Charter schools are reaping the rewards of freedom and common sense

Imagine a K-12 school that is organized and run by a group of concerned parents. The school is not a for-profit business, it is not affiliated with any religious organization and it does not charge tuition. 

The administration and teachers are exclusively focused on delivering the best, highest-quality education for students possible. Students are taught using a proven academic curriculum that provides them with the fundamental knowledge needed to be successful at a selective university, at work, and in life. 

They also learn that honesty, integrity, personal responsibility, and respect for others are essential character traits for a life well-lived and, more broadly, for their place in a functioning civil society. 

Such schools do, in fact, exist. They are not private schools and they are not traditional public schools — they are charter-public schools, usually referred to as charter schools.

The most important advantage enjoyed by charter schools relative to traditional public schools is freedom. Charter schools are free to use common-sense approaches to education rather than being constrained to follow policies and procedures dictated by bureaucrats unfamiliar with students and their families. 

For example, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, good charter schools chose to continue to offer in-class instruction while most traditional public schools, often due to pressure from their employee unions, were only allowed to offer remote instruction. 

Safe in-class instruction during the pandemic was made possible by the installation of air-purification systems in school buildings and partitions between student desks. The decision to remain open was controversial, but proved to be enormously beneficial to students.

Charter schools are free to base their educational philosophies and curricula primarily upon old, proven ideas rather than new, experimental ones. Many decades-old approaches to educating children have been demonstrated to be highly effective.

New approaches are frequently embraced by schools of education at universities and, consequently, by the teachers whom they train. Thus, it is possible for some fanciful new approaches of little real substance or value to be foisted upon teachers and students at traditional public schools, with the result that a great deal of damage is done to students.

Charter schools are thus typically far less influenced by the faddish approaches promoted by schools of education because few of their administrators and teachers have earned degrees from schools of education. Common-sense approaches to educating children should embrace that which is already proven and established, combined with a healthy skepticism and careful application of that which is new.

Charter schools can take steps to ensure that only teachers who have acquired solid and extensive content knowledge are hired. They commonly have the freedom to assemble a governing board of directors and hire administrators and teachers from the ranks of practicing artists, historians, scientists, engineers and businessmen and women who have spent their entire professional careers making things work and getting things done. 

They need not be career educators who have earned a degree from a school of education or are otherwise constrained by state certification and licensure. Charter schools are free to employ a rigorous interview process when hiring new employees. They are free to hire the best administrators and teachers on an authentically professional basis, regardless of whether they are credentialed by a government agency. 

This freedom confers an enormous advantage to charter schools relative to traditional public schools, where hiring practices and procedures are controlled by government workers and teacher unions.

Good charter schools typically do not award tenure to teachers. Tenure protects good teachers from bad administrators, and it protects bad teachers from good administrators. 

A poorly-performing teacher can be dismissed with short notice. If the administration demonstrates to teachers and its governing board that it can be trusted to act fairly and equitably in personnel matters, good teachers feel confident their employment is secure without the need for the protections afforded by tenure. 

Unlike the situation at traditional public schools, outstanding charter school teachers can be rewarded with higher compensation and promotion without regard to seniority. They are typically rewarded based on merit.  

Acknowledging fair compensation is always desirable, although truly outstanding teachers are motivated less by compensation and benefits than by the satisfaction of working with other dedicated professionals in a worthwhile common endeavor. The school administration fosters esprit de corps in order to retain highly motivated teachers.

Good charter schools require teachers to maintain order and discipline in the classroom and for students to comply with appropriate rules of conduct. This means students are more apt to behave respectfully towards teachers and towards one another. 

When a student is disruptive, the charter-school teacher is empowered to halt disruptive behavior and the administration supports the teacher’s actions. This requires the administration to be adept at getting parents engaged and for them to recognize the need to support the teacher when an issue arises with regard to their child’s behavior at school. Administrators and teachers must earn the trust of parents.

It is evident, based upon multiple metrics such as standardized test scores and the success rates of their graduates at colleges and universities, that good charter schools are doing an excellent job of educating students. 

The freedom to apply common sense in choosing curricula, assessing teacher and student performance, and maintaining classroom discipline confers enormous advantages to charter schools relative to traditional public schools that are burdened by the weight of massive government bureaucracies.

John M. Allen, Ph.D., is a science specialist at Liberty Common High School.