Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T12:02:37.891Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tracing the Historical DNA and Unlikely Alliances of the American Charter School Movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2019

Shane Goodridge
Shane Goodridge*
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

More than three million children in the United States are currently enrolled in charter schools, with increasing enrollments despite strong evidence of academic gains. This historical analysis moves beyond a focus on academic outcomes and traces the success of the charter school movement, in part, to the foundational premise of restoring agency to educational stakeholders. State-mandated schooling was a counterintuitive feature of American policy that chafed against the founding ideals of the Republic and gradually engendered resentment among mostly white conservatives. Concurrently, in the aftermath of Brown, factions of African American policymakers began to look for equitable educational alternatives. The unlikely alliance of these two antithetical constituencies resulted in the creation of a unique—albeit fragile—coalition and the passing of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program and paved the way for the nation’s inaugural charter school policy passed in Minnesota in 1991.

Keywords

Charter SchoolsBrown v. Board of EducationA Nation at RiskPolly WilliamsMilwaukee Parental Choice Program
Type
Article
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , April 2019 , pp. 273 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © Donald Critchlow and Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1. For a seminal work that explores the colonial roots of the common school movement, see Axtell, James, The School Upon a Hill: Education and Society in Colonial New England (New Haven, 1974);Google ScholarCremin, Lawrence, American Education: The Colonial Experience (New York, 1970);Google Scholar Cremin, American Education: The National Experience, 1783–1876 (New York, 1980);Google Scholar Cremin, American Education: The Metropolitan Experience, 1876–1980 (New York, 1990);Google Scholar Kliebard, Herbert M., The Struggle for the American Curriculum, 1893–1958 (New York, 2004).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Murphy, Joseph and Dunn Shiffman, Catherine, Understanding and Assessing the Charter School Movement (New York, 2002), 5.Google Scholar

3. Seymour Sarason, Charter Schools: Another Flawed Educational Reform? The Series on School Reform (New York, 1998), 5.

4. These works offer examples of the lack of attention dedicated to historicizing the charter movement. Hanushek, Eric A et al., “Charter School Quality and Parental Decision Making with School Choice,” Journal of Public Economics 91 (2007): 824.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Ravitch, Diane, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools (New York, 2013), 140.Google Scholar Silverman, Robert Mark, “Making Waves or Treading Water? An Analysis of Charter Schools in New York State,” Urban Education 48, no. 2 (2012): 258–60.Google Scholar

5. Friedman, Milton, The Role of Government in Education (New Brunswick, 1955), 3.Google Scholar

6. Friedman, Milton, Capitalism and Freedom: With the Assistance of Rose D. Friedman. (Chicago, 1962);Google Scholar Friedman, Milton and Friedman, Rose, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement (New York, 1980).Google Scholar

7. Hentschke, Gilbert, A Brief and Future History of School Choice, The Wiley Handbook of School Choice, ed. Fox, Robert A. and Buchanan, Nina K. (New York, 2017), 29.Google Scholar

8. Ravitch, Diane, The Life and Death of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (New York, 2010).Google Scholar

9. Forman, James Jr., “The Secret History of School Choice: How Progressives Got There First,” Georgetown Law Journal 93 (2004): 1319.Google Scholar

10. Minow, Martha, “Confronting the Seduction of Choice: Law, Education, and American Pluralism,” Yale Law Journal 120 (2010): 816, 814.Google Scholar

11. DeBray-Pelot, Elizabeth H., Lubienski, Christopher A., and Scott, Janelle T., “The Institutional Landscape of Interest Group Politics and School Choice,” Peabody Journal of Education 82, no. 2–3 (2007): 204–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. Scott, Janelle, “School Choice and the Empowerment Imperative,” Peabody Journal of Education 88, no. 1 (2013): 60–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13. Mazzoni, Tim, “The Changing Politics of State Education Policy Making: A Twenty-Year Minnesota Perspective,” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 15, no. 4 (1993): 366.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. Murphy and Shiffman, Understanding and Assessing the Charter School Movement.

