Rethinking the Welfare State: The prospects for ... - e-Library

Rethinking the selfare state 148
high-quality schools) can be expected to be no less resistant to the adoption of these
models than to open enrollment that requires significant school expansion to exert a
meaningful effect on educational outcomes. Further, even if the political resistance from
existing stakeholders could be surmounted (by, for instance, allowing for a long
transitional period before the changes would take effect), the problem is that open
enrollment will be unlikely to introduce a great deal of competition into the public school
system because in the absence of surplus capacity, low-quality schools will still have an
adequate student base because students who are not admitted to their first choice of
schools, due to a lack of places, will be diverted back to lower-quality schools.
Charter schools
Since 1991, the charter school movement has exploded in the United States and abroad. 48
In that year, Minnesota established the first charter school legislation. In 1992, California
followed suit. By the end of 1999, charter school enabling legislation had been passed in
42 states, with 37 states supporting a total of 2,695 operational charter schools that serve
an estimated 685,000 students. 49 In Canada, one province, Alberta, permits charter
schools, and 12 schools have been established. 50 Finally, the Thatcher Government’s
educational reform program (the “local management of schools” initiative) that was
introduced in 1988 in Britain created a number of schools that are operated on a charter
model. 51
Although the exact nature of charter school enabling legislation varies from
jurisdiction to jurisdiction, 52 there are several elements that are common to every charter
school. As the label suggests, schools that wish to become charter schools, or parties that
would like to establish charter schools, must apply for a charter to the government or to
its named representative—which is strangely, in some cases, the local school district. 53
Generally speaking, the moving parties must make a written proposal outlining where the
school will be located, where it will draw its students from, what grades it will instruct,
and what special mandate it is adopting that differentiates it from schools in the public
system. Charters are usually initially granted for three to five years. At the end of the
charter period, the schools are assessed for adherence to the charter mandate, acceptable
student progress and ongoing viability. Renewal of the charter is required if a school is to
remain open. Charter schools are publicly funded, but are independent of the school
district bureaucracy. Consequently, the governing board of each charter school is
responsible for adhering to the terms of the charter that they have been granted and for
running and organizing all aspects of the school. 54 Because charter schools receive less
money per pupil from government resources, they must manage their budgets effectively
in order to put their available finances into school programs, not administrative
bureaucracies. This exerts pressure on these schools to offer a high-quality education to
prospective students and to do so efficiently. On the demand-side, the charter program
experiments are revealing to the extent that they endorse mandatory pooling. Generally
any students in a given district are allowed to attend charter schools in that district, and
schools cannot discriminate as to whom they will accept. For example, even those charter
schools touting themselves as catering to a “gifted” student population cannot
categorically deny entry to a student who is not especially gifted, but whose parents
believe that she will benefit from attendance at the school. 55 In these terms, while legally