Charter schools could be coming soon to a suburb near you, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. Before the Missouri Legislature expands the charter school experiment beyond urban districts in St. Louis and Kansas City, lawmakers must consider the risk it would pose to some of the strongest public school districts in the state.

Charter schools could be coming soon to a suburb near you, and that’s a great thing. As the Missouri Legislature considers making it easier to expand the charter school experiment beyond urban districts in St. Louis and Kansas City, lawmakers should think about the risk that sticking with the status quo poses to parents in public school districts across the state.

A bill sponsored by Rep. Rebecca Roeber, R-Lee’s Summit, would allow charter schools to expand into St. Louis County, St. Charles County, Jefferson County and cities like Columbia, Jefferson City, Springfield and Joplin.

A bill sponsored by Rep. Rebecca Roeber, R-Lee’s Summit, would make it easier for charter schools to expand into St. Louis County, St. Charles County, Jefferson County and cities like Columbia, Jefferson City, Springfield and Joplin by allowing groups other than the local school board to sponsor them.

Proponents have long insisted that the greater choice offered by publicly funded but privately run charter schools improves students’ education options. But charter school performance data over the past 20 years hasn’t yielded consistently positive results.

Proponents point out that the greater choice offered by publicly funded but independently run charter schools improves students’ education options. And charter school performance over the past 20 years has yielded consistently positive results both for the students who attend them and for the school districts in which they operate.

Like it or not, the flight of middle-class families to the suburbs has contributed to higher performance rates for suburban public schools. It’s far from clear whether the demand exists for new education alternatives outside urban areas.

Like it or not, the flight of middle-class families to the suburbs has contributed to higher performance rates for some students in some suburban public schools and lower performance rates for others. Regardless, it’s clear that the demand exists for new education alternatives in all types of school districts.

Roeber’s bill wouldn’t add additional funding to public education nor adequately address the lack of accountability that has been among the biggest complaints about urban charter schools. Charter schools that fail to meet the same educational standards as the local public school district can still be renewed for three years under her proposal.

Roeber’s bill wouldn’t add additional funding to public education. It would simply shift control over a student’s education funding to a public charter school, if their parent so chooses. If there is no demand for charter school in a district, there won’t be one. Charter schools that fail to meet the same educational standards as the local public school district can still be renewed for three years under her proposal, if the school has the support of the local community.

Some high-profile disasters have resulted from lack of oversight and accountability for charter schools. In 2012, Missouri shut down six Imagine charter schools in St. Louis. Students consistently performed worse on state tests than those attending St. Louis Public Schools while Virginia-based Imagine reaped huge profits from a real estate business

Some high-profile disasters have resulted from charter schools opening that shouldn’t have. In 2012, Missouri shut down six Imagine charter schools in St. Louis. And they should have been shut down because students consistently performed worse on state tests than those attending St. Louis Public Schools, while Virginia-based Imagine reaped huge profits from a real estate business. Unlike some local school districts with dismally low test scores, these schools are no longer serving students.

Last month, an investigation by Kansas City’s WDAF-TV found that then-Attorney General Josh Hawley secretly settled a lawsuit with a charter school the state accused of stealing nearly $4 million in taxpayer money.

Last month, an investigation by Kansas City’s WDAF-TV found that then-Attorney General Josh Hawley secretly settled a lawsuit with a charter school the state accused of stealing nearly $4 million in taxpayer money. Of course charter schools don’t have a lock on financial fraud, but when it’s discovered they’re closed.

About half of the 30-plus charter schools that have opened in St. Louis since 2000 have been shut down for academic or financial failure. That’s hardly a success model worth emulating.

About half of the 72 existing charter schools in Missouri performed higher than their district’s average on standardized tests in both reading and math. While some have been shut down for academic or financial failure, others have achieved a success that’s worth emulating.

Nationally, the picture looks even worse. The federal government has wasted up to $1 billion on charter schools that never opened or opened and then closed because of mismanagement or other reasons, according to the Network for Public Education advocacy group.

Nationally, the picture looks even better. Over 7,000 charter schools are now serving nearly 3.2 million public school students in all types of districts. The federal government has helped most of these schools open through a grant program that charter school founders can tap for planning and implementation. While some of these schools did not ultimately open, and others have since been closed, research has shown that the time and money spent on planning is well worth it. We now know that charter schools that start strong, stay strong, and those that start weak don’t make it.

Parents in the districts targeted by Roeber’s proposal owe it to their children to scrutinize charter schools’ performance record and the ways they can weaken their traditional public school systems.

Parents in the districts identified in Roeber’s proposal owe it to their children to demand access to charter schools so that they can find a school that fits the unique needs of their child.

For decades, lawmakers touted charter schools as a way to help students trapped in chronically low-performing districts. But a conservative political movement is afoot to weaken public school education and divert resources to alternative institutions, including private ones.

