May 2001

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Charter Schools: Hanging in the Balance

by John McCarthy

In 1995, the government of Alberta showed imagination and vision in passing Canada’s first charter law. It was another Alberta Advantage, giving parents the chance to roll up their sleeves and create a new kind of public school that would improve student learning. These schools were called "charter schools."

What is a charter school?

A charter school is an autonomous public school designed to make innovations in the organization and delivery of education and to make improvements in student learning. (Alberta Learning, p. 1.)

Charter schools are public schools operating on a performance contract negotiated with their school board or the government. Attendance is by choice. Charter schools may not charge tuition, teach religion, or discriminate in admissions. They are formed around a specific mission or philosophy and enjoy considerable autonomy to implement that program. Governed by their own charter board, these schools must demonstrate successful student learning and fiscal responsibility in order to have their charter renewed.

Alberta has 11 public charter schools, ranging in size from 75 to 600 students. They provide a wide array of programs of a specialized nature, including science, music, back-to-basics, at-risk, English as a second language, and gifted education. Their freedom from district bureaucracy gives them added flexibility to allocate their budgets to meet learning needs, reduce class sizes, use differentiated staffing, and hire and retrain staff based on performance rather than seniority. They are the first public schools in Alberta to introduce performance incentive contracts.

Research conducted by the University of Calgary (Bosetti, 2000) has found these schools have high satisfaction levels and generally strong achievement results. Many have long waiting lists, and hundreds more families are seeking to find charter schools for their children. The Canadian Charter Schools Centre, located in Calgary, fields over 50 such inquiries a week.

In the United States, some 2,200 charter schools have opened since legislation was introduced ten years ago. Former President Clinton described them as "a powerful tool to provide communities, schools and teachers maximum flexibility to give students more opportunity to reach high standards of achievement, to improve teaching and learning in our schools." As the charter movement expanded, it became a catalyst for change, prompting regular schools to adopt important reforms. In response to the loss of its students to charter schools, for example, the district of Milwaukee now guarantees parents that their children will be fluent readers by the third grade, or the district will pay for tutoring.

System response

We might expect the education system to welcome such innovative experiments. Science, medicine, and technology all encourage experimental research to drive improvements. But six years after Alberta passed its charter law, there are only 11 schools. Why is this the case?

The official education partners have exerted constant pressure to disqualify the new players in the game. Both the teachers’ union, the Alberta Teachers Association (ATA) and the Alberta School Boards Association (ASBA) have adopted a policy of opposing charter schools. The ASBA boycotted a conference that was set up to develop working relations between school boards and their charter cousins. Local boards have proven unwilling to lease available space to charter operators, causing delay or termination for both charter start-ups and for expansions planned to accommodate families on waiting lists. Local boards are turning down applications for renewals for existing charters as they become due. Most significantly, over the past two years, school boards have rejected a string of proposals; not a single new charter has been approved. It is classic irony that two powerful educational organizations whose avowed purpose is to support and improve public education are clearly frustrating thousands of parents who are seeking their legal right to choose their children’s schooling.

New legislation needed

Alberta’s charter legislation was created with the expectation that school boards would welcome the opportunity for the innovation that such schools bring to the public system. This has not been the experience elsewhere; nor has it been so in Alberta. Bosetti’s two-year study of Alberta charter schools reports:

The requirement that charter schools must work closely with their local school boards to establish and maintain their schools creates a major challenge for charter schools. Teachers, administrators, and charter school boards generally report high levels of dissatisfaction with local boards and only one school has managed to maintain a sponsorship by a local school board. (L. Bosetti et. al., p. 169.)

If, as the legislation provides, the government were willing to approve and oversee charter schools, lack of school board cooperation would not be an insurmountable roadblock to the further establishment of such schools. However, since his appointment in April 1999, the new Minister of Learning has sent all applications back to the school board level. School boards—consistent with their policy—have refused to oblige, successfully stopping the charter momentum in its tracks.

