Delaware charter schools still offer a bold path forward for our kids | Opinion
Concerns have recently been expressed about the growing number of charter schools.
In an August 2015 article in Delaware Today Magazine, it was stated that “Charters proliferated in a way never intended or anticipated.”
The original plan was to have a few charter schools to model a new way of operating that, eventually, would be adopted by all public schools and replace the existing system of school boards and education bureaucracies. That “new way” was local control with operational decision-making at the building level by the people hired to educate the students — the administrators and teachers.
Steve Jobs once said, “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do!”
The state superintendent at the time and co-author of Delaware's charter law, Mike Ferguson, didn’t want a lot of new schools. He said that would create excess building capacity which would be inefficient and expensive. In his overview of the charter school legislation, Ferguson wrote that “A Delaware Charter School is….separate from a district and free of most state and school district rules and regulations.”
Ferugson also stated that “This reform (charter schools) is based on local control and accountability.” and “Reliance on bureaucratic decisions would be a thing of the past.” Even the U.S. Department of Education stated, “The objective (of charter schools) is to replace the rules-based governance with performance-based accountability, thereby stimulating the creativity and commitment of teachers, parents, and citizens.”
School boards were to provide oversight and specific assistance if requested by a school. This limited scope of board responsibility would allow for the reduction of the number of school districts as well as a reduction of district and state personnel.
Parents would hold schools accountable through school choice, selecting the school that best meets the needs of their children.
Administrators would receive professional development to handle their more comprehensive duties, perhaps through an MBA in Education Administration program.
As each school was properly prepared, it would be authorized for local decision-making. This would allow for a smooth, gradual transition which was estimated to take between three to five years.
This “education system change” using charter schools is referred to as the BOLD PLAN and was supported in 1995 by then-Gov. Tom Carper, the Delaware Department of Education and a business consortium led by the DuPont Company. It was seen as important for the economic well-being of the entire state. The business community described the existing public school system with its boards and bureaucracies as a “liability” to the state’s economy. The BOLD PLAN was piloted, evaluated by the Western Michigan Evaluation Center at the request of the Delaware Department of Education and found to be successful.
Unfortunately all the BOLD PLAN supporters were gone shortly after the change was implemented at the first charter school. Carper became Senator Carper, Mike Ferguson died and the leaders of the consortium companies were gone. The result was that the “system” that was to be changed took over the change agent — charters.
The BOLD PLAN rests on two basic principles:
Teaching is a profession, but
Education is a business and parents are the primary customers.
The BOLD PLAN is similar to a diverse education system that has been around longer than the current public school system.
The local control idea is still alive and ready for implementation — don’t fight the system, change it.
Ronald Russo is the founding president of the Charter School of Wilmington and former principal of Saint Mark’s High School.
This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Delaware charter schools still offer a bold path forward for our kids
