Private and public partnership in
education: Charter schools in the USA
With notes about Grundtvig, Monty
Python, and trends in school choice
internationally
Gary Miron,
Professor of Evaluation, Measurement, and Research
Western Michigan University
Conference on The State and Market in
Education: Partnership or Competition?
19 March , 2014
Overview
• School reform in the USA
• Charter schools
• Private Education Management Organizations
(EMOs)
• School choice in international context
• Patenting and copying ideas across countries
• What we know about school choice outcomes
School reform in the states
• Grundtvig has had influence, both direct and
indirect. There are also parallels between
Gruntvig’s ideas and the ideas of some
progressive school reformers in the USA.
– Dewey, Highlander Center, Alternative schools,
and charter schools
– Alternative schools recaptured by traditional public
schools (LEAs)
– Charter schools hijacked by
private sector interests
Charter school concept
STRUCTURAL
CHANGES:
OPPORTUNITY SPACE /
INTERMEDIATE GOALS:
 Governance
 Parental and Community
 Choice
Involvement
 Deregulation/
 Teacher Autonomy and
Autonomy
Professionalism
 Accountability
 Curricular and Pedagogical
Innovations
Figure 1. Illustration of the Charter School Concept (adopted from Miron and Nelson, 2002, p.4).
 Privatization
Original goals for charter schools
• Empower local actors and communities.
• Enhance opportunities for parent involvement.
• Create new opportunities for school choice with open
access for all.
• Develop innovations in curriculum and instruction
• Enhance professional autonomy
and opportunities for professional
development for teachers.
• Create high performing schools
where children would learn more.
• Create highly accountable schools.
Summary of state studies of student achievement
in charter schools
Very Positive 2.
IL3
US2
US6
NY2 IL1
UT
Impact of reform
Slightly 1.
Positive .
CT MI2
Mixed 0.
MO WI
US4 CA3
OH1 PA
MA
TX2
AZ2 DE
AZ3
CA1
IL2 ID FL1
OR CO GA
AZ1
Slighty -1.
Negative .
NY1 US5 US3
OH2
Very Negative -2.
TX1 US1
1
Low
quality
5
10
NJ
MI3 MI4
FL2
CA2
US7
MI1 DC US8
15
TX4
CA4
TX3
NC1
20
NC2
25
Quality of the study
Figure 1. Quality and Impact Ratings for State and National
Studies of Student Achievement in Charter Schools
Note: This map provides an illustration of estimated impact and quality ratings
for 39 studies completed during the past 9 years.
30
32
High
quality
Reasons why goals for charter schools
have not been achieved
• Lack of effective oversight and insufficient
accountability
• Insufficient autonomy
• Inefficient use of resources
• Privatization and pursuit of profits
• High attrition of teachers and administrators
• Rapid growth of reforms
• Strong and effective lobbying and advocacy groups
for charter schools
Current trends in charter schools
• More homogeneity among the charter schools
• Increasingly stronger role for school leaders and
management companies
• EMOs now start their own schools rather than wait
for an invitation from existing schools or a
community planning group to start a school
• An increasing number of charter schools
• Further segmentation of public schools by race,
class, and ability
• Decreasing provision at
secondary level
• Increasing school size
• Rapid growth of virtual schools
Questions policymakers
should be asking
• Can we create better public schools through deregulation and demands for greater
accountability?
• How are charter schools using the opportunity
provided them?
• The answers to these questions require
comprehensive evaluations—resisting the
dodge that every charter school is its own
reform and should be looked at separately.
More specific questions policy-makers
should be asking
• How can charter school laws be revised to create
more accountable schools?
• How can funding formulae be changed to ensure
that charter schools will seek to enroll more
‘costly-to-educate’ students.
• How can incentives and regulations be used to
ensure poorly performing charter schools will be
closed?
• Are there better uses for public resources than
charter schools?
Even as original goals for charter
schools are largely ignored, charter
schools fulfill other purposes
1. Charter schools facilitate privatization of our
public school system
2. Charter schools accelerate the re-segregation of
public schools by race, class, and ability
3. Charter schools provide model for reform, even
though evidence shows that they do not work
Who stole my charter school reform?
Recommendations for legislation
• Create or refuse to lift caps on charter schools in
order to exert pressure for accountability.
• Leverage federal funds to ensure greater
accountability for charter schools.
• Provide funding for oversight, but require
repayment of funds from authorizers when the
schools they oversee are failing.
• Curtail the influence and power of the charter
school establishment.
Education Management
Organizations (EMOs)
• EMOs: What are they?
– Private contractors that operate public schools
• Executive control, accountable for outcomes
– Vendor vs. EMO?
– For-profits vs. Nonprofits & CMOs
• EMO Profiles Project: What is it?
