Schools Roundup: All Eyes on Charter Schools

Over the weekend the Post launched its investigative series/Pulitzer bait on the District’s charter schools, which together enroll about a third of D.C.’s students. In addition to profiling the high-performing D.C. Prep, the Post dug into the suspect financial benefits some members of the D.C. Public Charter School Board have received as a result of their board work, mostly through the complicated world of charter school loans and financing. The Post found conflicts of interest involving nearly $200 million at more than a third of the city’s charter schools.

It’s a long piece, but worth a read, and it will be interesting to watch the aftermath unfold. Thomas Nida, chairman of the board and one of the central figures implicated by the piece, has argued that his actions did not constitute any wrongdoing, but City Desk reports that already Eleanor Holmes Norton is up in arms about the findings, and is calling for Nida and another of his colleagues to resign. Additionally, Norton wants the appointment process of the charter board to be revised, giving the District more autonomy over who sits on the board, which is currently selected from a list of candidates proposed by the federal government.

Also included in the Post's coverage is this piece, which argues that according to the Post’s own analysis, “students in the District's charter schools have opened a solid academic lead over those in its traditional public schools,” and goes on to paint the city’s charters as hotbeds of “no excuses” innovation, where students study until 5 p.m., sit on “peace rugs” to resolve conflict, and shout chants about how they will “build a better tomorrow.” This is the stuff charter advocates dream of, and the article does a decent job at laying out how the funding and flexibility these schools receive can set them apart in their ability to provide resources.

We’re largely supportive of charter schools, and encourage the strong growth they’ve seen in D.C. But where the Post falls short is by painting all charters with the same brush – KIPP and D.C. Prep, which feature heavily in the piece, are far from representative of all charters, some of which are quite frankly dreadful. There has been a bit of backlash about the methods the article relies on to compare mainstream and charter students. And the details used to show how teachers at charters are successful – using a stopwatch to time lessons, for example, or giving students their personal phone numbers – aren’t unique to charters. We would have liked to see more direct comparison of how the administrative freedom of a charter school differs from that of a DCPS campus, and what that means for its teachers and students – beyond a working copy machine.

Photo by Kyle Walton