BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Alabama’s public charter schools are outpacing traditional public schools in academic performance, according to a recent study from the Education Policy Research Consortium.
Researchers from Auburn University presented their findings at the New Schools for Alabama conference in Birmingham, where charter officials from across Alabama and national experts gathered.
“If we look at overall proficiency and growth, charter schools are, in general, about 5.6 percentage points higher in terms of proficiency,” said researcher Andrew Pendola, who highlighted both proficiency and growth on standardized tests – results from the Alabama Comprehensive Assessment Program English language arts and math tests – as key metrics.
Charter schools also demonstrated a slight edge in academic growth — how students improve from one year to the next — at 0.4 percentage points higher than their traditional public school counterparts.
The study, which has not yet been published, showed that charter schools are more successful at serving historically underserved groups. Charter schools are public schools that are given flexibility in exchange for more accountability.
“We can see that the Black, Hispanic, economically disadvantaged, special education or limited English proficient are all performing roughly 10 or more percentage points higher than their traditional public school peers,” Pendola noted.
Researchers looked at how spending influenced student outcomes and found that public charter schools are getting about the same return on investment that traditional public schools are.
They also looked at charter schools’ return on revenue – a measure of how they utilize resources – and found they are able to generate “more academic value” from those resources than traditional public schools.
Academics weren’t the only topic of discussion at the conference, though.
New Schools for Alabama is a nonprofit that advocates for charter schools and their expansion in the state. Its CEO Tyler Barnett said the gathering was a chance for Alabama’s charter school officials not only to learn about innovations in the charter sector, but also to celebrate and network with each other.
“We have 17 (public charter) schools across the state serving about 7,500 families, and that can sometimes feel like folks are working in silos.” Barnett said.
“The hope is that we can bring folks together to share common strategies to improve the educational experiences that kids get access to and to share resources, to share ideas.”
Alabama’s charter schools are located in larger cities like Mobile, Birmingham and Prattville, but there are also two rural charter schools serving Perry and Sumter counties.
During one of many panel sessions, students shared stories about how charter schools have positively impacted their education.
Chaiyah Woods, a junior at Alabama Aerospace and Aviation High School, described her path from homeschooling to public school. “I’ve never felt as engaged as I do now,” Woods said.
Woods said she wants to be an aviation mechanic and a mechanical engineer and AAAHS is helping her reach that goal. “I have been taking classes to learn how to work on aircraft and even worked under a (certified aviation) mechanic for a couple of days,” she said.
Each student on the panel expressed appreciation for the supportive environment and strong teacher-student relationships they found in charter schools.
In a keynote speech, Geoffrey Canada, founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone, underscored the urgency of addressing learning loss due to COVID. Canada warned that failing to catch students up will have long-lasting impacts.
“Those young people who were already behind are further behind,” he said, calling on educators to take immediate action.
“If we’re going to save America, we’re going to have to save these children right now in our schools,” Canada said. “Because what they are going through is unprecedented in the history of our country. And right now our kids need us to step up.”
Canada encouraged Alabama’s charter school leaders to continue experimenting with new approaches, taking advantage of the flexibility charters enjoy in exchange for higher accountability.
A+ Education Partnership President Mark Dixon led a discussion about the need to modernize Alabama’s school funding formula, pointing out that the current funding formula was created 30 years ago, before charter schools existed.
“As we go through this process and we think through how that funding needs to be updated, we really need to consider the needs of charter schools,” Dixon said. “Especially since they receive, on average, about $2,700 less (per student) than your typical public school.”
A change in how the state funds public schools could help out with one of the toughest challenges new charter schools face: How to afford a school building.
During one session, NSFA’s Chris Reynolds said getting a school facility up and running without any state or local school funding requires creative thinking and advanced planning.
“Given the fact of the funding environment that we live in in Alabama, there is a need for ‘year zero’ finance,” he said. “A lot of lenders consider that to be high risk, because it kind of is.”
Charter operators have to look for short-term financing because initial charter contracts are for a 5-year term, he said. That short authorization period makes it challenging for charter schools to obtain long-term financing, as lenders are wary of providing long-term loans to schools that may not be renewed.
“That presents a huge problem for a charter school who now has three years worth of enrollment and has outgrown their facility,” he said.
Philanthropic support like Reynolds mentioned is important to Alabama’s public charter community, exemplified by the conference’s supporters, which included Bloomberg Philanthropies, which recently pledged $26.4 million toward building the Alabama School of Healthcare Sciences Foundation in Demopolis.
Other conference sponsors included the Protective Life Foundation, the Daniel Foundation of Alabama and the Mike and Gillian Goodrich Foundation, among others.