Charter Schools Have Differing Opinions About Their Districts

The US Charter Schools web site summarized comments by charter school leaders about relationships with their districts. The comments are very interesting--from very positive to very pessimistic.



As I've looked at two districts in Colorado Springs, I've found that charter school relationships can be very good. Our school, The Classical Academy, is in Academy School District 20. Our district is one of the top school districts in the state of Colorado. We are a suburban district. Approximately 51% of adults have a bachelor's degree or higher. Approximately 55% of households have incomes of $75,000 or greater. I say "we" because in our case, our charter school functions very much as a partner with our district. District 20 is a choice district, and we view ourselves as one more choice in the district. For example, one of the district high schools is an IB school. Other schools have extensive AP course offerings as well as some distinct technology and other tracks. We don't (and can't afford to) offer those extended offerings. We are a school focused on specific methods of instruction and a narrowly focused college preparation. So, it is good that our district has excellent offerings for students who can't get into our school or don't want the option we provide.



Falcon School District (District 49) in northeast Colorado Springs also appears to have a reasonable relationship with their district. The district has diverse demographic characteristics. It has about 50% more students representing racial minorities, and it crosses into more rural areas. Approximately 30% of households have a bachelor's degree or greater. Approximately 40% of households have incomes of $75,000 or greater. Although the western portion of Falcon is developing, there is a huge area that is still less developed in terms of housing and business. Even with the difficult challenges, some of which are financial due to the difficulty of passing a bond issue, Falcon strives to maintain good relationships with its charter schools. Falcon also has schools that are rated average or above, which is about the same rating as their charter schools. Falcon strives through its own offerings and its charter offerings to provide choice. It has a night school option as well as Career Academies to help students focus on particular vocational areas.


While there are reasons that districts can be negative about charter schools, districts that view charters as a good way to increase choice can maintain good relationships if they choose to. There are issues of balance and financial responsibility to consider, but in these two examples, we can see that a healthy relationship is not only good for charter and district leadership, but also for the kids.

Are charters losing public support?

For 40 years, Phi Delta Kappa and the Gallup organization conduct an annual poll about the public's attitude toward education. The most recent poll, released last week, indicates that public support for charter schools dipped from 60% last year down to 51% this year. That is the lowest approval rating in three polling cycles, since the 2006 number was 53% positive. 

Strangely, the number responding "I don't know" when asked if they favor or oppose charter schools jumped from 5% in 2007 to 14% in 2008. Did increased publicity and controversy about charter schools muddy the waters? Did the polling sample drift?

Interestingly, while support for charters has slipped, support for school vouchers increased on this poll. Though Republicans and Democrats are nearly equal in their support of charter schools, there is a partisan delta between stronger Republican support and weaker Democratic support for vouchers. And by a 4:3 margin, poll respondents think Democrats are more interested in improving public education than Republicans.

This is not a sampling of registered voters, so the political import of this poll is not as reliable as the cultural impact. Nevertheless, this is a highly credible poll with excellent methodology and a properly weighted sample. It is wise for us to calibrate these kinds of national numbers with personal anecdotes and conversations with folks outside the charter school community.

Since you have the option to comment, here's a question:

Why do you think charter schools lost public support in the most recent PDK poll?

Comment away!

Peter

Charter School Financial Challenges: CSBM Offers Some Answers

I recently had a chat with Raj Thakkar, founder of Charter School Business Management, Inc. Raj works with a number of charter schools providing services from bookkeeping to budgeting. Raj's work was written up by the New York Daily News.

How long have you been involved in the charter movement?
I have been involved in the charter school movement for almost 6 years, when I started as the Chief Financial Officer of Explore Charter School in Brooklyn, NY in January 2003. My experience there demonstrated how important the financial perspective was for the success of charter schools and led me to launching Charter School Business Management Inc. (CSBM) in March 2006.

What do you think is the biggest potential for a financial professional to add value to a school?
The biggest potential for a financial professional to add value to a charter school is to provide the perspective that will enable a school leader to understand HOW his/her dream school can be implemented AND sustained throughout full growth and beyond. Charter schools expand very rapidly each year in terms of budget, enrollment and staff size, where they often need to be treated as an entirely different business each year. Financial professionals are responsible for managing this rapid growth, while the school leaders focus on the academics.

