THE CURRENT WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2007

VIEWPOINT
Charter schools need reform strategy, too

MAI ABDUL RAHMAN
Currently, D.C. has the largest percentage of public school students attending city charter schools in the entire nation. In next year’s budget, Mayor Adrian Fenty has proposed a funding increase well beyond the charter schools’ expectations. His budget projects an increase in attendance in excess of the D.C. Public Charter Board’s projections. This may very well be the case since the mayor’s school takeover plans have parents and teachers anxious and uncertain and may ultimately drive a greater number of D.C. Public Schools parents to charter schools.
Parents view public charter schools as an alternative with smaller class sizes, smaller and more manageable schools and extra services.
They are attracted by charter school governance that claims to encourage innovative and creative programming. But so far, most charter schools have yet to deliver on their promise.
Students attending charter schools still face many of the same issues they faced in their neighborhood schools. One charter parent told me: “Charter schools are spawned from the same system to serve the same population. So, it is no wonder that the same issues that plague our public schools are also present in most of the charter schools.” Most parents I speak with say they would keep their children in the District’s public schools once serious efforts have been put in place to reform neighborhood schools.
Charter schools are for the most part unaccredited; many are housed in cramped or inadequate facilities and lack administrative and financial systems, well defined standards, remedial services or consistent supervision. Charter teachers are often ill-equipped to deal with their students and overwhelmed by their needs.
I have spoken to countless parents who admit their disappointment with charter schools. Promised remedial services seldom materialize, and support for the neediest children is often lacking. In one school, more than 50 percent of the students received letters asking them to leave the school or repeat a grade and acknowledging that administrators’ promise of support for the same students never came through.
Meanwhile, local neighborhood schools, including Deal Junior High, have been overwhelmed by students returning midyear from nearby charter schools, crowding their classrooms and straining their resources. The public funds allotted for these returning students stay at their old charter schools; there is no added funding provided to the schools that must accept the returnees.
So far, D.C.’s charter schools are nonprofits, but if more schools open, we will see publicly funded schools that follow a rigid business model that encourages cuts in the classroom for the sake of investors.
We need comprehensive reform for all our schools. Both charter and non-charter school systems must be accountable. Accountability requires that both systems are open and transparent, with yearly business and financial audits, measurable outcomes, long-term strategic reforms, benchmarks, engaged parents and a supportive community.
Both school systems are publicly funded, and both, with a few exceptions, have produced poor outcomes. Our charter schools need an overall reform strategy that will produce the quality education that parents, residents and our politicians demand of public schools. We must insist that all publicly funded schools deliver the quality education that our children need and deserve so they will be able to compete in the 21st century.
Mai Abdul Rahman, a candidate for the D.C. Board
of Education in District II, has children attending traditional D.C. public schools and D.C. charter schools.

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