The Northwest Has Spawned a Handful of Charter Schools, but Educators and Legislators Across the Region are Joining the Debate

By Lee Sherman Caudell

mericans are clamoring for choices from the nation's schools. More and more parents want to send their kids to schools that offer, say, Japanese immersion. Or cutting-edge technology. Or intensive phonics. They want results, too. They want evidence that their child's school is doing a good job—that is, equipping their daughter or son for success.

At the same time, educators complain that state and federal rules and regulations are squelching experimentation. How can schools innovate, they wonder, when they are buried in bureaucracy? How can they guarantee results when they are tangled in red tape?

It is at the intersection of these demands—more choice, more accountability, less red tape—that the charter schools idea emerged. The concept is simple: "swapping rules and regulations for results," in the words of Chester Finn, Bruno Manno, and Louann Bierlein in a 1996 report from the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank. "Those who start charter schools are engaged in what former U.S. Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander called 'old-fashioned horse trading,'" Finn says in Charter Schools in Action: What Have We Learned? "Being directly accountable for one's results—and free to achieve them as one sees fit—is a combination rarely seen in conventional public schools."

Here's how charter schools work in theory: A group or individual—usually parents, teachers, or some combination of both—applies to start a new public school (or convert an existing school). Depending on the state, charter schools can be sponsored by local school districts, state boards of education, universities, or, sometimes, an independent charter schools board. If the application is accepted, a contract or "charter" is drawn up, spelling out how the school will be run, what it will accomplish, and how it will document results. The school has a time limit—typically three to five years—for achieving what it promised. If it fails, it loses its charter. The charter school receives a per-pupil allotment from state education funds—the same money that would have followed the student to a government-run public school had she enrolled there instead. But the money comes without the regulatory strings that entangle so many regular public schools.

Since the nation's first charter school opened in Minnesota in 1991, close to 500 charters have been granted. Although more than half the states now have some kind of charter schools law on the books, those laws look very different from state to state. Some are drawn broadly, giving charter schools blanket waivers of state regulations and freeing them of local district oversight, for example. Others are written with more restrictions. They might, for example, limit charters school sponsorship to local districts, or require charter schools to apply for waivers one rule at a time. (Charter schools cannot waive health, safety, or civil rights mandates.)

Not only do laws look different from state to state, but charter schools, too, take wildly different forms and spring from all sorts of philosophical and political viewpoints. They range, for example, from a 58-student bilingual school tucked into one end of an Oregon City elementary school to a 455-student back-to-basics academy housed in a compound of double-wide modulars on the outskirts of Phoenix (see Basic Training).

In November, Northwest educators, parent activists, and policymakers gathered to study charter schools legislation and literature, to share developments in their home states, and to sort out the issues that will define and shape the movement as it takes root in the region. The Northwest Symposium for Charter School Policy, sponsored by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, brought together a cross section of leaders in education, government, and community from the states of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming.

Charter schools are just emerging in the Northwest. Two states, Alaska and Wyoming, have charter laws on the books but only a handful of charter schools in operation. While Oregon has no charter schools law, it has found a way to use federal funds to launch charter schools under existing school reform laws. Idaho, Montana, and Washington are in various stages of drafting legislation. (See the status of charter schools in Northwest states.)

The many-hued Northwest picture brings into focus a theme that emerged strongly during the symposium: There is no "one size fits all" pattern for charter schools. How a given state approaches charter schools will depend on existing law, educational practice, political climate, community attitude, and local need. Policymakers should use other states' laws and experiences as starting points, not prescriptions, the symposium participants agreed.

Other key issues explored at the symposium are summarized below.

Accountability and Evaluation. With the charter schools movement now in its sixth year, educational research institutions increasingly are turning their attention to accountability questions. The immediate questions revolve around practical matters: which student outcomes to look for, how to design an evaluation plan, how to make assessment match instruction, how to revoke the charter of a school that fails to fulfill its promises.

At stake, however, are even bigger questions—questions that test the very viability of charter schools: Do charter schools work? Should scarce local, state, and federal dollars be used to fund new charters? Are charter schools a desirable component of the public school system?

