1. Intervention Analysis: Charter Schools in the United States
Jackson
1
Kondwani Jackson
Dr. Eve Tuck
Urban Education
9/20/13
Intervention Analysis: Charter Schools in the United States
Access to adequate education for low
income, historically marginalized
students, and the continuance of
established public schools, have
continuously been major concerns within
urban communities. Decades following
the racial integration of schools via the
Brown decision, public schools located in
urban communities are still burdened
with a lack of engaging student-centered
curriculum for low-income and culturally
diverse students. Issues with funding and
financial support, and concerns with
increasing privatization and
standardization from neoliberal and
neoconservative agendas have also
overwhelmed urban public schools. The
abundant problems regarding the
systematic attack on urban public schools
solidified the call for an alternative that
could potentially resolve the “failures” of
public schooling.
Charter schools have been regarded
as engines of innovation, and were
initially implemented with the promise
of student-centered curriculum, free
choice and empowerment for students,
teachers, families and community
members. However, charter schools have
also been criticized for exploiting staff,
inadequately catering to students and
communities, while expanding a
segment of education that is even more
racially and economically segregated
than public schools. It is imperative to
briefly analyze the problems and
prospects of charter schooling within
urban communities. Generating a greater
understanding of the complexities
regarding charter schools can assist in
developing suitable models of education
that actualize the promises and potential
of public/charter education for low
income students and students of color.
Laying the Foundation for Charter Schools
Within the United States, public schools in urban communities have continually
experienced systematic marginalization decades after the sanctioned integration of public
schools via the Brown vs. Board of Education decision of 1954 (Eaton, 2006; Weiner,
2006; Lipman, 2011; Sapon-Shevin & Schniedewind, 2012). Following the Brown
decision, public schools within urban communities have become increasingly
“…segregated with all black and Latino and heavily poor students…on their own”
(Eaton, 2006, pp. 80-81). Within the metropolitan areas of the nation, State school

2. Intervention Analysis: Charter Schools in the United States
Jackson
2
officials have systematically “…fostered, promoted, and actively participated in the
establishment of racially dual systems of public schools…” (Eaton, 2006, p. 80).
Relegated to the economic blight systematically created in cities (Eaton, 2006; Buras,
Randels, Salaam & SAC, 2010; Lipman, 2011), public schools in urban communities are
continually fraught with inadequate funding and concerns regarding the increased
standardization of the classrooms and curriculum (Lipman, 2011; Sapon-Shevin &
Schniedewind, 2012).
The systematic attack on public education has led to closing a plethora of
“failing” public schools nationwide (Lipman, 2011; Sapon-Shevin & Schniedewind,
2012), as neoliberal & neoconservative initiatives simultaneously limit community
engagement (Weiner, 2006; Buras et al., 2010; Lipman, 2011; Walker 2012), and the
teacher’s capacity to develop engaging student-centered curriculum in preference of
teaching towards high stakes testing (Lipman, 2011; Sapon-Shevin & Schniedewind,
2012; Walker, 2012). Policies such as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act of 2002,
“…established a system to sort, classify, and demarcate students, teachers, and schools
and to identify and label ‘failing’ public schools” (Lipman, 2011, p. 125). Thus, NCLB,
in conjunction to disinvestment in urban communities, systematically led to closing an
abundance of public schools across the United States. In the 1929–30 academic year,
there were approximately 248,000 public schools in the United States, by the year 2009–
10 approximately 99,000 public schools were still functioning; the numbers are
continually decreasing (“Digest of Education Statistics,” 2011). The disparities and
failures of public education fueled a rapid development of charter schools within the
United States (Lipman, 2011, p. 124). Dr. Ray Budde, a former assistant professor in the

3. Intervention Analysis: Charter Schools in the United States
Jackson
3
school of education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, recognized the failing
trend of public schools in the 1970’s (“New York Times,” 2005).
Dr. Budde was the first to publically suggest the term charter to describe, “…a
novel contracting arrangement designed to support the efforts of innovative teachers
within the public school system…” (“The New York Times,” 2005, para. 3). Dr. Budde
asserted that a charter arrangement “…could result in a new type of school, that would
give teachers increased responsibility over curriculum and instruction in exchange for a
greater degree of accountability for student achievement” (“The New York Times,” 2005,
para. 4). Charters appealed to the desires of communities and teachers for cultural and
political self-determination, and professional autonomy (Lipman, 2011; Sapon-Shevin &
Schniedewind, 2012; Walker, 2012). The idea of a charter quickly spread as a positive
alternative for greater education. Unfortunately, as rapidly as the concept gained
momentum, neoliberal and neoconservative agendas began to manipulate the concept
beginning with the Reagan administration in the 1980’s and continuing uninterrupted for
decades into the Obama Administration (Lipman, 2011, p. 121).
Hyper-Expansion of Charter Schools
Pauline Lipman (2011), professor of Educational Policy Studies and Director of
the Collaborative for Equity and Justice in Education at the University of Illinois-
Chicago, articulated the incidents that lead to the expansion of charter schools:
This rapid expansion [of charter schools] was fueled by the failures of public
education…and the diversion of the civil rights agenda into magnet and specialty
schools for the privileged (mainly white people) while public schools for the
majority of urban schools declined…Disinvestment in urban communities of

