ARTICLES
SEPTEMBER 2001 ARTICLES
Contents © 2001
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
"We Can Be in Trouble"
Are Charters a Threat to Homeschooling?
By Christopher Zehnder
Is it a plot to subvert independent homeschooling, or over-due recognition of home-based education as an alternative to the failing public schools? Opinions of homeschooling families differ dramatically over state charter schools that offer independent study programs. Charging the controversy is, of course, a traditional American desire to be "left alone" and wariness directed towards any state offered and sponsored benefit, on the one hand, and an (equally traditional) American desire for monetary benefit and security, on the other. Proponents say that any threats to homeschooling are minimal, compared to the benefits one receives, while opponents charge that charter school independent study programs threaten the integrity of homeschooling as an independent, grass-roots movement.
Anecdotal evidence suggests a good number of Catholic homeschooling families are signing up under the state charter schools. In some areas, disagreement over charter schools has bred dissension among homeschoolers, splitting family support groups. Some support groups, particularly Protestant ones, refuse to accept as members families who participate in charter school independent study programs.
While such ostracism may dissuade some from joining a charter school, it does not discourage others. The state of California established charter schools in 1992 as a way to improve the public education system by encouraging, says the California Education Code, "the use of different and innovative teaching." According to the 1992 law, charter schools are institutions "organized by a group of teachers, community members, parents, or others and sponsored by an existing local public school board or a county board of education." Free of many of the regulations governing traditional public or "common" schools, charter schools have a much greater latitude to determine not only their curriculum, but their modes of teaching and study.
The Charter Schools web page of the California Department of Education (http://www.cde.ca.gov/charter/) provides summaries of the nearly 300 charter schools in California. Most of these are day schools, offering a variety of different goals and learning methods to achieve those goals. About 30 of the charter schools provide both on-site instruction and independent study programs, while about 39 schools are exclusively home study and distance learning schools. Few of these latter serve "at-risk" students, but the majority offer regular independent study programs. According to the state department of education, unmixed independent study charter schools served about 9,020 students last year. This number includes schools for at-risk students, but does not count the number of students enrolled in the six charter schools started up in the last year, for which no record of enrollment was offered. The number also does not include the number of independent study students enrolled in mixed schools; the combined on-site and home school number of students is 11,087 (again, not including new start-ups). These numbers also do not include schools that said they offered distance learning instead of home school.
Home study charter schools offer benefits that traditional public school independent study programs do not. Of the $4,500 to $5,500 ADA (Assessed Dollar Amount) the charter school receives through block grants per year for each student enrolled, the larger portion goes to paying administrators' and teachers' salaries and to running the school. About $1,000 goes to purchasing books and other educational materials. A portion of the money (about one-third) may pay for non-core items, such as music lessons. Most, if not all, independent study charter schools do not offer a set list of books or materials that students must use; rather, parents may choose which books or materials they want, subject to the approval of the charter school. What's more, according to Gaye Smoot, administrator for the state of California's charter schools office in Sacramento, the $1,000 per student is not a fixed limit. "Most charter schools I know of will tell you," she said, "that if the family gets to the end of their $1,000, that doesn't end the educational program, if more materials are needed. They sort of hold that amount as a guideline, and it's totally up to their choice what that level might be."
Part of the ADA goes to pay teachers' salaries, since independent study requires the oversight of a certified teacher. Some teachers are paid according to how many students they recruit for the charter school -- say, $1,000 per child. Others are paid according to a fixed scale.
It all sounds like a good deal, especially for families with several school age children. Not only do they get what amounts to a free education, but the state will pay for all, or a portion, of such traditional financial burdens as music lessons. But as in all "free" things, there's a catch. Explaining the allocation of money per student, Smoot warned that "there is no money that goes to the student, and nothing of value is kept by the student or family, otherwise it would be a gift of public funds, and that's illegal." Translated, that means that everything besides workbooks and other "consumable" items, must be returned to the charter school when the student is finished with them. Thus, books, computers, etc. remain the property of the state public school system.
