Charter schools -- public schools of choice that are exempt from
certain state or local rules and regulations that govern
traditional public schools -- have proliferated in the United
States since the first ones opened in 1992. It appears the American
public may be warming to the idea of these alternative public
schools.
Today, about half of all Americans (49%) favor the concept of
charter schools, according to the most recent Phi Delta
Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public
Schools*. Over the last several years, slightly fewer Americans
have favored the idea, with support ranging from 42% to 44% from
2000 to 2002.
Two Schools of Thought
The first charter school law was passed in Minnesota in 1991 as
one of an ongoing series of ideas to improve U.S. public schools.
Once a charter school is established within a school district,
parents are free to choose it instead of a mainstream public school
for their child. Generally, if there is not enough space available
at a charter school for everyone who wants to attend, a public
lottery takes place to establish the student body.
Proponents of the concept say that absent the constraints of
some state rules and regulations, charter schools are free to
develop creative approaches to teaching, the most successful of
which can be duplicated in traditional schools. Opponents say
charter schools not only drain public tax dollars away from the
traditional schools, but they take the most academically gifted
students with them, stripping mainstream public schools of the most
actively involved parents in the process.
"We haven't had that experience," says Jennifer Langer,
executive director of the New Jersey Charter Public Schools
Association. "Nothing indicates that kids in our state are coming
in at a higher academic level -- in fact they are coming in at a
lower level …We educate a lot of immigrant children with
language barriers, special education children, and those with
behavioral problems who need more discipline than they receive in
the regular schools."
Devil in the Details
Although more Americans favor the idea than ever before, they do
believe charter schools should be just as accountable to the state
as public schools. In the poll, 80% of Americans hold this view, a
figure that hasn't changed appreciably since 2000.
Since charter school accountability varies widely from state to
state, it can be a difficult issue for people to fully grasp. "In
New Jersey, for instance," says Langer, "there is no flexibility on
accountability. Our charter schools are bound by the same core
curriculum, standardized testing, and teacher certification as the
regular public schools."
Funding Issues
Sentiment toward the funding of charter schools has remained
steady since 2002, when the PDK survey first asked Americans about
it. Sixty-five percent say they would oppose charter schools in
their local communities if they took money away from the regular
public schools.
"When they [Americans] find out that their taxpayer dollars are
being spent on these schools which, in many instances, have much
less oversight over the financial dealings and maybe have fewer
quality standards in place (like requirements about teacher
certification, etc.) and that they aren't held to the same
standards as mainstream public schools -- they are wary. And they
should be," says Denise Cardinal, a spokeswoman for the National
Education Association. "Charter schools are public
schools; they use public dollars and there needs to be security
measures in place to protect the students, parents, and taxpayers
from the possibility of misuse when it comes to charter
schools."
Bottom Line
Nearly 3,400 charter schools operate in 40 states, serving
roughly 1 million students, according to Colleen Sutton, director
of communications at the National Alliance for Public Charter
Schools in Washington, D.C. Sutton says that represents 2% of the
total K-12 school population in the United States. As the growth
trend continues and more children become charter school students,
it will allow for a better assessment of their efficacy compared
with traditional public schools. To date, it is unclear whether
charter schools are better described as creative educational
laboratories as their proponents suggest or as an unnecessary drain
of talent and taxpayer dollars away from traditional public schools
as their opponents assert.
*This article contains findings from the 37th
Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward
the Public Schools, released on Aug. 23 in Washington,
D.C.
The findings of the survey are based on telephone interviews
with a random sample of 1,000 U.S. adults, aged 18 and older,
conducted from June 9 to June 26, 2005. For results based on this
sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum error
attributable to sampling and other random effects is ±3
percentage points.
