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Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
I am pleased to appear before you today to discuss charter schools. Charter schools are a promising vehicle for raising academic standards, empowering educators, involving parents and communities, and expanding choice and accountability in public education. They are one component of our effort to bring to families a full range of public school options -- including choice among existing public schools, schools-within-schools, magnet schools, and public charter schools -- so parents can select the type of school and program best suited to help their children reach high academic standards.
Today, over 400 charter schools operate across the country -- up from just 250 last year. And all indicators suggest that growth will continue to be strong. President Clinton and Secretary Riley strongly support charter schools -- done right -- as one dynamic element in an overall education reform package to improve public schools.
First and foremost, charter schools are public schools. They are non-sectarian, do not charge tuition, and abide by the civil rights, health, and safety laws that apply to all public schools. A second defining feature of charter schools is their relative autonomy. While the degree of independence afforded charter schools varies from State to State, charter schools operate relatively independently from school districts and are free from many education rules and regulations. In return for this flexibility, charter schools are accountable to public authorities for results. The public agency that authorizes the charter, along with the charter school?s developers, agree on the student performance standards that become part of the charter. The public agency renews a school?s charter only if the school has demonstrated adequate performance. So charter schools continue to operate only if they meet the performance standards and other conditions of their charter, and if they can attract students and their families to the school. After all, charter schools are schools of choice within the public school system. Teachers, administrators, parents, and students choose to be part of the charter school. Charter schools are truly grassroots initiatives -- designed by committed parents, teachers, museums, universities, and other community members to meet the needs of the local community.
This is the vision of charter schools that has attracted such widespread support, including from this Administration.
The Administration supports charter schools because we believe that they have the potential to help strengthen the ability of our nation?s public education system to provide a high-quality, free public education for all children regardless of ability or background. First, we know that one size does not fit all in helping children reach high standards, and charter schools can provide the flexibility and variety of choices to make this premise real. Second, charter schools can provide one important vehicle for all citizens to channel their commitment, time, and talent into improving public schools. Third, charter schools can become models of innovative and effective approaches to public schooling, as well as models for providing more autonomy to public schools that are held accountable for results.
The first principle is high standards. Charter schools should be seen as vehicles for trying different ways to help our children reach high academic standards. Benchmarks and assessments -- including progress toward challenging academic standards -- will help measure student achievement and enable charter-granting authorities to thoroughly review a school?s progress toward meeting the performance goals established in its charter and hold it accountable for performance. Of course, the school should also be using these tools to determine how it is doing and use this information to continually improve the education it provides.
Another important principle is equity. The charter school movement is not a reform worth having if the children who most urgently need a better education are left behind. Sufficiently diverse and high-quality choices among charter schools, and genuine opportunities to take advantage of those choices, must be available to all students. Admission to charter schools must truly be open and accessible to all students, regardless of race, sex, national origin, disability, or religion. Legislators, chartering authorities, and charter school developers should take steps to ensure that such things as the absence of a free and reduced-price lunch program, or a specialized curriculum of a school, do not preclude certain students from attending. The Federal Charter Schools grant program, which I will discuss in greater detail later, requires that charter schools admit students on the basis of a lottery, if more students apply for admission than can be accommodated. This is a very important provision of the law, but we also need to be aware of charter schools? outreach efforts and recruitment practices to ensure that all students and their parents have the information needed to make good decisions on whether to attend a charter school or another public school.
Charter schools must also be characterized by sound management, to ensure that taxpayer dollars are well spent. I have heard many people who are involved with charter schools at the local level say that charter school operators face many of the same challenges encountered by small businesses. These include: securing capital, acquiring and maintaining facilities, establishing accounting systems, and overseeing service contracts. Many educators readily admit that they do not have experience in these areas, so we need to do our best to help charter schools become well-run institutions.
Additionally, we believe that it is important that charter schools not exist in isolation from other public schools. Lessons learned should be shared widely and used to strengthen public education overall, so that all schools and all students can benefit.
The final principle is accountability. These schools can truly set a model for holding public schools accountable. This movement needs to be about expanding -- not diminishing -- accountability in public education. Careful use of the "charter" can hold these public schools accountable for meeting challenging State academic standards and other measures of student performance, for being faithful to the terms of the charter, and for abiding by public laws -- especially those laws relating to equitable access of all children to these schools.
