools (with a fourth expected in fall 2018), but only for two years, rather than the usual five, because of differences over money and other underlying tensions.
Keep an eye on how much of a welcome mat MPS puts out for charters. If welcomed, they may come. If not, the environment for charters could lead to some strong, interesting developments elsewhere.
When the reality of charter school comes close to matching the vision, impressive things happen.
But when the charter sector gets caught up in fights over money, enrollment, bureaucracy and partisan politics, things start looking uncheerful. Charters have found a home on our particular range, but the discouraging words can definitely be heard.