What do you think about the current state of financial professionalism in charter schools?
I think there is a lack of sufficient, experienced professionals in the field. There is also a lack of adequate professional development and training opportunities for financial professionals. This is the main reason why I launched CSBM - to provide this critically needed professional development. Also, many school leaders burn out their business leaders because adequate support staff is not provided to them. These burned out business leaders seem to either run far away from the charter school movement, jump to another school hoping that the "grass is greener" or join my company. The CSBM team has 7 former business and operations leaders from charter schools in just over 2 years and we may add 2-3 more team members in the coming months. We are all delighted to share the knowledge we have gained and have been very blessed to do so with schools in New York, New Orleans and Chicago thus far. In time, we aim to support schools in Newark, NJ, Philadelphia, PA, Indianapolis, IN, Atlanta, GA and any other cities that need the support.

How have you seen it change over the years you’ve been involved?
I have seen the charter finance world gain some respect and attention, but I'm afraid only a major financial disaster will bring this topic to the forefront of the minds of major funders of the charter school movement. I totally understand that priorities numbers 1 and 2 are creating/attracting more school leaders and teachers to the movement. However, with mismanagement of finance and operations being one of the main reasons why charter schools fail, charter school finance, stimulating the growth of financial professionals in the field and their professional development should be the third priority that funders are looking at.
I've also seen many charter finance professionals being courted by several schools and being tempted to jump ship. Many actually have done so, at least in the New York City area. In my last year at Explore, I was asked to by 3 different organizations in one week to leave and join them. I politely declined, sharing that I had my own plans to launch Charter School Business Management.

What are the biggest financial challenges both operationally as well as balancing the budget?
Some business leaders of charter schools think it is their jobs to say "no" to school leaders. I've always said it is their jobs to "show them how". When ensuring the budget is balanced, the school leader needs choices that s/he can prioritize. The school leaders need to clearly demonstrate to their business leaders what their negotiables and non-negotiables are. Some examples of non-negotiables include small class size, required experience level of newly hired teachers, a sports program and/or arts-infused into all parts of the school curriculum. If the school leader is confused about how to prioritize, the iterative process of balancing the budget will naturally reveal his/her negotiables and non-negotiables.

Operationally, the challenges are having an appropriate number of staff members in the front office and back office. Whenever I've seen school leaders value the front and back offices, it has had a huge return on investment because it leverages the amount of time that they can be in classrooms and stay focused on student achievement.

Colorado Seeks Success From Its Charter Schools

One of the criticisms of charter schools is that they aren’t accountable to anyone. While that is not at all true, it’s even less true in the state of Colorado. Here in Colorado, we want charter public schools to be successful. Because of this, all charter schools are required to undergo a thorough evaluation by the Schools of Choice Unit of the Colorado Department of Education. The Charter School Support Initiative has been set up so that all young charter schools are required to go through an evaluation based on a standards based rubric set up by CDE. The standards include instruction, culture, governance, overall planning, and financial categories.

While optional for many charter schools, it is mandatory for all charter schools within the first three years of operation. The results of the evaluation are presented to the school and its authorizer. The evaluating team does not follow up with the school, but the authorizer, who is ultimately responsible for the school’s performance, has the report and can use the results to work with the school to make improvements.

This is just one measure that Colorado uses to ensure the accountability of charter public schools and, more importantly, their students.

Does Longevity Help?

A recent study in California has shown that superintendents who are in their jobs longer generally produce better results. The study did not give conclusive reasons why this is so, but suggested that it might be due to perseverance and being able to try enough methods to make them work. In other words, a district isn't fixed in a day.

The education community can learn from this. Boards can be more patient with their superintendents. Superintendents shouldn't give up easily when their first attempts at change don't have the desired results.

How can we apply this to charter public schools? Charter boards can be more patient with their directors or principals. Authorizers might look for signs that a school is improving and give it more time before criticizing or closing the school.

This is a tough one though, because we certainly don't want to tolerate schools that don't work whether charter or non-charter. However, we also don't want to close schools that may be on the verge of a break through. In either case, we are projecting the future. At least we have one more piece of data with which to make our decisions, which is good news for those superintendents who have experienced the revolving door of the superintendent's office.

The Third Point of the Triangle

After looking at the relationship between teacher salaries and facilities costs for charter schools a few days ago, I began thinking about my yet earlier blog about the Triangle of Tension.

So, let’s complete the triangle here. In my blog about facilities costs and teacher pay, I demonstrated the domino effect of high facilities costs for charters knocking over the domino of keeping teacher salaries equal to district comparables. While there are other dominoes that could be affects, the problem is (as anyone who has ever balanced a school budget knows) that after facilities and salaries, there isn’t a lot left to cut. Facilities and salaries make up about 80 to 90% of a charter public school’s budget. Even if I chose to knock over the domino of non-payroll related General and Administrative expenses, for example, I would only be touching about 2% of the budget. That’s like tipping over a domino but it doesn’t quite reach the next domino. Nothing happens. Even if I could eliminate General and Administrative expenses entirely, it would only allow me to increase salaries about 3%.

