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Today, there are more than 4,600 charter schools across the United States with an enrollment of over 1.3 million students. While this represents impressive growth for a type of school that did not exist two decades ago, even staunch proponents concede that not all charter schools are outstanding. Furthermore, the
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schools that are successful--like the KIPP Academies and Achievement First--serve only a tiny percentage of the nation's 50 million students.
Recognizing this reality, several charter school management organizations have embarked on ambitious growth plans. Most noticeably, KIPP, with generous backing from the Pisces Foundation, hopes to nearly double its size, expanding from sixty-six to one hundred schools by 2011.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's $5 billion "Race to the Top" allocation in the recent $787 billion stimulus bill offers the chance to implement President Obama's promise to expand the reach of the nation's best charter schools. But maintaining excellence while growing quickly creates abundant challenges. How could the growth rate of charter school management organizations be accelerated? How should they learn to recognize and address potential pitfalls along the way? What would it take to organize and staff these ventures to allow them to expand more readily, to better meet new challenges, and to adapt to new locales? A new report coauthored by AEI director of education policy studies Frederick M. Hess and Harvard Graduate School of Education associate professor Monica Higgins considers these and other questions. Joining Hess and Higgins to discuss the report's findings, and charter schools in general, will be National Association of Charter School Authorizers president and CEO Greg Richmond and two founders of successful charter school networks: Mike Feinberg, cofounder of KIPP, and Donald Hense, cofounder of Friendship Public Charter School in Washington, D.C.
| 9:00 a.m. |
Registration and Continental Breakfast | |
| 9:30 |
Presenters: | Frederick M. Hess, AEI |
| Monica Higgins, Harvard Graduate School of Education | ||
| Discussants: |
Mike Feinberg, KIPP Academies | |
| Donald Hense, Friendship Public Charter School | ||
| Greg Richmond, National Association of Charter School Authorizers | ||
| Moderator: |
Frederick M. Hess, AEI | |
| 11:00 | Adjournment |
American Enterprise Institute
1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 202-862-7173
WASHINGTON, APRIL 27, 2009--There are more than 4,600 charter schools across the United States with an enrollment of over 1.4 million students. Yet, charters still serve only a tiny percentage of the nation's 50 million students. President Obama has promised to expand the reach of the nation's best charter schools, and his $5 billion "Race to the Top" allocation in the recent $787 billion stimulus bill may provide the opportunity.
Several charter school networks have already embarked on ambitious growth plans. What challenges have they faced, and what would it take to expand these organizations more readily? AEI director of education policy studies Frederick M. Hess and Harvard Graduate School of Education associate professor Monica Higgins address these and other questions in a new report, which they presented at an April 6 AEI conference.
Most noticeably, KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) hopes to expand its size dramatically from sixty-six to one hundred schools by 2011. KIPP cofounder Mike Feinberg explained KIPP's growth strategy: "Instead of putting more dots on the United States map, let's go where there are existing dots and make them bigger." But Feinberg's ultimate goal is for KIPP to provide the competitive pressure to force traditional public schools to improve. "Can we have the same effect on the local public education system that FedEx had on the post office?" he mused. "Is there a similar tipping point in public education? Who knows? No one's ever really tried that."
There are abundant challenges to successful charter school growth. Feinberg emphasized that the core challenge of scaling up charters is finding enough talented people to staff and support new schools; at the end of the day, "there's no secret sauce to KIPP. It's just great teaching, and more of it." Greg Richmond, head of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, also noted the dearth of talented leaders. "We need more leadership by public officials seeing this as a way for them to improve public education in their communities," he said.
Another crucial challenge to growth is securing greater financial backing. Richmond noted that growth has depended almost entirely on private funding, and that "state and local funds across the country have done almost nothing to support the growth of this sector," particularly the startup process. Donald Hense, the founder of Friendship Public Charter School in Washington, D.C., explained how the constant quest for private funding forces organizations to prioritize short-term gains: "in order to get any additional venture capital, you're going to need to show something right now." Feinberg noted that the $5 billion earmarked in the stimulus for "growing what works" is a much-needed concept in the education sector, a sector in which "we have this perverse, backwards mentality of 'the worse you do the more money you get.'"
