Giving Compass' Take:

• Paul T. Hill explains why there is confusion and disagreement over the impact of charter schools on students in district schools. He unpacks what we know and what we need to find out in order to make informed decisions about charter schools. 

• How can funders fill in the knowledge gaps identified by Hill? What is known about the impact of charter schools in your area? 

• Learn about the governing and accountability challenges associated with charter schools. 

As charter school enrollments grow, are school districts so weakened by financial losses that teaching and learning must suffer? Or does competition spur traditional public schools and districts to improve—for the benefit of all?

There are bodies of research and policy advocacy on both questions, but the results are difficult to reconcile.

Studies focusing on charters’ effects on district finances mostly find harm, and infer that school quality must be suffering. Studies focusing on charters’ effects on overall instructional quality often find no effects but find positive effects much more often than harm to students.

Is somebody wrong here? Does charter growth wreck district schools, or does competition lift all boats?

Some facts are generally accepted: When students leave a district for any reason (moving away, enrolling in charter or private schools) the district no longer has to pay to educate them, but some costs remain.

But there is serious disagreement about the consequences. The “inevitable harm” narrative has become a rallying cry in teachers union strikes from California to West Virginia. Los Angeles union leaders sought and won state support for anti-charter caps and regulations.

Studies on district finances focus on “sticky” costs that can’t be adjusted quickly as district enrollment falls—debts, pension obligations, and administrative costs, for example. These are essentially fixed costs in a year when enrollment declines. Other cost drivers (administrative staffing policies, schools too small to support their overhead, etc.) are within the district’s power to fix.

Careful studies estimate that, in the year after a student transfers to a charter school, anywhere from $1,500 to $3,500 of fixed costs must be paid from a shrinking district budget. Some reporting higher numbers assume districts can do little to adjust spending.

The question of effects of charter growth on district schools and students is important enough to warrant thorough and objective study: a sample of districts impacted by charter schools with careful review of financial challenges, district responses, consequences for school operations, and student results.

But until such studies are done, people with different perspectives will remain in well-established warring camps. Policymakers and voters can’t know whether the competing findings on financial and educational results are either:

1. Both true: Districts are stressed financially by the shifts of resources they must make in order to compete with charter schools, but not helpless. Districts can feel budgetary pain even while their schools are protected and enhanced; or

2. Not both true in all situations: For example, in localities that are above some threshold of debt, fixed costs, charter growth rate, or political stalemate that make it impossible for them to sustain school quality.

The facts can be hard. There is no need to settle for incomplete or cherry-picked evidence. At a time when people who care about children abhor false claims and biased arguments, foundations or government could step up to sponsor the needed research. Until then, voters and policymakers should be skeptical about claims that charter school growth harms district schools.

Read the full article about the impact of charter schools by Paul T. Hill at Brookings.