The Obama administration has urged states to remove their caps limiting the number of charter schools that operate at arm's length from conventional public schools systems, but Hawaii is reluctant to do so. The resistance is damaging, as most charter schools have found innovative ways to avoid the furlough days that have hammered the state's traditional system.
Teachers unions have fought the growth of charter schools across the country, preferring that all teachers in a system be under the same contract. In Hawaii, charter teachers belong to the Hawaii State Teachers Association but charter schools can negotiate separate labor agreements, besides departing from many curricular requirements.
Kathryn Matayoshi, the Hawaii public schools' interim superintendent, testified to state legislators against raising Hawaii's cap, explaining, "The issue of equity funding is very complex and requires in-depth analysis." State expenditures per student in charter schools have declined significantly in recent years.
Thirty-one of Hawaii's 256 schools are charter, and more than 2,800 students are standing in line for admission. Part of the reason for the waiting list may be that 17 of the charter schools are taking no furlough days this year, nine are taking only some furlough days and only five are taking all 17 furlough days.
At Kihei Charter School on Maui, half the staff arranged to work on what otherwise would have been furlough days. Some charter schools have made ends meet and avoided furlough days by obtaining federal grants and cutting expenses. The creativity and flexibility demonstrated by these schools prove that focus can rightly remain on education when campus-level authority allows such nimbleness. DOE schools paralyzed by the Furlough Fridays debacle can take a lesson here. It doesn't, and shouldn't, have to be that hard.
On balance, the success of charter schools nationally has been mixed. Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes found last year that only 17 percent of charter schools reported academic gains that were significantly better and 37 percent showed gains worse than traditional schools.
However, the Stanford report also found that states with caps on the number of charter schools showed significantly lower academic results than states without limits on charter growth. It suggested that a cap may be "a barrier to entry" of school operators attracted to less restrictive states.
Following the Stanford report, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan urged states to become more active in weeding out inferior charter schools. The best way to do that in Hawaii is to lift the cap and, by doing so, attract highly-skilled operators capable of building successful charter schools.
The state’s Charter School Review Panel recently suspended charter school applications, citing the ongoing fiscal crisis. That effectively halted efforts to convert the Laupahoehoe High and Elementary School, which is facing closure on the Big Island. That also sent a discouraging signal to potential skilled operators of other charter schools in the islands.
Image: Ke Kula o Samuel M. Kamakau Charter School was one site that used creativity to keep students in school on most furlough days.