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The Dirty Dozen: How Charter Schools Influence Student Enrollmentby Kevin G. Welner � April 22, 2013 This commentary offers a classification of twelve different approaches that charter schools use to structure their student enrollment. These practices impact the likelihood of students enrolling with a given set of characteristics, be it higher (or lower) test scores, students with �expensive� disabilities, English learners, students of color, or students in poverty.
Informed discussions of whether charter schools
are successful include considerations of student differences between
different schools. We address “selection bias,” “attrition bias” and the
like because measured outcomes are undoubtedly affected by inputs.
Charter schools tend to have fewer students with disabilities, fewer
English learners, and a less poor population of students than their
surrounding public schools (Frankenberg, Siegel-Hawley, and Wang, 2010;
Miron, et al., 2010; U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2012).
In fact, the patterns are particularly stark
when we realize that such at-risk students are disproportionately
enrolled in a small subset of “mission-oriented” charters – those
dedicated to serving a particular type of at-risk student. For instance,
the “majority of charter school students with severe disabilities [in
Florida] are concentrated in a handful of schools that specialize in
those disabilities….” (O’Connor, J., & Gonzalez, 2011; see also
Miron, et al. [2010] for a national picture). This leaves the remaining
charters serving even fewer at-risk children.
Yet little attention has been paid to the
mechanisms that generate these differences. One exception is an article
in February of 2013, written by reporter Stephanie Simon of Reuters,
which described a variety of ways that charter schools “get the students
they want” (Simon, 2013):
* Applications that are made available just a few hours a year.
*
Lengthy application forms, often printed only in English, that require
student and parent essays, report cards, test scores, disciplinary
records, teacher recommendations and medical records.
*
Demands that students present Social Security cards and birth
certificates for their applications to be considered, even though such
documents cannot be required under federal law.
* Mandatory family interviews.
* Assessment exams.
* Academic prerequisites.
*
Requirements that applicants document any disabilities or special needs.
The U.S. Department of Education considers this practice illegal on the
college level but has not addressed the issue for K-12 schools.
This article builds on Simon’s work and the work
of others who have researched charter schools. It offers a taxonomy, a
classification of the evidence into twelve different approaches that
charter schools use to structure their student enrollment. These
practices impact the likelihood of students enrolling with a given set
of characteristics, be it higher (or lower) test scores, students with
‘expensive’ disabilities, English learners, students of color, or
students in poverty.
#1: DESCRIPTION AND DESIGN: WHICH NICHE?
The designers of a new charter school face a
variety of decisions. Will the school portray itself as focused on
rigorous academics? Or perhaps the design will cater to children with
autism? Will it have the facilities to provide free or reduced-price
lunch? Will it have teachers for English learners and for students with
special needs? In short, which niche will it be designed to fill? Given
the high-stakes accountability context, a school designed to serve an
at-risk student population will face greater survival obstacles. Low
test scores lead to lower school performance ratings and eventually to
closure. In contrast, high test scores lead to acclaim and to positive
word-of-mouth from realtors, press, friends and neighbors. In short,
nothing succeeds like success, and the greatest determinants of success
are the raw materials – the students who enroll.
#2: LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
As has long been recognized by the courts, the
siting of a school is an effective way to influence student demographics
(Kennedy, 2007). A school that intends to serve students who live in an
urban area will locate in that neighborhood, while a school with an
intent to serve a suburban population will make a different decision.
Because families with less wealth tend to have fewer transportation
options, this is particularly important when thinking about
disadvantaged groups.
#3: MAD MEN: THE POWER OF MARKETING AND ADVERTISING
Charter schools are not allowed to directly
select students based on those students’ demographic characteristics.
But if a school wants to enroll English learners, it will produce and
distribute materials in the first language of those families. If it does
not, it will produce and distribute materials overwhelmingly in
English. Similar decisions can be made regarding special needs
populations and lower-income populations. And if it wants students with
higher incoming test scores and a drive to excel academically, it can
advertise as “college prep” and highlight the rigor of its curriculum.
Even the visual images used in marketing materials can send distinct
messages about who is welcome and who is not. When a school makes
deliberate decisions about how and where to market, it is exercising
influence over who applies.
#4: HOOPING IT UP: CONDITIONS PLACED ON APPLICATIONS
Through the application process, charter schools
can control the pipeline that leads to enrolled students. If less
desirable students do not apply, they will not be enrolled. Charter
schools are usually in charge of their own application processes, and
many impose a daunting array of conditions. These include lengthy
application forms such as a required essay simply to get into the
lottery, mandatory character references, parents required to visit the
school before applying, short time windows to file the applications,
special ‘pre-enrollment’ periods for insiders, and admissions tests to
determine grade placement or learning group. These policies and
practices can directly turn away families (I’m sorry, but you can’t enroll here because you didn’t visit).
Further, they can serve their purpose by discouraging parents who lack
the time, resources, or overall commitment to jump through the hoops.
