January 24, 2000

Councilmember Charlene Drew Jarvis
441 4^th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20001

Dear Ms. Jarvis:

We are writing to urge you not to introduce legislation that would eliminate the public school conversion option of the D.C School Reform Act. Such a bill would undo a powerful mechanism for the improvement of individual schools and, ultimately, for DCPS as a whole. Further, the bill is needless, since the conversion option will not have the disruptive effects that its opponents claim.

There are two great benefits to the conversion option. One is the opportunity to improve some public schools immediately. Positive things are happening within DCPS (some no doubt inspired by competition from public charter schools). But the management problems that remain tend to stifle schools that otherwise possess the vision and leadership to flourish. For these schools, and the children who attend them, we cannot afford to let pass an opportunity to escape the institutional pressures that have undermined high performing schools and prevented others from turning themselves around.

The other benefit is systemic and, in the long run, may be more important.

For reasons we discuss below, only a few DCPS schools are likely to actually convert. But the option to do so will give principals at all schools more leverage to negotiate with the central administration. Superintendent Ackerman has made increased school site responsibility a top reform priority. But similar efforts elsewhere have proven unsuccessful, defeated by the culture of large, centralized school systems. Even under DCPS's weighted student formula, most school site decisions must be approved by DCPS administrators: repairing a window; promoting a teacher; implementing all or part of a proven school design, such as Modern Red Schoolhouse or Core Knowledge or Success for All; forging a partnership with a small business or major institution; etc. Every initiative risks being slowed by inertia or scuttled by fear of deviating from the "core program." The conversion charter school option creates an environment conducive to authentic school site control. We can already see this effect at work in the efforts of the Duke Ellington School to gain more autonomy.

Arguments against the conversion option are built on a series of exaggerations and misconceptions, the most important of which we address below.

• Paul will remain a neighborhood public school. At community meetings attended primarily by activists who do not have children at the school, speakers have argued that the Paul conversion will deny parents the right to send their child to a neighborhood public school. The speakers implied that Paul, so long a part of the community, would be suddenly stolen away, privatized, ominously transformed. To obtain a public education, they said parents would have to send their children faraway.
  
  This greatly exaggerates the difference between a DCPS school that converts and one that does not. (It should go without saying by now that a charter school is a public school, funded with public dollars and held accountable for the public good. Those who warn of "privatization" are using language irresponsibly.) A conversion can only happen if more than two-thirds of the students' parents support the proposal, and parents would be unlikely to support any radical or risky change. Paul next year will look much as it did this year. The primary difference will be that the principal and her team will be able to push current reforms further, unimpeded by the resistance that has come from DCPS.
• Some have wondered why a relatively successful school would bother to convert, if the differences in instruction will not be extreme. For one thing, the responsiveness that comes with autonomy can be the difference between an adequate school and a great school. In addition, charter status makes it easier to form partnerships with institutions such as the Smithsonian and the Kennedy Center, which will now be pouring extra resources into public education. And perhaps most importantly, given DPCS's history of undermining its better performing schools, charter status will allow Paul to protect what it has already achieved.
• 
  Those who bemoan the loss of a neighborhood school perhaps do not realize that Paul has committed to giving enrollment preference to students in its current neighborhood boundaries. Others overstate the importance of distance in this era of out-of-boundary enrollment. Very few parents in the District have the luxury of sending their children to a good school that is also in walking distance. Those who argue that a charter school conversion takes "choice" away from parents confuse (deliberately or otherwise) a change among available options with the denial of choice in general. A parent who does not want to send her child to Paul -- and by every indication there will be very few of them -- is in exactly the same position as any other parent dissatisfied with the nearest public school.
  
• Only a few DCPS schools are likely to convert. The concern that the conversion option might lead to a mass exodus from DCPS shows little faith in the capacity of the administration to get along with its schools. In fact, the rigors of constructing a charter school application (applications average more than 200 pages and months of preparation time) are such that few schools are likely to apply for conversion. Given the difficulties of consensus building, the prospect of obtaining support from two-thirds of parents and teachers for any proposal will be especially daunting. However many DCPS schools do apply for conversion, fewer still would be approved. The Public Charter School Board has approved less than a third of its applicants and would be unlikely to approve a slew of conversions. Fears that DCPS will be dismantled are simply unwarranted.
  