Smoot emphasized that all students enrolled in an independent study charter school are public school students. She also noted that they are not, by law, recognized as homeschool students, because "homeschooling isn't recognized under California law; independent study is. So, it isn't homeschooling in our eyes," said Smoot, "because in a homeschooling situation, I assume, the parent teaches the student; in an independent study, there is a teacher that assigns the work, reviews all the work, determines the time value to the assignment, determines what the grade is on the assignment. The parent might be more like a teacher's aide, or a volunteer in the classroom, if you wanted a corollary. The independent study model that these schools come under does not recognize that the parent is necessarily the giver of information; but, under the independent study laws, it's really specific to the supervision of the teacher."
Though not the primary teachers, parents of children in a charter school have to keep attendance and other records. Students "meet weekly, or twice a week, or whatever they are doing, with the teacher," said Smoot, "who looks at what is produced by the student. The charter schools do not require a set period in which the student is to study; but, in order to get the credit, and in order for the school to claim the ADA, they have to show the time value with the work behind it. There is a lot of record keeping that goes along with independent study that has to substantiate attendance."
Shirley Oesch, who directs the Valley Oaks Charter School in Bakersfield, said she allows parents to plan their own curricula, subject to the approval of the certified teacher under whose oversight they fall. "A lot of times the parents like to chart their own course," said Oesch. "In that case, they come to us with [the curriculum] done, and so that is modified, enriched, whatever, when they meet with the teacher. Officially the teacher is still making the assignment, but the parent comes and says whether we are going to do these activities, whether we are going to read these books, whatever. The teacher is very aware of all the standards, so we look at what they are doing in light of the standards. It's more a matter of what they might be leaving out rather than what they are putting in."
Gaye Smoot said that the state has no approved vendor list; a charter is "fairly independent as to what they are choosing to use as instructional material." Since it is a public school, though, a charter is forbidden by law to purchase any books or materials that are in any way "sectarian." Does this mean that charters are forbidden to buy non-sectarian books from otherwise religious publishers? "I don't know why that would be an issue," said Smoot.
Buying non-sectarian books from religious publishers, said Oesch, is "one of those really fuzzy areas." Oesch said, in the past year, her school bought a reading-based program from a religious publisher for English and social studies. "They're a Christian publisher," said Oesch, "and what they'll do is take a whole list of just common books that you would have in any school, and the lesson plans are from the religious perspective. So the parents buy the lesson plans with their own money; we buy the books. What we're finding, though, is that those books are just as readily available anywhere; we can go to Scholastic Press and buy them as easily there. So, next year, we'll order the books from a different company."
I asked Oesch if she preferred to buy from non-sectarian publishers. "That' s not my preference, necessarily," she said. "I'm just saying, at any time somebody is going to look at that a different way and say, you know, you shouldn't be doing this [buying from religious publishers.] All those little lines are kind of fuzzy, and so when we think they are fuzzy, we try not to raise too many red flags."
Religion, or any subject with content that promotes religion, cannot, said Gaye Smoot, form part of the curriculum of a charter school. "If the teacher reviews the student's work," said Smoot, "and sees any religious work in it, that work is not going to be counted as part of the ADA." But, what if, during study, a parent brings religion into what the student is studying? That would be the same, said Smoot, as "if my student came home with something they were working on, and they were talking about it, and I said, 'well, from our family's viewpoint, that is how we look at this.' That is the opinion of the parent; it has nothing to do with the assignment that's been assigned to the student."
Smoot said that I was describing to her a situation where "the parent is teaching the student. What we're talking about," she said, "is independent study which is teacher assigned and supervised, with the work reviewed by the teacher. If the parent chooses to help the student with homework, if the parent chooses to elaborate -- that is the same in any public school. Because the parent is not the teacher."
Of course, not everyone thinks independent charter schools are a good thing. Michael Smith, a lawyer with the Virginia-based Homeschool Legal Defense Association, said that his organization would "in a gentle way, discourage" parents from joining charter schools. Smith, who represents California clients for Homeschool Legal Defense, said one of his organization's concerns about the charter school movement in California is "that if it becomes really large -- if we have a large number of homeschoolers participating in that program -- the freedom of private homeschoolers could be in jeopardy. If charter school members became a real large part of the homeschool community, there could be an effort on the part of the state to require everybody to join the charters. That's a concern I have. It has not materialized; it may never. But I can see that if a large percentage of homeschoolers start homeschooling through the public school, there could be a move, if there are not a large enough number of independent homeschoolers to fight legislation to restrict freedom, to require everyone to do what these folks are doing. We can be in trouble."
