Charter Schools are considered to be schools of choice; the choice is available to parents, students, teachers, and administrators. This allows for parents and students to choose to enroll in a school that may offer a unique learning environment as well as alternative learning methodologies. Teachers and administrators get more authority to make decisions than most traditional public schools. Basically, these schools are free from many of the regulations that apply to traditional public schools. (Chen, 2007).
Charter schools are granted for a particular period of time, usually for 3-5 years, which are renewed after the end of the term by the granting entity (for example, a major school board). A charter school is based on a performance contract; this provides details about that school’s mission, program, goals, students served, methods of assessment, and ways to measure success. These schools are under constant pressure to perform well, as they are accountable to their sponsor, usually a state or local school board for good academic results. With charter schools, they are granted more autonomy compared to public schools (Chen, 2007).
There are a few advantages to placing a student into a charter school. One advantage is their level of accountability. Charter schools must abide by the tenets outlined in their charter contract between the school and the chartering unit, which states projected student achievement outcomes as well as penalties for failing to make these gains (Cofield, 2009). If the charter school does not follow the guideline that they have set, they will be creating the same solution that many public schools have. Any outcome that arises, whether it is success or failure, will result from the methodology placed forth by the charter school. Another good part to accountability is if the charter school fails to measure up, parents can “vote with their feet” or, the school can lose its charter altogether (Cofield, 2009). This means that parents have more say in the education of their children and will have more pull when trying to get the ideas of the school to change. Having a separate entity sponsor a charter school than that of typical public schools creates more leniencies towards curriculum.
Charter schools are also free from the bureaucracy of traditional schools. Due to the lack of restrictions on how charters are able to organize, they can reduce hurdles posed by the larger size of traditional school bureaucracies. This allows for more creative control over instruction, often increasingly the likelihood innovative best practices and of student success (Cofield, 2009). Albert Shanker, the former influential head of the American Federation of Teachers who first introduced the charter concept in the late 1980s stated that “The problem is that the traditional school structure virtually prohibits the teacher from arranging alternate ways the student might learn.” According to this theory of action, students and teachers remain “locked” into a rigid schedule that emphasizes the “assembly-line processing of children” (Huerta, 2009, p.417). This method allows for children to have a say in what they want to learn rather than the stereotypic mandated subjects and testing. Some ways that charter schools are trying to get away from the typical public schools are by including the use of applications, contracts, steering families away from enrolling, recruiting families from particular neighborhoods, school discipline policies, and various forms of branding to communicate to parents which students are good “fits” for the particular charter school (Scott, 2009, p. 236). With the accountability at a high rate as well as free radicals deciding how to perform, the academic performance is highly regarded.
Another benefit of charter schools is their ability to improve academic performance for students. Many success stories of increased student achievement abound in the media and in research articles. Reports from across the nation confirm positive trends in charter school academic achievement (Cofield, 2009). Much of the research has stated that, at first, charter schools show no difference compared to public schools among test scores but as time goes on, the results tend to improve. The improvement seems to be more geared towards secondary education which in turn will lead to more success in collegiate and post-college education. The educational gap between a lot of Latino and African American children has remained constant yet will be said to get better as the student continues on with school.
With the accountability, freedom of bureaucracy, and the improving test scores, charter schools seem to be the wave of the future. To keep up with the times, schools are going to need to adjust. Where public schools stick to their rigid regimen, charter schools will expand to near heights.
References
Chen, G. (2007). What is a charter school? Public School Review. Retrieved from http://www.publicschoolreview.com/articles/3
Cofield, C. (2009). Pros and cons of charter schools. Retrieved from http://candace-cofield.suite101.com/how-to-be-a-more-successful-teacher-in-2010-a185607
Huerta, L., A. and Zuckerman, A. (2009). An institutional theory analysis of charter schools: Addressing institutional challenges to scale.
Scott, J. and
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