4. Intervention Analysis: Charter Schools in the United States
Jackson
4
color and high stakes education accountability were followed by an infusion of
government funding and policies that supported charter schools and other
education markets…From 2000 to 2008, the U.S. Department of Education
awarded $1.8 billion in start-up funds for charter schools and over $320 million
for charter school facilities. The Department proposed that replicating successful
charter schools should be a national priority, its language revealing the market
logics [italics mine] behind the charter school drive… (p. 124).
Charter schools spread endemically across the country. In the 1998-1999 academic year,
21 states reported having one or more charter schools; by 2008, there were over 4,300
charter schools, serving over 1 million students of color in 40 states, concentrated
predominately in “inner-city” communities (Lipman, 2011, p. 124). Charter schools are
filled with immense complexity due to their flexibility, appealing (yet market-driven)
rhetoric and political nature (Lipman, 2011; Sapon-Shevin & Schniedewind, 2012;
Walker, 2012).
Charter schools are complex institutions that are privately managed yet publically
funded; however charter schools may also receive contributions or “donations” from
private, for-profit entities (Lipman, 2011). Charters exempt schools from certain state
rules and regulations that govern non-chartered public schools; thus, charter schools must
meet the accountability mandates articulated within their respective charters in return for
funding and autonomy (The Condition of Education, 2013). It is imperative to note that
charter schools are public schools; charter schools are not private institutions. Since
charter schools are essentially public schools (“Fact sheet: Charter myths vs. reality,”
2012), charter schools claim to embody the fundamental values of public education, and

5. Intervention Analysis: Charter Schools in the United States
Jackson
5
are held as institutions of innovation and reform (“Fact sheet: Charter myths vs. reality,”
2012). Charter schools are implemented under the assumption that schools are most
successful when establishing partnerships between families and community members,
while providing teachers a greater capacity in decision-making and curriculum
development (Lipman, 2011; Sapon-Shevin & Schniedewind, 2012; Walker 2012). Many
charter schools operate under the guise of working collaboratively with all stakeholders
to decentralize decision making with community partnerships, and implementing content-
rich, student-centered curriculum from research-based instructional practices (Walker,
2012). However, there are a plethora of scholars and educators who have criticized the
rapid growth of charter schools in the United States (Buras et al., 2010; Frankenberg et al,
2010; Lipman, 2011; Sapon-Shevin & Schniedewind, 2012; Walker, 2012).
Regenerating Inequality & Segregation
Initially, charter schools appeal to the paradigms of progressive educators, families and
communities; however, Lipman (2011) argued that charter schools have essentially been
“…exploited and rearticulated to the interest of education entrepreneurs, venture
philanthropists, investors, and corporate-style charter school chains” (p. 121). It is
imperative to note, that while charter schools offer promises for organizational
improvement, student-centered education, community partnerships, and democratically
distributed decision making; charter schools “…have become the central vehicle to open
up public education to the market, weaken teachers’ unions, and eliminate whatever
democratic control of public education there is” (Lipman, 2011, p. 122). There is also
concern of the increasing evidence that charter schools have been steadily expanding a
sector that is even more racially and economically segregated than public schools