Student assessment is a hurdle that could trip up charter schools individually and collectively. Charter schools typically use unconventional, creative approaches to teaching. But, as is often the case in government-run public schools as well, when it's time to measure the effects of teaching on learning, the tired old standardized tests get trotted out. Research has shown that assessment drives instruction. By relying on traditional tests to assess the effectiveness of instruction, schools and districts risk skewing instruction to make it match the tests. In so doing, they are in danger of recreating the status quo.

"We're expecting charter schools to be different," said Douglas Thomas of the Center for School Change, a moderator at the symposium. "But then we're evaluating them on the same content standards as other public schools. We've got to understand that we can't rely only on standardized tests."

Although freedom from rules and regulations is supposed to give charter schools the latitude to innovate, it would be a great irony, Leon Fuhrman of Oregon's state education department pointed out, if they then had to use traditional tests to prove their worth and ensure their existence. He predicted that for charter schools given "freedom from all regs except testing, the testing will kill 'em."

Choice implies diversity, while uniform standards imply sameness, observed Steve Nelson of the Northwest Laboratory. Trying to apply uniform standards to innovative schools is like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. "We tend to fall back into systems that paralyze a lot of kids, and kids become passive learners," observed Thomas. "It's a real struggle not to go back to the old ways."

As the charter schools mature, the public and policymakers increasingly are asking, Do they work? The next question is, If not, what then? One charter school, EduTrain in California, already has folded for financial malfeasance. Another charter school, Prairie Island Community School in Minnesota, failed because the local tribe withdrew support. A question that increasingly will surface is, What happens to students when a charter is revoked for fiscal or academic reasons? Students risk educational disruption when charter school operators fail to live up to the terms of their contract. Minnesota has addressed the issue in part by giving charter schools one year to "get their act together" when their charter is in danger, Thomas said.

To those who worry about what will happen if a charter school closes, state Representative Fred Tilman of Idaho had this to say: "Great. The system works. The sad thing is a public school that is failing kids but doesn't close and just keeps on chugging and chugging."

Being accountable—knowing that the doors stay open only if students succeed—gives an urgency to charter schools' mission that often is missing in public schools that get funded year after year regardless of outcomes. "The accountability is on our minds all the time," said teacher Terri Austin, a founder of the Chinook Charter School in Fairbanks, Alaska. "We see that charter as our personal promise to the school board and the parents." (See Dream Team article for more on Chinook.)

Autonomy. The degree of independence enjoyed by charter schools is determined largely by two bodies: the state legislature and the sponsoring agency. So-called "strong" charter states grant broad autonomy through laws that waive state regulations, that offer a number of options for sponsorship, and that provide a process for appeal when an application is denied (see "Sponsorship and Appeals" below). Some states grant a "superwaiver," which sweeps away volumes and volumes of bureaucratic red tape that can hamstring schools' efforts to innovate. In Alaska, "We waived everything we could possibly waive except state testing," said Robert Gottstein of the State Board of Education. This "freedom from administrative constraints," said Austin, "offered great professional opportunities" for creativity and innovation at the charter school she founded. Other states require schools to request waivers regulation by regulation, providing justification for each.

Although rule waivers are central to the charter school concept, it's not always clear to charter schools or to sponsors which rules are void under the charter. Thomas described the approach in many jurisdictions as "don't ask, don't tell."

"No one really defines which ones are waived," with the exception of health and safety standards, he noted.

Charter schools advocates argue that the whole rationale for charter schools hinges on the red tape-accountability tradeoff: maximum operational and instructional freedom in exchange for strict accountability for student outcomes. States or sponsoring agencies that hold charter schools to the same kinds of regulations that stifle experimentation in government-run public schools risk recreating the very system that charter schools were designed to circumvent.

"This is a contract process," said Tilman. "You can write anything in that you want to. The more you can make it permissive rather than mandated, the better off you will be. The fewer hoops, the more likely you'll get the program up and running."

Leon Fuhrman of the Oregon education department argued that Oregon, along with many states, provides opportunities for innovation and regulatory freedom within existing school-reform laws. Passing charter schools legislation simply creates another layer of bureaucracy, he asserted.

"Charter school laws will grow up and become bureaucratic, and they will have rules and regs and, ultimately, they will become the same thing we have now." Fuhrman said states should "tweak" existing reform laws and "build on what exists" instead of writing new laws.