There are some critical strategies for ensuring this accountability for charter schools, and I would welcome discussion with committee members about how to help States, school districts, and schools do this well. First, these schools must be approved and overseen by public agencies authorized by State law; these are public schools that need to have clear lines of accountability to public agencies.
Second, charters should be given out for a limited number of years to applicants that show a real promise in helping students reach high academic standards. Clear processes of review, renewal, and revocation need to be in place to be sure that charter schools keep their charters only as long as they are doing a good job. Any organization with the authority to approve a charter school must take this responsibility especially seriously, undertaking a very careful review of the education and management plan of any applicant. After all, it is easier to weed out bad applications than bad schools.
Third, all of us need to emphasize the principle of public accountability as we move forward on charter schools, making sure that charter schools are a vehicle for helping children learn the basics and make progress toward challenging academic standards.
We must take seriously these principles of high standards, equity, sound management, strengthening public education, and accountability, and look carefully at how to ensure that these principles inform the development of charter schools nationwide.
We know that charter schools tend to be small. While there are a few charter schools that have enrollments of more than a thousand students, most are much smaller, with more than half enrolling fewer than 200 students. Less than 20 percent of other public schools have such small student bodies. The majority of charter schools are new. About 60 percent were started "from scratch"; the remainder were pre-existing public or private schools that converted to charter status. In addition, most charter schools have racial compositions roughly proportionate to statewide averages for public schools, or have a higher proportion of students of color. However, charter schools serve, with exceptions in a few States, a slightly lower proportion of students with disabilities and students with limited English proficiency than the regular public schools.
We have also learned that nearly all charter schools have had to overcome obstacles during development and implementation. By far the most frequently cited barrier to creating charter schools is a lack of start-up funds, followed by a lack of planning time, inadequate operating funds, and inadequate facilities. Fortunately, as I will discuss later, the Federal grant program can assist charter schools in each of their top areas of concern.
The Department?s four-year, comprehensive study of charter schools -- now in its second year -- is helping us to understand the diverse nature of charter schools. The study?s initial report, which will be released later this month, will contain data from a survey of all charter schools operating last spring. Because the survey of charter schools will be updated each year of our study, data from more schools in more States will be available in the future, thereby giving us an even clearer understanding of charter schools across the country. In addition to this broad look at charter schools, the study will also examine a sample of charter schools and how they work. This examination will include analysis of student achievement using a stratified sample of charter schools and comparison schools. Achievement data from the charter schools will be collected over a two-year period and compared to national norms and to data from the comparison schools.
One proven charter school is the O?Farrell Community School in San Diego. O?Farrell is a middle school with an enrollment of nearly 1400 6-8th grade students. More than two thirds of these students come from families eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. Approximately 36 percent are African American, 37 percent Filipino American, 16 percent Hispanic American, 4 percent Asian American, and 8 percent white. Baseline test data in 1992 showed O?Farrell students to be slightly below district means in reading, language arts, and mathematics.
The school is divided into Educational Families of approximately 150 students and 6 teachers. The school?s structure, curriculum (comprised of interdisciplinary, thematic units), shared governance, student and family advocacy, reduced class size, and extensive use of technology have won it national recognition as a "beacon" reform school. An evaluation completed in 1992 by San Diego City Schools concluded that: O?Farrell teachers have been empowered through shared decision-making, and that this empowerment has resulted in a greater sense of belief in themselves and in their students? abilities; and, its parents had strong positive perceptions of the teachers and the effectiveness of the school.
A more recent study by San Diego City Schools, completed in December, 1996, examined course enrollment, grades, and standardized test data for O?Farrell graduates in the tenth grade compared to other students enrolled in the tenth grade at the same high school. The study concluded that O?Farrell students are enrolled in more rigorous and advanced courses when compared to same-grade students from other middle schools; are performing at higher levels within those courses, as demonstrated by letter grade distributions; and score higher on district standardized tests.
Another successful charter school is the New Visions Charter School in Minneapolis. This school serves about 100 children in grades 1-8 who have reading and learning delays. Full spectrum lighting, plants, and birds or animals can be found in nearly every room. Students do regular academic work in their classrooms, plus spend at least an hour a day in the "brain games" room to further develop hand-eye coordination and other skills essential to reading. Some students also use on-site developmental optometry and neuro feedback clinics. A first-year evaluation showed that New Visions students made an average gain of one year and five months on one standardized reading test, and one year and one month on another. Other Minnesota public schools, and an entire school district in Drexel, North Carolina have learned to use New Vision?s methods involving visual, auditory, and sensory stimulation to replicate similar reading gains for their students.
