Your View: Charter school successes tell half the story

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In what could be best described as a kind of debutante’s ball for Greater Boston Charter Schools, the recipient of the Pozen Prize — Boston Preparatory School — walked off the runway with an $80,000 award for academic excellence with Match Charter School and Pioneer Charter School finishing among the leaders, garnering $10,000 each.

Boston Foundation donors Elizabeth and Robert Pozen have created the award, and the latter issued a statement, indicating that Boston Prep’s “focus on ethics and character education make it a model for schools across the state to learn from.”

Mr. Pozen, like Jim Stergio in his Guest View of June 24 excoriating Gov. Deval Patrick (“Gov. Patrick’s record on charter schools is lacking”), foster the illusion and remain undaunted by the truth surrounding the overall substandard performance of charter schools in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Stergios, executive director of the Pioneer Institute, speaks of students in low-performing districts throughout the state who are not in charters as being “deprived of the opportunity” or being victimized by “the politics behind the issue” of re-assessing district performance.

He goes on to criticize Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester’s role in the re-assessment and Sen. Pat Jehlein for putting Chester up to the task because she’s anti-charter.

Much of Stergios’ blather dissipates when the facts about charter schools emerge once the testimonials, bouquets and lavish donations are set aside. The Massachusetts Department of Education website lists Boston Preparatory Charter’s class of 2013 as having started in sixth grade (2007) with 102 students and upon graduation a mere 32. Nearly two-thirds of the students therefore were lost to attrition. In that same period, Boston Public Schools’ enrollment increased slightly as 3,724 youngsters who were entered in Grade 6 grew to 3,869 in Grade 12.

It is reasonable to question why so many of Boston Prep’s enrollment were lost, but the answer is too basic and too straightforward to ever appear in news coverage or investigative reports or spotlight exposes that might enlighten the public on the reality of charter school flaws. Students may enter charters through a lottery, but the charter clearinghouse of rules and regulations ensures that their demographics always feature lower percentages of English Language Learners, special education or impoverished students who qualify for the free lunch program. Charter school wonk Stergios and his ilk continually spin yarns about “huge waiting lists to get into charter schools.” But once in the charter school walls, many of the students are winnowed out.

In a fall symposium sponsored by the statewide coalition Citizens for Public Schools, parents of students who began the charter adventure with high aspirations recounted personal anecdotes about why there was a lack of success there. Among the testimonials were those relating to high rates of suspension, lack of accommodations/modifications for special education, and stringent codes of conduct that punish severely such acts as talking in line or in the lunchroom.

It is, also, reasonable to ask where the winnowed-out students go upon leaving the charter school. There is no re-entry hurdle, or parental contract or any other screening for the charter chaff. These young men and women return to the public school where their public education resumes. It is a public education rife with challenges — both social and economic. Everyone knows the travails, including lack of funding, loss of programming, controversies about achievement testing, teachers as scapegoats and shoddy administration.

But little is known about the flaws and debits in charter schools. Like the debutante ball, only certain ones attend, and it’s the rich parents who set the rules.