Richard Whitmire, a prominent chronicler of the charter school movement, has been beating the drum on quality lately. He argues the cause would be helped by shutting down more under-performing schools.
There are about 6,400 charter schools out there. Of those, roughly 1,000 score in the bottom 15 percent of the schools in that state. That’s outrageous; they should be shuttered tomorrow.
Then there are the middling charters that are doing the same or a little better than traditional neighborhood schools. True, parents are choosing them — often for safety reasons. Is that a sufficient reason to maintain a separate-but-no-better school system? Their closure should at least be a debate.
This reasoning helps explain why states like Florida have automatic closure laws for the lowest-performing schools. The case is bolstered by a recent study that found when low-performing schools close, student achievement improves.
The question is, how far should policymakers push the accountability envelope when school closures clash with parents’ wishes?
The teacher quality debate offers an interesting parallel. Administrators might be loathe to set a tough grading scale for teacher evaluations because good teachers are so hard to come by, especially in key subjects. That means removing low-performers from the classroom isn’t enough. For teacher evaluation policies to work as intended, it would help to recruit more top teachers into the profession.
A similar line of reasoning might apply to charter schools. What’s the point of closing mediocre charters if their students will wind up in traditional schools that also under-perform?
An underrated aspect of the transformation of education in New Orleans is the role groups, from New Schools for New Orleans to 4.0 Schools, have played cultivating new entrepreneurs and school operators in the city. Efforts like theirs are key to growing a thriving charter sector.
By increasing the supply of good schools, they also make stronger accountability policies possible. It makes more sense to close a low-performing school if a potential high-performer is in line to take its place.
