[blind-democracy] FW: Education 101: Don’t Open a New Charter School in the Middle of a Pandemic
- From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2020 21:11:37 -0400
From: Jeff Bryant <info@ind.media>
Sent: Friday, July 3, 2020 6:43 PM
To: miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Education 101: Don’t Open a New Charter School in the Middle of a
Pandemic
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Education 101: Don’t Open a New Charter School in the Middle of a Pandemic
The future of school choice with COVID-19 may be playing out in suburban
communities like Wake County, North Carolina, and it isn’t pretty.
By Jeff Bryant
While sheltering with her family during the pandemic, dealing with the
challenges of remote learning, Michelle Tomlinson couldn’t help but notice in
her social media channels the growing frequency of charter school advertising.
She was annoyed that the schools were targeting public school parents where she
lived in the suburban northeast corner of Wake County, North Carolina, the
sixth-wealthiest zip code
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in North Carolina, with some of the state’s top-performing
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public schools.
One ad led to a video
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of Jonathan Hage, CEO of Charter Schools USA, a national charter school chain
with numerous schools in North Carolina. The ad claimed the company’s
facilities “are ready and will be open for the new school year” without
referring to North Carolina state guidelines
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for reopening schools safely in the wake of COVID-19.
Tomlinson questioned how Hage and his staff could have developed a plan to
reopen all of their schools, and Hage could be ready to promote that plan and
his video on Twitter
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on June 9, when the state guidelines
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had not been issued until June 8.
She was further annoyed by a local news outlet reporting
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a positive story about local charter schools successfully pivoting from
in-person teaching to online instruction without mentioning charter schools
often enroll more well-off students whose parents are more likely to own
laptops, tablets, and computers and have high-speed Wi-Fi connections to the
internet.
Many North Carolina charter schools serve so few high-poverty students they
were in danger of being disqualified
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to receive emergency aid from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic
Security (CARES) Act. However, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos
announced
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new guidelines in May that would ensure new charter schools and charter
schools that claim they are going to take in more high-poverty students would
qualify to receive CARES money.
Tomlinson also knew well the financial impact the new charter schools would
have at a time when public schools in North Carolina, and all other states, are
bracing for deep cuts
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in funding due to the economic fallout of the coronavirus. North Carolina
state funding levels face a potential $1.6 billion shortfall
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in the coming year, according to the National Conference of State
Legislatures.
Tomlinson was not alone among Wake County parents who have been worried about
new charters opening in their communities during a time of crisis. Well before
the coronavirus struck, she helped organize a petition campaign
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among the parents to demand the North Carolina State Board of Education halt
approvals of new charter schools in their communities.
The parents’ concerns
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included weak demand for the charters and the likelihood that the influx of
charters will cause traffic problems, inject profiteers into the school
community, and exacerbate racial and economic segregation in the school system.
The campaign has generated more than 875 signatures, as of this writing.
Wake County is not an isolated case; across the country, parents are concerned
about charter schools taking a bigger bite out of a public education pie that
will likely be smaller due to the economic impact of COVID-19.
Public education advocates in Dallas, Texas, issued
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a statement on May 15 expressing their concerns about two new charter schools
scheduled to open in the district when financial impacts of COVID-19 are just
starting to be estimated, according to the Dallas Weekly. “This is not the time
for reduced resources to our public school district that serves the vast
majority of students who also have the greatest needs,” a local school official
is quoted.
In Los Angeles, public school teachers during the pandemic have reasserted
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their demands, first made
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during a systemwide strike the previous year, for the district to enact a
moratorium on new charter approvals and expansions.
And some state governing boards that oversee charters are deciding during the
current crisis to not renew
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contracts with low-performing charters.
Because reopening public schools in the coming school year will be fraught
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with unprecedented challenges, experts say, and education budgets may get cut
to the bone, news of charter school startups and expansions will undoubtedly
spark heated opposition from public school parents and teachers, even in
well-to-do suburban communities, like Wake County, that may have been insulated
from the financial costs of school choice in the past.
‘This Fiscal Impact Is Concerning’
“[These parents and public school advocates] should expect charter schools to
drain financial resources from their communities’ public schools,” Preston
Green told me in a phone call.