Clearly, Alberta’s charter laws are not working as intended. For charter applicants, the dysfunctional application and appeals process has become a cruel joke. For hundreds of families interested in the charter choice, there are few spaces available. Without a working mechanism for granting any new charters, charter schools cannot acquire the critical mass to stimulate improvements in the system. The existing charter schools are in jeopardy of being re-absorbed as their charters come up for renewal.

Contrasting visions

In late 1999, the government embarked on a consultation process prior to revising its legislation and regulations. The Canadian Charter Schools Centre and the charter schools requested improvements to the chartering process. The ASBA and the ATA, however, recommended that district-controlled alternative programs or schools replace charter schools. While alternative programs have been a valuable part of the system for years, they exist only at the whim of local school boards, and lack the autonomy, flexibility, and accountability of charter schools. Further, there is no appeal mechanism for parents when local boards decline to act on proposals or change the conditions of the alternative program.

The two-year study of Alberta’s charter schools conducted by Dr. Bosetti suggested that redesigning the legislation was critical to the long-term viability of charter schools. Bosetti’s report recommended that:

The government should assume full responsibility for over-seeing all charter schools, appointing a supervisory body responsible for granting and renewing charters, for monitoring and evaluating charter schools, and for providing technical assistance and support. This body should facilitate the identification and sharing of successful charter school innovations and the adoption or integration of these practices into the public education system...
To assist in developing a critical mass of charter schools the government should consider permitting other authorizers such as universities and public bodies to sponsor charter schools. (Bosetti et al., p. 174.)

Bosetti’s latter recommendation is echoed by US research findings that "more and more states have provided multiple routes to founding a charter school... The idea is not to bypass local boards, but to encourage them to respond more positively" (Nathan, p. 201). Nathan’s finding strongly suggests that alternate sponsors are critical to the dynamics of charter schools.

High stakes

The forthcoming charter legislation in Alberta will identify the policy direction for charter schools in Canada in the foreseeable future. Other provincial governments across Canada have indicated they are watching the Alberta education experiment with great interest. We shall soon know if the entrepreneurial Albertan government will bow to special interests or improve its flawed pioneer charter schools legislation to achieve the end for which it was created. Depending on the outcome, the options for excellence in public education will be increased, or the charter school door will be slammed shut.

Conclusion

If the charter school movement in Canada is to become a significant development in parental choice, beneficial legislation is required on two fronts: within Alberta, and in at least one or two other provinces across Canada.

As this article is being written, Alberta Learning has just announced a new round of consultations prior to revising its legislation and regulations. This announcement provides an additional opportunity for charter supporters to impress upon the government the critical distinction between alternative schools and programs, and charter schools.

The charter school movement can hardly survive as a one-province phenonemon. The Canadian Charter School Centre is renewing its drive to obtain enabling legislation in other provinces. A National Charter Schools Week campaign has been organized for April 30-May 4. A series of information sessions is being conducted this spring in selected provinces. A National Charter Schools Convention will be held in Calgary this coming October. These and other follow-up activities, including meetings with government members, are designed to raise the level of awareness of the value of charter schools in other provinces.

Distinguishing Characteristics of Alternative and Charter Schools

References

Government of Alberta (1995). Charter Schools Handbook. Edmonton: Alberta Learning.

Bosetti, L., E. Foulkes, R. O’Reilly, and D. Sande (2000). Canadian Charter Schools at the Crossroads: The Final Report of a Two-year In-depth Study of Charter Schools in Alberta. SAEE Research Series #5. Kelowna, BC: Society for the Advancement of Excellence in Education.

Clinton, William Jefferson (1995). "State of the Union Address." Washington, D.C.

Nathan, Joe (1996). Charter Schools: Creating Hope and Opportunity. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

John McCarthy holds an M.A. from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. from Université de Montréal. He was the Chief Superintendent of the Calgary Catholic School Board from 1977 to 1992. Now retired, he has become the Director of the Canadian Charter Schools Resource Centre, 100 - 24 Mapleglade Close S.E., Calgary, Alberta T2J 2G9,
tel: (403) 271-1889, web site: www.charterschools.ca.

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