#5: AS LONG AS YOU DON’T GET CAUGHT: ILLEGAL AND DICEY PRACTICES
As noted earlier, Simon (2013) documents
instances of charter schools that require applications to “present
Social Security cards and birth certificates for their applications to
be considered, even though such documents cannot be required under
federal law.” She also notes some schools that require special needs
applicants to document their disabilities – which may or may not be
illegal but which is certainly contrary to the intent and spirit of the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Such policies will have the
effect of discouraging special needs students and, in some communities,
minimizing the enrollment of immigrant students. Another troubling, and
possibly illegal, practice involves elementary-level charters with
attached, private pre-k schools that charge substantial tuition – and
the using of that pre-k school to funnel students into the public
charter and thereby create a wealthier student demographic (see, e.g.,
Dreilinger, 2012; Ferguson, 2011; Ferguson & Royal, 2011).
#6: SEND US YOUR BEST: CONDITIONS PLACED ON ENROLLMENT
Simon’s (2013) article also pointed to “One
charter high school in [California that] will not consider applicants
with less than a 2.0 grade point average. Another will only admit
students who passed Algebra I in middle school with a grade of B or
better.” She also points to states that allow a charter school to give
an admissions preference to students based on a demonstration of
interest in that school’s theme or focus: “Some schools use that leeway
to screen for students who are ready for advanced math classes or have
stellar standardized test scores.” Other charter schools, including
KIPP, require that students and their families commit to longer school
days and school hours. Many also require so-called ‘sweat equity’
contracts from parents, whereby they commit to contribute service to the
school. As with conditions placed on applications, these conditions of
enrollment can work by directly turning away families as well as by
discouraging families perceived to be less desirable.
#7: THE BUM STEER
Connected to these application and enrollment
practices is the old practice of steering away less desirable students
(Fiore, et al., 2000). The typical scenario involves the parent of a
high-needs child who drops by the school to inquire about enrolling and
is told that opportunities for that child will be much richer at the
public school down the road. These are among the allegations in the
Southern Poverty Law Center’s lawsuit against the Recovery School
District in New Orleans (Mock, 2010).
#8: NOT IN SERVICE
As noted above, a charter school may or may not
have services designed to meet the needs of a given group of
higher-needs children. For instance, teachers with TESOL (Teachers of
English to Speakers of Other Languages) training or certification may be
unavailable. Similarly, a charter school may not have the resources
necessary to meet the special needs of a child with so-called
low-incidence disabilities. But even reading specialists, for instance,
may be unavailable. While a charter school may not, under the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), be legally entitled
to reject a student with special needs and his or her individualized
education plan (IEP), pointing out the unavailability of resources and
services is often sufficient to do the trick (Welner & Howe, 2005).
#9: THE FITNESS TEST: COUNSELING OUT
Parents of less successful students or those who
are viewed as a poor fit may simply be told that they should consider a
different option. This is usually accomplished through ongoing meetings
with the charter schools’ teachers and administrators. (Bobby isn’t responding well to instruction, getting along well with other students, etc.)
In a school choice context, a reasonable way to address a disappointing
experience is to seek out a different school, and a nudge from school
staff can help move this process along.
#10: FLUNK OR LEAVE: GRADE RETENTION
One such nudge can be provided by telling the
student and parent that if the student remains at the school, she will
be retained in grade. Grade retention is extensively used, for instance,
at KIPP charter schools. One effect of such policies is to rebuke less
successful students and to suggest that those students may do better
elsewhere (and to inform them that they will have to go elsewhere if
they want to graduate on time).
#11: DISCIPLINE AND PUNISH
Charter schools’ discipline policies generally
differ from those of their nearby school districts. Washington DC’s
charter schools, for example, have much higher expulsion rates than do
district schools (Brown, 2013). The New York Times reported in
2012 about a charter school in Chicago that has collected hundreds of
thousands of dollars in fines from students for infractions like “not
looking a teacher in the eye” (Vevea, 2012). Through direct expulsion
and through harsh discipline regimes, such charter schools are able to
maintain a more controlled school environment, but one effect of doing
so is the selective removal of students who are more disruptive – or, in
the case of the Chicago school, less able to afford the fines.
#12: GOING MOBILE (OR NOT)
Low-income communities across the country tend
to have high rates of student mobility. Many students exit and enter
each year and – most disruptively for all – during the school year.
Neighborhood public schools generally have no power to limit this
mobility and must focus instead on minimizing the disruption. Charter
schools, however, can decide to enroll few or no new students during the
year or in higher grades. Researchers refer to this addition of new
students as a choice of whether or not to “backfill” the students
charters lose through normal attrition or through counseling out. A
related issue is the common practice among new charter schools of
‘feeding from below.’ To illustrate, imagine a new charter authorized to
serve grades k-8. Such a school would often open with just grades k-2,
and then each year would bring in a new kindergarten cohort and extend
up one year, to k-3, then k-4, and so on. This approach tends to create
stability and to screen out more transient students and families.
* * *
These twelve techniques are not used by all
charter schools, nor when applied are they necessarily intended to
enroll only more advantaged students. Techniques controlling student
populations also provide no evidence to impugn the quality of the
education provided at these schools. Nevertheless, they do impact at
least three important aspects of the education reform debate: scaling
up, evaluations of success, and equity and non-discrimination.
