EdVANTAGE Blog

In a conference call with reporters on Monday, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan warned that some states will be handicapped in the competition to win a share of $5 billion in federal “Race to the Top” funds because of state laws capping how many charter schools may operate and restricting the use of student test results in teacher evaluation.

New York was among the states Secretary singled out on both scores.  He is off-target on both criticisms.

The Race to the Top funds are the largest one-time infusion of federal aid to education in history and are intended to promote school innovation and systemic improvement.

Secretary Duncan said “Believe it or not, several states, including New York, Wisconsin and California, have laws that create a firewall between student and teacher data.”

At least in the case of New York, that is a gross overstatement.

To resolve a bitter dispute last year over the use of student test data in tenure decisions in New York City, the state enacted a law which, among other provisions, declares that a teacher “shall not be granted or denied tenure based on student performance data.”  This does not preclude a district from using student data for other teacher evaluation purposes.

Also, the Council’s interpretation is that districts may use student data in tenure evaluation, so long as it is not a determining factor.  For example, a district could use student performance data to trigger more careful review of a teacher by other means.

So Secretary Duncan’s characterization overstates the impact of the 2008 tenure law — which expires next year in any event.

Previously, Mr. Duncan served as CEO of the Chicago Public Schools.  In that role he said he didn’t believe Washington had all the answers and now that he is in Washington he has said he is even more sure that it doesn’t.  But his charter school comments run counter to that professed wisdom.

Presumably, federal authorities aren’t only concerned about the quantity of charter schools in a state, but also their quality.  A cap is one way to promote quality.  With a limited number of charters to hand-out, chartering entities should be more focused on ensuring that those they do grant do succeed.

Also, hopefully federal authorities would be concerned not merely with the quantity or quality of charter schools in a state, but how they affect the quality and capacity of its education system overall.  Here it is worth recognizing that the role and impact of charter schools differs across school systems.  Doing so points toward compromises between cap or no cap.

New York’s current charter school funding mechanism virtually ensures an adversarial relationship between school districts and charter schools.  Essentially every public dollar of operating support going into a charter school comes out of a district school.  The state does provide “Charter School Transition Aid,” but it is limited and temporary.

In addition to the immediate and tangible financial impact charter schools impose on school districts, New York’s structure also puts a constant potential financial threat over the heads of school districts.

Even as districts turn over state and local tax support to charter schools for each student they enroll, districts are also effectively expected to continuously maintain the capacity to reabsorb students who abandon charter schools, or are abandoned by them.

Both the immediate and potential financial impacts are much easier to accommodate for a huge district, such as New York City.  So the Council has supported exempting charters approved by New York City from a cap.

We’ve also gone further, saying that charters endorsed by any local district should be exempt, since that endorsement would presumably signal acceptance of the financial consequences of the charter school on the district.

Finally, a cap on the number of charter schools to be authorized also helps protect districts from the financial threat of having to reabsorb charter school students, since it should spur chartering entities to do everything they can to guarantee that the schools they approve do succeed.