15. Finn, Chester E. Jr., Manno, Bruno V., and Wright, Brandon L., Charter Schools at the Crossroads: Predicaments, Paradoxes, Possibilities (Cambridge, Mass., 2016), 8.Google Scholar

16. Lubienski, Christopher A and Weitzel, Peter C., The Charter School Experiment: Expectations, Evidence, and Implications (Cambridge, Mass., 2010), 7.Google Scholar

17. “National Association for Educational Statistics,” U.S. Department of Education, https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=30 (accessed 1 May 2017).

18. Clark, Melissa A. et al., “Do Charter Schools Improve Student Achievement?,” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 37 (2015): 420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19. Berends, Mark, “Sociology and School Choice: What We Know After Two Decades of Charter Schools,” Annual Review of Sociology 41 (2015): 168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20. Betts, Julian R. and Tang, Emily, “A Meta-Analysis of the Literature on the Effect of Charter Schools on Student Achievement,” in Center on Reinventing Public Education, University of Washington, February 2014, 54.Google Scholar

21. Angrist, Joshua D., Parag, Pathak, and Walters, Christopher R., “Explaining Charter School Effectiveness,” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 5, no. 4 (2013): 1–27.Google Scholar

22. Ravitch, Diane, “The Big Idea––It’s Bad Education Policy; One Simple Solution for Our Schools? A Captivating Promise but a False One,” Los Angeles Times, 2010.Google Scholar

23. Vergari, Sandra, “The Politics of Charter Schools,” Educational Policy 21 (2007): 18–20, 27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24. Educational vouchers are government-funded allowances for parents to redeem at the public or private school of their choice. For a detailed description of educational vouchers, see McEwan, Patrick J., “The Potential Impact of Large-Scale Voucher Programs,” Review of Educational Research 70 (2000).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25. Jacob, John, “To be Equal: New Education Initiative,” Baltimore Afro-American, 27 September 1986, 5.Google Scholar

26. Winerip, Michael, “Schools for Sale,” New York Times Magazine, 14 June 1998, 47.Google Scholar

27. Dillon, Sam, “For Parents Seeking a Choice, Charter Schools Prove More Popular Than Vouchers.” New York Times, 13 July 2005, B8.Google Scholar

28. Nathan was a key founder in the charter school movement; his writings illuminate the catalysts for an alternative education structure. Nathan, Joe, Charter Schools (San Francisco, 1999).Google Scholar

29. Wolf, Patrick, Maloney, Larry D., May, Jay F., and DeAngelis, Corey A., “Charter School Funding: Inequity in the City,” School Choice Demonstration Project, University of Arkansas (2017), http://www.uaedreform.org/downloads/2017/05/inequity-in-the-city.pdf.Google Scholar

30. Buckley, Jack and Schneider, Mark, Charter Schools: Hope or Hype? (Princeton, 2009), 4.Google Scholar

31. Tyack, David, “Forming the National Character: Paradox in the Educational Thought of the Revolutionary Generation,” Harvard Educational Review 36 (1966): 30–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32. Manna provides a concise analysis detailing the creative ways the federal government leverages states in matters of education policy. Manna, Paul, School’s In: Federalism and the National Education Agenda (Washington, D.C., 2006), 6–8.Google Scholar

33. Mead’s taxonomy, comprised of Jeffersonian, Hamiltonian, Jacksonian, and Wilsonian ideological strains, provides an excellent foundation for understanding the impact of regional sensibilities and challenges in the policy process. Russell Mead, Walter, Special Providence: The American Foreign Policy Tradition (New York, 2002).Google Scholar

34. NCLB is used to illustrate how the power of the states inhibits federal policy in shaping education across state contexts. F Ladd, Helen, “No Child Left Behind: A Deeply Flawed Education Policy,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 36 (2017): 461–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar McDonnell, Lorraine, “No Child Left Behind and the Federal Role in Education: Evolution or Revolution?,” Peabody Journal of Education 80 (2005).CrossRefGoogle Scholar For an analysis of contemporary administrations using federal waivers to leverage state behavior in education policy, see Saultz, Andrew, Fusarelli, Lance D., and McEachin, Andrew, “The Every Student Succeeds Act, the Decline of the Federal Role in Education Policy, and the Curbing of Executive Authority,” Publius: The Journal of Federalism (2017): 2–4.Google Scholar

