Charter schools that fail to teach deserve to be shut down

At Frazier Preparatory Charter in Lawndale, just 14% of third graders achieved the national average in reading on standardized tests this year. Only 15% of third graders reached the national average in math.

At Chicago Virtual Charter, a mostly online school based on the Near West Side, just 53% of ninth graders are on track to graduate, only 44% of students actually do graduate, and just half go on to college — numbers far below non-charter high schools in the Chicago Public Schools.

Both charter schools have been on CPS’ academic warning list for two consecutive years. Both are poorly rated by CPS, which takes into account test scores, graduation rates and other academic metrics, plus student and family surveys of school culture and learning environment.

Both schools are failing their students, after being given years of opportunity to get it right. Frazier opened in 2007, and Chicago Virtual in 2006.

By any fair measure, it’s time to pull the plug.

The Board of Education should vote Wednesday to revoke the charters of both schools, as CPS CEO Janice Jackson recommended Monday.

“Based on our comprehensive review of charter school performance, our recommendation to close two charter schools is necessary to ensure students have access to the high-quality education they deserve,” Jackson said.

Indeed, those kids deserve much better than a third-rate education, which is what they are getting now, if not something worse.

Which is why we cannot agree with a charge by the Chicago Teachers Union that the proposed closures are “an admission of failure by the district, and a continued attack on the lives of the city’s Black and Brown children.”

It’s the two charters that are failing, not CPS.

Charter schools, in theory, are given freedom from district bureaucracy and red tape so they can develop new, innovative models for learning. If they fall short with less-than-mediocre results, they should be shut down. It’s not complicated.

Even charter school advocates agree, as Andrew Broy of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools told us.

“We don’t shy away from the idea that charters must show academic growth,” Broy said. “That’s the bargain — you get more flexibility and have to accept that there are benchmarks set for solid growth.”

We say this, though, with one major caveat: CPS had better make sure that the 700-plus children now enrolled in Frazier and Chicago Virtual land at a new school that is markedly better — be it a charter or a traditional, district-run public school.

“It’s not about closings, but about finding seats in better schools somewhere else,” as Broy said.

Education research backs up that commonsense point. Researchers at Stanford University and elsewhere have found that displaced students from low-achieving schools continue to perform poorly on standardized tests — unless they transfer to a measurably higher-achieving school.

CPS also identified four other charters that had better improve — or face shutdown as well. Last year, three other charter schools were closed.

It’s a startling turnaround from what district officials envisioned two decades ago, when a national movement was underway to transform failing urban schools by fostering “competition” from private charter operators.

Charters were supposed to become learning laboratories, developing practices for other schools to adopt. In Chicago, dozens of new charters — including Frazier and Chicago Virtual — sprang up as part of Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Renaissance 2010 program.

Now, charter growth is at a standstill in Chicago. The charm has faded. It’s a more than safe bet that a charter proponent had little chance of being elected mayor in the last election.

CPS — rightly, in our view — has shifted its focus to shoring up neighborhood schools.

Traditional neighborhood public schools that serve every child who walks through the door, without requiring a test or even an application beforehand, should be first in line for funding and resources.

It’s no cause for celebration when any school shuts down.

But sometimes, as in the case of these two charter schools, it’s a necessity.

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