• The conversion option will have little or no impact on DCPS's long-range facilities planning. It has been argued that children fleeing an unpopular conversion will flood nearby DCPS schools, creating sudden overcrowding. This scenario is entirely implausible. ^[1] Given the two-thirds requirement and the reasonable expectation that the Public Charter School Board will not approve dysfunctional schools, we can expect any conversion charter school to keep most of its students. This is what has happened in other jurisdictions that allow conversion. In only a few instances, then, would a conversion require any adjustment to a long-range plan: an underutilized school about to be combined with another under-utilized school, for instance. Since conversion applications are approved a year before the change takes place, there will be adequate time for any adjustments to be made.
  
  The real concern seems to be that DCPS might renovate a school just before it converts. This again assumes that charter schools are somehow less than public. Worse, it assumes that funds benefiting a child in a charter school are lost or wasted, as if that child were not entitled to a full public education. School facilities built with public funds are indeed public assets, as Superintendent Ackerman has argued in attempting to deny Paul its building. This has been recognized in the one instance that a charter school has managed to purchase an active school building: if the charter school should move or close, a stipulation requires that the building be sold to another public school or revert to the city. ^[2] The public nature of school facilities means that their upkeep transcends the interests of DCPS. A renovation that benefits a future charter school is all to the good.
  
  Charter schools have already changed and diversified the delivery of public education in this city. Long-range school facilities planning for the entire city must take into account the rising portion of public school enrollment in public charter schools. DCPS has been charged with creating the long-range plan, but its opposition to public charter schools creates an obvious conflict of interest. This is one reason many have suggested that responsibility for school facilities be placed in an independent State Education Agency or other entity.
  
  The advent of charter schools, in general, does require a paradigm shift on the part of long-range planners. But the conversion option in particular adds nothing to the challenge.
  
• The conversion option (along with charter schools in general) will not create a "two-tiered" school system. This concern rests on a mistaken view of the motives of the charter school community and of the demographics of the population it serves. It also rests on a pessimistic view of DCPS's capacity to respond to competitive pressure. The reality is that there will be good DCPS schools and good charter schools, as well as schools of both kinds that parents should avoid. As DCPS proceeds down the path of reform, the distinction between whether a school is managed by the Superintendent or by its own board of trustees will matter less and less. A high school student with a special interest in science, for instance, will be able to choose from among several schools: a conversion charter school, a start-up charter school, a DCPS magnet-type school, and a neighborhood school known for its excellent science program. In the era of public school choice, education is not two-tiered but open and diverse.
  
• Charter schools are intended to change public education in the District, not merely to supplement DCPS's reform efforts. Public charter schools are intended to be a new kind of public school, with new governance and accountability structures that avoid the systemic problems that plague DCPS and other large school systems – to the great detriment of children. The charter schools are intended not only to serve their own students, but by competition and example to improve all public schools.
  
  Those threatened by such change often say they support charter schools, but for them charter schools should amount to nothing more than boutique programs that fill “niches” that the school system is not interested in filling. In this view charter schools are not central to school reform but marginal, subordinate – and few. This approach, adopted in states with weak charter laws, produces neutered charter schools that are unable to serve as agents of change.
  
  The ability of Paul Jr. High to convert to charter status underscores that the School Reform Act authorizes charter schools in the full sense. The need for the sort of fundamental change that charter schools provide has not abated merely because DCPS has begun a reform program that did not exist when the Act was passed. In fact, it is precisely by embracing change and risk that public charter schools and DCPS together have begun to improve the lives of children.
  

We look forward to discussing this issue with you in person on Tuesday morning.

Sincerely,

Robert I. Cane
Executive Director

Footnotes

^[1] The implausibility of the overcrowding danger is compounded by the current under-utilization of DCPS buildings.

^[2] The Arts & Technology PCS has purchased the Richardson building. Edison-Friendship PCS, the largest charter school in the District, has leased three buildings with an option to purchase. Every proposed purchase agreement has included a stipulation that the building go to the city or to another school in the event the purchaser moves or closes.