Pros and Cons of Charter Schools - Research Paper Example

There are advantages and disadvantages linked to charter schools that require more empirical studies to support the claims that are associated with them. It might be a sheer observation that charter schools have advantages over the public schools as far as their characteristics are concerned. However, these characteristics as implied will not be the ultimate assurance that charter schools will only ensure advantages. These characteristics are also remarkable evidences to support the idea that charter schools are possibly not only bringing advantages with them, but in one way or another they may not be higher than public schools at all or they might even worse. Concerning this point, as far as the characteristics of charter schools are concerned, the work at hand found that the advantages so far seem to outweigh the disadvantages. Name: Course: Tutor: Date: Pros and cons of charter schools Charter schools are integral components of an alternative education system, allowing public funding for them to operate independently. These institutions are given much freedom to go for innovation in education, but they are not free from the pressure that allows them to take control of students’ academic achievement or performance. In fact, they are expected to provide much better and quality standard education than the comparable academic institutions like the public schools. For this reason, one inherent manifestation of charter schools is their ability to allow teachers, parents and students to have strong involvement and participation together in order to ensure high rate of academic achievement and excellent academic performance. With this given information, one might consider that there are many things to be taken into account as great with charter schools. However, this does not mean that charter schools may not have some other important drawbacks. In order to make a clear justification of point regarding these two conflicting issues, the work at hand presents the pros and cons of charter schools and investigates if the former may have surpass the latter. Prior to the main objective of this paper, the need to consider the other sheer characteristics of a charter school is a better way to understand its advantages and probable linked disadvantages. A good way to obtain a good idea of a charter school is to consider its characteristics compared to the public school based on school size, grade-level configuration, student-to-teacher ratio, and student-to-computer ratio (Beryl et al.). In 1997 to 1998, the average size of charter school was 137 students and more than 400 for the public school in the same year (Feinberg 156). Though there is a significant increase in number, the same trend today is followed, by which charter schools have substantially small number of students and public schools have even more. Regarding the grade-level configuration, charter schools are given by the State laws the freedom to choose the grade structure and the age range of the students they will serve (RPP International 22). A certain study reveals that the student-to-ratio in low-performing charter schools is approximately 17 to 1, compared to approximately 15 to 1 in acceptable-performing charter schools (Burds 104). Intuitively, these ratios are lower compared to the prevailing ratios in comparable schools. There may be or no significant difference when it comes to student-to-computer ratio between charters schools and public schools, it is evident that students at charter schools are using computers extensively (Hill 16; RPP International 26). These characteristics are also significant indicators of learning. With this in mind for consideration, charter schools may be advantageous when it comes to learning compared to public schools because of the associated innovation in education. Aside from that, learning must be significantly of more interactive value in charter schools than in public schools because of the engagement of parents and teachers with the students’ actual academic performance. This will provide a more meaningful perspective to facilitate education and cover important aspects of learning even beyond or outside the four corners of the classroom. In addition, the minimal number of students in charter schools would mean more opportunity for teachers to acquire a more focus for teaching and give a remarkable attention to quality education. Not only that. The student-to-teacher ratio in charter schools would speak of the opportunity for each student to be given a much quality time for teaching or coaching activities. Unlike in the public schools where many students will have to divide not only the attention of the teachers but time, students in charter schools will have the opportunity to gain more knowledge because teachers will be able to achieve significant time in order to evaluate and assess a few number of students. They will even gain some remarkable insights from the parents regarding the learning concerns of their students. Students in charter schools will also have more exposure to modern information technology, which is evident in the student-to-computer ratio. In fact, they have extensive computer usage than their public students counterparts as already stated. The above arguments simply present the point that there might be some significant advantages of charter schools with reference to their public counterparts. Each of the advantage has important implication on learning as presented. This is the reason why charter schools have become one fundamental issue of concern especially in the area of learning and education. Aside from this point, not everyone is convinced that charter schools have advantages especially over their public equals. For this reason, it matters to talk about some probable disadvantages linked to charter schools based on their inherent characteristics. Parents are involved in the actual learning of the students in charter schools. This would mean that at some point teachers’ creativity in teaching may be undermined. Some parents will become more imposing that will stand in conflict with the prevailing standard imposed by the school. For this reason, there is potential issue of conflict of interest that is eventually way beyond the actual issue of learning, but is more of an administrative issue in as sense. However, this has important implication in the actual learning programs in the long run. Innovation seems to be a great, sounding idea concerning the emancipation of charter schools. In fact, each of the charter schools may have varying ways, styles and techniques that are associated with learning. In fact, they have this freedom when it comes to grade-level configuration, which means they can present suitable programs that will fit to the actual need of the students according to their considered circumstances, a move that is undeniably a form of advantage. However, the presence of this innovation does not make any difference with what the private academic institutions are doing. This innovation is a gateway to a more meaningful justification of