FOCUS DC News Wire 7/26/13

 

 

Before Le Monde French Immersion Public Charter School opened its doors last fall in Portland, Ore., it had already overcome one of the biggest challenges facing charter schools: finding and financing its facility. "It was a traumatic experience," said Shouka Rezvani, the board president for the independent public school. "We all know what our academic models are, but as a startup, you have no financial history that you can fall back on with respect to getting money."

 

Unlike regular public school systems, which can seek taxpayer-backed bonds for school construction and renovation, many charter schools have no mechanism in place to offset their facilities costs. And while some of the larger charter networks have more experience and financial track records to fall back on, startup charters are hit particularly hard when seeking loans and other financial assistance because of their lack of a financial history, experts on the sector say. In addition, charters' contracts with their authorizers tend to range from three to five years, while loans are typically paid back over several decades, making banks wary of lending to the schools for fear that their contracts will not be renewed.

 

For the Portland startup, even before tackling how it would pay for the facility, an even bigger hurdle was simply finding a suitable space, Ms. Rezvani said. "We have to meet all of these code requirements that older schools [and private schools] may not have to comply with because we're a new school, which makes even the consideration of most spaces impossible and difficult," she said.

 

In addition, when it was seeking to move into a Portland school system building that was no longer in use by the district, Le Monde faced competition from private schools with larger budgets. Allowing charter schools to occupy former district-owned buildings is a practice that has spread to many states, and in some cases, it has increased the tension between charter and district-operated schools. Ultimately, Le Monde ended up where many charters start out: co-locating with a church. And while that arrangement has worked so far, it hasn’t been ideal, Ms. Rezvani said.

 

The school has installed reversible bulletin boards that can be flipped over depending on the use of the room, and the school and the church have signed agreements about where student artwork can be posted and what can and cannot be displayed. For now, the arrangement is working, but officials of Le Monde are continuing to seek suitable but affordable spaces as the charter's enrollment increases, Ms. Rezvani said. The school currently serves about 150 students in grades K-2 and plans to add grade levels each year until it is a K-8 school.

 

'Political Battle'

Le Monde is not alone in its struggle for a space, said Josh Kern, the owner of Ten Square, a Washington-based consulting firm that works with charters to help them find and finance facilities. "This is the single biggest business decision that schools will make," he said. "Making a bad facilities decision in the first year can really determine the performance of the school."

 

Mr. Kern, who founded and ran a charter school, Thurgood Marshall Academy, in the nation's capital for 10 years, said that although charter schools in the District of Columbia receive one of the charter sector's largest per-pupil facility allowances (about $3,000 per student), the Washington real estate market makes it nearly impossible to find an appropriate and affordable location.

 

"It's a nonstop political battle," said Robert Cane, the executive director of a Washington-based charter advocacy group, the Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, or FOCUS. A city law requires the District of Columbia public school system to give charter schools "right of first offer" whenever a public school building transfers hands, but Mr. Cane contends the school district has been hesitant to do so. "There’s a tendency to want to keep control because [the district] is afraid that if [it] gives up [the facilities] to charter schools, that will just accelerate the decline in their enrollment," he said.

 

That is also a problem for charters elsewhere, said Emily Dowdall, a senior associate for the Philadelphia Research Initiative at the Pew Charitable Trusts.

 

"In a number of cities, there is a growing concern that turning those buildings over to charters will lead to expanded enrollment for charters and even further rounds of closures [in regular school districts]," said Ms. Dowdall, who recently wrote a paper about what happens to shuttered school buildingsRequires Adobe Acrobat Reader in 12 cities around the country. But while districts may be hesitant to embrace charter schools, Ms. Dowdall’s research showed that the biggest share—42 percent—of shuttered school buildings do end up in the hands of charter operators. "In many cases, there might not be a lot of choices," Ms. Dowdall said. "The charter school may be the only prospective buyer."

 

Tracking Facility Needs

Until recently, charter advocates could only estimate the percentage of operating budgets that charters typically spend on facilities-related costs, including lease and loan payments as well as maintenance and other upkeep of the properties. But the newly formed Charter Schools Facilities Initiative—a collaboration between the Denver-based Colorado League of Charter Schools and the Washington-based National Alliance for Public Charter Schools—has launched a national effort to gather comprehensive information on charters’ access to affordable facilities.

