Charting New Territory
A look at charter schools

By Brad Whitehouse

Some people love them. Some people hate them. And according to a 2002 Gallup Poll, 54 percent of Americans aren’t quite sure what they are.

But since the first one was started a little over a decade ago, charter schools have sprung up in 37 states, and nearly 685,000 U.S. schoolchildren now attend them. Michigan, which is known for its charter-friendly laws, has one of the highest numbers of charter schools in the country with 200, up from 189 last year.

Adrian College has a history of preparing teachers that goes back to its founding in 1859. Of course, education has changed over that time. While the majority of graduates from AC’s teacher education program probably go on to teach in traditional public schools, some alumni teachers are choosing something different.

THE TEACHER EXPERIENCE

Susan Kobylarz ’95 started teaching at Canton Charter Academy in Canton in 2000, the same year it was founded. It was a K-5 school then, and consisted of 14 trailers connected by wooden planks. Not all of the buildings even had their own bathrooms.

“I’ve been here since the beginning—which is awesome when you think how far we’ve come,” she said.

Kathryn Dale '92

The school today is much different. It has its own brick building, and has expanded to K-8. While enrollment was pretty good that first year, there are now more people on the waiting list than there are seats in the school.

During her time at Canton, Susan has had many opportunities to get involved. For instance, she is a curriculum chair for social studies, a dean for the middle school and is part of the interview team for new staff.

“There are leadership opportunities here that I probably would not have gotten in a traditional public school this early in my career,” she said.

That’s similar to the experience of Kathy Dale ’92, who teaches third grade at Huron Academy in Sterling Heights. She has been at the school since its inception in 1999, and is one of the lead teachers. She has had similar opportunities for professional development, and served as chair of the committee that rewrote the mission statement. To her, Huron has been a good place to grow.

“I like the responsibility that has been put on me here,” she said.

But beyond just serving their careers well, charter schools are something Susan and Kathy believe in. Obviously it’s something some parents believe in, too. There are 700 people on the waiting list at Canton, and there was a waiting list for every grade level at Huron except ninth—which is just starting this year and was not open to new enrollment. Why are so many parents clamoring to get their kids in?

One reason supporters cite is that parents want something different than traditional public schools. Charter schools are actually public schools. They get a set amount of money per student from the state just like traditional schools do (although it’s sometimes less), and they must follow state standards, including administering the MEAP standardized test. They can’t accept tuition, and they use a lottery-type system to choose students.

There are some significant differences, however. Charters are run on more of a market-based system, where students and parents are considered much like customers. The school has more freedom to choose curriculum, teaching styles, and mission, and some parents find this independence attractive. As Kathy says Huron Academy likes to word it, “We’re a public school with private school values” – and at a public school price ($0).

“It’s amazing how involved the parents are here,” Susan said.

Much of this is by necessity. One of the funding challenges for charter schools is that they pride themselves in keeping class sizes low, but fewer students mean less money. Parents are not only expected to drive their kids to school (there is no bus system), but to help in other ways as well.

“We rely a lot on parent volunteers, to come in and do fund raisers, to help with lunch, or if we’re doing a project, we expect them to come in and help,” Susan says.

Canton has even designated a special “Parent Room,” where parents can work on a “cutting-out” project for a teacher, or help in some other way.

Susan Kobylarz ’95

The trade-off for teachers is that while parents help a lot, they also have much more control. At Canton, parents on the School Leadership Committee make key decisions, and at Huron, teachers know that parents in the parent-teacher club can schedule special activities over their breaks.

“The parents of our students have a major say in how things are handled and how things are run,” Kathy said, matter-of-factly.

Kathy, like many charter school teachers, has an at-will contract, so parental feedback can be somewhat threatening. “At-will” means she can quit or be fired at any time for any reason, and there is no tenure or unions to protect her like in traditional schools. While this doesn’t lend a lot of security to teachers, the advantage for charter schools is that they can easily remove teachers who aren’t doing their jobs. If charters don’t meet expectations, they are eliminated, and the same is true of their teachers.