privatization and commercialization of education. This therefore means that charter schools may have varying outcomes and this means not each of them will have to present the same quality level of education, because the intensity of innovation may not be the same at all. Charter schools with more business-oriented approach are therefore more likely to initiate innovative strategies in order to generate funding and public support. Concerning this point, one remarkable disadvantage of charter schools may be its hidden agenda that is way beyond the actual education. This institution may be highly politicized to the extent that it will probably compete with the public academic institution and the private academic institution. This move will be a remarkable advantage if only it will lead to quality learning of the students at the bottom line. However, such move may also probably jeopardize the quality of learning especially for the less-privileged who could not afford if the price of education in charter schools will be lifted up due to the freedom for combined participation of the private and public entities that will probably result to commercialization. As noticed, the advantages and disadvantages of charter schools may not be absolutely clear and evident for now. However, it is obvious that by understanding their characteristics, one can gain some intuitive insights of the probable direction of events in the future. However, it is still important to consider the advantages and disadvantages of charter schools in the area of actual quality of learning because it is in this part where these institutions are specifically engaged especially in concerns for policy direction in consideration of the students’ academic achievements. Charter schools have long been linked to students’ academic achievements. With this, there are varying research studies and academic investigations in order to test the prevailing ideas regarding the validity of the common claimed concept of advantages of charter school most especially over its comparable academic institution. The study concerning the performance of charter schools in Wisconsin reveals that these institutions perform somewhat better than the traditional public schools (Witte, Weimer, Shober and Schlomer 557). The performance assessment was based on the achievement test scores of students in grades 3 to 10 in Milwaukee charter and traditional schools based on the available data from year 1998 to 2002. On the other hand, in a research study aiming to find if charter school truly demonstrates higher proficiency than its public counterpart, findings reveal that students in the former institution perform the same with those students in the latter institution (Kindzierski, Mhammed, Wallace and Lesh 1). However, it was also found in this study that if the disparity in population size will be taken into account, students in charter schools may have actually performed worse than those who are in the public schools. Another study reveals that students in charter schools might have smaller achievement gains compared when they should be in public schools (Bifulco and Ladd 50). The significant observation linked to these studies would tell that each of them have considerably used varying research designs and data, and analyses of data. Not all of them so far have considerably used the same methodology in measuring the level of academic performance of students in charter schools and the comparable school. For this reason, it is not clear yet as to what standard measure has to be initiated in order to create a more refine and even sophisticated result that will truly reflect on the prevailing actual situation concerning the students’ academic performance. In addition, there is limited number of research studies that pertain to the quantitative analysis of the impact of charter schools on student achievement (Sass 91). This means that at this point, one cannot eventually provide a conclusive evidence to suggest whether charter school is absolutely good or has nothing new to contribute at all in the education system because of its probable level of similarity with other comparable academic institutions. In other words, one thing that would specifically matter for now when it comes to understanding the advantages and disadvantages of charter school will be the understanding of its inherent characteristics. These characteristics will pave the way for a significant analysis of the major advantages and disadvantages linked to charter schools. The work at hand just presented some insights concerning the probable advantages and disadvantages linked to charter schools that until now would require more empirical studies to support the claims that are associated with them. What is clear is the thought that charter schools eventually have advantages over the public schools as far as their characteristics are concerned. These characteristics as implied will not be the safest assurance that charter schools will only ensure advantages. These characteristics are also significant starting points of charter schools to be confined at its point of disadvantages or in one way or another may not make it higher than public schools but even worse. However, as far as the characteristics of charter schools are concerned, as discussed the advantages so far seem to outweigh the disadvantages. Works Cited Beryl, Nelson, Paul Berman, John Ericson, Nancy Kamprath, Rebecca Perry, Debi Silverman, and Debra Solomon. The State of Charter Schools, 2000. National Study of Charter Schools. Fourth Year Report. Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, 2000. Print. Bifulco, Robert, and Helen F. Ladd. “The Impacts of Charter Schools on Student Achievement: Evidence from North Carolina.” Education Finance and Policy 1.1 (2006): 50-90. Print. Burds, Carmen G. Acceptable and Low-performing Charter Schools in Texas: The Identification of Common Characteristics. Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest, 2007. Print. Feinberg, Walter. School Choice Policies and Outcomes: Empirical and Philosophical Perspectives. New York, NY: SUNY Press, 2008. Print. Hill, Elizabeth G. Assessing California’s Charter Schools. Darby, PA: DIANE Publishing, 2008. Print. Kindzierski, Corinne M., Ali Ait Si Mhammed, Nancy Wallace, and Christina Lesh. “State Assessments: Does a Charter School Truly Demonstrate Higher Proficiency than its Public Counterpart?” Current Issues in Education. 16.2 (2013): 1-14. Print. RPP International. The state of charter schools, 2000: Fourth-year report. Stanford, CA: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, US Dept. of Education, 2000. Print. RPP International. The State of Charter Schools. Stanford, CA: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, US Dept. of Education, 2000. Print. Sass, Tim R. “Ch arter Schools and Student Achievement in Florida.” Education Finance and Policy 1.1 (2006): 91-122. Print. Witte, John, David Weimer, Arnold Shober, and Paul Schlomer. “The performance of charter schools in Wisconsin.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 26.3 (2007): 557-573. Print. Read More