For decades, lawmakers touted charter schools as a way to help students trapped in chronically low-performing districts because they work. But a political movement is afoot to return to the public education monopoly of the last century (or protect it where it still exists). The charter school sector has created thousands of unique and innovative alternatives and parents want them for their own communities.

The performance record of charter schools is far too spotty to merit expansion beyond urban settings. Roeber’s bill proposes a potentially bad fix for something that might not even be broken.

The demand for charter schools and the long-term impact they make possible merit expansion beyond urban settings. Roeber’s bill proposes letting parents, teachers and communities across the state decide if charter schools are right for them.

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This past year, the failure of the Imagine Academy network of charter schools was widely publicized. As a result, the charter network’s sponsor dropped Imagine and the schools closed. This is how charter advocates have suggested the market would work; when schools are not performing, they close. Because the Imagine schools are now closed, I have calculated the same comparisons from my previous two posts, removing all Imagine schools from the past five years. Of course, we cannot erase the failing of Imagine schools, but it is interesting nonetheless to see what kind of difference the closing of a poor school might have on the overall performance in the charter market.

The change in scores when Imagine schools are removed is most noticeable in Saint Louis, where most Imagine schools were located. In both communication arts and mathematics, Saint Louis charter schools have higher percentages of students scoring proficient or advanced than the traditional public schools of Saint Louis. Without factoring in Imagine, 32.9 percent of students in Saint Louis charter schools scored proficient or advanced in communication arts, 2.9 percentage points higher than the local public schools. Since 2008, the percentage of students scoring proficient and advanced has risen in Saint Louis charter schools by nearly 88 percent.

Charter and Traditional Public School Performance in Communication Arts (Imagine removed)

Mathematics Comparison

The story in mathematics is much the same. In both cities, charter schools have higher percentages of students scoring proficient or advanced, when Imagine schools are removed. Kansas City charters scored 11.4 percentage points higher than Kansas City traditional public schools; Saint Louis charters scored 6.4 percentage points higher. Both charter sectors have shown steady growth. From 2008 to 2012, the percentage of students scoring proficient and advanced has increased 55 percent in Kansas City and 82 percent in Saint Louis.

Charter and Traditional Public School Performance in Mathematics (Imagine removed)

On average, charter schools in Saint Louis and Kansas City have shown fairly consistent growth over the past five years. Kansas City charter schools have higher percentages of students scoring proficient or advanced than the local school district; Saint Louis charter schools are closing the gap between them and the traditional Saint Louis school district. The growth is even more dramatic when the now closed Imagine charter schools are removed from the comparison.

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Charter schools in Saint Louis and Kansas City have shown growth every year since 2009. Since 2008, the percent of students proficient or advanced in Saint Louis charters schools has grown 77 percent; in Kansas City charters it has increased 55 percent. Students in Kansas City charter schools now outperform students in Kansas City traditional public schools by 8.9 percentage points. The gains were slightly less pronounced in Saint Louis. Nevertheless, the difference in terms of percent proficient and advanced dropped from 6.1 percentage points in 2011 to 0.5 percentage points in 2012. The closing of the gap came not only from charter school gains, but also from a drop in Saint Louis public school scores.

Charter and Traditional Public School Performance in Math

There is still much to be desired in terms of overall performance of charter schools. But, unlike traditional public schools, which may be perennially failing yet remain open, charter schools can close if they are low-performing. Indeed, we have seen this in practice in Missouri with the closing of the Imagine charter school network. In my next post, I will examine the student achievement scores without the Imagine schools data.

The post Charter Performance II: Math appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Previously, charter schools were limited to Kansas City and the City of Saint Louis. If Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon signs the bill into law, charter schools can be opened anywhere in Missouri if the state has designated the area district as unaccredited.

This could certainly help students in the failing Riverview Gardens School District, which has been unaccredited since 2007. Though the district is unaccredited, its students do not have the option of attending a free charter school in their district because it is outside the boundary of Saint Louis City.

In fact, there is cause for optimism that the charter school expansion bill could result in quick, positive change. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that a graduate of the district (class of 1977) has been waiting to open a charter school in Riverview Gardens to help students there gain better access to a quality education.

Some opponents of the charter school expansion bill have pointed out that charter schools can fail. That is true. In fact, that is the whole point of the charter school model: When a charter school fails, it should be shut down, instead of being allowed to continue to provide students with a poor education.

I have argued here before that it is very important to shut down failing charter schools, like the Imagine Schools that will be closed this year. The hope is that by closing down poor schools and directing more students and resources toward successful charter schools, we can quickly identify and replicate successful schools.

If only we held our traditional public schools as accountable.