Smith said the California state department of education is "pretty hostile towards private home education, which is what over 50 percent of the families who homeschool are involved in. In California, your family's homeschool is under the private school exemption, and although that exemption had a specific provision that would not allow them to roll back the freedoms of homeschoolers, it would not prohibit the legislature from introducing legislation that would change the whole nature of homeschooling in California, to take it out of the private school exemption and make it a specific homeschooling where they would identify what homeschooling was and what families would have to do."
Smith fears that the charter school phenomenon might hurt the culture of homeschooling. "What we have seen, in homeschoooling, is that the families have done very well because they are exercising responsibility. People who have the freedom to homeschool will be responsible, whereas, if you start regulating people, you are initially going to be discouraging a lot of these folks. Secondly, if we become dependent, as 90 to 95 percent of [all] families have done, on public education to educate out children, we end up with the quality of education we have today. If you want real quality education, you get it out from under the government, you make it independent, with the responsibility on the parents to educate their children themselves or send them to a private school. In either case, they have made that choice, the responsibility is totally theirs; and when responsibility belongs totally to someone, and they're responsible people, they do a better job."
Laura Berquist, who directs the Our Mother of Grace homeschooling program in Ojai, dislikes the separation of religion from study implicit in the public school system. The Faith should not be seen as simply a discipline apart from mathematics, grammar, history, and science, but as the culmination and measure of all learning. "Everything we do," she said, "should be in the light of faith." She said she sees a problem in a situation where one "can't use certain books because of a mythical separation of Church and state."
John Kamprath, adminstrator of Kolbe Academy in Napa, which offers both day school and homeschool programs, as well as a program for people who want to start their own day school, said that home study charter schools raise an "issue of principle -- does the government have a place in education, in funding it, in setting its curriculum, etc.?" He asked. "What is the government's rightful place? Maybe it has a place in supplying money, maybe not; but that's almost a separate issue from government establishing a curriculum."
Kamprath was hesitant about any alliance with the public system which, he said, "was initially set up by Protestant Americans with Protestant books that attacked the Faith (in some parts of our country.) This was one of the reasons the Catholic schools had to establish themselves, in defense against the public system. 'Then," continued Kamprath, "you have John Dewey and his educational revolution and his principles, which are thoroughly embraced by the public sector, and now also systematically embraced by the diocesan schools."
Homeschooling, said Kamprath, and small, independent private schools, such as a Kolbe, "are reclaiming their identity," which is not only their allegiance to the Holy Father and the magisterium, "but also the whole Catholic intellectual patrimony. Now, if you then enter into a secondary relationship with a funder, you're opening up all sorts of possible problems. First, there is the purse string issue: you have entered into a relationship with the government in what was otherwise a private endeavor, and the possibility exists for the government to pull its money later on. Secondly, if these charter schools are setting the curriculum if you are only allowed to buy certain books -- that would just fly in the face of homeschooling, which, in its purest form, is based on the Catholic social teaching of subsidiarity. The greater, larger entity should not do for the smaller entity what it can do for itself. Parents, because they are educated or have a competent enough education, and are given the graces to raise their children through the sacrament of matrimony, have the ability to make educational decisions. When they want to delegate this to someone else, that's fine; but it's very dangerous to come into some relationship because of financial reasons, and then be told you can't teach what you want to teach."
Kamprath does not fear that the charter schools will significantly harm private homeschooling. "It would take a massive effort by the liberals to crush homeschooling," he thinks. These fears might be right if something like the charter school could put a damper on quality homeschooling, but I think that people who want to homeschool are more interested in doing what they want rather than in getting money to make piano lessons more easily available. I think a lot of these people would just opt out of that once they saw the restrictions or handcuffs put on them."
For Kamprath, the entire issue comes down to the principle that education belongs in the private sector. "The Catholic Church," he said, "should be providing the education for the faithful; we should be tithing to pay for that. But that education should not be borrowed from the public arena, with its modernist agenda, but should be of the first quality. That's the way it should be, and that's why we have homeschoolers doing it on their own."