For this reason, the other tip of the triangle has to be per pupil revenue. The problem is that many charters strive to reduce class size to improve education. Evidence suggests that this is especially important for at risk kids. (Note, that if you are a regular reader, you know I’m not a huge fan of teachers’ unions, but I’m willing to acknowledge that sometimes they are right.) The problem is that because we’ve run out of dominoes, charter public schools may be forced to increase class size to pay teachers and provide facilities. In my example from my facilities entry, if I want to get $1.5 to $2.5 million of additional revenue at today’s PPR rates, I’d need to increase my class size by 10 to 15%. While that is workable, it violates the very principles on which the school was founded. It could even jeopardize our educational model.

Here is the rub, if we had adequate facilities money, we could have small class sizes that the union wants AND pay most of our teachers MORE than the unionized teachers currently receive from their districts. We do so by cutting in other places because if our big three were taken care of, the other dominoes are small enough that we could figure out how to take care of them. BUT we aren’t there and the state hasn’t figured this out. I can’t speak for all charters, but many have figured out how to create a great value for taxpayers while providing a great education for students. Great charters have figured out how to live within this Triangle of Tension.

A Quick Note About Differences in Funding

After writing my last blog entry, I noticed that Jefferson County in Colorado recently voted to allocate part of their bond and mill levy override to their charter schools. However, they are going to allocate it based on the square footage of schools rather than at a per pupil rate. Given that the charter schools already have less square footage per pupil than the non-charter public schools, this is incredibly unfair.

However, my point is not to rail on Jefferson County. I simply want to show the inconsistency with which charter public schools are treated. For example, our authorizing district (Academy School District 20) has written language into our latest charter revision that we will share the November 2008 mill levy override (if approved) with them on a per pupil basis. We are fortunate to have a very good relationship with our district. Mark Hatchell, the ASD20 superintendent, has a positive vision for the education of all kids in his district as did Ken Vedra (the former superintendent) before him. This is not the case in all districts.

Because of this inconsistency, charter public schools often struggle and, therefore, take up a fighting posture. However, this is not merely an ideological fight, it is a fight for survival, and a fight to educate kids. Until authorizers and the general public has a better understanding for the value charter public schools provide, this will continue to be a problem.

Why Do Charter Public Schools Struggle?

Public charter schools have been around over fifteen years and many people still do not understand what they are about and why they struggle so much. I get asked by friends and acquaintances why charters don’t pay teachers well if we are public schools. I also get asked about why so many charter schools take residence in old department stores, grocery stores, churches, modular buildings and the like. These two issues are linked.

While this isn’t the case in all states, Colorado law does not require districts to provide facilities to public charter schools. Schools must fund their buildings themselves out of per pupil revenue. Charters are still held to other statutory spending requirements. Teacher salary is not a mandatory spending requirement.

A recent study by the Colorado League of Charter Schools (April 2008) found that the average charter school pays $480 per pupil for facilities. At The Classical Academy, this amounts to $1.5 million out of our budget. We actually pay closer to $2.5 million for facilities. The average number is lower because of the number of charter public schools in Colorado with inadequate facilities (more than 71 percent of charter school students in Colorado spend their days in classrooms smaller than the applicable local school district standards) or receive facilities from their district.

It doesn’t take a financial genius to see the relationship to lower salaries. No matter which number I use, if I add the additional facilities money back into salaries, I could increase all salaries at our charter school by somewhere between 14 and 24%. Because we have a strategic pay structure that rewards some teachers more than others, our more highly ranked teachers would make more than their district peers.

While many charter schools struggle for other reasons, including poor management or instruction, it’s obvious that the facilities deficit puts charter public schools in a deep hole, and without a ladder, it’s pretty difficult to get out.

Are Charter School Students Active Enough?

I'm reading a story today in the printed magazine from the National Federation of State High School Associations. These are the folks that help state directors of high school sports, performing arts and other interscholastic activities.

They point out that there is a strong positive correlation between participation in activities and GPA. There is also research that significant participation in activities is a reliable predictor of success in college--arguably more reliable than measures such as rigor of courses taken or straight GPA.

All that is setup to the question: Are charter schools paying enough attention to the importance of co-curricular programs? Many charter schools are struggling to find facilities, make payroll and support programs. It makes sense that they would "get around to activities" later.