Green, a University of Connecticut professor, is the author of numerous
critical studies of charter schools, including one in which he argued
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that the charter industry’s operations resemble the business practices of
Enron, the mammoth energy corporation that collapsed under a weight of debt and
scandal.
As evidence, Green sent me an email citing a 2018
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study of five non-urban, North Carolina school districts. The study
determined that these non-urban districts lost about $4,000 to $6,000 for every
student enrolled in a charter school.
Green said that because controversial charter schools have so far been less
widespread in the suburbs compared to inner-city communities
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such as Chicago
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, Philadelphia
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, and Detroit
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, it’s likely that many suburban parents who previously were unfamiliar with
the fiscal impacts of charter schools will increasingly express concerns about
seeing new charter schools popping up
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in their communities.
“This fiscal impact is concerning,” Green explained, “because public schools
have fixed costs
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, such as facilities and administration, that cannot be cut very easily.”
Even if school districts close and consolidate buildings in response to
enrollment losses from charters, the presence of charters will continue to
drain
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the district, Green explained, because charters can and often do “open
schools in the same location of the closed school or intensely recruit that
school’s newly dislocated students. In addition, because charter schools often
close, school districts have to maintain sufficient space in their remaining
schools.”
These fixed costs will not go away if schools can’t reopen due to the
persistence of the coronavirus, and they will certainly worsen if schools have
to reopen under social distancing guidelines that necessitate smaller class
sizes and adding new buses and bus routes.
Also, in North Carolina, and most states, public school districts must reenroll
students who live in their attendance zones, even if the students have left a
charter school in midyear. Yet charters that shed students midyear are allowed
to retain the funding that followed the child to the school at the beginning of
the year.
Green’s troubling predictions about charter expansions into the suburbs have
already been happening in Wake County.
Nearly Impossible to Plan For
The Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) student enrollment grew a paltry
42 new students in 2018-2019, ABC local Channel 11 reported
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, while parents choosing homeschooling increased 77 percent and families
opting for charter schools jumped 90 percent. Enrollment growth in district
schools rebounded to 1,436 new students in 2019-2020, according
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to local news outlet WRAL, but an enrollment forecast issued by the district
predicted only 33 new students in 2020-2021.
The WCPSS report quoted by WRAL noted
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, “Non-WCPSS systems, including charter schools, continue to grow and capture
a larger share of the K-12 population in Wake County.”
These projections, issued prior to the move to remote learning under the
pandemic, are now likely up in the air, but charter school marketing campaigns
could make under-enrollment problems in the district’s public schools worse.
Tomlinson pointed me to district data showing
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that a number of the WCPSS schools that are near where charters have been
located or are planning to locate were under-enrolled as recently as 2018-2019.
Two new charters proposed to be built in Wake Forest—Wake Preparatory Academy
and North Raleigh Charter Academy—are scheduled to open within three miles
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from each other. Within a five-mile radius of the new charters, there are six
other charters. In the meantime, a number of WCPSS schools within a five-mile
radius of the new charters are under-enrolled
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, including Richland Creek Elementary, at 60 percent capacity; Wake Forest
Elementary, 79 percent; Rolesville Middle, 68 percent; and Wakefield Middle, 83
percent.
Enrollment swings caused by charter expansions are nearly impossible to plan
for in competitive school districts like Wake County, and district financial
officers have a difficult time making revenue forecasts when students and their
parents decide to transfer schools.
Other factors affecting district enrollment, such as shifts in housing,
demographics, and employment, are more predictable, according
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to a February article in Education Week. But parent transfers are much more
difficult to anticipate, and budget cuts that schools make midyear to respond
to enrollment drops can add to the exodus of students.
The presence of charter schools will place further financial strain on Wake
County schools as they face the mounting costs of reopening.
Wake County school board members tallying up the price of reopening schools
faced a long list of new costs, the News and Observer, a Raleigh-based
newspaper, reported
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.
Reopening would require new bus schedules and increased numbers of bus runs;
new supplies and personnel to provide daily symptom screening and temperature
checks of all students, staff, and visitors; and new purchases of face masks,
cleaning supplies, and other sanitary measures.
