With the cap on charter schools lifted in Michigan, the pressure from teachers unions and others in the education establishment is rising against the for-profit management companies that operate many of the charters. But the evidence strongly suggests those fears are unfounded.
Sound bites saying schools shouldn’t profit off Michigan’s children often aren’t grounded in reality. Monitoring the performance of charter schools, which are an alternative form of public schools, is essential. But all public schools deserve the same level of attention.
Currently, nearly 300 charter schools operate in Michigan, serving around 119,000 students. That’s only 7 percent of the student population. Even with the cap lifted on charters, that percentage isn’t likely to jump significantly.
The Democratic-controlled State Board of Education recently asked for several studies, closely examining the performance of charter schools in Michigan.
One looked at charter authorizers — usually state universities — and another examined the outcomes associated with the education management organizations running charters.
Charter school boards contract with these companies for a range of services, including facility and personnel management, payroll and accounting, curriculum and professional development.
Some of them handle all services at a school, including leasing the building to the charter board. This spring, the state board released a statement outlining some of its concerns about these management companies “serving as both the operator of a school with control over that school’s budget, as well as the landlord.”
Board members were worried this “may result in unusually high profit margins” for the management companies and their real-estate holding arms, at the expense of instruction,” according to the statement.
The subsequent report from Michigan State University’s education researchers was never publicly released, nor is it available on the Department of Education’s website. The Detroit News obtained a copy, however.
In Michigan, National Heritage Academies is the largest management company, and it’s clearly the one the state board was targeting. It’s for-profit and it leases buildings it owns to charter boards.
National Heritage runs 43 schools and has about 24 percent of total charter enrollment in the state. Nearly 80 percent of charter students in Michigan attend a school run by a for-profit company.
The Michigan State researchers found National Heritage schools are some of the top-performing charter schools in the state.
And the largest management companies often serve the students most in need. For instance, 89 percent of students who attend these schools are black and Hispanic and 87 percent qualify for free or reduced-cost lunch.
The report also found that the percentage of students proficient in reading and math at National Heritage schools is comparable to the state average and slightly better when it comes to growth.
Eileen Weiser, one of two Republicans on the state board, says the results show a general trend of performance at charter schools “heading up.” And that’s exactly what they should be doing.
Several other studies on charter schools confirm that track record of improvement.
A report this year from Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes placed Michigan among the top states in the country for its charter school results.
Stanford found an average student in Michigan charter schools gains two months more learning in a school year than his or her demographically similar counterparts in other public schools. With more charter schools coming on the scene, scrutiny from skeptics will only increase.
As Weiser says, however, authorizers are doing their job. They have closed nearly 60 charters — mostly for academic reasons. That same accountability ought to be applied to all public schools.
