The ‘charter school’ model could help our most needy students

Australia should consider following the lead of the US and introduce privately managed but publicly funded “charter schools”. There is good evidence to suggest they can be beneficial, especially for disadvantaged students, writes Jennifer Buckingham.

There are thousands of low achieving students concentrated in chronically low performing public schools around Australia.

There has been little progress in reducing the proportions of children failing to achieve national minimum standards in literacy and numeracy, despite large increases in funding and resources over many years.

Governments have implemented numerous programs aimed at improving the quality of education but in some cases, transformation will require dramatic change that is beyond the parameters of governments.

A new approach is required where schools have persistently failed and where there is demand for alternatives to traditional public schools.

A number of countries around the world have introduced “charter schools” or “free schools” – privately managed public schools – to bring about this transformation by extending school autonomy and school choice within the public school sector.

In the United States, where charter schools have existed for more than two decades, there is good evidence to suggest they can be beneficial, especially for disadvantaged students.

Charter schools combine public funding with private management. They operate under a charter, or contract, with the government. Charter schools can be new schools or conversions of traditional public schools. They are public schools insofar as they cannot charge fees and cannot have selective enrolment. But they have more freedom than traditional public schools in employment, curriculum and school operations.

Not all of the more than 5000 charter schools in the US are effective. Although on average across the US, there are small positive impacts of attendance at a charter school, this masks enormous variation in quality. Some charter schools are mediocre and some are extraordinary. The pertinent question is not so muchwhether charter schools are beneficial but rather which charter schools are beneficial, and why.

The charter schools with the highest impacts on student achievement in the United States are those that have used their additional freedoms judiciously to selectively recruit outstanding teachers (and pay them more), have extended school days to allow more time for mastery of the curriculum, and choose teaching programs that are different to those mandated in traditional public schools.

High impact charter schools tend to take a “no excuses” approach to education – high expectations of both students and teachers for academic performance and behaviour – and are closing racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps as a result.

There are a number of charter school networks such as Aspire Public Schools, which have close to 100 per cent of their graduates enrolling in college.

More recently, England has adopted similar reforms that they call free schools (new schools) and academies (converted state schools). Free schools have similar levels of autonomy to charter schools.

While free schools are too new to have provided evidence of impact on the broad scale of that available on US charter schools, initial reports and investigations are promising and positive. Schools that have converted to academy status have been found to have strong improvements in inspection ratings and exam results. Networks of free schools and academies provide efficiencies, supports and economies of scale.

Other countries such as Sweden, Chile and New Zealand have implemented similar policies, with varying degrees of success. Their experiences are also instructive.

In Sweden, accountability has not been as strong as might be considered ideal, and Chile allowed schools to charge fees. Both of these policy features have influenced educational outcomes.

New Zealand’s partnership schools more closely resemble charter schools, with nine schools opening since 2014.

State governments in Australia interested in the charter school model have a wealth of detailed information to draw on from the successes and failures of charter schools and free schools overseas. Much of the heavy lifting in terms of policy development has been done in these countries.

One of the most important lessons is that the nature of the governance arrangements is critical. Charter schools have been most successful where the freedoms extended to charter schools have been accompanied by rigorous accountability for results.

With longstanding established regulatory and funding arrangements for non-government schools, Australia already has a framework of governance, funding and accountability that could provide the foundations for charter school policies.

The opportunities afforded by autonomy and choice are widely acknowledged. Autonomy does not guarantee success – it provides the opportunity for exceptional school leaders and teachers to apply their skills and knowledge to the best of their capabilities. Charter schools take this autonomy to a new level.

As schools of choice within the public school sector, they combine innovation with responsibility and accountability, and if lessons from other countries are carefully heeded, could deliver a much-needed boost to public education.

Dr Jennifer Buckingham is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies and co-author of the report Free to Choose Charter Schools: How charter and for-profit schools could boost public education.