35. Wood, Gordon S, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York, 1991), 56–57.Google Scholar

36. Smith, Douglas G., “An Analysis of Two Federal Structures: The Articles of Confederation and the Constitution,” San Diego L. Rev. 34 (1997): 262.Google Scholar

37. Kaestle, Carl, Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780–1860 (New York, 1983).Google Scholar

38. Benjamin Rush, Essays, Literary, Moral, and Philosophical (New York, 1806/1988), 9.

39. Tyack, Forming the National Character, 29.

40. Reinier, Jacqueline S., “Rearing the Republican Child: Attitudes and Practices in Post–Revolutionary Philadelphia,” William and Mary Quarterly: A Magazine of Early American History and Culture (1982): 150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41. Cappon J., Lester, The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams (Chapel Hill, 2012), 390–91.Google Scholar

42. Jefferson, Thomas, Notes on the State of Virginia (New York, 1998), 183.Google Scholar

43. Hellenbrand, Harold, The Unfinished Revolution: Education and Politics in the Thought of Thomas Jefferson (New York), 1990.Google Scholar

44. Jefferson, Notes, 184.

45. Cremin, American Education: The National Experience, 1783–1876 (New York, 1980), 302.Google Scholar

46. Cutler, William W., Parents and Schools: The 150–Year Struggle for Control in American Education (Chicago, 2000), 16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47. Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic, 42–43.

48. Polling data confirms a fifteen-year trend in the public’s resistance to both the use of tax dollars for funding education and federal influence in education policy. Gallup, Alec M. and Elam, Stanley M., “The 18th Annual Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes toward the Public Schools,” The Phi Delta Kappan 68 (1986).Google Scholar

49. López, Gerardo R and Burciaga, Rebeca, “The Troublesome Legacy of Brown v. Board of Education,” Educational Administration Quarterly 50 (2014).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50. For examples of African Americans identifying the inadequacy of Brown and the continued impact of racist education policies, see Postell, Charles, “Blacks Claim Transfers Are Hurting Education,” Miami Herald, 30 January 1970.Google Scholar “Breadbasket Hits Chicago “‘Unequal’ Education,” Bulletin, 20 August 1969. “School Board Gets a D- Again,” Soul City Times, 16 November 1968.

51. The following studies offer comprehensive analyses of issues surrounding the charter school movement and racial segregation: Bifulco, Robert, Ladd, Helen F., and Ross, Stephen L., “Public School Choice and Integration Evidence from Durham, North Carolina,” Social Science Research 38 (2009).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed Frankenberg, Erica et al., “Exploring School Choice and the Consequences for Student Racial Segregation within Pennsylvania’s Charter School Transfers,” Education Policy Analysis Archives/Archivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas (2017).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Ladd, Helen F., Clotfelter, Charles T., and Holbein, John B., “The Growing Segmentation of the Charter School Sector in North Carolina,” Education Finance and Policy (2016).Google Scholar

52. Gerstle, Gary, American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, 2017).Google Scholar Kozol, Jonathan, Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools (New York, 2012).Google Scholar Ladson-Billings, Gloria and Tate, William F., “Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education,” Teachers College Record 97 (1995).Google Scholar

53. Moss, Hilary J., Schooling Citizens: The Struggle for African American Education in Antebellum America (Chicago, 2010), 10–15.Google Scholar

54. Ibid., 13.

55. James, D. Anderson, The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935 (Chapel Hill, 1988), 2.Google Scholar

56. See the following for analyses of the failure of colonizing efforts and the role of education: Franklin, Vincent P., “Education for Colonization: Attempts to Educate Free Blacks in the United States for Emigration to Africa, 1823–1833,” Journal of Negro Education 43 (1974).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Newman, Richard, The Transformation of American Abolitionism: Fighting Slavery in the Early Republic (Chapel Hill, 2002).Google Scholar Rosen, Bruce, “Abolition and Colonization, the Years of Conflict: 1829–1834,” Phylon 33 (1972).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

