To Lift the Cap or Not?

Last week, MassINC published a report on the impact of the last 15 years of education reform in Massachusetts. You can find the full report here. While the primary focus was not charter schools, the report pushes for lifting the cap for a number of reasons. The full comment is below:

"Closer to home, there has also been a recent and influential study that compares the performance of students at Boston’s charter, pilot, and traditional schools.25 This research finds consistently positive effects for the city’s charter schools on student achievement in all MCAS subjects at both the middle and high school levels. Currently, the state places several limits on the number and location of charter schools. Nationally, the Secretary of Education is targeting federal stimulus money toward states that embrace education reform, including removing the cap on charter schools. If Massachusetts raises or eliminates the cap on charter schools, this change could lead to new charter schools in a dozen communities, such as Boston, Holyoke, and Fall River, that are currently at the limit. In addition, the state should consider allowing effective charter schools serving high-poverty students to operate additional schools and thus allow for greater efficiencies and economies of scale. At the same time, the state should also be more aggressive about closing charter schools that are not working."

A couple of days later, Scott Lehigh followed up with praise in his Globe column.

I also commented at Gotham Schools supporting lifting the cap. My comment is copied below:

"Lift the cap with the following caveats:

1) Charter schools that are underperforming in relationship to their home district should be closed at the end of their charter. Not enough weak charter schools are closed down. Weak charter schools are a financial drain on the system and they hurt kids.

2) Charter schools that are significantly outperforming their home districts should be allowed to replicate. If your school has 70% low income kids and is outperforming the wealthiest districts in the state, you’re doing something right and should give more kids the opportunity.

3) Charter schools with new ideas or models should be allowed; new schools that mooch off older models (especially unsuccessful ones) should not be authorized. This promotes innovation.

4) Districts that don’t want more charter schools can minimize expansion of new charters (though not the replicas), by adopting the practices of charter schools that work. That forces failing schools to try to learn from their neighborhood charter schools that are currently kicking their rears. I still can’t figure out why district schools aren’t visiting my school to learn from what we do here…and why they won’t let us visit their schools that are successful.

5) The cap should be lifted with priority in districts with the greatest need.

Just some random thoughts…"

#4 is my personal addition to the current dialogue that's going on in the charter school community about how to get the cap lifted.