 

Preliminary data from AprilRequires Adobe Acrobat Reader, collected from a survey of nearly 1,000 charter schools in 10 states, show that charters spend roughly 10 percent of their operating budgets on facilities. And that has a direct impact on the academic quality of charters, said Nina S. Rees, the executive director of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

"Every penny that’s spent on facilities is a penny that’s not spent on the classroom," she said.

 

Jim Griffin, a former president of the Colorado League of Charter Schools, said the issue also affects what kind of services and programming the schools can offer. (Mr. Griffin is now the president of Momentum Strategy and Research.)

 

In nine of the 10 states surveyed, for instance, fewer than 50 percent of charters reported having kitchen facilities that qualified schools to prepare meals on site and met federal guidelines for the free- and reduced-price lunch program. (While a lack of such facilities does not exclude those schools from participating in the federal program, it may increase their expenses by forcing them to buy vendor meals that cost more than the federal reimbursement rate.)

 

Many charters also do not have access to gyms, libraries, computer labs, and science labs, the survey found, and fewer than a quarter of the charter schools surveyed met regional and national standards for overall facility size. "We have to break this challenge down into its parts and recognize that there are options, and there are improvements that the state can make to public policy that don’t have to dip into the public treasury," said Mr. Griffin. He cited examples such as requiring districts to share derelict or underutilized school buildings with charters or creating credit-enhancement programs that allow charters to negotiate loans at more-affordable rates.

 

'Bogus Comparison'

Still, some researchers say that charter advocates are oversimplifying the debate around facilities. "To suggest that charters pay 100 percent through their operating budget [for facilities] and districts get them for free is really a bogus comparison," said Bruce Baker, a professor and researcher at Rutgers University’s graduate school of education in New Brunswick, N.J., who studies school finance. "The fact that the money flows are not simple and direct means that making those comparisons isn’t easy," he said.

 

Gary Miron, a professor of education at Western Michigan University and a researcher at the Boulder, Colo.-based National Education Policy Center who studies school finance and charter schools, said that while policies vary from state to state, many traditional public schools pay for at least some facilities costs out of their operating budget as well. "It is true that [regular public schools] have low-cost and low-interest bonds that have been issued over time but this notion that charter schools have to take a big chunk of their operating budget [for facilities]—districts have to do that, too," he said. 

 

But Mr. Baker, from Rutgers, agrees that regular district schools receive more systemic support for facilities than charters do. "Clearly, the funding should be fair, and one of the baseline issues that comes up with charters is that most states from the outset did not set up a mechanism for charters to finance their capital," he said. Around the country, states and districts have experimented with different ways of providing more-equitable access to facilities for charter schools.

 

New York City, for instance, has embraced co-location, an arrangement by which charter schools are housed in the same facility as district-run schools and sometimes other charters, for free. So far, 159 charter schools, or 64 percent, are co-located.

 

But the United Federation of Teachers, New York City’s affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, has called for a moratorium on co-locations and has filed a lawsuit against the New York Department of Education, challenging the legality of the arrangements.The lawsuit does not question the legality of co-location as a practice, but seeks to stop those decisions from being made over a year in advance of the proposed sharing of facilities, explained Michael Mulgrew, the president of the union.

 

In some cases, co-locations have been arranged three years in advance, which does not allow parents and community members to accurately assess whether the agreement is a good fit for their school, especially if demographics and programming change dramatically during that time, Mr. Mulgrew said. In addition, in some instances, co-location has forced schools to cut back on the programming and services they provide to students in order to make room for another school, negatively affecting those teachers and students, he argued.

 

Some charter advocates acknowledge that co-location can be challenging since charters often depend on the cultivation of a distinctive culture and school model. But Sara Batterton, the senior director of real estate and facilities for Uncommon Charter Schools—a network of 38 charters in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts—said the practice is working.

 

Uncommon Schools currently operates 14 schools in Brooklyn that are participating in the co-location program, and Ms. Batterton said she would like to see the practice replicated in other cities.

