What is going on in Massachusetts? There are so many kinds of charter-lite options up there my head's spinning. First, what really makes these schools different from one another? At least from what I can tell, very little, save who came up with them and take credit for doing so. Are readiness schools Governor Deval Patrick's rejoinder to the union-brainchild, the pilot school???Did he feel left out? And what about Horace Mann charter schools? They all have building-level autonomy over curriculum, staffing, and management. But they all maintain district oversight--as opposed to being run by an outside provider--and union contracts. This just looks like a competition on who can come up with the same model with a different name and take credit for saving Massachusetts education.
Unfortunately, the research shows that that acclaim is not going to any of these three of not-really-charters. Think of it this way: Why have frozen yogurt when you can have ice cream? Though frozen yogurt can be a tasty treat, it will never have the rich smooth creamy effect of a good ole' bowl of Edy's. Substitute achievement levels for creaminess and you'll get last year's Harvard/MIT study, which compared the achievement levels of traditional, pilot, and charter schools in Boston. Charters won hands down.
But Bay State pols are just all about the frozen yogurt, seemingly trying to find a more palatable way of doing charters...without really doing charters, and convincing themselves (and voters) that frozen yogurt is just as good as ice cream. According to them, charter schools a) siphon away funds from traditional public schools and b) take advantage of teachers by rebuffing collective bargaining. (We won't go into detail on why neither of these things are true, but suffice it to say that charter schools are public schools--thus it is nonsensical to say that public schools are siphoning away funds from public schools--and that charters typically don't have unions because they don't want them.)
Two problems arise. One, setting up this binary--where charter schools are the bad guy, and everyone else are the good guys--could have serious damaging effects on the ability of charter schools to set up shop in that state. Unfortunately, Massachusetts can ill-afford to lose more of its heavy-hitting charter operators with its current brain drain of charter talent. It's also totally confusing to lump traditional schools with the charter-lite options, and asserting, in some ways, that any school with union involvement, no matter how much, where, or when, is good and/or acceptable. Read with a particularly radical eye, and it's almost a matter of social justice. You wouldn't go a school where teachers are abused daily by authoritarian administrators and dollars are being torn, literally, out of the hands of poor illiterate children? Would you? Would you?
But there's more. The confusion surrounding this candy shop of school options is probably confusing the heck out of Massachusetts residents, i.e., the parents and lay people who read their newspapers and don't have frozen yogurt-ice cream analogies to guide them. These are the consumers of education, and confusing them disempowers them to make good choices about where to send their kids. But it's little wonder. In trying to justify the need for all these charter-esque non-charters-but-more-PC-and-union-friendly, local and state leaders are saying all sorts of confounding things. Here's a sampling:
State Superintendent Paul Reville describing readiness schools: "The school is still part of the district. The district just loses a measure of control." Is being part of the district necessarily a good thing? Since when? At best, it depends on the district.
A local School Committee (the oversight mechanism for Horace Mann schools) member Joseph Bevilacqua: "Unlike a regular charter school, a Horace Mann charter is a public school, so we would still have input." Huh? Charter schools are public schools. Is this about a power struggle and making sure that everyone can "contribute"?
Silver Hill Superintendent Raleigh C. Buchanan describing Horace Mann schools: "I strongly support this charter concept because I believe it would allow us the opportunity to try out new teaching methods." What is a "charter concept"?
See where I'm going? Stop the madness. I choose ice cream over frozen yogurt any day of the week and Massachusetts should, too.
Image from Flickr user UniqueO Mania.
