Charter Schools Showdown Coming

CHARLESTON, W.Va.--Judy Hale, president of the West Virginia chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, has some concerns about charter school legislation that will inevitably come up in January's regular session.

She's concerned that charter schools will pick and choose students, that they will take money away from other schools, that they won't increase student achievement, and that teachers' jobs won't have the same protections as in traditional public schools.

Hale said the union isn't opposed to "things that bring about reform in a positive way," but the charter school bill presented to the legislature last year didn't meet their standards.

"There are some definite things that should be in a charter school bill, and his bill did not protect employees," Hale said.

The union president says the defeated charter school legislation would have given principals the power to hire and fire. That might actually discourage innovation, she said.

Hale says teachers might avoid innovative approaches in the fear that they would be fired if the approaches didn't work.

Sallye Clark, a former Kanawha County teacher and founding member of West Virginians for Education Reform, says giving principals authority in personnel decisions isn't such a bad thing.

"Nobody ought to be protected in a job when they're not doing it well," she said. "I would say that the most qualified teachers should have the job."

One of the leading proponents of charter schools legislation in the Legislature, Sen. Erik Wells, D-Kanawha, says he's not interested in "creating an environment where people are fearful for their jobs," but wants principals to have control over who teaches in their school.

"My goal is to provide greater flexibility for the principal to make the hiring decisions," he said.

Clark, never an AFT member herself, said teachers who lost their jobs at charter schools would probably move back into positions in regular schools.

In addition to teacher hiring and firing practices, Hale says the union is concerned that charter schools will be too selective and take money from other public schools.

"It created a new school. I don't want a new school for rich people's kids," she said.

"That's absolutely false," Clark said. "The students who want to come to a charter school apply, and it's on a lottery system."

As for the money, the retired teacher says that's "not an issue," as charter schools would be public schools.

"Public money funds public schools," she said.

But Hale says student selection may occur unintentionally. If students have to come from all over the area to attend a charter school, she says, parents would inevitably have to provide transportation.

"That, in itself, is a selective process," Hale said. "The kids that end up going will be the students whose parents can afford to not have one of them work and pick up the children every day."

Clark disagrees with that point, too.

"A charter school is a public school; therefore transportation will be provided," she said.

Wells says that would be the case, if he has his way.

"The type of charter school I'm looking at creating would be within the existing transportation structure we already have," he said.

Hale says charter schools might not even help West Virginia's educational woes.

"It's not a magic bullet to fix what's wrong with education," she said.

She referenced a June 19 report from Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes. The report said only 17 percent of charter schools made significant academic gains compared to traditional public schools. The report also said 37 percent of charter schools performed worse, and 46 percent showed no significant difference at all.

"The research does not tell us that we should just adopt a wholesale charter school bill," Hale said.

A Rand Corporation report published this year found that charter middle and high schools show student achievement gains "on average, similar to those of traditional public schools." The report says achievement gains are more difficult to measure in elementary schools. Charter school students are, according to the report, more likely to attend college after graduation.

Wells admits that not every charter school is effective, but says that's not necessarily an indictment of the concept.

"Charter schools have succeeded and they have failed, just like we have public schools that succeed and fail," he said.

He says he doesn't see charter schools as a fix-all for public schools, but does view them as "an option to start creating better public schools."

Hale says the union isn't completely opposed to the idea of charter schools. If a legislator presented a bill that adequately protects teachers, she says, AFT WV would support it. In fact, she met with Wells this week to discuss this year's draft of the charter school legislation.

"I think there are always solutions. If people come to the table with an open mind and are willing to listen to other people. I think any issue can just about be solved," she said.

Wells wouldn't say what he and Hale discussed. 

One solution already on the books, Hale says, is the West Virginia Schools Innovation Zones Act. The legislation, passed earlier this year, allows schools to request exemptions from state board of education policies and statutes - except those dealing with personnel issues like hiring and firing.

"We worked on that with the state Department of Education last year to try to come up with some ways to do some reform that's fair to everybody that will hopefully raise academic achievement and be fair to employees," Hale said.

Hale says innovation zones with "well thought-out" plans will succeed because educators will initiate changes.

"With the innovation zones, it is the teachers themselves who get together and decide what can we do to better educate kids," he said.

Wells' legislation, Hale says, would be a "top-down" approach.

"As I understood it, the administration would have the authority to hire whoever they wanted and fire whoever they wanted. But it wouldn't be a decision that would be made by the teachers," Hale said. "It would not be an idea like the innovation zones that come from the teachers, it would be something that would be created by law."

"Education reform does not work top-down," she said.

Wells said the innovation zone legislation "started out with great expectations but the details don't give hope, it actually creates more despair." He said the process to become an innovation zone is "bogged down in bureaucracy."

"We need to streamline the process, provide teacher input, and provide a different way of governing a school," he said.

West Virginians for Education Reform supported the innovation zone legislation, but the group says charter schools stand to serve more students than innovation zones will.

Clark says only certain schools - by some estimations, only about 10 - will be granted policy exemptions by the state board. If the legislation allows, charter schools could be set up by any county in the state, with no preapproval.

Contact writer Zack Harold at 304-348-7939 or zack.har...@dailymail.com.