The Accountability Ideal
Charter school
accountability has both unique components, especially the
granting of an actual charter contract allowing an entity not
governed directly by a school board to operate a public school,
and facets that are closely intertwined with broader changes in
ideas about public school accountability. In the following two
sections, I examine both of these aspects of
accountability.
Ideals of accountability for charter schools
One of the challenges of
talking about accountability for charter schools—or a
host of other issues—is the variation among states as to
the interpretation of the charter school idea in legislation
(Buechler, 1996 (July); Bulkley, 1999c; Mulholland, 1996).
Accountability is often separated into two components –
to whom an entity (such as a school) is accountable, and
for what they are accountable (Elmore, 1995). As noted
earlier, accountability for charter schools has two
facets:
- Market-based accountability, which operates through the
choices of parents and students; and
- Performance-based accountability, which operates through
contracts between charter schools and their authorizers
specifying the educational and other outcomes the school will
produce if it is to continue to operate.
The reliance on both
government and the market is a critical aspect of the charter
school idea, and a method for ensuring that charter schools serve
both parental and broader societal interests. As well, these two
forces are intended to combine and create a stronger form of
accountability then is found in the traditional public school
system, where schools are less likely to face the possibility of
closure through either the withdrawal of students or the removal
of a contract that allows them to operate (although they are
increasingly likely to face sanctions such as closure or
reconstitution if they do not meet state-defined performance
expectations). The implicit theory of charter schools is that
these two forms of accountability will complement and reinforce
each other.
According to a study of
accountability components in charter school legislation, Lake and
Millot find three general responsibilities for charter school
authorizers (Lake & Millot, 1998)—(the implementation
of each of these areas are discussed below). The first
responsibility is in the charter school application itself, and
involves the “requirements to become a charter
school” (p. 19). Legislation varies, but generally
includes some of the pieces that must be included in an
application, such as the school’s mission, the type of
staff who will be hired, the type of educational program that
will be offered. Among these requirements are usually the
expected outcomes of the educational program and some reference
to the methods for measuring those outcomes. The second
responsibility is to monitor or oversee the charter school in
some way; often, this responsibility rests with the authorizer
and with one or more other branches of government (i.e. the state
board of education). Within legislation, specific and/or general
reports may be required.
Thirdly, at the core of
the charter school theory, authorizers must use their authority
to choose not to renew a charter for a school that has not met
the terms of the contract—including expectations
involving educational performance—or to revoke a charter
when the operation of a school has clearly strayed from the
original intentions. (Note 2) In a book on contracting in
education, an idea that has some strong similarities to
chartering, Hill and his colleagues describe a contract in this
way:
A contract is a
promise to deliver quality education for children in return for
public funds and a warrant to operate a school for some period of
time. Some procedure is needed to make sure the school lives up
to that promise. Relying solely on parent choice only holds the
school responsible for the private benefits of education. (Hill,
Pierce, & Guthrie, 1997, p. 67)
In the case of charter
schools, advocates have focused their rhetoric on renewal as the
procedure that will ensure that these schools are meeting
publicly desirable educational goals. This is consistent with
Lake and Millot’s argument that, “[e]ffective
accountability requires an efficient means of terminating schools
that fail to achieve their contractual requirements, particularly
in the area of educational outcomes” (Lake & Millot,
1998, p. 20). The combination of performance expectations and a
“contract” creates a theory of charter school
performance accountability that rests on two key
assumptions:
- Authorizers can assess the quality of education offered by
charter schools, using test scores and, if needed, other methods;
and,
- Authorizers will act on their assessments by revoking or not
renewing charters that do not demonstrate that they are providing
quality education.
The “New Accountability” in public education
While charter schools
are generally considered to be outside the domain of mainstream
educational reform efforts such as standards-based reform (cf.
Smith & O'Day, 1991), changing ideas about educational
accountability influence both. Calls for a “new
accountability,” according to Elmore, Abelmann, and
Fuhrman, have three central components: “a primary emphasis
on measured student performance;” “the creation of
relatively complex systems of standards” used to make
comparisons among schools, districts, etc.; and “the
creation of rewards and penalties and intervention strategies to
introduce incentives for improvement” (Elmore, Abelmann,
& Fuhrman, 1996, p. 65).
