Why Do Some Parents Choose Charter Schools for Their Children?
By Ronald W. Holmes, PhD
Thursday, 17 March 2011 22:33
Curtis Mayfield’s song lyrics, “If you had a choice of colors, which one would you choose my brothers”, may be applied in the colors of people’s houses, appliances, furniture, cars, clothing or Greek organizations. Similarly, the civil rights movement provided Americans many choices or opportunities to enhance their standard of living.
Some of these choices included hotel preferences such as Holiday Inn and Hyatt Regency; dining preferences such as Bahama Breeze and Pappadeaux; gas preferences such as Shell and Chevron and airlines preferences such as Delta and Southwest. Depending on the quality of these products, costs and services, people may become customers of these companies and encourage other people to patronize them too.
As a result of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, parents have the choice to allow their children an opportunity to attend traditional public schools in their communities. These schools, however, must offer students a quality education. When they do not, parents have the right to choose other alternatives to educate their children. One alternative is a charter school. Without micromanagement by the government, this type of school is operated as a school district, part of a school district, for-profit organization or non-profit organization. With this in mind, the questions to be asked are, why do some parents choose charter schools for their children? Are charter schools meeting the academic needs of students compared to traditional public schools?
According to the National Center for Education Evaluation (NCEE), there are over 5,000 charter schools serving 1.5 million students, representing three percent of all public schools in 40 states and the District of Columbus. Charter schools are the largest vehicles for school choice to parents in America’s public schools according to the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO). Without an alternative to public education, parents might be restricted to having their children attend a low performing traditional public school in their communities.
Charter schools were first originated in 1991 through the passing of legislation in Minnesota. These schools are given more autonomy than traditional public schools to create innovative curricula, programs and services to meet the needs of specific students. They are responsible for improving students’ achievement according to established goals of their charters or contracts as negotiated between the governing bodies such as local school boards, state education agencies, universities, and business organizations. They must meet the goals of the charters in order to continue operating.
While some parents are choosing charter schools to educate their children, the findings of CREDO research notes different performance based on the type of students attending the schools. Charter schools “organized around a mission to teach the most economically disadvantaged students in particular seem to have developed expertise in serving these communities”.
In fact, these students, along with English Language Learners (ELL) students, performed better than traditional public school students in reading and mathematics. This is supported by a study conducted by the NCEE with regard to charter schools students’ performance in mathematics from low socio-economic families. It is also supported by the findings of C.K.
Steele-Leroy Collins Charter Middle School in Tallahassee, one of the first charter schools in Florida serving African-American students from various socio-economic backgrounds, which has maintained overall satisfactory performance on Florida’s state assessment exams. To the contrary, CREDO notes, that “students not in poverty and students who are not ELL on the average do notably worse than the same students who remain in the traditional public school systems”.
President Obama promotes charter schools as a central component of his Education Reform Program. He has significantly increased funding to create more successful charter schools, improve struggling charter schools and eliminate failing charter schools through competitive grants such as the Race to the Top. As a result, 46 states and the District of Columbus became recipient of these funds to improve America’s public education by means of charter schools and other initiatives.
While charter schools operate without the micromanagement of the government and are exempted from certain local and state regulations of traditional public schools, many of them do not take advantage of a number of federal discretionary grant programs that could specifically support their charters’ mission. For example, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reports that only 7% of America’s charter schools applied for discretionary grant programs such as advanced placement incentive programs, school leadership programs and teacher incentive fund during the school year 2008-2009. The reasons for not applying for the grants were due to lack of awareness, staffing and experience in writing competitive grant applications.
There are a plethora of federal resources available to fix America’s schools. We just have to make sure that the resources are funneled to our future workforce (the students). America’s schools are not producing enough graduates to be the best in the world. They are seen as inferior to countries such as Europe, German and Japan. We have to produce more graduates with salable skills in order for our students to compete successfully in a complex and global marketplace. While America’s schools are struggling, some parents choose charter schools to educate their children. In fact, an outcry of social unrest and upheaval across the country contributed to the rapid growth and development of the charter school program.
In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education published “A Nation at Risk” due to America’s academic underachievement on the national and international scales. Twenty-seven years later, we are still faced with the same dilemma, if not worst. It is time for change. It is time to really make sure no students are left behind academically and socially in America’s schools. On February 18, the National Save the Family Now Movement, Inc. (NSFNM) will lead a charge in Memphis, Tennessee to provide a roadmap for this to happen. NSFNM’s goal is to “do big things” in the words of President Obama and provide a strong vehicle for improving America’s schools. It is NSFNM’s choice to make a difference in the lives of our youth. Stay tuned!
Dr. Ronald W. Holmes is a former teacher, school administrator and superintendent. He has a track record of transforming schools and can be reached at rwholmes@capitaloutlook.com
