Tread carefully on charter school bills

Proponents and opponents agree: Charter schools have a momentum in Connecticut that they haven’t had in years.

Charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately operated, have long been a small part of the education system. They were originally championed by reformers who thought the novel arrangement would give the schools a chance to experiment with best practices outside of the strictures of the regular public school system. In some cases, charters have shown success in raising test scores for some of the most at-risk children.

The bigger picture, though, is much less clear. Charter schools are opposed by teachers unions because they operate outside the typical hiring structure and make their own rules. As such, charters have come to be seen as a proxy in a larger fight over school privatization. There is a large contingent of anti-union reformers who view public education as something in need of a complete overhaul, and charters have been used to further that cause.

For many parents, that larger fight is moot. They simply want better schools for their children, and don’t care about the ideological fights. Those parents are who policymakers need to be thinking about. What is the best way to ensure that everyone, regardless of where they live, has access to the best schools?

The question has been dormant for years in Connecticut as no new charter schools have been approved. But that is due to change this year as a bill has been introduced that could lead to faster approval of charters, alongside a separate bill that would tie their funding into the regular Education Cost Sharing system that the state uses to supplement public school funding beyond property taxes.

Legislators need to slow down and carefully consider the ramifications.

As typically happens, charter proponents have raised the issue of race. Since charters are nearly always in cities, opponents are cast as trying to deny funding for poor Black and brown children. This is wildly misleading, since opponents of charters are the ones calling out the loudest for legitimately equal funding across urban and suburban school districts.

The truth is, were such funding equity in place and city schools funded at adequate levels, there would be no demand for charters. Similarly, in a truly integrated school system where urban and suburban kids shared a classroom, the argument for charters would disappear.

We aren’t anywhere near those solutions, and so the debate continues.

The success rate of charter schools is mixed. Some do well, some close after a few years. Some are run by well-meaning educators, some by charlatans. Their essentially private nature is all the more reason they should be viewed skeptically — this is public money, and there is nothing more important than children’s education. That should not be something to be debated behind closed doors.

The urge to do something to improve public education in the inner cities is a noble one. Though teachers and educators work hard, there are too many children falling behind because what they are offered is simply not enough to overcome all the obstacles they face in their life.

Neither is that a reason to support unproven solutions. Legislators need to tread extremely carefully in expanding the ranks of charter schools in Connecticut.