Within the traditional
system, this new accountability has focused on the creation of
aligned state standards and assessments that are more challenging
and rigorous than in the past, and tools for recognizing and
rewarding schools (and sometimes districts) that are rising above
expectations and penalizing or offering assistance to
schools/districts that are failing to meet them. In theory,
“focusing on student performance should move states away
from input regulations… and toward a model of steering by
results” (Elmore et al., 1996, p. 65). In the theory
underlying charter schools, the primary incentives for improving
performance are the ability to continue to operate as a charter
school by having a contract renewed and to be successful in the
market by attracting students and the public resources they bring
with them. The reverse of this are the clear sanctions for
charters if they fail to improve performance—the removal
of their contract, and the loss of students through the
market.
Another facet of this
new accountability, at least in some cases, is attempts to
increase the involvement of parents and communities in school
reform. This is done largely through the public reporting of
assessment results. The expectation underlying public reporting
is that it, “energizes parents and other community members
to pressure schools for higher performance, particularly when
data show differences in performance among schools that are
roughly comparable in the public’s eye” (Elmore et
al., 1996, p. 67). Public reporting of a range of information,
from test scores to attendance and graduation rates, has also
been a piece of charter school accountability. However, in the
case of charter schools, the purpose of public reporting has
primarily been to influence the market; that is, provide
information that will better enable parents and students to
select among charter schools and between charter schools and
other schooling options.
While some progress has
been made towards the goals of the “new
accountability” (Education Week, 1999), challenges are
still abundant; “The reality of educational accountability
at the close of the century involves contested standards, a
problematic distribution of authority, weak incentives, variable
capacity, and rudimentary technology” (Adams & Kirst,
1999, p. 464). Some of these same challenges have emerged for
charter school authorizers, particularly regarding contested
standards and variable capacity.
Performance accountability and charter school
authorizers
While the approach of
charter school authorizers to issues of performance
accountability is the focus of this article, it is important to
embed it within the broader context of the multiple ways in which
charter school authorizers address accountability. Following a
brief description of the data used here, I quickly describe how
charter school applications and oversight by authorizers during
the term of a contract are used as tools of accountability
issues. This is followed by a more in-depth exploration of the
oversight of educational programs and the renewal
process.
Data
This research draws on a
variety of sources of data. However, as an exploratory piece, it
also raises questions and issues that need further consideration,
and does not claim to offer a definitive discussion of charter
school accountability. I draw on two research studies that
examined charter school authorizers, a study of “New
Regimes in Educational Governance” conducted for the
Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) (Bulkley,
1999a) and the national study of charter school accountability
conducted by the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) at
the University of Washington (Hill et al., 2001). Both of these
studies included interviews with charter school authorizers and
charter school personnel; the latter involved authorizers and
schools in six states (Arizona, Michigan, Georgia, Massachusetts,
California and Colorado), and the former with schools and states
in Arizona and Michigan. Evidence is also gathered from other
recent literature on charter schools (i.e. Arsen, Plank, &
Sykes, 1999; Center for Education Reform, 2000; SRI
International, 1997; SRI International, 2000; Wells & others,
1998; Wohlstetter & Griffin, 1998).
A report based on the
CRPE study was published in 2001 (Hill et al., 2001). This study
explored a number of different aspects of the accountability
issue, including market, government and internal accountability.
That report provides an overview of some of the progress and
challenges experienced by charter schools as they have sought to
contend with the many forces placing demands upon them. In
particular, the report offers a description of the strengthening
internal accountability found in many schools (or accountability
among immediate stakeholders in a school, including educators,
parents, students and community members) and some of the issues
faced in addressing external accountability, including
accountability to charter school authorizers.
Applications
The first formal stage
for any prospective charter school operator is to submit an
application to a public organization allowed to authorize charter
schools. The expectation of many policy makers and advocates of
charter school laws was that these contracts would have very
explicit performance objectives (Bulkley, 1999b). However,
research suggests this if often not the case. For example,
Hannaway’s work on educational performance contracting
suggests that specificity for performance in educational
contracts is often low (Hannaway, 1999), and one study in
California found that goals in contracts ranged from concrete and
quantitative to informal and process-oriented (SRI International,
1997; see also Wells & others, 1998). In Colorado, charter
school applications must explicate student performance standards,
measurable objectives for student growth, and assessment and
reporting procedures. But, in practice, some plans are very
specific while others are “less susceptible to easy
measurement” (Clayton Foundation, 1999, p. 51).
