In Higher Education We Trust? Analyzing the Publicy Held University

Only the Name is the Same

by Jeffrey Wright

Higher education is at a pivotal moment. The value and even the necessity of higher education are being questioned.  

One could reasonably one could presume that systematic changes are in order. The economics of higher public education have now become a major topic. More than ever public universities are being run as corporations rather than houses of education. Schools cost money to operate and are largely competing for similar students. Larger profits and a bigger bottom line allow for schools to improve and attract more students. More money allows for news buildings or desperately needed renovations. More money can lead to better salaries to attract highly sought professors. However, with the emphasis on the bottom line, has also led to some schools being more frugal, relying on adjunct professors who are not full time employees but rather are independent contractors.

With the presumption that higher education is headed for reform, a study of charter schools could prove beneficial, as they too were the direct result of criticism of public education.
   
Trillium Public Charter School in Portland, Ore. and KIPP Collegiate Academy in Memphis, Tenn. are both classified as charter schools.

Charter schools are all formed in the same manner with a non-profit group deciding to form a school based on an idea or ideas. The must have criteria for which the school can be held accountable. The group will then submit its charter for approval by the state. Once approved, the group then becomes the charter school’s board of directors to oversee the school. Then the school is registered as a non-profit organization. Like public schools, all charter schools offer education to students free of charge. Often the similarities between charter schools end here.

 “Everyone hears that we are a charter school and immediately assumes that we are KIPP,” Kieran Connolly, the executive director of Trillium, said with a slightly irritated tone. “But that’s not what we’re about. We’re about democratic education with a commitment to social justice.”
Connolly’s utilizes a democratic education model, which is largely based on the ideals and teachings of the small school movement, largely influenced by the ideas of Ted Sizer and Deborah Meier. This movement was founded mainly in alternative education.

Connolly’s model stems largely from his study of the small school movement and his own postgraduate experience at Prescott College, which called for him to develop his own program of study. In addition to developing his own courses, he was also given laboratory time to test the alternative teaching methods he was studying in the hopes of developing a method to bring the small-school-democratic-education model to larger schools.

Connolly’s model emphasizes the importance of the student’s roles in his/her education. “It’s not a true democracy in the sense that students can just vote on what they want. We’ve had to move away from that. We’ve begun implementing a proposal process with our students that involves debate and compromise.”

Students take an active role in their education at charter schools like Trillium and largely have a say in the direction that their education will go.

This method is vastly different from the highly structured and educator-determined course of study that the KIPP network and other similar schools utilize. The school day at a KIPP school is highly structured beginning at 7:15 a.m. and concluding at 4:00 p.m. Students have very little say in the process.

KIPP Collegiate Academy, the original home for KIPP Academy in Memphis, is located just off of Danny Thomas Boulevard at 230 Henry Avenue at the building that was previously known as Caldwell Elementary.

“I am hesitant to give this school even one star,” a former parent once wrote about Caldwell. “The quality of this school is about as low as it gets. It is located in a dangerous neighborhood where the children never even get to have recess. This school has repeatedly been under par when it comes to facilities, support and academic achievement. The teachers control by military like discipline and intimidation.”

The school is part of the KIPP charter school network founded in Houston, Texas, in 1994 by two men, Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg, who had just completed their two-year contract with Teach for America.

KIPP is ambitious. The stated goal of the program is to have 75 percent of its graduates earn a bachelor’s degree, a number on par with Americans of greater affluence. While KIPP has fallen well short of their state goal, the school has had 40 percent of its graduates receive a bachelor’s degree compared to the national average of 10 percent of similar students nationwide.

At 230 Henry Avenue, KIPP has transformed a school that was once a fledging product of a poor neighborhood and funding into a center for academic progress. Alumni of the middle school at KIPP have a 94 percent high school graduation rate compared to the 71 percent graduation rate of the Memphis City School system and 70 percent rate for low-income homes.

“KIPP schools know that there are no shortcuts when it comes to success in academics and life,” KIPP’s third operating pillar reads. “With an extended school day, week, and year, students have more time in the classroom to acquire the academic knowledge and skills that will prepare them for competitive high schools and colleges, as well as more opportunities to engage in diverse extracurricular experiences.

KIPP academy is a well-oiled machine. Since it’s founding as a single fifth grade class in Houston, the KIPP has grown into a network of 141 schools in 20 states and the District of Columbia, serving over 50,000 students from elementary, middle, and high schools.  It has essentially become a school district of its own albeit one without a specific district.

Like Trillium, the network has a social justice mission “to create a respected, influential, and national network of public schools that are successful in helping students from educationally underserved communities develop the knowledge, skills, character and habits needed to succeed in college and the competitive world beyond.” The network currently consists of 95 percent African-American or Latino students, with 86 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced price meals. The community in Memphis that KIPP Collegiate resides certainly fits the mold the network desires.

