Laws Governing Charter Schools Is Flawed, Union Study Says

Dissatisfaction with public schools and their bureaucracies has spawned 226 charter schools in 25 states over the last five years, with California leading the pack. But the laws governing the experimental schools have some serious flaws that may undercut the effectiveness of the burgeoning reform effort, a national study says.

The report by the American Federation of Teachers, released here Saturday at the union’s annual convention, found that many states fail to hold charter schools to the same standards as other public schools and do not require the collection of test scores and other information that would enable the public to judge their quality.

California was cited as one of only six states that require charter schools to meet state standards on curriculum. The state’s 4-year-old charter school law also requires the schools to participate in the state testing program.

But the report from the 900,000-member teachers union faults California and other states for allowing charter campuses to hire uncertified teachers and operate outside of collective bargaining rules.

“The lack of common standards, baseline data and requirements for teacher certification and bargaining rights is highly problematic,” said union President Albert Shanker, an early supporter of charter schools.

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“These things can be fixed, however, and states that want to give charter schools a serious shot at success should fix them.”

The report is likely to stir debate in the charter school movement, described by some analysts as a precarious amalgamation of reformers with diverse interests--some wanting to escape the public school system and others aiming to reinvigorate it.

Charter schools are semi-autonomous public schools operated under contract from a public agency--usually a school district--by groups of parents, teachers, administrators or others who want to offer an alternative to the local public schools.

The charter program has been hailed by parents and politicians for expanding choice and encouraging innovation by freeing schools from administrative red tape. In California, almost 40,000 students are enrolled in 112 charter schools.

The AFT--like its larger rival, the 2-million-strong National Education Assn.--has endorsed charter schools as a way to restructure public education by removing burdensome and unnecessary rules that stifle experimentation.

But state and local teachers unions have frequently resisted the charter movement, in part because they fear that allowing charter teachers to be exempt from collective bargaining agreements could lead to a deterioration in working conditions and wages for all teachers.

But what the AFT identifies as problems in the legislation that gave birth to the independent schools are viewed by supporters as strengths. Some charter school advocates say, for instance, that collective bargaining inhibits innovation.

For the union to fault California’s law for failing to require collective bargaining for charter school employees is “extremely self-serving,” said Roger Magyar, education consultant for the California Assembly’s Republican caucus.

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“One of the strengths of the law in California is it gives schools the freedom to determine how they will organize, the personnel who will be hired, and the relationship between those personnel and charter-school management,” he said. “It was deliberately decided that collective bargaining would not be required.”

The California Teachers Assn. helped defeat recent legislation that would have expanded the number of charter schools allowed in the state. The association says it supports the concept of charter schools but favors restricting their growth until there is proof that they can improve student achievement.

The AFT’s Shanker said “innovation for improved student achievement” should be the main goal of charter schools. But the study found that eight states do not require charter school students to take the same achievement tests as other public school pupils, making it impossible to compare their performances.

The union also found that 17 of the 25 states with charter schools do not require that teachers be certified. The group says that certification, although not a guarantee of teacher quality, helps to ensure at least minimum competency.

Some charter school advocates say that certification is not an issue because the vast majority of charter school teachers do hold the required state credentials. In California, no firm numbers exist on the number of charter school teachers who are state-certified, but an official for the state Department of Education says the figure is at least 75%.

More controversial are the AFT’s push for collective bargaining and its insistence that charter contracts have the approval of local school districts.

The union says that without the requirement of district sponsorship, charter schools would exist in isolation and not drive systemwide improvements.

California is one of several states that requires local district approval of charters. But that provision is spurring growing dissatisfaction among some charter school proponents who believe that districts should not monopolize the authority to grant charters.

“If you don’t have a supportive district, you will never see charter schools,” said Yvonne Chan, who has won several high-profile battles for independence and financial autonomy as principal of Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Pacoima, a Los Angeles Unified campus that achieved charter status in 1993.

The AFT report also found that the charter laws in 15 states prevent, restrict or are silent on collective bargaining rights for charter school employees. Joan Buckley, the union’s associate director of educational issues, said charter school staffs need to have the same protections as employees in other public schools. She also maintained that union rules do not inhibit experimentation, a charge frequently leveled by union critics.

Johnathan Williams, co-director of the Accelerated Charter School in South-Central Los Angeles, is one who would not want to see collective bargaining rules imposed on charter schools. His campus--similar to an old one-room schoolhouse, with 52 students in kindergarten through fourth grades--is the only one of Los Angeles Unified’s 13 charter campuses to opt out of the district’s collective bargaining agreement with United Teachers-Los Angeles.

The school’s charter contract sets out wages and other working conditions for its small staff that are competitive with those in other district schools, Williams said. But it also gives the school the flexibility to tie the evaluation and pay of teachers to student achievement, a measure traditionally opposed by teachers unions.

“We have total freedom,” said Williams, who had been a union representative as a teacher. “We are interested in teaching becoming more professionalized . . . and outcome based, not wage-based.”

These disagreements are typical of the charter school debate today, said Amy Stuart Wells, a UCLA education professor who is studying the new schools.

“This is a very ill-defined movement right now,” she said. “People are struggling to define it. The AFT focus is symbolic of how you have these strange bedfellows sitting on the same bandwagon and trying to figure out which way to go.”