A number of autonomy questions remain to be hammered out: Should charter schools be allowed to own their building? Should whole districts be allowed to become all-charter districts, in which state regulations are waived across the board? Should individual charter schools become districts unto themselves?

Sponsorship and Appeals. In charter schools' quest for freedom from entangling red tape, two questions loom large: Who can sponsor a charter school? And to whom can would-be charter school operators appeal if a sponsoring agency rejects their application? States are all over the map in the openness of their application and appeals process. In some states, only local school districts can sponsor charters. In others, an array of possible sponsors might include the state board of education and the governing board of a university. In still other states, special charter school boards have been created to review applications and oversee operations.

True autonomy for charter schools depends on giving them a variety of options for sponsorship, which includes ongoing fiscal and academic oversight in addition to the power to accept or reject an application, Thomas insisted. Local involvement is desirable, he said. "I think there is a certain value in local culture," he asserted. "There is a local flavor, a difference between schools in Oklahoma or New York or Idaho." But putting all the power for granting charters into the hands of local school boards can have a chilling effect on the launching of new charters.

"The downside of doing it all locally is that you won't have very many charter schools," Thomas said. "States that have an alternate sponsoring mechanism have more charter schools." For emphasis, Thomas paraphrased Ted Kolderie of the Center for Policy Studies, a leader in the charter schools movement, saying: "If you have alternate sponsors, you don't need to talk about autonomy. With alternate sponsors, you will have autonomy."

Tilman agreed, saying: "If a school board is the only body that can approve a charter school, there will be zero charter schools. Other bodies should be able to approve a charter—universities, city councils. Laws should at least provide an appeals processthat can give a second opinion."

Choice. Charter schools often are touted as the middle ground between vouchers (referred to as "the V word" by some symposium participants) and more mainstream school-reform efforts such as alternative schools. In contrast to vouchers, which pay parents public dollars to send their kids to private schools, charters offer choice to parents while keeping students within the public school system. "Both are strategies for choice, but they offer it in two different arenas: the private versus the public marketplace," said Tilman.

In contrast to such reform efforts as alternative schools, charters offer fiscal autonomy and broader professional freedom for teachers. Many public schools that have converted to charter-school status have, in fact, been alternative schools looking for more fiscal and instructional flexibility.

"This is about competition within the system," Thomas noted. Charter schools advocates argue that by creating choices that attract parents and students—and the per-pupil dollars that follow them—charter schools create incentives for change among existing public schools anxious to retain those students and dollars.

"My district was fed up with the lack of incentives for change," Thomas said. "We have had more changes in the three years since our charter school opened than we had in many years before."

States with existing choice options (such as open enrollment, secondary-college agreements, alternative schools) and "ed-flex" laws (waivers for federal regulations) "have an easier time with charters," according to Thomas. "People are used to having options," he said. "In Minnesota, we absolutely expect that you can choose any school you want. One in five Minnesota students choose their school."

Symposium participants were divided on whether, as some charter school opponents argue, charter schools are a foot in the door of vouchers. Gottstein and Tilman argued that charter schools are, on the contrary, the best defense against vouchers. "Vouchers scare people," Tilman noted. Fuhrman was equally adamant that charter schools can be a dangerous step toward vouchers.

Whether charter schools are more effective than, say, existing public alternative schools has yet to be shown. There's a big research gap, in fact, in the area of alternative schools, according to presenter Lori Mulholland of the Morrison Institute for Public Policy. Studies are needed, she said, to suggest whether alternative schools are achieving autonomy and innovation, as are studies that compare the performance and independence of alternative and charter schools. Such studies are needed before policymakers can decide whether "tweaking" existing laws is enough to spur innovation and public-school choice, as Fuhrman suggested.

Parental choice and grassroots involvement are keys to fostering the buy-in required for any successful school improvement effort. Symposium participants generally agreed that the "real excitement of charter schools is the sense of community around the passion of ownership," in the words of one participant.

The level of parent involvement "goes way up" among charter school families, according to Mulholland. While symposium participants strongly supported parental involvement in schools, they were equally certain that rather than legislating the degree of involvement, charter schools (and all public schools) must find meaningful ways to bring parents into their children's education. Parents need to be in the vortex of policy and curriculum decisions, not limited to organizing bake sales and chaperoning school dances. Participants cautioned, however, that educational excellence is not always the main motivation for parents who choose charters.