A cost estimate
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by the School Superintendents Association and the Association of School
Business Officials International pegged the average expense of reopening
schools according to recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention at approximately $490 per student.
Further, because a survey of Wake County parents and students found only 43
percent were comfortable with going back to campus next school year, the board
voted
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to require district administrators to plan for an online learning program
even if campuses reopen for in-person learning—thus, essentially running two
parallel systems of instruction.
School Choice or School’s Choice?
As charter expansions cause enrollment attrition in public schools, it’s
important to note which parents are leaving public schools and enrolling in
charters, particularly when the issue of race is considered.
“Some suburban parents might see charter schools as a tool for escaping from
Wake County’s efforts to maintain a racially diverse school system,” Green
surmised. “Studies conducted in 2015
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and 2018
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have found that the state’s charter schools are more segregated than their
traditional public school counterparts.”
What Green expects is indeed playing out on the ground in northeast Wake
County. In an email Tomlinson sent to the North Carolina State Board of
Education
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in January, she drew from student enrollment data from state
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and county
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websites to show how charter schools in the Tar Heel State are increasing
racial segregation in her community. In Wake districts 1 and 3, “the numbers
are staggering,” she wrote. (Districts 1 and 3 of WCPSS comprise
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the schools in the northeast corner of the county.)
Among these Wake County public schools, Tomlinson found
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40 percent of students are white, 30 percent are Black, and 23 percent are
Hispanic. She pointed out the contrast to charter schools
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in the area where 72 of the students are white, 10 percent are Black, and 9
percent are Hispanic.
Tomlinson’s email also expressed concern
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with whether new charter schools would enroll students who would be eligible
for the federal government’s free or reduced-price lunch program (FRL), a
common measure of poverty. Some of the schools in the vicinity of new charters
have high percentages
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of these students, including Richland Creek Elementary, which enrolls 43.5
percent FRL, and Wake Forest Elementary, which has 49.5 percent FRL.
In contrast, many new charters planning to move into her neighborhood—such as
North Raleigh Charter Academy
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, Wake Preparatory Academy
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, and Wendell Falls Charter Academy
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—plan to enroll only 31-33 percent FRL students, according to their
applications
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. This target would match districtwide percentages but is not always
comparable to the closest neighborhood public schools they will be competing
against.
When Wake Preparatory’s
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application was approved, it wasn’t clear how the school would achieve its
declared FRL percentage because it wasn’t planning to enroll students by using
a lottery process that is weighted favorably toward students from low-income
households. After parents pointed that out to state officials, the school
issued an addendum stating it would use a weighted lottery.
Applications for North Raleigh Charter Academy
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and Wendell Falls Charter Academy
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, which are both managed by Charter Schools USA, pledge to use a weighted
lottery, but the goal they stated would achieve a pretty low bar—at least 15
percent of students who are economically disadvantaged.
Parents’ Concerns
What many signers of the Wake County charter school petition share is an
evolving understanding of what these schools represent in the education system
and the disruption the schools bring to communities.
Initially, Tomlinson and her husband were supportive of charter schools, and
they were for lifting the cap
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on the number of charters allowed in the state.
Tomlinson’s wariness of charters started when she noticed more families from
her neighborhood leaving public schools to attend new charters. Northeast Wake
County—which includes Rolesville, Wake Forest, Wakefield, Zebulon, and other
rapidly growing
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bedroom communities—is now home to 11 out of the 24 Wake County charter
schools
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.
When she examined these new charter schools more closely, she found details
that concerned her.
For instance, one of the new charters approved to locate near her, Wake
Preparatory Academy, stated
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in its application that starting in its third year, the school planned to
earn a $2.6 million surplus every year and pay over $2.6 million annually to
its out-of-state for-profit management company. The school also expected to
spend almost $200,000 a year on marketing.
Another fact about the school that disturbed her: The school’s management
company
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, Charter One, is owned
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by Glenn Way, who oversees a chain of charter schools based mostly in Arizona
that, according to an in-depth investigation
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by the Arizona Republic, over a nine-year period funneled about $37 million
in real estate deals, paid for largely by public funds meant for education,
into companies owned by or associated with Way.
“I went from being a supporter of charter schools to now being against them,”
Tomlinson told me.
