In the national charter school debate, Boston has special significance. The city has unleashed imaginative teachers to run both independent charter schools and semi-independent "pilot" schools, with much of the rest of the country waiting to see which does best.
Teachers unions and charter opponents have put unusual emphasis on this contest. Boston pilot schools were designed to show that schools with collectively bargained pay scales and seniority protections could do just as well as charters, whose teachers are usually non-union.
Charters, independently operated schools with public funding, were not designed to be anti-union. American Federation of Teachers founding president Al Shanker originated the charter idea. But many conservatives who think unions stand in the way of raising student achievement have embraced the charter school cause, thus politicizing the debate. Their side just won the first round in Boston, and they are not likely to let charter opponents forget it.
A study by scholars from Harvard, MIT, Michigan and Duke, sponsored by the Boston Foundation, shows the Boston charters are doing significantly better than pilots in raising student achievement. This includes results from randomized studies designed to reduce the possibility that charters might benefit from having more motivated students and parents. The study is called "Informing the Debate: Comparing Boston's Charter, Pilot and Traditional Schools."
People who see charters as a ruinous drain on regular public schools, and a threat to job security and salary protections for teachers, are not going to accept this verdict. The data come from just one city, with many qualifications. For instance, the randomized results apply only to charters so popular they have more applicants than they can accept. Less popular charters were not included in that part of the study; they could have reduced the charters' measured gains if their data had counted.
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