The Challenge for Charters

Currently there is a battle for students being waged across the state of Michigan.  With a declining population and a stagnant economy, competition for a dwindling number of students is sure to heat up in the days, months, and years to come.  Charter schools must differentiate themselves in the marketplace or they will lose this battle for students.  In fact, in the age of school of choice, traditional public schools located in our state's urban areas must also look for unique ways to position themselves in the marketplace or continue to see an exodus of students to the surrounding suburban schools.

Charters failing to differentiate themselves will lose the battle for students for three primary reasons.  First, more often than not, the buildings housing our state’s charter schools are inferior to the building housing our state’s traditional public schools.  Charter schools are often placed in school buildings that have been closed for years or in buildings that were not originally intended to be utilized as schools.  Moreover, many charters attempt to grow to include a middle or high school, but are in a building designed to house elementary students.  Thus, it is relatively easy to begin to understand the refrain “I want to go to a ‘real’ high school!”  Many of the charter schools I have had the pleasure of visiting often have no space or inadequate space for what they are attempting to do: the gymnasiums are often too small for students in grades 7-12: they do not have adequate outside recreation infrastructure, such as tennis courts, a track, baseball fields, etc.; and parking can prove to be an absolute nightmare as many buildings are simply not designed to accommodate hundreds of parents dropping-off and picking-up their children each and every day.  Second, there is simply a greater array of activities to choose from at most traditional public schools.  Charters are addressing this problem and quickly closing this gap in opportunity, but the fact remains that the traditional public schools often benefit from an economy of scale and this disparity in extracurricular offerings puts charters at a disadvantage when competing against traditional public schools for students.  Finally, charters are suffering from greater teacher turnover than traditional public schools.  This churn can result in a perception of instability and a lack of trust.  Subsequently, families may choose to stay with, or return to, that which they know—their traditional public school.  This often occurs even when the charter they left is far outperforming the traditional public school they are entering.  This point is paramount in that a stable school with low staff turnover can mitigate the negative effects of the first two points.  Parents will send their children to a school they trust despite an inferior building and a lack of extracurricular activities.

The challenge for charter schools is to differentiate and to uniquely position themselves in the marketplace in an effort to attract students.  The vast majority of charter schools are not restricted by collective bargaining agreements reached with the teachers’ union.  They are often only restricted by their lack of creativity.  Thus, even in the presence of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) I believe it is imperative that charter schools meet these standards, but do so in a setting that clearly separates them from traditional public schools.  In fact, I believe that the advent of CCSS increases the opportunity to do so.  In my opinion, charters should look and feel drastically different from traditional public schools.  The differences should not be just window dressing, such as the presence of a school uniform, but rather the differences should be profound--such as a new way of thinking about and addressing student learning.  It would be great to see more schools specialize in specific content areas (all while meeting the requirements associated with CCSS) such as business, entrepreneurship, health and human services, public service, etc.  In addition, we should, of course, see positive differences in student outcomes within a reasonable amount of time.  If we continue to view  education as a commodity then charter schools will struggle to compete against the better-funded, long-established traditional public schools.  However, if charters live up to the promise of providing a better education and work diligently to uniquely position themselves in the marketplace, then they have a chance.  I am hopeful that charters are able to do this because many of them are far outperforming the local districts with which they compete and have the capability of offering students an opportunity for a brighter future.