The post A Victory For Educational Choice appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

That is the question facing Saint Louis officials and one that may have significant implications for state education policy. At the end of the school year, the six Imagine charter schools in the City of Saint Louis will close. The Imagine Schools have had a host of financial and academic troubles, with some reports raising questions of financial misconduct.

When the Imagine schools close, they will leave 3,000 or more students searching to find a new school. The NAACP, in a letter to state Commissioner of Education Chris Nicastro, estimates that there are only 500 open seats in city charter schools. The remaining Imagine school students’ only publicly provided option is to attend a school in the city’s public school district. The problem is, Saint Louis Public Schools (SLPS) have been unaccredited for years.

Though the Missouri Supreme Court recently ruled that students in an unaccredited district like SLPS must be allowed to transfer to an accredited district, the Imagine school students are not being given the option to attend nearby suburban districts.

Recently, the Saint Louis City firefighters filed a lawsuit to allow their children into nearby accredited schools. It now looks likely that the NAACP will join the fight for expanded educational choice in the Saint Louis area.

The NAACP is strongly advocating that the Imagine students be given a chance to choose a quality school in an accredited district. Adolphus Pruitt, the local NAACP’s director, has said that litigation is likely, and that attorneys are being interviewed.

When will the pressure in Saint Louis be enough to convince state legislators that a solution is needed? Saint Louis would not be mired in this situation if public funding for education could follow students to any school of their choosing. Instead, public education dollars in Missouri are tied to school districts, and subject to a convoluted and outdated funding formula. If legislators do not bring forward a solution, it seems likely that educational choice will be forced through more litigation.

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It might sound harsh, but this is exactly what is supposed to happen with charter schools: We should let the good ones flourish and try to replicate their success, and close schools that are not meeting students’ needs.

Just because a school is a charter school does not guarantee student academic success. It is important to close failing schools, whether they are traditional public schools or charter schools. Nobody benefits from keeping open a school that is failing its students.

For more on the Imagine closings, check out our latest Show-Me video below.

The post Closing Bad Schools Is Exactly What Is Supposed To Happen appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

According to the Post-Dispatch, not only does the charter school company appear to have rushed to open a school without providing textbooks and other school supplies, and with some classes held in hallways, but the school hired a developer who pled guilty to fraud earlier this year (in an unrelated matter). That developer also received historic tax credits for redeveloping an Imagine Schools property, and charged the charter school company $150,000 for the service of acquiring nearly $480,000 in tax credit money from the state.

In her letter to the sponsor of the Imagine charter schools, Nicastro minced no words:

We do not view it as the intent of the Missouri General Assembly that the department engage in intrusive regulatory oversight of charter schools, or to perform the administrative responsibilities of the sponsor. However, it appears from your public statement that [you desire] our recommendations in this matter. Let me be specific:

1) Announce immediately that the Imagine charter schools will close at the end of the current school year.

Some may rush to use Imagine schools’ negligence as evidence that many, if not all, charter schools are inferior, and that the expansion of charter schools in Missouri is bad public policy. On the contrary, it is necessary that bad schools close in order to enable good schools to thrive. In any endeavor, whether it is business, art, or even education, there will always be some successes and some failures. It is important to encourage success and limit failure.

The esablishment of charter schools, which are outside the traditional school district framework, is one way to do this. The theory behind charter schools is that the good ones will thrive on their own merits, and the charter schools that do a poor job of educating students will lose students and funding.

Based on the Post-Dispatch coverage, along with the mayor’s and the education commissioner’s statements, the Imagine schools in Saint Louis City certainly appear to be failing. As such, students and funding should be shifted to schools that do a better job of educating students. If the sponsor of the schools has been negligent in monitoring whether they have been successful (an intricacy created by our convoluted education law), then calls from the  mayor and education commissioner to close schools are certainly warranted.

However, I think that this controversy can also be a learning experience. Yes, Imagine schools appear to be failing. But failing is not unique to charter schools. There are certainly many public schools that are failing their students — be it in providing safety, an adequate mathematics education, or curtailing dropout rates.

For example, Yeatman-Liddle Middle School in Saint Louis City has had increasingly fewer students score proficient or better on the state mathematics test. During the 2007 school year, 35.5 percent of students at the school scored “below basic” on the eighth-grade state math test. In 2010, 64.9 percent of students scored below basic, a proportion almost twice as high as the students scoring below basic just a few years ago. A much more thorough review would have to be conducted, but it appears Yeatman may be doing a poor job of teaching math to its students.

Letting a failing school continue does not help current students. During the past Missouri legislative session, I testified before the House Education Committee to discuss a proposal that would enable parents of students at a failing school to trigger reform, a proposal that I think might help address the problem of failing schools.

Rather than treating Imagine as an isolated incident, let’s recognize that schools can fail — regardless of structure — and consider ways to allow that failure while encouraging successful schools to grow.

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