Proponents of the charter movement as a quick fix for broken
urban schools got some please-God-no news last week. The Missouri
State Board of Education pulled the charters of all six Imagine
schools in St. Louis. This means a third of charter schools that
have opened here since 1999 have closed shop.
Virginia-based Imagine Schools Inc., the nation’s largest
for-profit charter school operator, was done in by the same
academic, financial and leadership failures that have finished off
other charters here. At times, Imagine seemed more interested in
its remunerative and successful
real estate deals than in its mandate to educate inner-city
children. As pathetic as exam scores have been at the city’s
unaccredited public schools, Imagine’s scores were worse. (I know!)
Meanwhile, the city’s other large for-profit charter operator,
EdisonLearning, which manages a handful of mostly low-performing
schools, is
reportedly on its way out, too.
Indeed, despite receiving more taxpayer
dollars per student than regular public schools and operating
with considerably less regulation and oversight, most St. Louis
charter schools perform worse on standardized tests than government
schools.
Charters managed by nonprofit groups appear in better shape
academically and financially, though here too there has been
failure and corruption aplenty. One problem for parents trying to
unravel the charter mysteries is that the line between nonprofit
and for-profit is blurry. The schools themselves must be
nonprofits; though sometimes they are founded by small, local
nonprofit groups, sometimes by large, out-of-state nonprofits, and
sometimes by large, out-of-state for-profit corporations, as was
the case with the now-defunct Thurgood Marshall Academy, which was
shuttered after its president — brought in to save the failing
school — was convicted of stealing more than $7,000, including
$800 in lunch money, before it closed in 2005.
Nor is small and local nonprofit status a guarantee of success.
Back in 2001, state Sen. Pete Kinder and several local pastors
opened two tuition-free charters. Paideia academies soon became two
of the lowest performing schools in the city — and that is saying
something. The schools finally folded in 2010, and its chairman
stands accused of looting more than $250,000 of public money to use
for a side business. Across town, the now-defunct Ethel Hedgeman
Lyle Academy charter schools were so deeply in debt they were taken
over by the unaccredited public school district, while owing 100
creditors more than $5 million.
CHIEF AMONG THE SUCCESS stories is Construction Careers Center
(managed by the public school district), and
Gateway Science Academy (operated by Chicago-based Concept
Schools, a large nonprofit consulting group) whose students tested
twice as high on average as regular public school students. St.
Louis Charter School, managed by a large Delaware-based nonprofit,
has scored slightly better than government schools. Also showing
promise is the Grand Center Arts Academy, managed by the
Chicago-based nonprofit American Quality Schools. (Acceptance there
requires an audition and parents’ signature on a commitment form,
including a promise to check the child’s homework every night.) The
local newspaper, no friend of charters, recently praised the local
Knowledge is Power Program charter school, managed by the nonprofit
KIPP Foundation, as “the right sort of charter …”
“KIPP does charters right,” wrote the editors. “It… will be a
part of the solution.”
Following the Imagine fiasco, charter school proponents, among
them Mayor Francis Slay, were at pains to point out that this is
how alternative education is supposed to work. Good schools
survive, bad ones are shut down. Contrast that to the public
schools, where no matter how bad they fail, they continue to
operate.
Imagine’s closure by no means signals the end of charter
schools. In fact, state lawmakers are set to vote to extend
charters statewide. Rural Missourians, tired of years of school
consolidation or hungry for alternative forms of public education,
are demanding the same choices as their urban counterparts. Though
hopefully they will meet with better success. Here, at least, the
lesson seems to be that large, out-of-state, for-profit
corporations may not be your best bet for a sound education.
However, the fact that any schools have succeeded in this chaotic
urban environment is more miracle than judgment on the failure of
the free market to turn things around.
In the end, this business of school choice and charters and
vouchers seems to me mere pruning round the edges, rather than
hacking at the roots of the problem, which is, as we all know, the
breakdown of the traditional family. When we come up with a quick
fix for that, the rest may take care of itself.