"There are many reasons parents switch schools," noted Joyce Harris of NWREL's desegregation assistance center. Parents may feel unwelcome in the neighborhood school, for instance. Charter schools may provide a sense of welcome and inclusion that parents have missed in traditional public schools.

Equity. The advent of charter schools has raised concerns about educational equity. Ironically, those fears are based on opposing worries. Some worry that charter schools will skim off the best students, leaving government-run schools to deal with students more difficult to educate. Others worry that just the opposite will happen: Charter schools will become dumping grounds for hard-to-teach children whom the system has given up on. Another related fear stems from the specter of the "white academies" that sprang up in the South as a way around civil rights legislation of the 1960s, noted Harris. Those schools used tax dollars to run segregated schools that were later ruled illegal by the courts.

As policymakers consider charter schools legislation in coming months, attention must be paid to the impact of charter schools on all populations of students. Laws in some states require that a percentage of charter schools be targeted at disadvantaged students, Mulholland said. If a state has a desegregation plan, charter schools must abide by it. If there is no plan, charter schools must reflect the composition of the area in which they operate. But many questions remain unanswered. For example, what are the equity implications of a new alternative school in Umatilla, Oregon, that is open to everyone, but has an American Indian emphasis?

Thomas predicted a "major desegregation case" will arise in the charter arena. "Is it legal to choose to send your kid to a segregated school?" he asked.

"The desegregation centers," added Harris, "are very concerned about charter schools and their impact on desegregation. Charter schools open up a can of worms with respect to equity. Let's face it—you're going to end up with charter schools that are racially isolated."

Opposition. Because charter schools often are freed from collective bargaining agreements between teachers and districts, teachers' unions have been among their most vocal opponents. While it appears that national teachers' organizations have swung to a more supportive stance in recent months, even launching several experimental charter schools of their own, many local teachers' groups continue to resist, Thomas noted.

"Dealing with the unions will be the key to future legislation in Montana," said Bob Anderson of the Montana School Boards Association. "The collective bargaining issues haven't been resolved."

Charter schools typically are not required to hire state-certified teachers, a trend that concerns teachers' unions.

A survey in Washington state found that parents' deepest educational concerns were high standards, not only for students but also for teachers, reported Lee Ann Prielipp of the Washington Education Association. To make sure parental and community concerns are addressed, the decision about certification among charter school teachers should be made locally, Prielipp insisted. And teachers' associations should be brought into the process at the beginning, when laws are being drafted and policies are being set. Prielipp observed that most states have skirted around the unions, telling them, "This is what's going to happen to you" after laws have been made. She attributes teachers' defensive stance toward charters to their being excluded from the process.

In Idaho, lawmakers pulled in the state teachers' association in the early stages of drawing up a charter school bill, said Tilman. "We sat down with the union, and they said they wouldn't fight charter schools," said Tilman. "You need to try to bring people on board instead of driving your stake in the ground and saying, 'Let's see how far you can pull it out.'"

Concluded Tilman: "Talk to everyone—the education association, the school boards association, etcetera. Bring all the players together to find out what makes sense in your state."

Thomas argued that charter school teachers should be able to join the professional association yet remain separate from collective bargaining if they wish. "Because teachers are running the charter school, they don't need collective bargaining," he observed.

To ensure that charter schools attract good teachers, they could offer employment guarantees, such as retaining tenure and seniority, for a five-year period, Thomas suggested. Tilman countered that a teacher's move from a traditional public school to a charter school should be treated no differently than a move from one district to another: Tenure and seniority are lost. The concern that good teachers won't make the switch to charter schools without employment guarantees is unfounded in actual practice, where many teachers readily give up district perks for the chance to create a new school from the ground up.

Start-Up Issues. Studies have found that getting start-up funds is the biggest challenge facing new charter schools. Charter school founders often lack the business savvy to keep the financial side running smoothly. Thomas estimates that charter schools need $1,000 per student "just to open the doors." Some states have set aside funds for new charters. Arizona, for instance, has a $1 million pot for stimulus grants, Mulholland reported. Responding to the Clinton administration's strong support for charter schools, Congress has allocated $51 million for planning and implementation grants for 1997. Some charter schools have been successful in securing foundation grants for start-up costs. But many charter school founders have dug into their own pockets.

