A cautionary note for D.C. charter-district collaboration

yes Adam Emerson / February 6, 2012

Greater collaboration between school districts and charter schools is worthwhile so long as the one-size-fits-all approach of a school board doesn’t dampen the unique characteristics of a charter. Washington D.C. would seem to have fertile ground for collaboration, done right, given that D.C. has built a “portfolio” approach to public education in which charters claim 40 percent of the public school enrollment. But the excitement over a new report urging the district and charter boards to work together to increase the supply of high-performing schools can obscure the elements that made D.C. a proving ground for school choice.

Will the one-size-fits-all approach of a school board dampen the unique characteristics of a charter?

The report from Midwestern-based consultant IFF to D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray identifies a need to invest in more high-performing schools in a cluster of underserved neighborhoods, and it suggests that D.C. Public Schools and the Public Charter School Board can play an equal and complementary role in fulfilling the task. Despite the release of creative energy in the District in the last several years, just 1 of 3 public school students is enrolled in what IFF labels the highest-performing of four “tiers” of schools. To turn that around, the report recommends filling the capacity in the top tier, investing in the second and third tiers, and upending or closing the bottom dwellers.

IFF has, and will continue to, take heat for looking kindly throughout its history on charter schools. Most of the fourth tier of schools includes the poorest performing in the school district, and IFF recommends that the charter board recruit “the highest performing charter school operators” to fill the void of school closures left in the neediest neighborhoods. But this also complicates what makes choice and charters valuable to families. It focuses on “zones” in a way that many charters do not.

In one sense, IFF redefines the value of choice: “Despite the range of choices in the District, two-thirds of students attend a school within or adjacent to their neighborhood cluster. The pattern suggests that most students prefer to attend a school close to their home, yet for most students, a local performing school is not an option.” Of the charter students who stay close to home, just 15 percent attend a top tier school. For D.C. Public School students, just 13 percent attend a neighborhood Tier 1 school. Yet in wanting to deliver more options to these underserved neighborhoods, especially in replacing underperforming traditional schools with high-performing charter schools, IFF tends toward an approach in admissions characterized by neighborhood preference.

As Robin Lake of the Center on Reinventing Public Education observed in a report last month, charter school environments built to satisfy neighborhood preference or “assignment zones” can collide with the needs and desires of families who may not embrace the charter’s focus. Also, simply calling on the D.C. charter school board to “recruit the highest performing charter school operators and ask them to replicate their performing school model” in high-need neighborhoods, as IFF recommends, assumes the one-size-fits-all approach that can leave traditional schools so risk-averse.   

To his credit, charter board executive director Scott Pearson told The Washington Post that he welcomes the prospect of greater collaboration with the school district, but calls the idea of neighborhood admissions preference for charter schools “a very dangerous, slippery slope.” No one should begrudge an enterprise that delivers high-quality options to students with the greatest need, but D.C. has been innovative because of its focus on public and private school choice. Let’s hope that collaboration doesn’t co-opt educational diversity.

Category: Charters & Choice