Clinton's Baseless Charter School Claim

By Sara Mead

Earlier this month, Hillary Clinton told a South Carolina audience that "most charter schools ... don't take the hardest-to-teach kids," accelerating an already heated public debate about charter school discipline policies and the role of charters in education reform. Unfortunately, much of the media coverage has focused on the political horse-race dynamics at play here: In the ongoing intraDemocratic debate over education, do Clinton's comments mean she's taking the side of teachers unions who have opposed charter schools over that of education reformers who have supported them? There's been far less honest analysis of the accuracy of Clinton's comments.

Yet, to see hard data on whether charters are serving all students, Clinton – and the reporters covering her campaign – don't have to look far beyond the White House she once called home and is now seeking to occupy again. Last week, the District of Columbia released its annual school equity reports, which provide transparent information on the race, ethnicity, economic status, special education status, discipline and mobility rates for students in all District public schools – both traditional and charter. The results call into question the idea that charters don't serve all students.

First, charter schools in Washington actually serve a higher percentage of low-income and racial and ethnic minority students than the city's schools as a whole. In 2015, 78.6 percent of charter school students come from economically disadvantaged families, compared to 74 percent of students citywide; 91.8 percent of charter students in Washington are African-American or Latino, compared to 87.3 percent of students citywide.

What about students with disabilities and English-language learners? The percentage of students with disabilities served in charter schools – 15.1 percent – is roughly comparable to the percentage citywide (15.6 percent). Moreover, charter schools serve the same percentage of students with the most severe disabilities as the city's public schools overall. Washington charter schools do serve a lower percentage of English-language learner students (6.9 percent) than the District's public schools overall (9.2 percent), but that's at least in part because they serve a higher percentage of African-American students.

When people talk about whether charter schools serve "the hardest-to-teach" kids, however, they're not just talking about demographics or even special education. They're also talking about school discipline – specifically whether charter schools use suspensions and expulsions to push out students with academic or behavior challenges. D.C. charter schools do expel students at higher rates than the traditional schools, but in both sectors, the percentage of children suspended is low – roughly 3 out of 1,000 students enrolled in charter schools and 1 out of 1,000 students citywide. Moreover, this comparison fails to consider the fact that the traditional school district can remove children with a history of challenging behavior or disciplinary issues from their home schools and assign them to alternative settings within the District without expelling them – an option not available to charter schools.

D.C. charter schools also suspend students at higher rates – 10.7 percent of charter students were suspended in 2015, compared to 9.9 percent of students citywide. But over the past three years, charter school suspension rates have fallen significantly – from 15 percent to 10.7 percent. That's still a higher suspension rate than we'd like to see – for charters or the city as a whole. And the D.C. Public Charter School Board, which authorizes charter schools citywide and of which I am a member, is working to encourage charter schools to review their disciplinary policies and consider alternatives to exclusionary discipline. But it does suggest that charters are making progress to reduce the use of exclusionary discipline.

Obviously, this data has its limitations. D.C. is not representative of the nation as a whole. The District has both one of the nation's most developed charter sectors – with more than 44 percent of all students enrolled in charter schools – and an authorizer committed to holding schools accountable for both their academic performance and the extent to which they fulfill their mission, as public schools, to serve all students. Not all authorizers take those responsibilities as seriously – or have the resources and capacity to execute them effectively. And there are other jurisdictions where charters – or at least some charters – do attract a large percentage of white and middle-class families seeking to opt out of the public education system.

But those issues underscore the value of the equity report data that D.C. released this week – and why we need more jurisdictions to report similar data. Since charter schools first came on the scene nearly 25 years ago, critics have questioned whether charter schools truly serve all students or whether, as schools of choice, they skim off the easiest-to-serve students and leave public schools with only the most challenging students. Recent debates over charter school discipline policies and practices have drawn increased attention to these questions.

These are important issues. Unfortunately, public dialogue about them often focuses more on anecdotes and assumptions than real data. But the core questions here are empirical ones. Existing data, thoughtfully analyzed and transparently reported, can greatly enhance our understanding of the extent to which charters currently serve the most challenging students, the reasons for any discrepancies in demographics or discipline outcomes between charter and traditional district schools and the policy options and trade-offs involved in efforts to enhance equity and ensure all children have equal access to charter schools.

If Clinton is concerned about whether charter schools serve all students, she should propose creating incentives for more states and cities to create the kind of equity reports that D.C. released this week and provide federal funding for them to do so. Only by taking a hard look at data can we move from debate, defense and accusations to honest progress on these issues. 

Sara Mead is a member of the DC Public Charter School Board.