Ultimately, increased resources will be meaningless to charter school growth without robust quality control. As Richmond put it, "It can never be quality or growth." When it comes to overhauling the public education system, "there is a tipping point, but I think what we see is a qualitative tipping point." Feinberg agreed that traditional public schools will only become better if charter schools are better able to represent a higher-quality option. "We'll know we're hitting the tipping point," he explained, "when our waitlist starts to shrink."
--ROSEMARY KENDRICK
Mike Feinberg is superintendent of KIPP Houston and cofounder of the KIPP Foundation, which has embarked on a growth plan aimed at expanding from sixty-six to one hundred KIPP schools by 2011. Mr. Feinberg started his career as a Teach For America fifth-grade teacher in Houston. In 1994, he cofounded KIPP with Dave Levin and established KIPP Academy Houston a year later. Today, KIPP is a network of sixty-six high-performing public schools around the nation. It has been featured in venues including The Oprah Winfrey Show, CBS’s 60 Minutes, ABC’s World News, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. In 2004, Mr. Feinberg was named an Ashoka Fellow, awarded to leading social entrepreneurs. He has received numerous awards and honors with Mr. Levin, including the Thomas B. Fordham Prize for Excellence in Education, the National Jefferson Award for Greatest Public Service by a Private Citizen, and the White House Presidential Citizens Medal.
Donald Hense is the founder and chairman of the board of Friendship Public Charter School, the largest chartered public school in the nation, serving more than 3,900 students on five campuses in Washington, D.C. Mr. Hense is chairman of the Center for Youth and Family Investment, a highly successful organization that provides extended learning programs to more than two thousand children each day. In the past, Mr. Hense has served as vice president of the National Urban League; director of development for the Children’s Defense Fund; treasurer on the board of the Twenty-First Century Foundation in New York; and director of governmental relations at Howard University, Boston University, and Dartmouth College. He is on the board of the Center for Education Reform and the DC Arts and Humanities Education Collaborative and is treasurer of the DC Association of Chartered Public Schools.
Frederick M. Hess is a resident scholar and director of education policy studies at AEI and an executive editor of Education Next. At AEI, he studies a wide range of educational issues including entrepreneurship, urban education, choice and charter schooling, philanthropy, and collective bargaining. His many books include The Future of Educational Entrepreneurship (Harvard Education Press, 2008), When Research Matters (Harvard Education Press, 2008), Common Sense School Reform (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), Revolution at the Margins (Brookings Institution Press, 2002), and Spinning Wheels (Brookings Institution Press, 1998). His work has appeared in both popular and scholarly publications, including the Harvard Educational Review, American Politics Quarterly, the American Journal of Education, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the Washington Post. Mr. Hess serves on the review board for the Broad Prize in Urban Education. He is a former high school teacher and has taught at Harvard University, Georgetown University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Virginia.
Monica Higgins joined the Harvard faculty in 1995 and is currently an associate professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, where her research and teaching focus on leadership and entrepreneurship in urban school districts as well as less traditional settings, such as charter management organizations. Previously, she spent eleven years as a member of the faculty at Harvard Business School in the Organizational Behavior Unit. Her book, Career Imprints: Creating Leaders Across an Industry (Jossey-Bass, 2005), focuses on the leadership development of entrepreneurs in the biotechnology industry. Ms. Higgins has taught in leadership programs for the Broad Foundation, New Leaders for New Schools, and NewSchools Venture Fund. She has also held marketing and organizational consulting positions at American Express Travel Related Services, BankBoston, Bain & Company, and Harbridge House.
Greg Richmond is the president of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, a membership organization that works with the agencies that oversee charter schools. From 1994 to 2005, Mr. Richmond worked for the Chicago Public Schools, during which time he established the district’s Charter Schools Office. Under his leadership, Chicago was the first urban school district in the nation to release an RFP, requesting educators and community organizations to start charter schools. He also established a district-funded capital loan fund for charter schools and developed model accountability and monitoring practices. From 2003 to 2005, he served as the district’s chief officer for new schools development, under Arne Duncan, then the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools. In that capacity, Mr. Richmond continued to work with the district’s charter schools, as well as small and contract schools. At the time of his departure, Chicago had over forty charter and small schools serving nearly fifteen thousand students.