CIVA Charter School in Colorado Springs has launched an activities program this year. Whether they are playing football or ultimate frisbee, these students have access to an important part of school culture. Other charter schools have robust athletic programs and inspiring arts programs, supplemented by speech, debate, chess, service, Scouts and myriad other opportunities for students to find their niche and blossom.

If you are planning or leading a charter school—are your students active enough? A team, performance group or student club might make the difference that holds the students you need for the future. Don't forget the student's day doesn't end at 2:30. For a lot of students, that's when the life they care most about begins.

Every Effort from Every Person—Every Time: Life Cycle Stage Two

When you launch an enterprise such as a charter school, there is a phase that starts after the approval, and before the school is operating smoothly.

The apocryphal example of Cortes, quoted famously by the "Vilnius Schoolmaster" in The Hunt for Red October, is "When he reached the shore, Cortes burned his ships. As a result, his men were sufficiently motivated." This is a mythic historical example of what school founders go through. At some point, they cross the point of no return. Finances are committed. Children are registered. Staff are hired and the die is cast. So begins stage two of the life cycle of a charter school.

If your school is in the opening stage, you have no time to read this blog. If you are still

in the planning stage, don’t let this entry discourage you. Move ahead and hold on! Exciting times are just around the corner… The nature of the opening stage requires overwhelming commitment and energy. Opening a school, especially a charter school, is a whirlwind of problems and crises. For many innovative leaders, it is the most exciting and desirable experience charter schools have to offer. For others, the opening phase is a time to wait impatiently while operational systems are developed. The expectation of the opening phase is simple: Every Effort from Every Person Every Time. During opening, there is no time to relax. There is no time to plan. There is only time to do and react.

One of the most obvious patterns during the opening stage is the flexibility and decisiveness of the staff. It is not at all unusual to see low-ranking assistants handling human resource and financial matters. Meanwhile, the principal and other leaders are fixing computers, sweeping floors and making their own photocopies. Rank is virtually irrelevant. The only rank that matters is the rank-order priority of the task. If it is urgent, then the first available person jumps on it.

This means that a start-up school is always filled with people working outside their area of expertise. This always causes errors in systems and administration, some of which can mushroom into crises without decisive action. Leaders who are entering into the opening phase need to give people permission to make mistakes, and amnesty for confessing them. Otherwise the volunteer spirit needed to launch a school will wither just when it is needed most. The rule needs to be, “Work hard at everything, when you make mistakes, admit them quickly, correct them decisively, learn and move on.”

A MATCH Made in Heaven for Some Kids

While failing charter schools need to be shut down, others need to be exemplified and studied for their outstanding results and their unique appproach to the learning process.

MATCH Charter High School in Boston has taken a unique approach to getting "at-risk" kids into school and through college. Not satisfied with getting kids into college, MATCH's goal is to get kids through college. That's some task for an organization that has no control over a student once he or she graduates from the high school. The goal is to get kids so used to studying and achieving at such a high level, the kids won't want to drop out of college.

So, how does one accomplish such a daunting task. MATCH has an extremely rigorous academic program, but in addition, they have tutors who live in the building. These tutors are assigned to students and meet with them on a regular basis, even on weekends. The tutors a usually recent college graduates who want to go into teaching. This provides a great way for future teachers to get hands on experience and for MATCH students to be mentored by those who have recent college experience and know what it takes to graduate.

Often schools say they don't have enough money, but MATCH manages this program on a slim budget. It's a private school solution in a charter public school environment.

Now one of the top ranked high schools in the country, for many students in Boston this combination of rigorous academics and live-in tutors is a perfect MATCH.

Charters minus political will = S.O.S.O....

That's Same Old Same Old.

We charter advocates can fall into the same simplistic thinking that charter=good and traditional =mixed.

Not so at a pair of charter schools with inexplicable cover from political patrons.

As pointed out by their state report card, the Westside Academy in Columbus Ohio is exactly the kind of public school that traps students in a cycle of failure. How sad that this charter school is sliding by on a technicality that performance is only slightly less horrible than in years past.

What's worse, this school seems to trap immigrant Somali's into a curriculum based on Arabic language study. For the ethnographers among us, Somali nationals don't speak Arabic.

Hmmm.  Perhaps those responsible for holding charter schools accountable in Ohio lack the political will to take on C.A.I.R. the Islamic organization that operates the schools.

There can be no exemption for religious/political/controversial/delicate sponsors. Fair's fair—and CAIR's efforts in Columbus aren't even fair, they're lousy. Shut this school down and set the children free.