 

"The system in place in New York City has allowed us to grow and scale quickly and provides an amazing partnership with the city of New York and the city school system," she said. "There are understandably challenges to sharing any kind of space to any co-tenant, but we’ve found really positive ways of working together."

 

 

The University of Pennsylvania last year had seven undergraduates who hailed from a national charter-school network that educates children from families of modest means. This school year, the Ivy League university will enroll 13 more graduates of the KIPP network, including one from the District.

 

The expansion is the result of an unusual tactic that the network once known as the Knowledge Is Power Program has developed to help its students get into and through college. Starting in October 2011, KIPP and college leaders signed pledges to create recruiting pipelines and campus support systems for students who often lack the higher-education connections routinely found in affluent communities.

 

The agreements that KIPP has signed with 39 colleges and universities contain no admission guarantees. But they do, in many cases, set recruiting goals, such as at Penn, which pledged to recruit 12 to 15 KIPP graduates each year.

 

Georgetown University, which announced a KIPP agreement in November, said it aims to actively recruit eight to 12 KIPP graduates a year. Its results for the incoming class: Four admitted, two enrolled.

 

This year, Syracuse and Trinity Washington universities also will enroll at least eight KIPP graduates each, Franklin & Marshall College six and Davidson College four. Colby College and Duke University will enroll two each. San Jose State University will enroll 34, KIPP said, well exceeding its recruiting target of 15 to 20.

 

The KIPP effort is one of many that works to help disadvantaged students get into college at a time when experts say too few have access. Among others are nonprofit programs such as QuestBridge and the Posse Foundation. But it is notable that KIPP has obtained written recruiting agreements from numerous colleges, including some of the most prestigious.

 

“We’re excited to see life breathed into our college partnerships,” said KIPP co-founder Mike Feinberg, a graduate of Penn. “KIPP students are applying, getting accepted, and matriculating to our partner colleges and universities. Next steps will be to figure out how to increase not just acceptances but matriculation, and also how to ensure we are maximizing our partnerships to help our alumni stay in college and graduate.”

 

The alumni are defined as students who went through a KIPP middle school or graduated from a KIPP high school. The network, with 41,000 students, operates far more middle schools than high schools, but it tracks and advises former middle school students as they move through high school.

 

Ninety-five percent of KIPP students are black or Latino, and more than 86 percent come from low-income families.

 

Studies show students in poverty have a more difficult time getting into selective colleges. Often, they don’t apply even if their transcripts are strong.

 

“There is a huge need,” said Lindsey E. Malcom-Piqueux, an assistant professor of higher education administration at George Washington University. “Colleges are even more challenged to get economic diversity than racial and ethnic diversity.”

 

 

 

The Washington Post's Nick Anderson reveals today that the KIPP Network of charter schools has been forging agreements with colleges for recruitment of their students. Mr. Anderson says that KIPP has reached such an arrangement with 39 schools. However, as the Post reporter explains, the pacts do not include guaranteed admission for students:

 

"Georgetown University, which announced a KIPP agreement in November, said it aims to actively recruit eight to 12 KIPP graduates a year. Its results for the incoming class: Four admitted, two enrolled.

 

This year, Syracuse and Trinity Washington universities also will enroll at least eight KIPP graduates each, Franklin & Marshall College six and Davidson College four. Colby College and Duke University will enroll two each. San Jose State University will enroll 34, KIPP said, well exceeding its recruiting target of 15 to 20."

 

Working with universities for recruitment and retention of students seems to be a trend with some charters. From my recent visit to Friendship Public Charter School’s Collegiate Academy:

 

"Friendship is in the process of developing its own POSSE Program through the University of Wisconsin. The school is working to enhance its Student Ambassador Program at other institutions of higher learning, which provides a support network for students once they arrive at college."

 

One area I'd like to know more about is the form that student support takes once kids arrive at universities. Comments KIPP co-founder Mike Feinberg in the Washington Post article, “KIPP students are applying, getting accepted, and matriculating to our partner colleges and universities. Next steps will be to figure out how to increase not just acceptances but matriculation, and also how to ensure we are maximizing our partnerships to help our alumni stay in college and graduate.”