When charter school laws
were first adopted, authorizers or potential authorizers with
little or no experience in granting performance contracts were
placed in a position of wanting or needing to evaluate and
approve applications almost immediately. In addition, some
authorizers were under extreme political pressure to allow some
schools to get up and operating quickly. In this unclear and
sometimes harried environment, applicants often went through a
fairly minimal process (c. f. Bulkley, 1999a). (Note 3) The national
situation may be improving, however. For example, every
chartering agency in SRI’s national survey reported that
some or all of its schools had measurable goals in the area of
student achievement (SRI International, 2000).
Since those early years,
authorizers with more experience have developed clearer
guidelines for applicants and, in some cases, clearer guidelines
for the evaluation of applications. Many of these authorizers
now require information that, they hope, will help to determine
if applicants will be equipped to handle the administrative,
financial and educational aspects of operating a charter
school.
(Note 4)
For some authorizers
working with a large number of schools, the process of granting a
charter is seen as a way to influence school quality both by
selecting the most promising applications and by having an
application process that builds capacity. Thus, these
authorizers believe, the process itself can improve the quality
of the schools that open by forcing applicants to address some
issues involved in operating a charter school that they might not
have considered previously. According to a staff person at
Central Michigan University, in the application process,
“we’re going to take you through a structured
process, we’re going to help you anticipate operational
difficulties, we’re going to help you prepare your
organization so that the first day that you open the doors,
you’re going [to] be prepared to educate
kids.”
Implicit in this focus
on applications as an accountability mechanism is a belief, at
least among staff at some of the larger authorizers, that if they
make the process rigorous enough at the beginning, then they
won’t need to “worry” as much about the school
in practice. While the theory of charter school accountability
has generally focused on some interpretation of student outcomes,
staff working for some authorizers expressed a belief that
charter schools can be more accountable because of the initial
application process. The more rigorous the process, they argue,
the more accountable the school.
Oversight
Once an authorizer
grants a charter and a new school opens or a pre-existing school
begins to operate with a new governance structure, the authorizer
is responsible for overseeing the school in a number of different
areas. The authorizer must determine if a school is compliant
with any applicable laws and regulations, as well as any specific
provisions in the charter document. As a part of compliance, the
authorizer needs to examine the finances of a school to check if
they comply with spending and bookkeeping requirements and
determine if schools are “functioning
organizations.” The following section examines their
oversight of the educational programs of charter schools during
the contract period.
Authorizers use a
variety of tools for oversight, including required reports, site
visits, parental complaints and surveys, outcome data, regular
meetings and informal contact. There is considerable variation
between authorizers as to the types of tools used and the
frequency with which they are used, ranging from those who have
very minimal contact with schools (generally limited to written
reporting unless major problems arise) to others who supplement
reporting with regular contact through visits, meetings and phone
calls.
The most basic level of
oversight for charter school authorizers is ensuring that schools
meet legal requirements regarding compliance with state, federal,
and local laws and regulations, with acceptable accounting
practices, and with reporting requirements. While the theory
underlying charter schools in most states revolves heavily around
student achievement and school performance, a number of studies
suggest that authorizers often focus their oversight on the
familiar, such as compliance and financial stability, rather than
on performance (Bulkley, 1999a; Garn, 1998; Henig, Moser,
Holyoke, & Lacireno-Paquet, 1999; Hill et al., 2001; SRI
International, 1997). In one California study, “school
district officials note that, given all the ambiguity around
student outcomes and what measures are valid, they are holding
charter schools accountable more on fiscal, rather than academic,
measures” (Wells & others, 1998, p. 19).
Regardless of whether or
not compliance requirements directly impinge on the abilities of
a school to operate the educational program it desires, there is
clearly an opportunity cost for the schools related to
compliance; the more time spent on regulatory requirements, the
less time and money available for other purposes (Arsen et al.,
1999).