57. Moss, Schooling Citizens, 39.

58. See the following for a comprehensive exploration of the African American journey to educational equity. Butchart, Ronald, Schooling the Freed People: Teaching, Learning, and the Struggle for Black Freedom, 1861–1876 (Chapel Hill, 2010); Moss, Schooling Citizens.Google Scholar

59. Billingsley, Andrew and Caldwell, Cleopatra, “The Church, the Family, and the School in the African American Community,” Journal of Negro Education 60 (1991): 430–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

60. Butchart, Schooling the Freed People, 1.

61. Ibid, 3.

62. Jones-Wilson, Faustine C., “A Traditional Model of Educational Excellence: Dunbar High School of Little Rock, Arkansas,” (Washington, D.C., 1981), 3.Google Scholar

63. Milner, Richard and Howard, Tyrone C., “Black Teachers, Black Students, Black Communities, and Brown: Perspectives and Insights from Experts,” Journal of Negro Education 73 (2004): 291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

64. Fairclough, Adam, “The Costs of Brown: Black Teachers and School Integration,” Journal of American History 91 (2004): 49–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

65. Blanchett, Wanda J., Mumford, Vincent, and Beachum, Floyd,” Urban School Failure and Disproportionality in a Post-Brown Era: Benign Neglect of the Constitutional Rights of Students of Color,” Remedial and Special Education 26 (2005).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

66. For an extended exploration of school-choice ideas divorced from concern over integration, see Barnes, Robin D., “Black America and School Choice: Charting a New Course,” Yale LJ 106 (1996).Google Scholar

67. Burghardt Du Bois, W. E.,” Does the Negro Need Separate Schools?,” Journal of Negro Education (1935): 328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

68. For a dynamic and far-ranging exploration of contemporary segregation and inequity, see Orfield, Gary and Lee, Chungmei, “Racial Transformation and the Changing Nature of Segregation,” in K-12 Integration and Diversity (Los Angeles, 2006).Google Scholar

69. Among the most provocative critiques of the Brown decision, see Klarman, Michael J., “How Brown Changed Race Relations: The Backlash Thesis,” Journal of American History 81 (1994);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Kluger, Richard, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality (New York, 2011);Google Scholar For a consideration of the holistic failings of Brown, see Patterson, James T. and Freehling, William W., Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy (Oxford, 2001);Google Scholar Viewing the decision within its larger societal context, see Tushnet, Mark, “The Significance of Brown v. Board of Education,” Virginia Law Review (1994).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

70. Bell, Derrick, Silent Covenants: “Brown v. Board of Education” and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform (New York, 2004), 4.Google Scholar

71. Jacoby, Jennifer Rose, “Race-Conscious Charter Schools and the Antibalkinization Perspective of Equal Protection,” University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law 15 (2013): 1564.Google Scholar

72. Chen, Jim, “With All Deliberate Speed: Brown II and Desegregation’s Children.” Law & Inequality 24 (2006): 3.Google Scholar

73. Green, Terrance L. and Gooden, Mark A., “The Shaping of Policy: Exploring the Context, Contradictions, and Contours of Privilege in Milliken v. Bradley, over 40 Years Later,” Teachers College Record 118, no. 3 (2016): n. 3.Google Scholar

74. “Mississippi Rejects Bill to Close Public Schools,” Baltimore Afro-American, 2 January 1954, 5.

