Teachers’ views on charter schools are complex

Two resolutions with differing fates from ARA demonstrate the complexity with which teachers view charter schools.

One resolution, which calls for charter schools to be operated under the authority of existing school boards or else become private schools, was adopted. The other, which called for the ATA to discontinue bargaining for teachers in charter schools, failed.

The message being sent is that there are concerns about how charter schools are operated, but a teacher is a teacher, and the ATA is prepared to support teachers wherever they work — hate the game, not the player, if you will.

The ATA’s longest standing policy on charter schools highlights the complexity. Adopted in 1994, it outlines a set of nine characteristics associated with charter schools that the Association opposes. Not every charter school is the same. Some charters tick off more of these nine boxes than others.

From their origins, in many U.S. states charter schools were set up as a direct threat to public education — de facto private schools that would receive full public funding (in addition to large corporate endowments), while recruiting the top students and relegating the rest to an underfunded, undersupported public system. 

The ideology was based on a view that charters would bring greater competition into the so-called government monopoly of public education. But competition is not a model that works well in education. Competition creates winners and losers. How do kids benefit from being losers in a system of competition?

When the charter experiment was brought to Alberta, it faced some opposition on these grounds, and so the system was regulated to address a number of the concerns. Charters were supposed to be incubators of innovation. Each school was required to have a unique specialised program of innovation. If the local school board wanted to offer that program, then the charter would be blocked. If not, then the charter would exist for a limited time to test their innovations, and then those innovations would flow out to the rest of the system. Because they were temporary centres of innovation, they would not receive long-term infrastructure investments.

Slowly, over time, enforcement of the regulations waned and, ultimately, with the passage of the Choice in Education Act and other bits of legislation, the controls were eliminated. 

So now we have a wide range of charter schools. Some are very committed to a unique style of education (arts, music or language academies); some serve a specific population with unique needs (Indigenous, inner city or small rural communities). But there is a third group that is problematic.

This third group is charter schools that are essentially private schools in disguise. Their programming is not particularly innovative; they are more exclusionary in terms of the students they either accept or refuse; and they cater to parents who are looking for elite, exclusive schooling.

These schools are built as competition for the public education system and ultimately present a much more significant threat. These are the types of schools that have expanded the most when the limits on charter schools were removed.

A recent article from Press Progress showed that seven of the top 10 school authorities in terms of family or community socio-economic status (SES) were charter schools. The top six on the list were all charters. 

Further analysis by Association staff found that these elite charter schools also had elite-level access to cash. Fees averaged about $550 more per student and donations averaged about $350 more per student than public, separate and francophone schools.

Imagine now if your classroom had only students from the wealthiest families, no special needs and an additional $27,000 a year in funding.

So, yeah, views on charter schools are complex. What teachers ultimately want is an education system that favours the needs of the many over the wants of a privileged few. We think that public funding should support public schools that are accessible, accountable to the broader community and inclusive, not just serve a niche class of people while excluding others. 

There are many opportunities available to put the reins back on charter schools. Requiring them to affiliate with a public school board so there is more accountability to the community at large is a great starting point. If the school doesn’t like that, then they should take off the disguise and become a private school. ❚

I welcome your comments. Contact me at jonathan.teghtmeyer@ata.ab.ca.