For years, charter schools leaders and their supporters in Silicon Valley, and district officials and teachers have been talking at each other at charter hearings and accusingly behind each other’s backs.

Rarely had they talked directly to one another frankly and civilly – at least for any length of time. But that’s what happened for seven hours Saturday during a Charter Summit that the trustees of the Santa Clara County Office of Education organized.

County trustees were the natural conveners, because they have felt caught in between districts’ antagonisms and charters’ ambitions. They have taken seriously their obligation to hear charter appeals, and granted charters that districts had rejected, based on an objective reading of the state charter law.  Without their approval, well-respected charter schools – ACE Public School Network and Rocketship Education – wouldn’t be raising parents’ hopes and students’ expectations in low-income areas of San Jose.

But once the county office becomes the authorizer, responsible for monitoring charters, districts and charter schools have even less cause to work together. As board President Anna Song and trustee Joseph DiSalvo observed in a written welcome, “If competition creates fear and hostility, our children lose.”

There will be more, not less, competition in coming years. The Obama administration views charters as part of its strategy of turning around low-performing schools, and Silicon Valley startup charters – ACE, Rocketship and Downtown College Prep, which will open its third high school in East San Jose, have expansion plans.

An unequal playing field

The 200 forum participants, divided fairly evenly among charter advocates and district administrators and officials, came in with a goal of collaborating, according to interactive voting conducted throughout the day. But they also expressed long-standing tensions, based on perceptions that the playing field for charter schools and district schools is uneven.

Depending on the issue, both sides feel aggrieved. Charter leaders often get pushed around from portable to portable or end up in church basements under an imperfect facilities law, Proposition 39. Even district leaders say the  Legislature needs to fix it.

District leaders say that charter schools drain money from public schools; at a minimum, fixed costs must be covered. Charter leaders respond that charters are public schools, open to all. Districts have no claim over tuition; it follows the child  to the school that the parents choose.

District officials say that charters aren’t educating their share of handicapped students; generally, they’re right, though the reasons may be complex. They say that charters siphon off engaged parents, a key asset to any school. But as panelist Greg Lippman, founder the charter middle school ACE Public Network, said, involved versus uninvolved parents is  a false dichotomy.  His school reaches out to engage parents who may not have been active before in their children’s education.

Contract thwarts innovation

Using their electronic keypads, participants nearly unanimously agreed that all public schools should enjoy some of the freedoms and options available to charter schools. When asked to vote on the obstacles standing in the way of district schools, some indicated the bureaucratic state ed code; others  blamed uniformity imposed by a district’s administrators. But most cited a district’s restrictive teacher contract. It can stand in the way of charter schools’ flexibility over scheduling, extending the school day, creating alternate pay systems, hiring teachers who are in sync with the school’s focus and dismissing those who aren’t.

Rocketship Education uses online learning, led by non-certificated staff, to supplement classroom work and free up money to fund its new school building and other programs. CEO John Danner said that arrangement could never happen under a union contract.

But Bill Erlendson, assistant superintendent of San Jose Unified, said it was also false to say that only charter schools innovate. He’s right.

No cornered market on innovation

A video made for the conference offered glimpses into creative and successful  charter and district schools in Santa Clara County. You couldn’t tell offhand which were charters and which were district schools: James McEntee Academy, a small school in low-income Alum Rock, Bracher Elementary, a high scoring Latino school in Santa Clara, Rocketship Mateo Sheedy and Downtown College Prep are just good schools.

As  Eric Premack, director of the Charter Schools Development Center in Sacramento, observed, “A charter is just a vehicle, nothing more. It must be used to advance good practices.”

Participants suggested ways to get district and charter schools to share what they do well: hold quarterly meetings on best practices, visit each other’s schools, post videos on a new web site.

Whether any of these happen, the forum did de-escalate tensions and at least got a dialogue going.

By John Fensterwald on February 3rd, 2010