These examples help to illustrate the potential of the charter school approach -- they can be an important part of reforming and strengthening public education.
Our support for charter schools that embody these principles must be made clear through the continued growth of the Federal Charter Schools program. Since fiscal year 1995, the Federal Government has supported the planning and initial implementation of charter schools through the Public Charter Schools program. With bipartisan support, funding climbed from $6 million in 1995 to almost $51 million in 1997. Because of the promise of charter schools as a mechanism for educational reform and expansion of public school choice, the President has requested an increase to $100 million for fiscal year 1998.
The Federal program merits this increase. First, the program is very flexible and accommodates a broad variety of State charter school laws that meet the principles I have outlined above. We strongly believe that it is the State?s role to determine what type of charter school law to adopt. If a State chooses not to apply for Federal funds or its application for funding is not approved, the Department can make awards directly to eligible charter schools in that State. Since the program?s inception, the Department has awarded grants to 21 States that have, in turn, made subgrants to charter schools. We have also awarded funds directly to three charter schools in New Mexico because the State did not apply for funding. Based on information provided to us by the States, we estimate that during the first two years of funding for this program we will support close to 500 charter schools.
Second, surveys show that the most significant barrier to the development of charter schools is lack of start-up funding. The Federal program was designed precisely to address this need. Many charter schools that received subgrants of Federal funds used these funds to develop and implement curriculum, to provide professional development opportunities for staff, to purchase equipment, or to prepare school sites and facilities. For example, several Arizona schools that received subgrants of Federal funds used these resources to make sure that their facilities met health, safety, and fire codes, and were accessible for persons with disabilities. In addition to using Federal funds to defray initial start-up costs, charter schools in Massachusetts have used a portion of their subgrants to develop school-specific performance indicators and accountability plans. A charter school in Colorado used its subgrant to develop interdisciplinary assessments that measure its students? progress toward achieving Colorado?s academic standards.
Third, demand is rising quickly for both new charter schools and start-up funding. Between 1991 and 1994, 12 States passed charter schools laws. In the past two years, an additional 13 States plus the District of Columbia adopted charter legislation. The number of charter schools is expected to continue growing rapidly over the next few years. More States will adopt legislation, States with recently-adopted laws will begin to implement their programs, and States that have had laws on the books for some years may begin to reconsider restrictions on the number of charter schools permitted.
In addition, during the first 2 years of the Federal program, some States requested much larger grants than the Department could award given available funding. As a result, States had to reduce the size of subgrants as well as the number of charter schools that would benefit from Federal support. With $100 million, Federal funds will support planning and initial implementation of as many as 1,100 charter schools, serving about 300,000 students by the 1999-2000 school year. The average size of the subgrant is also likely to be higher -- around $80,000 to $100,000 -- than the current $35,000 per school, so that, in addition to creating more schools, Federal funds will facilitate the start-up and development of high-quality schools.
It is critical to emphasize that we see these start-up grants as not only boosting the quantity of charter schools, but the quality of these schools as well. Support for high-quality planning and initial start-up costs can make an enormous difference in getting a charter school up and running effectively.
In order to improve our understanding of charter schools, it is imperative that we continue to support high-quality research. This is why we are continuing to support the four-year study that I described. This year, we will also support research in the key areas of equity, special education, finance, and accountability.
Finally, we must disseminate information about charter schools to raise awareness among potential charter school developers and support new and existing charter schools. The Department is funding a number of information dissemination activities with these important goals in mind. For example, we are providing opportunities for States with new charter laws, and those with laws with no with no Federal grants and little charter activity within their State, to conduct statewide informational meetings to encourage interest and understanding. We are also developing a charter school web site that includes reports, newsletters, legislation, and other technical assistance materials that will help charter school developers, operators, and sponsors.
We have offered technical assistance workshops for charter schools developers to help them consider effective curriculum models, set up accountability measures, and explore the business end of starting a charter school. Elected officials from states considering passing charter school legislation have also received training.
Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working with you and other members of this Committee in a bipartisan fashion to promote support for and understanding of charter schools. This concludes my prepared remarks. My colleagues and I would be happy to respond to any questions you may have.
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