Charter school evaluation reveals major impact, unmet expectations

February 18, 199

KALAMAZOO -- Michigan's charter schools are making a substantial impact on their public school competitors but use few innovative practices and have not yet achieved the goals state legislators had in mind when they approved their creation three years ago.

That's the conclusion of a statewide study of Michigan charter schools just completed by researchers at Western Michigan University. The study is one of two such studies commissioned by the Michigan Department of Education and conducted between October 1997 and December 1998. The study was presented to the Department of Education at a Feb. 18 meeting in Lansing by Dr. Jerry Horn and Dr. Gary Miron, both principal research associates with WMU's Evaluation Center, who conducted the study and prepared the report.

"As a form of choice, an opportunity for visionaries to develop schools with considerable promise and as a viable competitor for the regular public schools, the movement is having an impact," says Horn. "However, as a laboratory for innovation and a demonstration of exemplary instruction and educational programming, there is still much to be accomplished."

The WMU study covered 51, or about half, of Michigan's charter schools in existence at the time the study began. Public Sector Consultants Inc. of Lansing conducted the second study, covering charter schools in Detroit and Southeast Michigan.

The following conclusions are among the WMU study's major findings about charter schools, also known as public school academies:

• Considerable diversity exists among charter schools, but they are generally characterized by exceptional commitment on the part of founders and teachers, and parents and students who are happy and convinced the academic climate is superior to that in the public schools.
• Financial difficulties plague charter schools, beginning with difficulty in obtaining start-up money and continuing with lack of facility funding and a poor pay level for teachers. Some charter school teachers make only a third of their public school counterparts. Most schools have, however, been able to work within the financial parameters of their per-student state allocation.
• Minimal instructional innovations are reported or observed in charter schools and many are offering the same curricula and materials used in neighboring public schools. Although student and teacher perception of academic achievement is high, there are not substantial test data to validate these perceptions. The authors noted, however, that it is too early in the charter reform process to attribute high or low test scores to the influence of the charter schools.
• Charter school administration is emerging as an area of significant difficulty, with administrative
  boards being generally weak, charter authorizing agencies' role and authority being poorly defined and management companies rapidly emerging as a major power in the charter school movement. Control issues have been emerging in schools where management companies have come to play a stronger role.
• Charter schools are clearly drawing students away from the state's public schools, pulling more than two thirds of their students from public schools and resulting in financial setbacks for some districts with a high concentration of charter schools. Those same districts also experience some positive results from the existence of charter schools. Among those positive effects are increased emphasis on customer satisfaction and marketing, increased efforts to involve parents, and more emphasis on such programs as foreign language instruction and before- and after-school programs.
• In some cases, charter school authorizers attempt to conceal rather than reveal weaknesses and problems at their schools. Oversight of K-12 schools is a rather new activity for these agencies, and it is fair to say that authorizers are learning as they go. Also, it is apparent that weak schools may not suffer enrollment declines or be forced to close, since aggressive recruitment activities tend to replenish students and teachers who have "voted with their feet."
• While charter school teachers and parents are generally positive in their perceptions of charter schools, their initial expectations were significantly higher than what they are currently experiencing.
• The charter school reform movement is polarized between proponents and opponents. In the schools themselves, where there are many with strong points of view (visions) and vested interests, there is more than ample opportunity for conflicts to occur among stakeholder groups. Often times, these situations result in broad-based turnover of board members, school staff, and students.
• Over the last two years, the proportion of minorities enrolled in charter schools has decreased by more than 20 percent. This may largely be due to the establishment of new charter schools that enroll fewer minorities.

Report co-author Miron notes a number of other issues surfaced during the study that deserves further attention. They include a number of legal issues, questions surrounding service to special needs students and concern about charter schools segregating students according to race, class or ability.

"Clearly there are some potentially strong PSAs with potentially bright futures but, at the same time, there are PSAs facing major challenges and the expectation of success is quite limited," Miron says. "There are strong PSAs and there are weak PSAs-a situation not dissimilar among traditional public schools."

Media contact: Cheryl Roland, 616 387-8400, cheryl.roland@wmich.edu

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