Charter schools: Support the successful ones, fix the broken ones

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of guest commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

Many years ago, as my wife and I arrived home from the hospital with our newborn twin sons, a maintenance man at our apartment complex offered advice: “Twins, eh? We had 10 kids — including two sets of twins. But don’t ask me how to raise ’em — they’re all different.”

I’ve often recalled his words as our family grew to three children and five grandchildren. Yes, they’re all different. That’s why some of them thrived in traditional public schools while others flourished in smaller, more personalized charter public schools.

As a lifelong journalist and charter school parent/grandparent, I’ve read with interest the Minnesota Star Tribune’s series of articles describing problems at some of the state’s 181 charter schools. In 2024, nine charter schools closed. These failures are concerning. But many facts about charter schools were not included in the newspaper’s reports.

For example, every charter, like every district school, must provide yearly detailed financial data to the Minnesota Department of Education. The MDE shares this information on its Education Report Card.

Also, charter schools are required to hire outside firms to conduct yearly audits which are posted on the charter websites.

And while the newspaper’s reports have questioned oversight and accountability, many of those issues were addressed in the most recent session of the Legislature. New bipartisan laws increase training requirements for charter school board members and administrators. School directors now must have a four-year degree and complete annual training on financial management, instruction and legal obligations. School board members must undergo similar training.

A Dec. 26 column by Denise Johnson of the Star Tribune contends that more should be done to “oversee the overseers,” the 10 nonprofits known as “authorizers” that regulate charters. It argues there’s “excessive leniency” that allows some charters to remain open after failing to live up to their own criteria. But well before any of the newspaper articles appeared, the MDE, acknowledging improvements are needed, sought research and recommendations on how to improve governance and supervision of charters. That effort, not noted by the paper, should begin in 2025.

Meanwhile, there are many charter school successes: Six of Minnesota’s Top 10 public schools in U.S. News & World Report rankings are charters. And this year more than 120 of the 181 charters earned the MDE Minnesota State Finance Award for sound fiscal management.

Longtime educator and researcher Joe Nathan played a major role in the development of Minnesota’s charter and open enrollment public school choice laws in 1991. He concluded that some of the most effective schools are not just those with high test scores, but alternative district and charter public schools that skillfully serve students unsuccessful in large traditional schools.

For example, Heidi Meade feared her son might take his life while being relentlessly bullied at a large district high school. She says Paladin Career & Technical High School “saved him and many others. That school is changing the world.”

Testimonials from charter graduates like George Bugella of Northwest Passage High School in Coon Rapids are typical: “I never felt belittled or a burden for having an IEP. The staff respected me. I respected them. I didn’t get in trouble — a refreshing change from ‘normal’ high school.” Bugella has been a welder for 13 years.

Nathan’s research has found a “billion-dollar bonus” for thousands of students who graduated from several Minnesota charter schools after dropping out or being encouraged to leave large district schools. Because they were healthier, more likely to get a productive job and less likely to end up in the criminal justice system, the average savings to students and taxpayers amounted to $600,000 dollars per student.

The growing popularity of charter schools is evident in their expansion in urban, suburban and rural communities. Statewide, Minnesota K-12 charter enrollment has increased by more than 600% from 2002 to 2023. Today nearly 70,000 children attend charter schools. Their parents clearly have learned what every parent learns about their kids: They’re all different.

Steve Murphy was a news editor and reporter at WCCO Radio for 33 years.