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Saturday, January 5 Show: Charter schools.

CHARTER SCHOOLS will be the topic of discussion this Saturday, January 5, at 11 a.m. in our inaugural Show on "Indiana Talks." We shall shoot at a familiar place—Big Hat Books, 6510 Cornell Avenue, in Broad Ripple.

Education is one of the most important aspects of our society. The United States would not have been able to advance, as it did, between the mid-1800s and the 1970s without a system of public education that aimed at (but missed but not by a lot) universal literacy. In the late 1980s, as dissatisfaction with public education had grown, a movement for alternatives began in Massachusetts for later would be called "charter schools." The basic concept is to provide some public funds to entities for start-up schools that have autonomy but are accountable for outcome in the form of quality education.

This sounds like a nifty idea. Indiana has jumped onto the bandwagon. Unfortunately, a lot of studies indicate many charter schools perform no better than the public schools against which the system of charter schools was meant to compete. In other instances, the charter schools have fared far worse. One unfortunate aspect of charter schools, as they operate in Indiana, has to do with money and the private entities that create the charter schools.

Saturday we shall discuss the topic. One of our panelists will be Kevin Davis, Chief Operating Officer of the Indiana Public Schools Charter Association. We await confirmation on our other guest panelist.

Next week we shall discuss the Tenth Amendment. (If you do not know what the Tenth Amendment provides, go to an encyclopedia and look it up.) Our panelists will include Mike Meharry of the Tenth Amendment Center. We shall Skype® him in from Florida. Our other panelist will be Karen Celestino-Horseman, former Democratic Party member of the City-County Council and an Indianapolis lawyer. That Show also will be shot at Big Hat Books.

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Comment by Paul K. Ogden on January 2, 2013 at 4:09pm: Mark, I forwarded your blog post to Russ Simnick, President of the Indiana Public Charter Schools Association. He wrote a response which is as follows:

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After reading the info you provided, I thought it might be productive to clear up a few misconceptions in the blog post so the show can start with a clear understanding of facts and law on charter schools.

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1. The first point is small and offered just for clarification. Charter schools began 20 years ago in Minnesota, not Massachusetts.

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2. This statement is just not accurate: "Unfortunately, a lot of studies indicate many charter schools perform no better than the public schools against which the system of charter schools was meant to compete. In other instances, the charter schools have fared far worse." I am only aware of 4 studies on Indiana charter school performance. While a 2008 CEEP study showed no better performance, a study released by the University of Indianapolis at the same time found the opposite. Most important, the landmark study where the notion mentioned in the blog first appeared was the CREDO (Stanford University) study in 2009 which concluded that often charters do not perform better than traditional public schools, and sometimes worse. However, the 2009 CREDO study DID NOT include Indiana data. In fact, the first year it did, 2011, it found the opposite -- that Indiana charter schools perform better than charters anywhere in the nation except New York City and was relatively equal to New Orleans. An update to this study released a couple weeks ago again showed that Indiana charter schools outperform traditional publics and found, among other things, that kids enrolled in Indiana charters get the effect of an extra month and a half of each reading and math for EACH YEAR spent in a charter school as compared with traditional school peers. For Indianapolis-only charters, this effect was equivalent to two months in reading and three months each year in math! I've attached a copy of the study.

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3. Finally, this statement is not legally, nor factually, accurate: "One unfortunate aspect of charter schools, as they operate in Indiana, has to do with money and the private entities that create the charter schools." By law, Indiana charters must be granted to a 501(c)3, a not-for-profit. The confusion comes when these organizations hire either non-profit or for-profit management organizations to perform a function of their school operations at a set fee. Charter schools and traditional publics also pay "for profit" textbook companies, architects, janitors, law firms, accountants, office supply businesses, etc. to carry out the functions of education. Charter schools are non-profits given a contract to operate a public school. The notion that for-profit entities are creating schools for their purposes is incorrect. In reality, a local non-profit board governs the school, and it is held accountable to its authorizer who can shut the school down for lack of performance or financial mismanagement or any other reason a school needs to be closed.

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I appreciate your focus on charter schools and look forward to seeing the show.

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Thanks,

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Russ Simnick

President, Indiana Public Charter Schools Association