"We spent $8,000 of our own money to pay for lawyers, inspectors, and other start-up costs," said Austin of Chinook Charter School. "We did it because we had a passion about what we wanted to do."

Money isn't the only hurdle facing new charter schools. Founders should expect "about a year of early management problems," said Thomas. He cites stress, burn-out, friction between parents and teachers, and staff discord as among the problems that can plague new schools. (See Thomas' start-up guide.)

"I don't even know how to describe the pressure," Austin said. "It's like being a juggler; you have to keep 87 plates up at the same time."

States should minimize the hoops and hurdles schools have to negotiate in order to open, Gottstein stressed. Noting that Alaskan charter school founders must "work incredible hours and overcome many things to get their charter passed," Gottstein said that start-up problems should not be "the thing that kills" new schools. "Don't set them up for failure," he urged.

Funding formulas—how much of the state's per-pupil allocation charter schools should get—are another policy question that lawmakers and educators must hammer out. Gottstein was adamant when he said 100 percent of the per-pupil dollars going to government-run schools should follow students who enroll in charter schools. "You shouldn't have to choose less funding in order to get choice," he asserted, noting that in Alaska, charter schools receive on the average $2,000 less per student than government-run schools receive.

Other issues confronting new charter schools include what legal business entity to adopt (for example, a corporation, a cooperative, or a nonprofit), who should manage the money, and who has overall authority (an "egomaniac" is not the best person to run a school, Thomas noted).

"We are compelled as a public entity to provide choice for families," Gottstein said at the symposium's close. "The charter schools law is our single best opportunity to keep people within the public schools."

Participant Jean Ameluxen of the Washington state education agency stressed the "enormous importance of civil discourse" in education reform generally, and in the charter schools movement in particular.

"There is no one way to teach a child," she noted at the symposium's close. "There is no one way to do charter schools. Nobody should say this is the right way, and this is the wrong way. They're all right ways if they result in improved learning for children."

RESOURCE NOTES: Much of the above discussion was excerpted from Charter Schools at the Crossroads: A Northwest Perspective, the proceedings report of the Northwest Symposium for Charter School Policy, sponsored by NWREL in November. Details and ordering information.

A Northwest Snapshot. Participants in the Northwest Symposium for Charter School Policy shared the history and current status of charter schools in their states.

Alaska. The Alaska Legislature adopted a charter schools law in 1995. Three charter schools, two in remote areas and one in Fairbanks, got up and running the first year. All three are small, with between 25 and 75 students. The Chinook Charter School in Fairbanks, founded by Terri Austin and three fellow teachers, emphasizes parent involvement and student choice for its K-8 student body. A $2.3 million federal planning and implementation grant will support start-up efforts around the state through 1998. Because typical Alaska residents live in isolated villages separated by hundreds of miles of wilderness, boarding schools should be part of the charter schools equation there, said Robert Gottstein of the State Board of Education.

Idaho. State Representative Fred Tilman of Idaho sponsored charter schools legislation in his state in 1994, 1995, and 1996. After passing in the House, the bill was defeated in the Senate each session. Tilman favors a law with minimal strings and restrictions to ensure maximum freedom for charter schools. His opponents have included the Idaho PTA and the state school boards association. Meanwhile, as "a challenge to all public schools to improve student performance with no rules in the way," the state recently passed a law that eliminated all state education rules and regulations for two years, according to Tilman. Educators will then decide which rules should be reinstated and which ones eliminated.

Montana. Montana's experience with charter schools legislation was a reversal of Idaho's. While in Idaho the state school boards association opposed the charter bill, in Montana the school boards association not only supported, but actually sponsored, the bill proposed in 1996. Of 400 members, only 10 opposed the bill, according to Robert Anderson of the Montana School Boards Association, who noted that in many states, school boards can be a roadblock to charter schools. And in Montana—a rural state with 90 one-room schoolhouses and nearly 150 districts with no administrators—the teachers' union was the major opponent of the legislation, according to Anderson. In contrast, Idaho's teachers' union stayed out of the fray. Montana's charter schools bill failed in the House.