Whether one agrees with the methodology of a KIPP school, the evidence is clear that the schools do get results.

According to an analysis by CREDO (Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University), KIPP Memphis Collegiate Middle School was ranked second in all charters across Tennessee for significant student learning growth. It was ranked the highest performing charter middle school in the state.

In addition to structural differences, the two different models have another glaring disparity, funding. KIPP is also remarkably well funded and has received over $65 million since 2000 from Gap founders Don and Doris Fisher while also raising about $40 million each year.

Trillium and other similar charter schools are not blessed with KIPP level financial support.
“Currently my school receives 55 percent of what a neighborhood school gets in my district,” Connolly said. “I raised about $45,000 additionally, but my goal is to eventually get that number about ten times that. The school district profits from our school.”

Connolly has hired a development director to help secure more funding for his school, but the advancement process has been slow moving he says. As a result, Connolly offers significantly smaller salaries than the market and competition offers.

“My teachers’ salaries are on average about $15,000 less than the average, and my salary is about $65,000 less than the average.”

Charter schools have also created a large debate in the political arena, serving as a hotbed issue for both Democrats and Republicans alike. However, the topic is more than just a political issue between the two parties; it is also a political issue among charter schools themselves.

“(Many schools in KIPP network are a) for-profit model that is financed with public money,” Mr. Connolly said. “Charter schools began as an idea from the left to improve public education, but as the model changed and schools were viewed as an opportunity for profit, the right became the champions of the cause with the left seemingly giving up their idea to them.”

An obvious schism in principles exists between schools like Trillium and KIPP, but Connolly does raise a particular interesting question when he asks, how a public education can be a for-profit entity?

“While charter school supporters often envision them as non-profits run by a single board of directors with an innovative idea for student achievement and curriculum, the reality is that running a charter school is hard work and often requires more dedicated support and management expertise,” Amy Baral, a fellow with the Roosevelt Pipeline, a student division of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute writes. “Successful non-profit charter schools have developed into non-profit education management organizations (EMOs) that use similar methodologies in all of their schools – KIPP is an example. However, EMOs have also sprouted up in the for-profit sector.”

EMOs are the direct result of the growth of charter schools. Groups that were organizing new charter schools began to seek out the guidance and help of established and successful charter schools. As the demand for guidance became more prevalent, organizations that specialized in education management began to form. EMOs offer everything from additional tutoring to school administrators. While most EMOs are non-profit organizations designed to help grow charter schools, some are for-profit organizations.

Ms. Baral notes that for-profit EMOs are entirely legal under most state laws and have become prolific in Arizona, Florida, and Michigan. Regardless of their legality, their existence is a large cause for intensified conflict in the charter school debate both in the political arena and among charter schools themselves. It has also caused great concern over the state of public education.

“There is a good reason that public schools are run by state and local governments rather than for-profit businesses.” Ms. Baral writes in her discourse on charter schools. “As a society, we expect government programs to be tailored to serve the needs of citizens and create common standards for the betterment of all. If we blur the line between private businesses and public schools, we may wind up diverting public funds to support a company’s bottom line rather than our shared educational goals and values.”

The charter school creation has largely created more problems and issues than it had intended. What once started out as an altruistic idea to re-invent public education has become in some cases an opportunity for corporate profit. At the minimum charter schools have created more issues than solutions. 

The EMO debate with charter schools largely represents a microcosm of the state of higher public education. In addition to the fact that a single charter school model doesn’t exist, one could make the argument that public universities largely behave as charter schools currently. A few exceptions exist such as tenured professors (Charter schools do not use unionized teachers and thusly can hire or terminate teachers as they see fit.), but largely the schools utilize a charter model.
However, two aspects of charter schools that I believe will become more prevalent in higher public education are stricter adherence to ensuring a profit (or large bottom line financially) and some from of democratic education. Distinguishing among large state universities is becoming a more difficult task, and universities have to make significant capital investments to separate themselves. In order to do so, universities are largely looking to the corporatization model of being as efficient with funds as possible. Since charter schools receive less public funding than neighborhood counterparts, they are required to do the same. Adjunct professors could become the norm more frequently along with other cost-cutting policies.

Additionally, with so many students basing the need of higher education to secure job placement, democratic education could leak into high education more prevalently. Contract majors, majors with students selecting course work of greater personal interest, could become more of a standard. Students would be able to select course work that is catered specifically to their interests and skill sets in hopes of being more efficient and content with job placement.

John Stossel’s Review of Charter Schools

60 Minutes on Charter Schools

PBS Chicago Debate on Charter Schools

About Jeffrey Wright

Jeffrey Wright is a graduate of Pepperdine University who is currently pursuing a master's in Journalism from the University of Mississippi. He is currently a key contributor, videographer, and podcaster with Rivals.com. He is a native Memphian and proud graduate of Memphis University School.