6. Intervention Analysis: Charter Schools in the United States
Jackson
6
(Lipman, 2011; Frankenberg et al., 2010). Gary Orfield of the Civil Rights Project at
UCLA, argued that charter schools enroll a disproportionate number of Black students, a
third of which, “…end up in apartheid schools with zero to one percent white classmates,
the very kinds of schools that decades of civil rights struggles fought to abolish…”
(Frankenberg et al., 2010, p. 1). Thus, charter schools have become the principal
instrument for shifting education within the United States to the familiar face of
schooling during Jim Crow.
Are Charter Schools Successful?
One could argue that despite the pleasing rhetoric and promising potential, charter
schools, as an intervention, have been largely unsuccessful. The façade of progressive
innovation, freedom of choice and reform that has come to define charter schools is
seldom actualized. According to Lipman (2011), collectively student performance in
charter schools reveals no significant difference in comparison to students in public
schools “…with 17% of charter schools performing better then public schools, 37%
significantly worse, and 46% showing no significant difference” (p. 125). Likewise,
educator and organizer Nate Walker (2012), advocated that charter schools like
University Preparatory Academy, which have developed an identity on being
“progressive”, were “…adopting many of the practices of the system it outwardly
criticized…standardizing lessons, standardizing student goals, and standardizing a
singular vision of student success: one defined by students’ performance on standardized
tests” (p. 50). Walker (2012) stated that charter schools do not “…acknowledge that the
youth in these communities have the intellect and creativity to participate in solving those
problems…” (p. 51). In a sense, charter schools tend to disregard the necessities of the

7. Intervention Analysis: Charter Schools in the United States
Jackson
7
people, without attempting to fully understand or address the root causes of many of the
difficulties in urban communities, opting for corporate profits over people.
Charter schools seldom accomplish the mandates and promises they emphasize. It
is imperative to note, there are independent charters that may serve as just models of
education for culturally diverse students and students of color in urban communities.
There are handfuls of genuinely dedicated educators and community members, who have
taken advantage of the flexibility of charter schools to develop and establish culturally
relevant, community centered education, located within the tradition of Black
independent schools (Lipman, 2011, p. 121). Lipman (2011) asserts that independent
charters such as the Betty Shabazz International Charter School “…are a powerful
indication of the desire of communities and progressive educators to take education into
their own hands” (p. 121). Unfortunately, corporate-style, market-driven charter chains
dominate the rapid expansion of charter schools across the United States.
Rethinking Public/Charter Education
It would be ideal for the United States to fund the development of charter schools
that genuinely empower dedicated educators, community members, parents and students,
without placing the interest of corporate kingpins and wealthy philanthropists at the point
of precedence. Furthermore, it would be ideal for the United States government to
simultaneously assist with the institutionally sanctioned, dismal state of public schools
without relegating or abolishing these spaces in preference for charters. The argument
should not revolve around one’s preference for charter or public education, because
charter is public education (albeit a very peculiar form). For those who favor non-
chartered public education, the arguments should focus on developing creative,

8. Intervention Analysis: Charter Schools in the United States
Jackson
8
resourceful, pleasurable, culturally specific methods of education and learning for
students that satisfy the demands of standardized teaching and assessment. Those who
prefer charters should validate the extent to which a charter school caters to its students,
teachers and community members, reassuring that profits are not favored above the urban
communities charters serve.

9. Intervention Analysis: Charter Schools in the United States
Jackson
9
References
Buras K., Randels J., Salaam Y.K., & SAC. (2010). Pedagogy, policy, and the privatized
city: Stories of dispossession and defiance from new orleans. New York: Teachers
College Press.
Eaton, S. (2006). The children in room e4: American education on trial. Chapel Hill, NC:
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.
Fact sheet: Charter myths vs reality [Supplemental material]. (2012, September, 23).
California Charter Schools Association. Retrieved from
http://www.calcharters.org
Frankenberg, E., Siegel-Hawley, G., & Wang, J. (2010). Choice without equity: Charter
school segregation and the need for civil rights standards. Retrieved from Civil
Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA,
http://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/
Lipman, P. (2011). The new political economy of urban education; Neoliberalism, race,
and the right to the city. New York: Routledge.
Saulny, S (2005 June 21). Ray budde, 82, first to propose charter schools, dies. The New
York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/
Schiedewind, N., & Sapon-Shevin, M. (2012). Educational courage: Resisting the
ambush of public education. Boston: Beacon Press.
The condition of education. (2013). Retrieved from
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/introduction3.asp

10. Intervention Analysis: Charter Schools in the United States
Jackson
10
U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2012 May).
Digest of Education Statistics, 2011 (NCES 2012-001 chapter 2). Retrieved from
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d11/ch_2.asp
Walker, N. (2012). “There is no rubric for imagination: Organizing against a charter
school gone corporate.” In N. Schiedewind & M. Sapon-Shevin (Eds.),
Educational courage: Resisting the ambush of public education (pp. 49-55).
Boston: Beacon Press.
Weiner, L. (2006). Urban teaching: The essentials. New York: Teachers College Press.