Public domain image of students greeting President Obama during a visit to Martin Luther King, Jr. Charter School in New Orleans.
As Kentucky tries to figure out what to do about charter schools, one concern I keep hearing is that charters open the door to for-profit entities to make money off of taxpayer-funded schools. Many people seem to have concluded that this alone is reason to reject charter schools outright (and thus to deny families this option). I'd like to argue that relatively few for-profit entities are going to be involved in Kentucky charter schools, and that we should treat their presence like we regard the many other private businesses that provide products and services to traditional public schools every year.
The first thing to make clear is that, under Kentucky law, only a non-profit entity can apply to open a charter school. That could be a group of parents or teachers, a civic organization, or non-profit charter management chain. But no for-profit entity may ever be the "holder" of a charter (the contract that governs the operation of a charter school and serves as an agreement between the charter's board and an authorizer, which in Kentucky will most likely always be the local board of education).
It is possible, however, for a charter school's board of directors to hire an external entity to actually manage the operations of the school. This could be a non-profit provider chain (in charter jargon typically called a "charter management organization," or CMO; KIPP is an example), or a for-profit entity like Edison Schools (usually called an "education management organization," or EMO). It's important to note that for-profit EMO's are a relative small player in charter school management. Less than 15% of charters nationwide are operated by EMO's. The rest are run by non-profit CMO's or are independent, stand-alone schools.
However, if a charter school does decide to contract with an EMO for management services, I don't think we should automatically view that arrangement with suspicion. For-profit entities provide products and services to traditional public schools all the time. Think of the billions of dollars we spend annually in contracts and purchases for education technology, textbooks and curricular materials, food services, security, insurance, and a wide variety of other services. We typically don't consider these companies to be fleecing the public unless they are engaged in unethical or illegal behaviors, and we use transparent bidding, auditing, and the performance results of these vendors to help weed out bad actors as much as possible.
Moreover, as individuals we engage with for-profit providers all the time and don't presume their profit motivation automatically precludes their capacity to provide reliable, people-driven service. My family pediatrician makes a profit every time my children get sick. And I'm happy for her to do so. My kids love her and she makes them well. If she stops providing good service, I will find another pediatrician.
Of course, this analogy has its limitations. Public entities have a special obligation to protect the common good, and the consequences of poor service providers at the scale of an entire school are considerable. But schools and districts are accustomed to this challenge and Kentucky's charter law provides rigorous oversight and monitoring mechanisms to help minimize risks of provider misconduct.
That risk can't be eliminated completely of course. We can find examples of people behaving badly in the charter sector, but also in traditional public schools and in various non-profit and governmental roles. Profit motive isn't the only reason people engage in selfish or shady behaviors. That's a function of human nature, not a flaw in specific policies.
It's true that every public policy involves an exchange of benefits and risks. Charter schools pose new policy challenges, while the existing system (which generally denies low-income families a choice of education provider) presents other risks and problems. I believe there is sufficient evidence that we need to give families more education options, and the legal and regulatory regime for charter schools in Kentucky helps address the new challenges those options present.
As a final thought here, from time to time I encounter people who presume I must own stock in an EMO or otherwise have some financial stake in this matter, or else why would I support charter schools? It's truly a sign of how ugly and uncivil our public discourse has become that people presume one must have selfish reasons for disagreeing about public policy issues. For the record, I do not have a single thing to gain personally or professionally, financial or otherwise, by bringing charter schools to Kentucky. I have supported school choice for decades and publicly advocated for charter schools for at least eight years (at some risk to my standing at the university and in the K-12 community) because I believe giving families more education options is fair, makes sense, and should be one strategy among many for addressing our stagnant levels of student achievement. Please see more about how charters would work in Kentucky, and the arguments for and about school choice, in the links below.
Usual disclaimer: All views expressed on this website are mine alone and do not reflect the opinions of Western Kentucky University (where I serve as associate professor of educational administration, leadership, and research) or the Kentucky Board of Education (where I have served as a member since 2016).
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