The scaling up concern is straightforward. If
charter schools identified as successful are not serving a cross-section
of the student population, then where do the students go who are left
out? Currently, they can easily go to neighborhood public schools. But
in a system dominated by such charters, something must give. Either
these charters start to take all comers, or a separate set of charters
must thrive with a very different mission: a refuge (or dumping ground)
for unwanted children.
The evaluation concern is more about policy and
political rhetoric than about the overall research base. Charter school
research is now sufficiently established and comprehensive enough that
most researchers are comfortable concluding that a school’s status as a
charter school has no substantial effect – good or bad – on student test
scores. But weak research and evaluation reports, which fail to account
for all these ways of skewing enrollment, are nonetheless still being
issued and trumpeted by advocates. (An example is a recent Florida
report that uses school-level data to conclude that charters are
outperforming conventional public schools; see Florida Department of
Education, 2013). This can result in masking undesirable practices and
to making bad policy decisions.
Finally, equity concerns arise whenever a
publicly funded opportunity is provided to a more fortunate group of
children but denied to others, even if that skimming takes place within a
disadvantaged community. This gilds inequalities with socially
acceptable language and constructs about individual choice, and it’s
particularly problematic when children are denied opportunities based on
special needs status or English learner status – or when the poorest
children in a community are pushed aside.
Charter schools are now an established part of
the landscape in most states. As such, they should be understood as a
policy tool that can be included as part of overall state education
policy. Like most tools, we can decide how best to use them, to maximize
their benefits and minimize their harm. If policy makers hope to
improve the education system as a whole, they should take a serious look
at the dirty dozen as a starting point.
References
Brown, E. (2013, January 5). D.C. charter schools expel students at far higher rates than traditional public schools. Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/dc-charter-schools-expel-students-at
-far-higher-rates-than-traditional-public-schools/2013/01/05/e155e4bc-44a9-11e2-8061-253bccfc7532_story.html
Dreilinger, D. (2012, November 26). Lycée Français CEO abruptly resigns from French immersion charter school. The Times-Picayune. http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2012/11/director_leaves_french_immersi.html
Fiore, T. A., Harwell, L. M., Blackorby, J., & Finnigan, K. S. (2000). Charter schools and students with disabilities: A national study. Washington, DC: U S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement.
Florida Department of Education (2013). Student
Achievement in Florida’s Charter Schools: A Comparison of the
Performance of Charter School Students with Traditional Public School
Students. Tallahassee, FL: Author. https://www.floridaschoolchoice.org/pdf/Charter_Student_Achievement_2012.pdf
Frankenberg, E., Siegel-Hawley, G., & Wang, J. (2010). Choice without Equity: Charter School. Segregation and the Need for Civil Rights Standards. Los Angeles, CA: Civil Rights Project at UCLA. http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/choice-without-equity-2009-report/frankenberg-choices-without-equity-2010.pdf
Ferguson, B. (2011). Lycee Francais Charter
School: Charging Tuition Violates Federal Charter School Funding Rules.
New Orleans, LA: Research on Reforms. http://www.researchonreforms.org/html/documents/LyceeFrancais-CharterSchoolwithTuition.pdf
Ferguson, B., & Royal, K. H. (2011). The
Deception of the “Lottery” at Lycee Francais and Audubon Schools: The
Misuse of Charter Schools, Part II. New Orleans, LA: Research on
Reforms. http://www.researchonreforms.org/html/documents/DeceptionoftheLottery.pdf
Kennedy, A. (2007). Concurring opinion in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, 551 U.S. 701.
Miron, G., Urschel, J., Mathis, W. J., &Tornquist, E. (2010). Schools
Without Diversity: Education Management Organizations, Charter Schools,
and the Demographic Stratification of the American School System. Boulder CO: National Education Policy Center. http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/schools-without-diversity
Mock, B (2010, October 6). The Problem With New Orleans’s Charter Schools. Newsweek and The Daily Beast. http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/10/06/new-orleans-accused-of-failing-disabled-students.html
O’Connor, J., & Gonzalez, S. (2011, December 14). Florida Charter Schools Failing Disabled Students. Morning Edition on NPR. http://www.npr.org/2011/12/14/143659449/florida-charter-schools-failing-disabled-students
Simon, S. (2013, February 15). Class Struggle - How charter schools get students they want. Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/15/us-usa-charters-admissions-idUSBRE91E0HF20130215
U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2012). Charter Schools: Additional Federal Attention Needed to Help Protect Access for Students with Disabilities. Washington DC: Author. http://gao.gov/assets/600/591435.pdf
Vevea, R. (2012, February 17). Questioning the Fairness of a Detention Fee. New York Times. www.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/education/at-noble-street-schools-in-chicago-detention-costs-5.html
Welner, K. G. & Howe, K. R. (2005). Steering
toward separation: The policy and legal implications of “counseling”
special education students away from choice schools. In Janelle Scott
(ed.), School Choice and Student Diversity: What the Evidence Says (pp. 93-111). New York: Teachers College Press.
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