 

These are exciting developments demonstrating the maturity of the charter school movement.

 

 

DC's public charter schools are in better financial shape than in the past, according to a new study. That should mean fewer school closings and less disruption for students and parents. The report, which surveyed the health of all charter schools in DC for the 2012 fiscal year, says that the median charter school now has enough cash on hand to continue operating for 59 days. That's an improvement of 18 days over the previous year.

 

In the past, DC charters have closed for reasons having to do with finances or mismanagement more often than for academic reasons. Between fiscal years 2008 and 2012, seven schools were closed for mismanagement or insolvency. But, according to the PCSB, no schools closed for those reasons last year, or even came close.

 

Under the 1996 law that set up charter schools in DC, the PCSB is required to review the financial health of all charter schools in the District. Before fiscal year 2010, the PCSB took that task on itself, comparing the key financial ratios of DC charter schools to industry standards.

 

In 2011, the PCSB began collaborating on the review with two other DC agencies that oversee charter school finance: the Office of the State Superintendent of Education and the Office of the Chief Financial Officer. The three agencies created a joint Audit Management Unit (AMU), which has conducted the study for the past three years with the assistance of an independent consulting firm called bearsolutions, LLC.

 

In addition to having greater cash on hand, charter schools showed other signs of improved financial health in 2012. Only 8 schools had "reportable audit findings," compared to 18 in 2011. (A "reportable audit finding" is essentially a red flag identified during the audit process.) The number of schools with negative cash flow fell by half, from 8 to 4. And only three schools were relying on borrowed funds, down from 7 in 2011.

 

"In past years," said Scott Pearson, the PCSB's Executive Director, "we had a few schools literally run out of cash in the middle of the year, creating great disruption for families and school staff."

 

It's also caused great expenditures for the PCSB. According to a report in the Washington Post, the Board spent a little over $1 million on expenses associated with closing schools between 2008 and 2012. The Board sometimes paid debts so the schools wouldn't have to close midyear, and sometimes paid teachers' salaries.

 

In the past, the AMU report has relied on a "CHARM score" to assess charter schools' financial health. (CHARM stands for Charter Audit Resource Management.) This year the report omits that score, because some charter schools expressed concern that commercial lenders and investors might rely on it. But the report does include school-by-school financial information, and the PCSB will continue to use the CHARM score internally to monitor schools' financial condition.

 

All indications are that the PCSB is becoming an increasingly effective watchdog over charter schools' finances as well as over their academic quality. That vigilance, along with a new interest in restarting failing charter schools rather than closing them, should mean that in the future fewer charter school families will suddenly find that the school they're relying on is about to disappear. 

 

 

The vast majority of African-American voters in four Southern states believe the government should provide as many educational choices as possible to ensure their children receive a good education, says a new report released by the Black Alliance for Educational Options, a school choice advocacy group.

 

The report surveyed 1,700 black voters in Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi in March 2013. In each state, 85 percent to 89 percent of those surveyed wanted as many educational choices as possible. More than half of those surveyed in each state—55 percent to 57 percent—said they would send their child to an alternative to their assigned school, if given the choice.

 

Across the four states, about half of the survey participants expressed support for charter schools. The more familiar they were with charter schools, the more likely voters were to support them, the survey found. And unsurprisingly, those who rated their regular public schools highly were less likely to indicate they would opt out if an alternative were available. Those who rated their regular public schools poorly were much more likely to say they would move their children to an alternate school if it were available.

 

Although the survey sheds some light on the attitudes of black voters, the organization that released it acknowledged that it is not impartial on the issue of school choice. The Black Alliance for Educational Options states in the beginning of the report that it is an advocacy organization that aims to increase the amount of educational options available for black children.

 

And within the survey itself, the report says that after asking initial questions about charters to gauge the survey participants' knowledge of charter schools, participants were then given "informed ballot questions prefaced with facts about charters." Those facts included nuggets like "charter schools in some communities have led to significant gains in academic performance, graduation rates, and college readiness for lower-income black students" and "charter public schools serving Black students were over three times as likely to close the achievement gap."

 

As you might imagine, after hearing those facts, the survey participants expressed a greater openness and receptivity to charter schools.