Alongside general
oversight, there is a subset of charter schools that require
additional attention from their authorizers. These
“non-functioning organizations” are experiencing
major problems such as a substantial loss of students and/or
staff, considerable infighting among staff, parents, board
members or others in the school community, severe student
discipline issues or major financial problems. Authorizers can
identify schools that are completely, or in some aspect of their
operations, non-functional through a number of sources. These
include parental complaints, site visits, financial audits or
reporting, and media “exposes.” Often, multiple
sources inform an authorizer that a school is having serious
struggles.
In some cases,
authorizers do nothing but simply monitor the situation unless or
until it becomes severe. Other times, however, they become more
engaged with the troubled school, often
“behind-the-scenes.” For example, authorizers can
work directly with school boards and school leaders to attempt to
resolve problems. In Michigan, some universities have taken an
active role—sometimes apparent and sometimes behind the
scenes—in schools that have been struggling; for example,
authorizing staff have helped to identify governance problems in
schools and promoted the replacement of board members and school
leaders through advice to boards and leaders. Similarly, in
Colorado, the school leader in one school visited for the CRPE
study left in part because of pressures from the sponsoring
district.
Finally, regular
monitoring combined with detailed feedback to schools can be
useful for authorizers and struggling charter schools. In
Massachusetts, in-depth school site visits are one opportunity to
assess how well a school is functioning. The two schools in the
CRPE study authorized by the Massachusetts Board of Education
both had difficulties early on, one where problems where largely
governance-oriented, and another where they primarily involved
the school’s educational program. In each case, the site
visit reports provided a form of technical assistance to the
schools. By seeing themselves through the eyes of outside
experts, school personnel were more able to identify and address
their internal problems.
Examining the educational program and performance
In the theory underlying
charter schools in most states, the schools are expected to offer
an educational program that leads to improved student achievement
(Lake & Millot, 1998). Authorizers can look at the outcomes
of a school’s education program only at the time of renewal
or formal review, or they can monitor this program throughout the
charter contract period as well.
Monitoring during the Contract.
Early on in their work
with charter schools, authorizers often focused their energy on
ensuring that schools were functional organizations and were in
compliance with fiscal and regulatory requirements. As
authorizers have gained knowledge and experience with compliance
issues, the time required for addressing these issues has been
minimized and become more routinized. This has allowed them to
turn increased attention to the educational programs offered by
schools.
Authorizers use a number
of different tools in monitoring academic achievement and a
school’s educational program. The most common, and
certainly the most publicly visible, is student test scores.
Some authorizers merely collect test score data, but do little
with it during the charter contract period. In other cases,
authorizers analyze the scores and provide information to the
public and/or school personnel about these outcomes. A recent
study by RPP International found that 85% of charter schools
reported test scores to their authorizer (RPP International,
2000). However, it is important to note that the fact that
student achievement is monitored, or tracked, does not
necessarily mean that this data is utilized in decision-making
and other actions by the authorizer. For example, in a study of
California charter schools, 85% schools said they reported
student achievement data to their sponsor, but only 4% said that
the sponsor “had ever requested specific actions or
imposed sanctions in response . . ..” (SRI
International, 1997, Part II, p. 16, emphasis in original). This
potential lack of use of achievement data is tied closely to a
lack of clear standards for schools; as Wohlstetter and Griffin
found, “sponsoring agencies, in general, required
assessment information on performance from charter
schools… but often failed to specify any clear performance
standards or consequences” (Wohlstetter & Griffin,
1998, p. 15).
Test scores are not the
only information used by authorizers to assess a school’s
educational program, as the following two examples demonstrate.
In Massachusetts, where charter schools negotiate an
accountability contract with their authorizer at the beginning of
their charter, schools submit an annual report that includes,
among other things, a discussion of their progress towards the
goals of their accountability contract. Authorizers in several
other states also require annual progress reports; these vary
from one-page commentaries to more elaborate formal reports that
include specific examples and evidence demonstrating educational
progress. In Michigan, one university has recently been pushing
charter schools to develop goals that are “clear, concise
and measurable,” in response to concerns that goals in
charter contracts have at time been imprecise and progress on
them difficult to assess. However, it is unclear what, if any,
formal actions are taken if a school’s educational program
is seen as inadequate by authorizer staff.