– Statistical digest
• Profiles of EMOs & lists of schools
– Project of the National Education Policy Center
– 14th Edition released in 2013
Number of EMOs by Size and Year
For-profit EMOs
Nonprofit EMOs
250
80
60
40
20
Number of Large EMOs
Number of Large EMOs
Number of Medium EMOs
Number of Small EMOs
Total Number of EMOs
Number of Medium EMOs
Number of Small EMOs
200
Number of Nonprofit EMOs
100
Total Number of EMOs
150
100
50
0
0
1998- 1999- 2000- 2001- 2002- 2003- 2004- 2005- 2006- 2007- 2008- 2009- 2010- 20111999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
1998- 1999- 2000- 2001- 2002- 2003- 2004- 2005- 2006- 2007- 2008- 2009- 2010- 20111999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Number of Schools Operated by EMOs
by Size and Year
For-profit EMOs
Nonprofit EMOs
Large EMOs
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
Medium EMOs
Small EMOs
Total # of Schools
Number of Schools Operated by Nonprofit EMOs
900
0
1998- 1999- 2000- 2001- 2002- 2003- 2004- 2005- 2006- 2007- 2008- 2009- 2010- 20111999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
1,200
Large EMOs
Medium EMOs
1,000
Small EMOs
Total # of Schools
800
600
400
200
0
1997- 1998- 1999- 2000- 2001- 2002- 2003- 2004- 2005- 2006- 2007- 2008- 2009- 2010- 20111998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Number of Students in EMO-Operated
Schools, by Size and Year
500,000
Large EMOs
450,000
400,000
Medium EMOs
Small EMOs
Total Number of Students
350,000
300,000
250,000
200,000
150,000
100,000
50,000
Estimated Actual # of Students
Nonprofit EMOs
Number of Students in Schools Operated by Nonprofit EMOs
For-profit EMOs
450,000
Large EMOs
400,000
350,000
Medium EMOs
Small EMOs
Total Number of Students
300,000
250,000
200,000
150,000
100,000
50,000
0
1998- 1999- 2000- 2001- 2002- 2003- 2004- 2005- 2006- 2007- 2008- 2009- 2010- 20111999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
0
1998- 1999- 2000- 2001- 2002- 2003- 2004- 2005- 2006- 2007- 2008- 2009- 2010- 20111999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
General trends regarding EMOs
• Trend for single school operators to move to
multiple school operators
• Small-scale or limited service operators moving
toward full service operators
• Private conversions and some founders now
starting their own company to retain/gain
financial control/interest in the school
• The number of EMOs and their portion of the
education market is increasing rapidly in the
nation, the charter school sector, the contract
sector and the provision of other services such as
tutoring, after school care, vocational programs,
juvenile services, etc.
Safeguards to restrict EMO
involvement
• Enforce requirements to recruit students from
all sectors of the district
• Restrict maximum enrollment of charter
schools to between 250 and 350
• Require provision of transportation and other
services, or deduct the cost for these from per
pupil grants to charter schools
• Require full disclosure of how public funds
are used by private companies
Safeguards to restrict EMO
involvement
• Require charter school boards to consider
two or more different bids from different
EMOs
• Make efforts to ensure that the board
members are not personally or professionally
connected with the EMO
• Limit length of contracts between charter
schools and EMOs to no more than the
length of the charter, but preferably less
Safeguards to restrict EMO
involvement
• Provide more, not less money for start-up
• Ensure equal access to start up money based
on projected enrollments. Competitive
applications for start up money favor EMOs
who have experience and qualified
personnel for grant writing
• Base per pupil grants on average district
costs for students at same level (elementary,
middle and high school) rather than on
average costs across all 3 levels
EMOs: So What?
•
•
•
•
Horse in front of the cart
Veil of privacy?
Lack of accountability
Stockholders vs. taxpayers
• Require competitive bidding?
• Require arms-length agreement?
• Distortion of charter school concept
School choice reforms
• School choice is a reform idea that is widely
debated and contested (school choice means
different things to different people)
• The debate often overlooks the diverse forms of
school choice and the differences in how these
reforms can be designed
• School choice can be designed to pursue a range of
outcomes
• Choice rules can be written to reduce isolation by
race, class, or special needs status. Or, they can be
used as a vehicle for accelerating resegregation of
our public school systems.
School choice reforms
• Choice reforms can promote innovation and
diverse options from which parents can choose;
or, they can result in a stratified marketplace that
appeals to conservative consumers who eschew
innovation.
• School choice reforms have the potential to
promote accountability or—if the oversight
mechanisms are not in place—choice plans can
facilitate the circumvention or avoidance of
oversight
Why school choice: Review of relevant
theory
•
•
•
•
Parents right. School choice as an end in itself.
Market accountability on new schools
Market theory: threat of choice
Economic theory on sorting effect and
efficiency
• Belief in innovation in private organizations
What is school choice?
• Parents and students choosing schools
• School choice always exists, at least for some
• For choice to be meaningful, there needs to
be a diversity of options
• Most say they want choice, but most still do
not exercise choice
School choice: Why not?
• Segregation. Winners and losers.
• Hank Levin: framework for evaluating
vouchers
– Social cohesion, Productivity, Efficiency, Equity
• My own thinking: Splitting limited resources
across dual or parallel systems.
School Choice - When?
• As policy objective we can see most current school
choice reforms with roots in 1980s and 1990s.
• Some school choice reforms have existed for more
than a century in countries like Netherlands.
• Old choice reforms actually choice in provider but not
real choice in school profiles, etc.
• Shifts in goals and purposes of public schools over
time.
(Miron 2009. “Shifting notion of publicness”)
School Choice - Where?
• UK 1987-88
• Sweden 1992
• USA - magnet
schools in 80s,
charter schools in
90s, exploration of
vouchers since 50s
• New Zealand @1990s
- Independent
schools
• Back to the UK
Actual School Choice Provisions in
OECD and Select PISA Countries
Support for School Choice in OECD
Countries
Money following the student in
OECD countries
How: Diverse types of school choice
• Private providers and public support for private
providers (vouchers)
• Intra-district choice
• Inter-district choice
• Charter schools
• Homeschooling
• Virtual schools
• Other thoughts:
– Choice by location
– Choice within schools
So what? What have we learned?
• Parent satisfaction
• Segregation based on race/ethnicity, social
class, ability, language of instruction
• Innovation/lack of diversity of options
• Empowering teachers?
• Impact on student performance on
standardized assessments
• Effects of competition