The philosophy behind the charter school movement is pure Darwinism – only the strong survive. As the theory goes, “strong” means “successful” and successful means standardized test scores that show school children – poor as well as rich – can read, write and compute at least at a basic level. That would be good news for New Orleans parents and the region as a whole but since many of the city’s new charter schools are only six months old, it will be another four or more years before anyone can pass fair judgment as to whether charters are the answer to New Orleans’ past education woes.
What is clear is this: the competition brings variety. There is a charter school for most conceivable needs, interests or preoccupations.
Want a chef in the family? Try S.J. Green Charter School with its focus on gardening, cooking and nutrition.
Hoping for an international globetrotter to push the family toward worldwide horizons? Try Dwight D. Eisenhower Academy for Global Studies.
How about a designer to develop plans for that house addition? Priestley School for Architecture and Construction is the ticket.
Abramson Science & Technology Charter School, Algiers Technology Academy, and New Orleans Charter Science and Mathematics High School aim to produce future scientists, astronauts and master technicians.
Then again, if a poet would please, an association with Langston Hughes Academy could lead to award-winning chapbooks.
In most cases, the only limits to parents’ choices are geography, transportation and enrollment caps. Most of the new schools are open to all students regardless of past academic performance but some of the pre-storm, high-performing schools that have gone charter admit students according to classroom grades and test scores. Lusher Charter School, now chartered by Advocates for Arts-Based Education, for example, enrolls students in the 70118 zip code and any remaining spots go to “non-district” students based on entrance exams and previous experience in the arts.
These semi-autonomous schools that educate student populations of 50 to as many as 600, sprang up like phoenixes from the water, mud and mold that devastated the discredited Orleans Parish school system.
In less than two years, the state Recovery School District and the Orleans Parish School Board have approved 40 charter schools. A few more will open in the fall.
Now, more than 50 percent of the city’s approximately 32,000 school children attend charter schools – the highest percentage in the country. The remaining students attend traditional schools operated by the school board or the state recovery district. All school administrators are under tremendous pressure to improve the quality of education in New Orleans. Before the storm, Orleans school board schools ranked among the worst in the country. Students scored so poorly on standardized test scores that the state took over 107 schools, leaving only high performing schools for the school board to oversee.
With little to lose and possibly a lot to gain, the state and a new set of school board members authorized charters to relieve the strain on overcrowded traditional schools and to create another avenue for school improvements. Though precipitated by natural disaster, Louisiana’s action mirrors a growing national trend. In 2007-’08, 347 charters opened across the country, an increase of eight percent over the ’05-’06 school year, Center for Education Reform figures show. The CER reports that 4,100 charters served 1.2 million American school children.
Many charters were created in response to a perceived national education crisis. Test scores show that many impoverished, mostly urban children are functioning well below grade levels. However, when placed in smaller charter schools, studies show that their test scores often rise sharply.
A 2004 study by Harvard University revealed that charters operating for five years or more outperformed traditional schools by as much as 15 percent. Last year, test scores indicated a similar trend in New Orleans. LEAP tests showed significant improvements in some charter schools. (Fourth and eighth grade students must pass LEAP to advance to the next grade level.) For example, at Sophie B. Wright, a low-performing school before the state takeover, 71 percent of fourth-graders scored “basic” or above in Language Arts and 80 percent passed math.
Many charter school principals who once guided schools under the former Orleans Parish school system say they wouldn’t want to return to the old way. They credit management autonomy for student achievement gains.
Sharon Clark, principal of Sophie B. Wright, says that under the former school board system she was constantly called away to attend meetings about new academic programs, many of which were not suitable for her campus. “My meetings are now with my students,” Clark says. “I’m able to spend more time on instruction.”
Doris Hicks, principal of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Charter School in the 9th Ward, another school with improved test scores, agrees.
“I wouldn’t trade this for the world,” Hicks says, “We can chart our own course now. It’s heavenly.”
Overall, New Orleans charters performed better than the traditional schools but that outcome is not surprising considering RSD schools struggled with serious problems, including a shortage of classrooms and teachers to meet the demand of an influx of returning students. Since then, most problems have been resolved.
Critics caution that it’s too early to gauge the effectiveness of charters in comparison to traditional schools. Local teachers’ unions – which lost collective bargaining rights during the state takeover – issued a report in October saying that achievement gains were isolated and some scores actually declined.
Unions also point to charters that have had management problems – a couple of which ended up in court – as indications that charters put teachers and students alike at risk of sudden disruption. Such an event happened in December at McDonogh 42 Elementary Charter School. A dispute between the governing board and the principal led to two-thirds of the teachers staging a sickout, which prompted the governing board to cancel some classes.
Such problems are not uncommon, experts say. Even though charters show great promise as a whole, not all survive, says Jennifer Detwiler, spokesperson for the Center for Education Reform in Washington D.C.
“That’s the whole point of the competitive environment,” Detwiler says. “If a school isn’t successful, it closes down.”
In fact, she says a number of failing charters in Ohio are facing possible closure. But Sarah Usdin, founder of New Leaders for New Schools, an organization dedicated to providing financial and operational support for New Orleans schools, says Louisiana’s charter movement has benefited from mistakes made elsewhere. Even though New Orleans needed schools fast after the storm, Usdin says the state used a rigorous and objective selection process to ensure high quality schools.
“You would have thought they would open the floodgates but they didn’t do that,” she says. “They didn’t compromise.”