Another way of assessing
a school’s educational offerings and aiding in improvement
is through the use of outside organizations. For example, there
a number of organizations that either accredit schools or are
planning to offer accreditation, including several state charter
school organizations. Two school districts in the CRPE study
have required that the schools they authorize become accredited
by their respective state charter organizations when this becomes
possible.
In general, during the
period when a charter contract is in effect, authorizers may be
more focused on the day-to-day issues of compliance and dealing
with non-functioning organizations than they were on broader
issues of accountability for the education program schools
offer. Even within the domain of “educational
accountability,” authorizers cite actions such as ensuring
that teachers are certified and the school’s curriculum is
properly aligned with state standards—while these
certainly may influence the academic program offered by schools,
they are not the kinds of “new accountability” tools
that charter advocates have emphasized. Nationally, such
monitoring of performance has seldom led to charter revocation
(SRI International, 2000).
Renewal.
The renewal process for
charter schools varies considerably across states and across
authorizers. The process and criteria for renewal can be fairly
clear and defined, or undefined to the point of great confusion
for school personnel. The renewal process has the potential (not
necessarily attained) to be a serious undertaking that holds the
genuine possibility of a school not receiving a new charter, thus
providing schools with a strong external incentive.
The Massachusetts
Department of Education is probably the authorizer whose renewal
process is most frequently held up as a “model.” In
Massachusetts, a number of different data sources are used in the
renewal process. The most elaborate piece involves an
evaluation/renewal inspection by an outside team hired by the
authorizer. These teams, which consist of experienced educators
and others, conduct 3-4 day visits at each school up for renewal
and write a detailed report on their findings for the
authorizer. A number of schools have come up for renewal, and
all have received new charters along with suggestions for
improving their programs.
Among other large
authorizers, few have developed as clear or rigorous a procedure
as has the Massachusetts DOE. For example, in the spring of
1999, one Michigan university’s office that works with
charter schools recommended that the university board renew all
the schools whose contracts were due to expire. The materials
provided to the university board included test score data on the
MEAP (the Michigan state test) and another national standardized
test, alongside other information on school goals. The test
scores were mixed, with some schools and grades showing marked
improvement and some showing little or negative change; how good
is “good enough” was not spelled out either formally
or informally to these schools or the university board. Other
goals tended to emphasize participation rather than performance,
such as attendance in foreign language or computer classes. At
another Michigan university that has authorized a significant
number of schools, staff said that they expected all their
schools to be reauthorized before the renewal process had even
begun.
Small authorizers (those
that have granted only a few charter contracts) vary considerably
in their approaches to renewal and are unlikely to be as clear or
thorough as larger authorizers that have more resources and
capacity at their disposal. Some have few clear procedures and
criteria for renewal. Among the case study schools, those whose
charters were granted by small authorizers were generally not
very concerned about renewal. For example, personnel at the
Georgia Department of Education have emphasized to the two CRPE
schools the need for schools to have specific performance outcome
goals in their charters, yet there was little focus on
performance as an aspect of the renewal process at either
school.
Some of the small
authorizers have or intend to utilize external information
sources in their renewal decisions, including accreditation
(discussed above). For example, one district in Colorado hired
an independent evaluator to evaluate a school in the year it was
being considered for renewal. One California district used an
external review of a charter school that was done for other
district purposes in its renewal decision alongside an external
study completed specifically for the renewal process. While
authorizers are using a variety of tools to evaluate a school
when its charter is up for renewal, the authorizers in the CRPE
study generally expected to renew the charters they had granted
when the time came.
Overall, for many
authorizers, accountability to government has primarily focused
on issues of financial and legal compliance, with some monitoring
of educational programs (primarily through test scores).
However, it is unclear to what extent government authorizers are
using educational monitoring or evaluation to make serious
decisions about the operation of individual schools. This
challenge to performance accountability is recognized by both
advocates and critics of charter schools; as one study noted, in
practice, "accountability typically means a half-baked
version of the top-down regulation-and-compliance system that the
state or community applies to its conventional public
schools" (Finn et al., 2000, p. 135).
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