What’s Behind the Racial Disparity in Charter School Closings?
Because students need predictability, it’s simply better if their schools are chosen by the parents who know and love them rather than the bureaucrats who don’t. Recent events show the folly of the latter approach.
In August state authorities closed Genesis School just months after it opened, leaving inner-city Kansas City families scrambling to find another school. Closure was averted not by reasoned administrators acknowledging error, but instead by a district court judge’s order.
Last month, Philadelphia’s African American charter school operators who claimed racial bias in charter closures were partially vindicated when a commissioned report found that, though there was no intentional racial bias or discrimination, Pennsylvania’s charter law and related administrative practices present roadblocks for Black-led charters.
Black-managed charters in Philadelphia and Missouri’s Genesis experienced what traditional public schools never have to face: the risk of closure by faulty laws and arbitrary administrative actions. The irony is not lost when considering that majority Black traditional public schools generally are segregated into impoverished and otherwise challenged areas. Many charter entrepreneurs – Blacks among them – push to improve conditions for the kids they serve, conditions the traditional system’s mandatory attendance boundaries have cemented into American public education.
Nowhere is this irony more evident – but, paradoxically, less visible – than in charter accountability systems. Charters are intentionally more accountable than traditional public schools—the political tradeoff for enhanced freedom and flexibility. However, the type of accountability model makes a huge difference.
A bottom-up (market) system relies on families “voting with their feet” by leaving schools the families deem unsatisfactory. A top-down system relies on compliance with government-derived regulations including those related to test scores. Top-down states grant authorizers power to close charters under specific conditions. Depending on the state, charter authorizers can be allowed or required to close charters under statutorily enumerated conditions. In some instances, closure is automatic – educators, parents, and kids get no warning.
While some closures are warranted, top-down systems are hammers when surgical tools are what’s needed. In the Genesis case, the charter commission ordered the school closed, citing test scores, and the state’s education board backed the commission. Parents objected in part because their children could move safely between the school and the adjacent Boys and Girls Club. Genesis operators objected because the school’s academic growth record (as opposed to raw test scores) for kids was successful, and they defended their dedication to mental health in the school’s model to address students’ underlying needs before achieving academic growth. More egregious, the closure decision sprang from a blundered top-down administrative switch between organizations in charge of Genesis’s future.
This is important: top-down closure affects different communities at different rates. In a 2022 study, Ian Kingsbury, Robert Maranto, and I found that nearly 32% of charters serving predominantly African American families close, compared to around 14% of charters serving other families. Likewise, just over 31% of charters started by African Americans close compared to 15% of other charters. Automatic closure laws appeared to magnify these disparate impacts.
More broadly concerning, top-down regulation induces long-term consequences. A more recent study by Kingsbury and me suggests that underlying state-adopted accountability systems drive charter leaders’ educational priorities. We conducted an online survey of 687 charter school leaders from seven states, finding that the responding charter leaders from states with top-down regulations prioritized attending more closely to what their authorizers deemed important than did those in states with parent-driven accountability systems.
Disturbingly, a whole cottage industry has emerged around charter regulation. The National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) ties its state rankings to the presence of performance-based charter contracts and clear processes as a renewal requirement. NACSA then consults with states on their accountability systems. The details are what determine whether children, families, and communities might be harmed.
What if, instead, families and other service seekers could determine the standards by which charters stay or go? At a recent meeting of the Reform Leaders’ Summit sponsored by the Alliance for Catholic Education, New Orleans community leaders outlined their post-Katrina involvement in reconstructing their public education system. Seeing an opportunity to change an abysmal traditional public school system into one made up entirely of charter schools, they and others have transformed local education but understand the challenge is not over. These leaders participated in robust debates on how to structure charter school accountability, with opinions ranging from test-based school closures to family-based decisions to attend or go elsewhere. They have the authority to do this themselves and are closer to the face of the need than any regulator could be.
Policymakers and administrators should think carefully before blindly regulating charter schools out of existence. The question is not whether, but which accountability system is needed. Whether top-down or bottom-up, accountability drives important educational priorities. Additional research is needed but perhaps even more urgent is the need for deeper thought about whether to leave these decisions to remote regulators or those nearby who know the situation better.
