Charter schools receive a lot of well-deserved attention this time of year when they appear to be performing miracles. But what about the ones that don't?

The administrations of Presidents Bush and Obama have both urged harsh action against "failing" schools, such as firing staff, closing the school or turning over control to the state or private charters.

The results have been encouraging, especially in schools where the diplomas are begin to outnumber the dropouts for a change.

It was exciting to hear that Urban Prep, a charter school on Chicago's South Side, is sending 100 percent of this year's 107 graduates to college. That's particularly impressive for a school where only 4 percent of its original 150 students were reading at or above grade level when it opened four years ago.

It was also exciting to hear that Anacostia Senior High School, the District of Columbia charter school where first lady Michelle Obama delivered this year's commencement address, reported 79 percent of its seniors were graduating, up from 50 percent in 2009.

Plus 95 percent of this year's graduates have been accepted to college, school spokesmen say. When Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee transferred management to Friendship Public Charter Schools in September, only 17 percent of the students were proficient in math and 18 percent in reading.

Stories of turnarounds like that across the nation suggest that charter schools are a stunning success. Yet a nationwide study last year by Stanford University's Center for Research on Educational Outcomes (CREDO) found the story is not that simple.

Only 17 percent of charter schools produced results that were significantly better than traditional public schools, CREDO found, and 37 percent performed worse.

Similar results had been uncovered in studies sponsored by the American Federation of Teachers, a major adversary since teachers unions stand to lose clout as charters take over. But unlike the unions, CREDO is affiliated with the conservative Hoover Institution, a think tank that looks kindly on free-market solutions like charters. Hoover's thinkers are not often quoted favorably by union chiefs, but this time they were.

What went wrong? Simply and plainly, it is much easier to open up a new charter school than to close a bad one.

Since the nation's first charter opened in 1992, the concept has been promoted as a market-oriented alternative to one-size-fits-all policies dictated by downtown bureaucracies. Nonunion, more often than not, charters tend to be independent enough to hire and fire teachers without going through downtown red tape for approval.

The energy of charter schools is in their accountability. As long as a charter school produces good results, it is allowed to function with great autonomy from the central bureaucracy. If not, it is supposed to be closed down or handed over to give some other educational entrepreneur a chance.

But in the real world, that's not so easy. Parents and communities often don't know their school is failing. When they find out, they tend to show amazing love and loyalty to their school, even when it is failing. They want to mend it, not end it.

Unfortunately, as Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates told the National Charter Schools Conference in Chicago Tuesday, failing charter schools hurt the reputations of all the rest.

"If the low-performing schools stay open -- or if schools with lax standards are given new charters -- then your movement will be putting the interests and ideologies of adults above the needs of students," said Gates, who has donated millions through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to charter schools. "And putting students first was the reason you got started in the first place."

In a telephone interview after his speech, Gates offered Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and the District of Columbia as good examples of cities where superintendents have made big and inevitably controversial changes because they had strong backing from their mayors. They needed it.

"If you don't push hard," he said, "you don't get much change," Gates said. "You've really got to shake things up."

Education Secretary Arne Duncan appears to agree. The administration's $4 billion Race to the Top competition for federal funding gives states credit for removing caps on charter schools, improving the ones that work and closing those that don't. They deserve all the credit they can get.

Available on Amazon.com:

Why Boys Fail: Saving Our Sons from an Educational System That's Leaving Them Behind

Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College

 

Copyright © 2010 Clarence Page