Education Trust and the Battle for the Soul of Charter Schools

There is a battle going on

for the soul of charter schools.

It is very important who wins that battle.

--Kati Haycock

During Q & A at the end of this afternoon's presentation I was able to change the subject and ask a question on charter schools.

KSN&C: I know that you have written to advise the Obama administration regarding the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind. What I haven't heard the Education Trust talk about, really, is charter schools - either pro or con. Are you all keeping hands off that topic for a reason, and if so, could you share that with us.

Haycock: It's a good question. When charter movement started, we basically said in our organization, 'that's kind of a side game.' The vast majority of low income and minority students - which is our focus as an organization - are educated in public school districts, so our energy is going to go toward helping those interests get better.

Over time, we have revisited that decision many times, mostly because, obviously, in some communities a large segment of low income kids are in charter schools, and because there are horrible variations in charter movement.

And there is a battle going on for its soul. In my view, it is very important who wins that battle.

There are people, as I suspect everybody knows, who are in the charter world primarily because they want to make a difference for kids, and the apparatus around traditional public schools makes that too hard. So they are in it to make things better for kids and there are wonderful examples ...of charter schools.

There are others in the charter movement who are just about freedom from regulations and whose results are worse than some of the worst traditional public schools.

So we think it matters who wins.

What I'm not entirely sure is, what an organization like ours - other than demanding accountability from all kinds of schools - we're not sure what we add. And because we're smallish, our tendency has been to say, 'this issue is really important to the kids we worry most about and nobody else is going to work on it, so we're going to work on it.'

You can't say that about charters right now.

For us it has not been a central purpose; not because we hate them, or that we adore them, but because they're a mixed bag.