Education
Trent England | March 25, 2015
Why did these charter schools fail?
Trent England
A common refrain against expanding educational choices for students is that some of the choices may turn out not to work. That is exactly what happened in two New York City charter schools. The failure is tragic for the students whom the school has failed, but, like most failure, it is also instructive.
In 2005, the United Federation of Teachers launched its own charter elementary school. It followed up the next year with a charter secondary school. These were hailed by the liberal Broad Foundation as “the first union-run charter schools in the country.”
“The UFT’s charter schools are a unique experiment by one of the most progressive unions in the country,” said Eli Broad, founder of The Broad Foundation. “We believe that many educators, charter school supporters, unions, and others around the nation will be closely watching to see if a union-run charter school will deliver improved student performance, and we believe that the lessons learned here have the potential to travel to other urban school systems.”
In fact, the Broad Foundation committed $250,000 per year for the first four years of the demonstration project. Union president Randi Weingarten said the schools would “finally dispel the misguided and simplistic notion that the union contract is an impediment to success.”
This year, the UFT’s elementary and middle schools are shutting down in disgrace. They likely had no choice, after their authorizer, the State University of New York, revealed that the school had never met its own “Accountability Plan goals.” More about the school’s troubled history (and the success of many charter schools around it) is at Reason.com.
Weingarten and the Broad Foundation have made a point, even if exactly the opposite of what they intended. That is one lesson: intentions are not a guarantee of results. Another is that, at least in the world of educational choices, failure can actually fail. The UFT Charter School tragically failed to provide an excellent education to most of its students, but the penalty for that failure is the foreclosure of its ability to do any further harm. As former Langston University education professor Matthew Lynch observed, if charter schools and other schools of choice “habitually do not reach their goals, they close. Can the same be said of public schools?”
Trent England
David and Ann Brown Distinguished Fellow
Trent England is the David and Ann Brown Distinguished Fellow at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, where he previously served as executive vice president. He is also the founder and executive director of Save Our States, which educates Americans about the importance of the Electoral College. England is a producer of the feature-length documentary “Safeguard: An Electoral College Story.” He has appeared three times on Fox & Friends and is a frequent guest on media programs from coast to coast. He is the author of Why We Must Defend the Electoral College and a contributor to The Heritage Guide to the Constitution and One Nation Under Arrest: How Crazy Laws, Rogue Prosecutors, and Activist Judges Threaten Your Liberty. His writing has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Times, Hillsdale College's Imprimis speech digest, and other publications. Trent formerly hosted morning drive-time radio in Oklahoma City and has filled for various radio hosts including Ben Shapiro. A former legal policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, he holds a law degree from The George Mason University School of Law and a bachelor of arts in government from Claremont McKenna College.