Focus Paper Response

I read a few of the focus papers on the website, but finally decided to respond to Evan Couzo's paper on Charter Schools: http://www.olemiss.edu/programs/mtc/docs/Focus%20Papers/2005/Couzo%20P.pdf

My initial reaction to Evan's description of charter schools was that they are the miracle we've all been looking for. They eliminate most of the administrative problems that we've all heard so much griping about and seem to provide more opportunites for curriculum flexibility and teacher freedom. I thought it was really striking that in areas which had a charter school, not only were the charter school's scores higher, but the public schools test scores also went up because they had competition. He also discussed the fact that charter schools give options to kids in the poorest school districts, who are often the ones who get overlooked by innovations in education. All of these points create a wonderful picture of the possibilities of future education, but I think there are some issues which were not addressed.

After my initial excitement settled down, I started thinking about practical realities in Mississippi. Granted, Evan's paper wasn't really focused on the situation here in Mississippi, but for the obvious reasons, my thoughts as I was reading it centered here. This is a state that took 16 years to comply with the bare minimum requirements set forth in Brown vs. Board of Education. How long would it take to adopt an entirely new concept of public education? The biggest hurdle would involve manuevering around the politicians, school board members, and administrators who all have a significant interest in keeping the system the way it is. Administrators and school boards would want to avoid any competition that could threaten their positions. Politicians would have pressure from those same administrators and boards, and also from the electorate, who is generally unforgiving of "radical" ideas. Maybe I'm mistaken in my assessment of the situation, but I don't see charter schools as a solution to education in Mississippi in the near future.

Another broader arguement against the concept of charter schools would be that it focuses too much on competativeness. The major indicators schools have of sucesses or failures are test scores. If school start competing with one another, even more focus would be placed on test scores as an indicator of which is the "better" school, and in-fact, test scores were used in the very studies that proved that charter schools were successful. I know test scores are a complicated issue and that they are one of the few objective indicators of how much students are learning, but I wonder if schools competing is a good idea simply because it would encourage the competitors to produce scores, statistics, and other objective indicators that they are the "best" school. I wonder if in the end, charter schools would push for higher test scores, put pressure on administrators and teachers to improve performance, and end up "teaching to the test" much the same way many school districts do now. I agree that charter schools seem to hold many immediate benefits, but I wonder if the long-term effects have been thoroughly examined.