Kathy likes her job enough that these conditions are tolerable, and she has a good and trusting relationship with her administrator. And at least pay and benefits are not a concern. While it’s not necessarily true of all charter school teachers, Kathy and Susan – who both happen to work in relatively well off Detroit suburbs – report that their salaries are fairly comparable with traditional school teachers.

“I would have to say it depends on which charter school you work for,” Susan said. “In general, [Canton’s] starting salary is a little lower, though not a huge amount like the Catholic school I worked in for two years. Benefits are great at this charter – very similar to traditional public schools in the area.”

STARTING HIS OWN

Adrian College trustee Tony Shipley thinks the public school system in Detroit has too much to deal with. Administrators face a tangle of union negotiations, and conflicting union demands make it hard to accomplish anything. On top of that, teachers face terrible overcrowding.

“When you have 35 to 40 students per class, the best you can do is be a good police officer,” he said.

So Tony, who is pastor at Christ United Methodist Church in Detroit, decided he would do something about it, by founding a charter school called Chandler Park Academy. Today there is a Chandler Park Academy in four locations, with each school covering different grades: Oak Park (K – 2nd), Greenfield (3rd – 5th, 7th), Haverhill (6th) and Philip (8th). And he may soon expand, if his plans to start a K-12 charter on both the west and east sides of Detroit goes through. To him, schools like these are changing the face of education.

“They’re the wave of the future,” he said.

Children from all backgrounds are welcome at his schools. They enjoy a class size in the low 20s, and benefit from the stability of rising through the grades with the same classmates.

“You don’t need to join a gang, because you’ve already got one.”

Tony reports that students seem to be responding to the improved atmosphere. He said that a high number of the eighth grade class tested into some of the area’s best high schools, including Cass Technical High School, Detroit Country Day School and Grosse Pointe Academy, and that many have overcome very low reading and math levels.

To Tony, his charter schools are doing Detroit Public Schools a favor, because they have too many students to deal with anyway. But not everyone thinks charters are positive for public education. Many claim they just take away the best students, which makes it harder for traditional schools to improve their performance, and strips away much-needed state funds. And while charters in Michigan are required to use certified teachers, that’s not true in every state.

They also wonder if charters really deliver the innovations in teaching that they promise. Charter schools say their teachers are free to be more creative because they don’t have to deal with the unions and other bureaucracy that traditional teachers do. However, charters have standards of their own. In addition to following state standards, charters must meet the standards of their sponsor, which in Susan and Kathy’s case is a state university (Central Michigan and Ferris State, respectively).

They must also meet the standards of their management companies. Just like traditional public schools, charters can contract with an outside company for services. Canton and Huron, like many charters in Michigan, have contracted with outside companies to manage them. In addition to funding building projects and hiring teachers, these companies help set and enforce curriculum.

In the end, this means a lot of different groups have a say in how charter school teachers should teach. Whether or not this actually affects teacher innovation remains to be seen, but it does at least serve as an answer to another criticism of charter schools: that they don’t have enough accountability.

“If anything, I think charters have more standards to follow,” Susan said.

The criticisms go on, such as why management companies – including the ones that run Huron, Canton and Chandler Park schools – are allowed to make a profit on public education.

Of course, each side has its points and counterpoints, and the debate will surely continue. In the meantime, people like Kathy and Susan continue to invest themselves in a system that firmly believes it can deliver the one thing that ultimately everybody wants: good schools.

“Public education is in a huge crisis in this country,” Tony says. “Charter schools are a way to address that problem.”

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Send comments to contact@adrian.edu, and depending on the response, we'll post them at Contact online.

(Photos of Kobylarz and Dale by Scott Whitehouse)

Want to weigh in?
Send comments to contact@adrian.edu, and depending on the response, we'll post them online.