Education Week - June 8, 2016 - 14

CHARTER MOVEMENT AT 25: Amid expansion, questions persist

Foundations
Drive Changes
In Chartering
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

sent what the charter movement has become:
an engine powered by muscular foundations
for raising the prospects of low-income AfricanAmerican and Latino students.
Almost every inch of the walls in Avalon
School in St. Paul, Minn., is covered in art. And
with several pieces of student-made furniture,
the school feels a bit like an antique store. A
large, wooden armoire is painted with Avalon's
teachers reimagined as animé characters riding a Chinese dragon.

Original Concept
In one classroom, students mingle around
desks strewn with laptops, books, earbuds,
snacks, and the remnants of various projects.
This is not a break between classes-it is class.
Avalon is built around project-based learning,
and students spend most of their time working
individually or in small groups on projects that
relate back to core subjects.
"I started with doing a cumulative
history of computing, which was really a journey of self-discovery," explained senior Campbell Jaap, who
is wearing seafoam green skinny
jeans and a matching sweatshirt,
as he clicks around on a computer
he built.
Two teachers sit at large desks at
the head of the classroom, ready to
assist students as they need help.
The teachers represent another way that Avalon departs from the traditional school mold-
they run the place. There is no principal, no superintendent. All decisions, from staffing and
curriculum to budget and schedules, are made
collectively by the teachers.
Avalon, which opened in 2000, is a living example of the early visions of charter schools-
an idea that was conceived in part by the late
Albert Shanker, then the president of the
American Federation of Teachers, as a means
for teachers to create their own experimental
schools under the district umbrella.
"What I saw chartering as-it's become so
complicated-it's chartering. It's a verb," said
Ember Reichgott Junge, a former Democratic
Minnesota lawmaker who authored the first
charter school legislation. "It's permission for
teachers and parents to provide different learning opportunities. It's permission for someone
other than the school district to do that. It's not
a school."
Although Reichgott Junge was inspired by
Shanker's ideas, she ultimately proposed that
charter schools should be unbound from districts and union contracts-setting up a rift
that still exists.
But motivations for passing charter laws fractured as the concept spread to other states.
Some lawmakers latched onto charters as
a way to break up school districts' dominance
and inject what they believed was market-style
competition into public education. Others were
drawn to the idea because it was potentially a
more politically palatable way to give low-income families school choices without using private school tuition vouchers, which often funnel
public money to religious schools.
"There are different concepts even within the
charter, whatever you'd say-family, movement,

sector-about what its purpose is and what its
strategy ought to be," said Ted Kolderie, who
has worked in Minnesota education policy for
decades and helped write Minnesota's charter
law. "The strategy that developed was to show
... that chartering could do what the district
sector couldn't do. That is to create schools for
educationally needy children [become] proficient in English and math."
Today, Minnesota's charter sector is still
somewhat of an anomaly, even as 43 states
and the District of Columbia now allow charter
schools. It's the only state where a local teachers' union serves as an authorizer-the stateapproved groups that grant charters, allowing
the schools to open. Its charter schools also have
a deeper reach into suburban and rural areas,
rather than being concentrated in cities.
And it is mostly devoid of the large, multistate
charter school chains that oversee around 40
percent of charter schools nationally. Out of
Minnesota's nearly 160 charter schools, only
four schools are run by out-of-state management groups-two by for-profit education management organizations, and two by nonprofit
charter management organizations.
Although the majority of charter schools
nationally remain independent from networks, nonprofit charter management organizations-think KIPP-have been eating
into that share. And the number of CMO-run
schools surpassed the number of for-profit
counterparts in the 2008-09 school year, ac-

"It's 'chartering.' It's a verb. ... It's permission for teachers and
parents to provide different learning opportunities."
EMBER REICHGOTT JUNGE, Author of Minnesota charter law

cording to data from the National Alliance for
Public Charter Schools.
Nationally, CMOs account for 22 percent of all
charters that have opened over the last five years.
While differences between the types of charter school operators may seem insignificant, the
growth of CMOs-propelled by billions of dollars from the federal government and a cadre of
wealthy and highly involved philanthropists-
has altered the face of the charter sector.

College-Prep Model
Many CMO-run charter schools build their
missions around educating black and Hispanic
students living in poor, inner-city neighborhoods, in prep school-like environments with
stringent codes of conduct and a laser focus on
college acceptance.
"I think that sort of changed the flavor of
charters," said Sarah Reckhow, an assistant
professor of political science at Michigan State
University who studies education philanthropy.
"It gave them more of this kind of branding element, the whole rise of 'no excuses' and those
particular CMOs. ... That was very much facilitated by philanthropy."
The hands-on approach that philanthropists
have taken in propagating the CMO model
marks a shift in education giving, say experts
who have studied this evolution. Earlier forays
from foundations such as Annenberg and Ford
mostly stayed out of the way of their beneficiaries.
In today's era, living donors from the Walton
Family Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, and the Eli and Edythe Broad
Foundation have taken a more strategic approach to their giving, pouring their money into
research, advocacy, and models that could grow
or "scale up" quickly. (The Walton, Gates, and

14 | EDUCATION WEEK | June 8, 2016 | www.edweek.org

Broad foundations provide support for coverage
in Education Week. )
From a grant making standpoint, charter
management organizations are a solid bet for
philanthropists and the federal government
because they can invest in growing an organization with a proven track record. But there's
a flip side.
"What it's meant, of course, is that the
schools that could grow were the schools that
fit the priority of the funders-which mostly
meant creating seats for low-income black and
Latino kids in city centers," said Frederick
Hess, the director of education policy studies
at the American Enterprise Institute, a rightleaning think tank. "You've seen a huge emphasis on creating schools for those kids." (See
related story, Page 19.)
In a renovated sock factory situated in an
industrial park south of downtown Los Angeles, the Alliance Collins Family College
Ready High School enrolls 600 students.
Airplanes rumble overhead, approaching
the runways at LAX. The distant downtown
skyline is blurred by smog. Inside the school,
which is part of the city's Alliance network,
dozens of college pennants-a common decor
choice for many charter networks-hang in
the front office and cafeteria.
Past a door decorated to promote a college
study abroad program in Costa Rica, a teacher,
Shireen Noori, quizzes students in an Advanced Placement environmental science class.
"Tell me about the Ocean Dumping Act of 19...
finish it off," she instructs a male student who,
wearing a Berkeley sweatshirt, stands to answer.

AVALON SCHOOL
St. Paul, Minn.

MISSION: "Prepares students
for college and life in a strong,
nurturing community that
inspires active learning,
engaged citizenship, and hope
for the future."
STUDENT STATS:
77% White
29% Qualify for free or reducedprice lunch

"1976," he responds.
"Tell me about the law."
"It prevented the dumping of industrial waste
into the ocean," he answered. His classmates
clap as the teacher offers extra credit to a student who can name the correct year.
The students usually wear uniforms-black
slacks, and polo shirts with the Alliance logo
on them. But on Fridays, the school allows
them to stray from the dress code slightly-as
long as they wear a shirt branded with a university name.
California's charter school law followed
closely on the heels of Minnesota's-it was
the second state to allow chartering and,
PAGE 16 >

Stories in this package were supported by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation which supports
issues related to creating opportunities for all American students and their families to choose a quality
school. Education Week retains sole editorial control over the content of this coverage.

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Education Week - June 8, 2016

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