75. Sass, Herbert Ravenel, “Mixed Schools and Mixed Blood,” Atlantic Monthly (1956), 198.Google Scholar

76. For a clear articulation of the mechanics of charter school advocacy coalitions, see Kirst, Michael W., “Politics of Charter Schools: Competing National Advocacy Coalitions Meet Local Politics,” Peabody Journal of Education 82 (2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

77. The following articles offer a glimpse into the growing call for schooling alternatives: “Quality School Choice for Inner-City Children,” New York Times, 21 January 1981. “New York City Must Rid Itself of ‘Separate and Unequal’ Schools,” New York Times, 17 July 1986. Price-Curtis, William, “Black Progress Toward Educational Equity,” Educational Leadership 38 (1981).Google Scholar Van Tassel, Priscilla, “State Weighs Open Choice Schooling,” New York Times, 13 March 1988.Google Scholar

78. See the following for expanded analyses of Sputnik’s impact on American education policy. Carl Kaestle and Marshall Smith, “The Federal Role in Elementary and Secondary Education, 1940–1980,” Harvard Educational Review 52 (1982). Wissehr, Cathy, Concannon, Jim, and Barrow, Lloyd H., “Looking Back at the Sputnik Era and Its Impact on Science Education,” School Science and Mathematics 111 (2011).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

79. Gardner, David P., “A Nation at Risk,” National Commission on Excellence in Education, U.S. Department of Education, Washington, D.C., 1983, 6–7.Google Scholar

80. McGuinn, Patrick, “Swing Issues and Policy Regimes: Federal Education Policy and the Politics of Policy Change,” Journal of Policy History 18 (2006): 216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

81. Williams, Walter E., “A Minority View: Black Parents Win,” Atlanta Daily World (1990), 4.Google Scholar

82. Harrison, Eric, “Milwaukee School Choice Proposal Ignites Bitter Racial, Political Battles,” Los Angeles Times, 3 August 1990, A4.Google Scholar

83. Worthington, Rogers, “Milwaukee Proposal Splits City, Educators School Plan Called ‘Urban Apartheid,” Chicago Tribune, 22 November 1987, 4.Google Scholar

84. “Milwaukee Challenges Black School District Plan,” Chicago Tribune, 29 September 1987, 4.

85. Mitchell, George A., “The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program,” Wisconsin Policy Research Institute Report 5 (1992): 7.Google Scholar

86. Harrison, Milwaukee School Choice Proposal.

87. Ibid.

88. Holt, Mikel, Not yet “Free at Last”: The Unfinished Business of the Civil Rights Movement: Our Battle for School Choice (New York, 2000), 60.Google Scholar

89. “School Choice on Trial,” Washington Post, 24 June 1992, A18.

90. “School Choice in Milwaukee,” Washington Post, 30 March 1992, A16.

91. Mitchell, The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, 1–7.

92. Kolderie, Ted, “Beyond Choice to New Public Schools: Withdrawing the Exclusive Franchise in Public Education, Policy Report No. 8.” Progressive Policy Institute (1990), Washington, D.C., 6–7.Google Scholar

93. For an account of compromises made, see Hess, F. M., “Markets and Urban Schooling: What Choice-Driven Competition Is Doing and How to Make It Do More,” Educational Freedom in Urban America (Washington, D.C., 2004)Google Scholar; Merrifield, John D., The School Choice Wars (New York, 2001).Google Scholar

94. Morken, Hubert and Formicola, Jo Renee, The Politics of School Choice (New York, 1999), 289.Google Scholar

95. Mazzoni, Tim, “The Policymaking Influence of the State School Lobby: A Minnesota Study,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, 1985.Google Scholar Mazzoni, “The Changing Politics of State Education Policy Making.”

96. Garcia, Eugene E., Hispanic Education in the United States: Raíces y Alas (New York, 2001).Google Scholar Leal, David L. and Meier, Kenneth J., The Politics of Latino Education (New York, 2011).Google Scholar Meier, Kenneth J. and Stewart, Joseph Jr., The Politics of Hispanic Education: Un Paso Pa’lante y Dos Pa’tras (New York, 1991).Google Scholar Stritikus, Tom T. and Garcia, Eugene, “Revisiting the Bilingual Debate from the Perspectives of Parents: Policy, Practice, and Matches or Mismatches,” Educational Policy 19 (2005).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

97. Betts and Tang, “A Meta-Analysis of the Literature on the Effect of Charter Schools on Student Achievement.”