“Our mission is to support all children,” wrote the social media strategist of Texas’s IDEA Public Schools in a blog post celebrating Pride Month.
It’s a worthwhile sentiment and one that is often declared by charter school chains like IDEA. But these chains, despite claiming to be universally beneficial to all children, are publicly funded but privately operated and serve only a narrow portion of public school students.
An increasing body of research reveals that charter schools often drain funding from students in traditional neighborhood schools.
This type of PR-friendly rhetoric is found throughout the industry: KIPP, a nationwide chain similar to IDEA, says that its vision is that “every child grows up free to create the future they want for themselves and their communities”; Charter Solutions, a Utah-based charter school management company, says the schools it works with ensure that “every individual has the opportunity to thrive”; and the California Charter Schools Association, a charter school lobbying group, says it exists to “uplift all of California’s students.”
More famously, former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos—a staunch supporter of charter schools and other forms of education privatization—said that her job was to “make all schools better for all students across the country.”
Yet, this language doesn’t match the reality, as the operation of these schools comes with a cost to other students. An increasing body of research reveals that charter schools often drain funding from students in traditional neighborhood schools. A 2018 In the Public Interest study found that four California school districts—including San Diego and Oakland—lose tens of millions of dollars each year that would be recouped if students attended neighborhood schools instead of charter schools.
Another study found that the net negative fiscal impact to six Pennsylvania school districts ranged between $8,000 and $17,000 per pupil in the first year after a student leaves for a charter school. (A recent study concluding that charter schools don’t hurt the finances of school districts has been thoroughly critiqued.)
Charter schools also all-too-frequently engage in fraudulent financial schemes that take funding directly out of classrooms.
In February, the founders of A3 Education—a California network of online charter schools—were required to return more than $210 million that they obtained through an enrollment scam to funnel public dollars into their own pockets. Last month, IDEA’s board of directors ousted two of the chain’s leaders due to financial mishandling. This came after IDEA drew criticism in 2020 for attempting to lease a private jet for board members at an annual cost of $1.92 million. Charter Solutions, the Utah company, is run by a state senator who, between 2015 and 2018, collected $5.7 million in fees from charter schools, all of it public money.
The gobs of money leaving the classroom become even more eye-popping when considering perhaps the biggest lesson the pandemic has taught us about public education: The most resilient schools are those that have enough resources to provide students, families, and even communities with support beyond just education.
From Los Angeles to West Virginia, educators and school staff have stepped up in ways they never would have imagined, from delivering lunches to coordinating vaccines. It’s become apparent in recent months that public schools following the “community school” strategy have been some of the most successful at navigating the ups and downs of the pandemic.
Many community schools even offer things like food, clothing, and bill assistance to community members with no ties to the school.
Community schools are public schools that bring together community partners—including nonprofits, local businesses, and public institutions—to support students, families, and nearby residents. This support ranges from after-school educational programming for both students and parents to health care, such as dental services and mental health resources. Many community schools even offer things like food, clothing, and bill assistance to community members with no ties to the school.
Southside K-8 School in the town of War, West Virginia, exemplifies this approach. Since becoming a community school in 2014, it has offered free dental and other wraparound services to students, movie nights for families, gym access for residents, and more.
During the pandemic, Southside and other nearby community schools have leveraged school bus routes to deliver books, meals, and schoolwork to families. They’ve also opened wireless access points to facilitate online schooling. By May 2020, they had distributed nearly 40,000 books to students sheltering at home.
Enos Garcia Elementary in Taos, New Mexico, has been providing families with food, clothing, assistance with paying bills, basic computer training, and English as a second language (ESL) classes based on needs assessments school staff conducted when the pandemic began.
Club Boulevard Elementary in Durham, North Carolina, used an innovative app to communicate with parents as the local school district navigated between online and in-person schooling. This streamlined the school’s distribution of computers and tech support to students.
Arrey Elementary in rural New Mexico has been providing COVID-19 health information and testing services to its surrounding community. In May, it coordinated with the local health department to administer vaccines.
Those are stories of individual schools doing remarkable things. But the community school strategy works on a much larger scale, too. Research shows that community schools that adhere to best practices not only improve student educational outcomes, but they also reduce racial and economic achievement gaps.
State legislatures and even the federal government are starting to take more notice of the community school strategy. President Joe Biden proposed $443 million for community schools in his education budget, fifteen times the current level of federal spending. California used $45 million in federal COVID-19 relief to start a competitive grant program for expanding community schools. Cincinnati’s school district used the relief to offer students summer learning programs that address learning loss due to the pandemic.
If our mission is to make sure all children receive a great education, then charter schools, private school vouchers, and other forms of privatization fall short. And if we want to go even further to ensure that public institutions are meeting the needs of the communities they serve, then community schools are a promising education reform that deserves adequate public investment.