Charter School: The Pros and Cons

Charter Schools have created options for families to decide whether they want their children to go to traditional public school or to alternative means of learning. However, while public and charter schools have the same goal of bringing education to our children, they differ in terms of innovative style of education. Historically, charter schools came about twenty years ago when the first charter school opened in Minnesota (Kenny, 2012) upon passing of its first charter law primarily for the purpose of transforming public education. Since then, many legislatures have passed charter law in their respective state. In Texas, there are about 185 operating charter schools since the passing of Senate Bill 1 in 1995 (“An overview of”, 2010). President Obama and Secretary Duncan pushed states for more charter schools (Shear and Anderson, 2009).

However, the question is whether charter school really serves its purpose. The growing debate on the effects of charter school significantly focuses on whether charter schools are good alternative to public school. In view of this, it would be wise to revisit what makes a charter school and how it works. Charter schools are classified as public schools operating independently of the school district. Like the public schools, the tuition is free and open to every students. Also, they are non-sectarian. Moreover, charter schools are funded by the state and federal, and are therefore accountable to state and federal academic standards (“What are public”, n.d.). As regards operation, charter schools, unlike public schools, are free to make innovation to improve academic achievement of students. According to The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, charter schools may offer longer school days, adjust curriculum, create a unique school culture, and develop their own learning models (“What are public”, n.d.).  

Like the two sides of a coin, there are pros and cons of charter schools. Charter schools are claimed to be successful because they have freedom and accountability (Kenny, 2012). First, charter schools are free from bureaucracy and union rules giving more leeway to principals to hire, evaluate and fire underperforming teachers (Kenny, 2012). Second, teachers are more attracted to teach in charter school knowing that they are held accountable of their teaching and have opportunities to work alongside other teachers who share the same passion and belief (Kenny, 2012).  

In contrast, the current accountability enjoyed by charter schools has created what Diane Ravitch (2010) called “punitive atmosphere in school”. She argued in her article “Why I changed my mind about school reform”, firing teachers and closing schools are not the answers to the issues surrounding American education. Instead, it is poverty not bad teachers that is a predictor of low academic performance. In addition, opponents of charter schools claimed that charter schools operate as business institutions aside from learning institution as they are subject to market forces and may disrupt continuous education if forced to close by these forces (Chen, n.d.). 

As regards academic performance of students, there is no generalization that charter schools show more growth on the academic performance of students as compared to students in public schools. According to the national evaluation of charter schools conducted by Margaret Raymond, a Stanford economist, the result yielded “17% of charter schools got higher test scores that public schools, 46% got similar result as that of public schools, and 37% of charter schools were significantly worse than public schools” (Ravitch, 2010).

In fine, it is neither public nor charter school that could determine success of students academically. What is more significant is having coherent curriculum that will prepare the students and help them become more knowledgeable and highly skilled whether it be a public school or a charter school.

References

An overview of the history of public education in Texas. (2010). Retrieved January 20, 2014 from http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=148

Chen, Grace. What is Charter School?  Public School Review. Retrieved from http://www.publicschoolreview.com/articles/3

Kenny, Deborah (2012, June 24). Deborah Kenny: Why Charter Schools Work. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303703004577472422188140892?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303703004577472422188140892.html

Ravitch, Diane (2010, March 9). Why I changed my mind about school reform? The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704869304575109443305343962?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052748704869304575109443305343962.html

Shear, M.D. and Anderson, N (2009). Obama uses funding to pressure education establishing for change. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/23/AR2009072303881.html

What are Public school charters? (n.d.) Retrieved on January 19, 2014 from http://www.publiccharters.org/About-Charter-Schools/What-are-Charter-Schools003F.aspx