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The initial emphasis in the Charter School movement talked about freeing Charter Schools from the bureaucratic red tape faced by traditional public schools. Although there may be some differences, they are not of the magnitude some may have hoped for. The perception of differences has been oversold. As long as charters accept public money, they will always be subject to the same public scrutiny as any other public agency. Compliance with laws, rules, and regulations will always be with us.
The real challenge to the Charter movement rests in the performance arena. No Child Left Behind, Adequate Yearly Progress, and fully certified and highly qualified teaching staff have dramatically changed the focus of what is important. Compliance with laws, rules and regulations is becoming institutionalized.
Good Charter Schools, as well as good public schools, must pay more attention to curriculum alignment, curriculum mapping, and assessment or they will fall short in performance. State assessments vary from state to state, but they are designed to measure attainment of the particular State Core Curriculum. A one size fits all curriculum will not produce the results No Child Left Behind and Adequately Yearly Progress are looking for.
The implications for education service providers and authorizers are obvious. The curriculum must be in alignment with the State Core Curriculum in which the school is located. Management companies will use a national curriculum at great risk. Authorizers must give additional weight to the proposed curriculum for new charters and the reauthorization of existing charters.
Some will argue that curriculum alignment, curriculum mapping, and assessment will dampen the opportunity for creativity. That is not necessarily true. The written curriculum is the “what” in the instructional process. The “how” is the method(s) used to instruct. It is in the “how” where creativity comes into play, where it can mean the difference between good instruction and poor instruction and high or low student achievement.
Although choice and competition are powerful arguments for Charter School existence, high student performance on the Michigan Education Assessment Program, which measures the State Core Curriculum, will be the ultimate argument.
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As a University authorizer,
we place performance as our number one objective for our 18 academies.
If it is not, there is no reason for the University to be in the Charter
School authorizing business. |
Utilizing curriculum experts from our College of Education, we have worked collaboratively with administrators and teaching staff from our academies in developing curriculum in Reading/Language Arts, Writing, Mathematics, Science, and currently Social Studies all aligned to the Michigan Core Curriculum. The curriculum is K-12 broken down grade by grade and put on a CD for ease of usage.
Although all teachers are not involved in curriculum development, all teachers are involved in curriculum mapping academy by academy.
An interesting side benefit has been the camaraderie and information exchange that has developed between teachers and administrators from all 18 charters, which are scattered from Northern Michigan to Southern Michigan. Frequent emails or phone calls are common place seeking input and suggestions.
How do we support these activities?
The University currently receives 3% of the gross state aid from each academy
for oversight and academy support. In a compliance model, most of the money
would be spent on compliance issues. In a performance model, we expect and
monitor for compliance, but our emphasis is on performance.
Teachers who work on curriculum development are granted 3 hours of graduate credit for their participation at University Partnership expense. The University provides mini-grants back to the academy to defray substitute and travel costs.
Because we believe the principal is the instructional leader in the building, we require them to attend monthly meetings at the University. Our agenda is not about fire drills, etc., but instruction. Emphasis is placed on curriculum monitoring, assessment, data disaggregation, utilizing related sites, etc., and developing working School Improvement Plans. We also grant administrators 3 hours of graduate credit for their participation.
At the building level we provide staff development training centered around the needs of the building—be it best practice, classroom management, assessment, etc. These services are provided by the Partnership Office staff or College of Education faculty.
Because so many of our teachers are new or fairly new to the teaching profession, we have identified a cadre of retired master teachers to serve as mentors to those who require mentoring. Costs for the mentors are split between the University Partnership office and the individual academy. The mentors are screened and hired by the University Partnership office and are provided training to familiarize them with the curriculum. In addition, we provide each mentor with a laptop computer to enable off-site communication between the mentor and the mentee. The impact of this activity is extremely effective in implementing good instruction and reducing staff turnover.
We firmly believe if charter schools are to become leaders in best practice and performance, collaboration between academy boards, educational service provider staff, and the authorizer is a must.
Ron Schneider spent several years in public education
as a teacher, Director of Grant Development, Director of Special Education,
Assistant Superintendent of Pupil Personnel, Assistant Superintendent of
Elementary Education, and Assist ant Superintendent for Human Resources
in Saginaw, Michigan before assuming his current role as Director of School
University Partnerships at Saginaw Valley State University. He can be reached
at schneide@svsu.edu.