Julie Raftery, a Wakefield parent who signed the petition, told me, “I first
learned of charters right after we moved here.” She considered the schools to
be an option only “in areas of need, where the kids who struggle the most
live.” Initially, she applied to enroll her child in a charter, but decided
against following through and chose a district school instead.
“When we first moved to Wakefield, the only charter in our immediate area was
Franklin Academy,” she told me. “In the last five years, they have built five
more charters [in her area] … Now, more are slated to be built. So what happens
to the public schools?”
Brad Saunders, another parent who signed the petition, told me, “At first, I
didn’t know very much about charter schools and thought charters were publicly
funded private schools.” He and his wife also have a special needs child and
were concerned about how charters served, or didn’t, special needs students.
“It’s wonderful what public schools do for special needs children,” he said,
and expressed surprise that charters would be locating in a place where, in his
mind, they aren’t needed.
“If a parent is convinced the charter school is for the benefit of their own
child, I’m okay with that,” Saunders told me. “But when you have [a new charter
opening] on practically every other block with each catering to its own special
population… you disperse the resources wider. My tax money is being spread more
thinly.”
Why the Charter School Debate Matters
Charter school proponents are quick to counter the concerns these parents have
by arguing
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that if charters aren’t needed, then parents wouldn’t be choosing them. They
claim that when parents sign up for these schools, that alone is enough proof
that the schools are needed. And they maintain
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that charter schools don’t hurt public schools because when parents transfer
students to charters, the money follows the child, and the public school can
lower its costs in proportion to the number of students leaving.
But the Wake County parents aren’t persuaded by these arguments when they see
firsthand the adverse effects of under-enrollment in their children’s schools,
increased segregation of students, and the growing presence of predatory,
for-profit operators.
Some charter proponents would counter these parents by ignoring their message
and attacking the messengers, in this case, mostly white, relatively affluent,
parents of privilege—characteristics many of the Wake County parents who signed
the petition readily acknowledge could be used to describe themselves.
But what the Wake County parents are demanding is reminiscent of statements
made
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by the NAACP and the Movement for Black Lives in 2016 calling for a
moratorium on charter school expansions.
Heeding the complaints of parents, Wake County school board members sent a
letter
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to the North Carolina State Board of Education saying, “the thrust of the
parents’ comments are accurate. Charter schools are having a destabilizing
effect on traditional schools.” Wake County school board members asked the
state to consider delaying or denying the new charter school applications, but
the state board approved
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the new schools anyway.
But so far, there’s little evidence that state officials in North Carolina are
paying any attention to the parents’ petition.
Tomlinson said none of the state board members have responded substantively to
her email.
When a required annual report to the state legislature on the state of charter
schools happened to include information showing that a majority of charter
schools in the state don’t reflect the racial makeup of their surrounding
communities, the state’s charter advisory board, which approves new charter
school applications, requested
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that section be removed. The State Board of Education complied.
The state’s charter advisory board did not respond to a request for comment
about the parent petition, which I emailed to their chair on March 4.
“There isn’t a lack of people wanting to be in a segregated school,” said
Raftery, “so the waiting lists [at charters] are long.”
“It is time for more regulation [of charters],” said Tomlinson.
In a generally conservative state like North Carolina where government
regulation is often discouraged, and the charter school industry benefits from
having powerful proponents in high places, the pleas of these parents seem
unlikely to generate immediate action from state lawmakers.
But as schools prepare to reopen in a landscape populated with a pandemic, huge
budgetary pressures, and growing competitive entities siphoning off funds, the
stakes are higher than ever.
“Experiences elsewhere have shown that many charter school operators are not
working in the best interests
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of the school districts where they are located,” said Green. “Therefore,
these parents must become more vocal about the possible negative impacts of
charter school expansion on their public schools.”
Jeff Bryant is a writing fellow and chief correspondent for Our Schools
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, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He is a communications
consultant, freelance writer, advocacy journalist, and director of the
Education Opportunity Network, a strategy and messaging center for progressive
education policy. His award-winning commentary and reporting routinely appear
in prominent online news outlets, and he speaks frequently at national events
about public education policy. Follow him on Twitter @jeffbcdm
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