Recognizing that some parents investigate charter schools before approaching them, while many others do not, charter school advocates have long sought to attract parents and students by aggressively promoting themselves as innovative and creative in curriculum, instruction, methods, and pedagogy.
Indeed, many deregulated charter schools claim to operate according to a distinctive pedagogy intended to appeal to those interested in it. Thus, there exist privately operated charter schools that focus primarily on music and art, science and technology, military training, agriculture and farming, college preparation, and more.
Charter school proponents claim that this educational innovation and experimentation are possible due to the “flexibility,” “autonomy,” and “independence” of privately operated charter schools. Interestingly, most charter schools must take the same educationally unsound corporate tests as traditional public schools.
However, most charter schools mimic much of what occurs in constantly demonized and underfunded traditional public schools, while also actively ignoring the innovation, creativity, and pedagogical diversity long embraced by traditional public schools.
Little educational innovation appears to be taking place in many charter schools. For example, The Network for Public Education (2017) notes that charter schools, “generally neither invent new teaching methods nor develop and spread new education practices. They’re businesses first, and schools second.” Privatization naturally prioritizes profiteering over the right to education. The NPE cites several studies showing that thousands of charter schools are not innovative, unlike traditional public schools. If anything, many charter schools stifle innovation. Here, it should also be asked: if charter schools really value new practices and teaching, would the teacher turnover rate be as consistently high as it is? Higher turnover is associated with lower educational quality, stability, and collegiality.
In Charter Schools: A Missed Opportunity to Improve Education Through Innovation (2023), Parisi says, “the charter school movement has not resulted in the change early advocates hoped for. Charter schools often recycle old practices instead of experimenting with new ones.”
A 2018 report from the pro-privatization corporation IBM claims that, while charter schools are supposedly well-positioned to adopt innovative practices, “many charter schools have only partly delivered on this mission. While there are many pockets of excellence in the sector, there appears to be less innovation than originally anticipated.”
A 2012 study, School innovation in district context: Comparing traditional public schools and charter schools, asserts, “We find that, on the whole, charter schools do not fulfill their promise of innovation.”
Innovation in education markets: Theory and evidence on the impact of competition and choice in charter schools (2003) by Lubienski contends that, “a comprehensive review of practices in charter schools indicates that, although some organizational innovations are evident, classroom strategies tend toward the familiar.”
The lack of innovation in deregulated charter schools is closely linked to their spending more on administration and consulting services than on instruction (see here, here, and here).
Furthermore, the chronic lack of oversight of charter schools means there is no incentive to implement innovative strategies effectively. Charter schools are notorious for a lack of transparency and accountability.
While additional studies and articles could be cited to substantiate the foregoing, it is important to acknowledge the broader problems associated with privatized education. Is the chaos, anarchy, and violence of the “free market” a good way to run mass universal education in a modern society based on 21st-century economic needs?
As people often say, “connect the dots” or “take a 50,000-foot view of things.” What is the point of trying to find “one or two good things” about charter schools when there are 50 other damning and indicting problems in the charter school sector—and even those “one or two good things” turn out to be diluted or non-scalable?
Last but not least, the problem has never been charter school teachers, students, or parents. The problem is privatized education arrangements and the problems that privatization guarantees. Do not target charter school teachers, students, or parents. Focus on the political economy of charter schools and develop new ways to defend the public interest while opposing narrow private interests that are encroaching on the public sphere at an accelerating pace.
The post Are Charter Schools Innovative? appeared first on Dissident Voice.
This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Shawgi Tell.