Arizona Charter Schools: The Good, The Bad, and The Costly

by David Safier

This is the first of what will be a series of posts about Arizona’s Charter Schools, and more specifically about Arizona’s online charter schools, also known as “Cyber Schools.”

The question I’m trying to answer for myself is, Should a Cyber School, with no building and no daily classroom meetings of staff and students, get the same amount of money per student from the state as a bricks-and-mortar Charter School?

The Cyber Schools and their lobbying organization, the Arizona Distance Education Association, say, Yes.

To this point, the Arizona Legislature says Yes as well. But there is a question whether it might be changing its mind.

And I say, No, unless a rigorous examination of the Cyber Schools’ books (which has never been done) shows that they use their state-allotted funds wisely to further their students’ educations.

(Remember, I may be a Tax-And-Spend Liberal, but I believe in spending money wisely. I don’t want my federal tax dollars making Halliburton executives obscenely rich, and I don’t want to give state tax dollars to schools only to have a portion spent on their students and the rest going into their pockets.)

First, I need to explain the mechanics of Charter Schools as I understand them, because most people I’ve talked to don’t really know how they work.

Think of a Charter School as a hybrid of a public and a private school — a publicly funded private school, if you will. An individual or a group of individuals say, “I want to start a school. Here is how it will operate.” If the idea is OK’d, the school gets a Charter, the newly created school gathers together students, and the state pays the school on a per student basis. The students pay nothing. Next year, the school gets another infusion of state money based on its student count. And so on, as long as the school stays in operation.

Charter schools have to follow some state guidelines, including giving their students the AIMS test. That’s different from private schools. But in many ways, charter schools operate independent of state or school district interference.

Unlike many of my union-supporting brother and sister teachers, I like the idea of charter schools. I’m a strong believer in teachers unions, but I’m also an alternative education guy at heart, and I like the idea of parents and students being offered a number of educational alternatives. Other teachers have problems with the concept that I understand but don’t agree with.

But here in Arizona, the Charter School concept has run amok. The state has more charter schools than any other state (I don’t know if that’s in raw numbers or as a percentage of the population. I’ll check that out and include it later). The law was created by conservative legislators as a first step toward creating a voucher system in Arizona,so they gave a Charter to nearly anyone who had a pulse and a proposal for a school. Soon, they figured, the Charter School movement would morph into a full blown voucher system, where private schools of all kinds are given state money.

The best charter schools are excellent. I applaud their founders and staff, and I’m delighted for their students. Others are lousy. Some of the worst schools have folded over the years, but since the state has a minimal budget for people to actually visit and observe the schools, we have no idea how many bad charter schools are out there. (And no, “the invisible hand of the marketplace” will not get rid of bad charter schools. It doesn’t work that way.)

Which brings us to Cyber Charter Schools. Students who sign up for these schools work out of their homes. The school supplies them with materials — online and hard copy — and the students are required to work a certain number of hours each day, complete assignments, write papers, take tests, and so on. They are in phone and email contact with teachers, and some schools have group events where the students meet and do things together on a semi-regular basis.

These Cyber Schools get the same amount of money per student as bricks-and-mortar Charter Schools. Does that make sense to you? It doesn’t to me.

I’ll be looking deeper into the Cyber School Question in future posts. I’m beginning a conversation with some state legislators to see what they know about Cyber Schools (and what they don’t know, which I suspect is plenty.)

I want your input as well. Do you know people enrolled in Cyber Schools? Do you have information I don’t? After all, the concept of using the latest technology to further education is a good one, and if this is all legit and the students thrive, then I’m for it. But I want to know more. I want to find out if the schools are actually educating their students, and if the state is getting its money’s worth.