Oregon. A 1995 charter schools bill introduced in the Oregon Legislature was defeated in the Senate. That same year, a petition drive sponsored by the Center for Educational Change to put a charter schools measure on the ballot through a citizens' initiative failed to gather enough signatures to qualify. Charter schools bills will be introduced in 1997 by the Oregon School Boards Association and Associated Oregon Industries. Meanwhile, even without a formal charter schools law, the state will receive $1.3 million in federal charter schools funds for planning, implementation, and capacity-building grants statewide for 1996, 1997, and 1998. Oregon qualified for the federal grants under its reform laws and its alternative schools program, which allows teachers and parents to design educational programs and apply for waivers of certain state rules and regulations.

Washington. Although Washington has no charter schools bill on the books, statewide school reform laws allow for the creation of charterlike schools, according to Lee Ann Prielipp of the Washington Education Association. Under existing laws, waivers of state regulations are available, alternative schools may be created, accountability is mandated, and open enrollment allows any student to attend any school in the state. In 1996, Washington voters defeated a bill that would have allowed state dollars to be funneled to independently operated schools. While its sponsors called it a variation on a charter schools bill, opponents, including the Washington Education Association, argued that the bill lacked the basic ingredient of a true charter school: a binding contract ("charter") between the school and its sponsor that would ensure accountability. Meanwhile, the state education department is looking at providing technical assistance to districts that want to start charter schools, according to Jean Ameluxen. In 1997 legislators will consider several charter schools bills being drafted by the Senate, the House, and the Business Roundtable.

Wyoming. Although Wyoming has a charter schools law on the books, the charter schools movement has not yet taken hold in the state, according to Roger Hammer of the state education department. "There's not a whole lot of demand for charter schools," Hammer noted. While no charters currently exist, there are a number of "schools of choice" and alternative schools in the largest 10 of the state's 49 districts. The state's vast, thinly populated rural areas may spawn "regional charters," which could pull students from a 30- to 40-mile radius in remote areas, Hammer predicted.

A Guide for Organizing and Assisting Charter Schools (New school start-ups)

Phase1: Organizing and obtaining charter (minimum of 1 year)	Process Steps Recruit planners. The planning group should include a cross section of teachers, community leaders, parents of prospective students, representatives from business, prospective students, and experienced charter school specialists, if possible. Develop the scope, purpose, and description of the school. The corporation and its planners should spend at least six months of regular (weekly) meetings on this phase, which should include the development of the letter of intent required by most laws and the larger design plan for the school. Negotiate further partnerships to support planning and development. Identify potential sponsors. Begin to work with other educational agencies, such as postsecondary institutions. Define the role of various organizations and establish the legal entity of the charter school group (for example, nonprofit corporation, cooperative, private enterprise). Prepare a time line. Provide information and publicity, both formally and informally. Request sponsorship and prepare all documentation as required. Receive sponsorship and authorization. Budget for Phase 1: $5,000 to $10,000
Phase 2: Planning for start-up (6-12 months)	Process Steps Identify and convene a "design team," including members of the original planning team and educational design professionals. Visit and confer with other charter schools and charter school organizers. Further develop the design plan. Provide leadership in the development of curriculum, assessment, and evaluation. Provide leadership in the organizational structure and governance of the school. Locate and secure facilities and capital equipment. Initiate provisions and procedures for school funding. Develop a financial management operations system or explore contract to do so. Develop a marketing plan for public information and recruitment of parents and students. Continue to develop outside resources and further partnerships. Recruit and hire appropriate staff. Purchase technology, supplies, and equipment. Budget for Phase 2: $1,000 per student (from other sources)
Phase 3: Start-up (1st year of operation)	Considerations Secure additional funding and pursue further partnerships. Manage media and information dissemination. Implement assessment and evaluation procedures. Continue planning and development work with committees and design team. Assist with communication between parents, staff, agencies, and sponsor. Assist with developing problems and start-up difficulties. Work with newly elected governance body. Assist in planning for expansion if appropriate. Phase 3 Budget: $300 per student in addition to per-pupil revenue

Source: Douglas Thomas, Center for School Change, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute, University of Minnesota.

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