The fight for true educational justice and equality for kids suffered a setback this week with the release of a much-hyped report purportedly offering a broad overview and ranking of the country’s 42 charter school laws.

Only 20 or so of the 41 states (and the District of Columbia) that provide a home to charter schools truly have the components necessary to provide the educational justice that was and is the driving force behind these schools’ creation. We know this because we’ve been studying this very issue since 1993 and have produced at an almost annual rate a comprehensive report assessing, year to year, the strength and execution of every state charter law. The Center for Education Reform’s research and analysis is based not just on reading and re-reading each law and regulation, but also on a personal, hands-on involvement with schools throughout the country, firsthand accounts and continuous discussion with both parents and leaders affected by the law, as well as with legislators who often don’t realize that a law’s plans and its implementation can vary greatly.

CER’s research and rankings – cited for over a decade by media and political leaders alike – are solid, accepted, and show that when states have great laws, they will have great schools.

If only it were so easy to ensure sound policy be adopted and grown.

On the road to educating lawmakers and promulgating strong charter laws (no simple task with legislator turnover, not to mention their susceptibility to daily outside pressure), another group has decided that a second analysis of existing laws is necessary (regardless of whether or not it might cause confusion, deter policymakers from doing the hard work required, or clash with existing best practices). And so, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) has released a new law report, one which scores of education pioneers denounce as damaging. As a pioneer in the area of substantive and structural change in education reform since 1993, the task falls to CER to take on the unpleasant – but extremely important – task of publicly criticizing our respected colleagues for their counterproductive work.

One needs only to look closely at the law NAPCS considers number one in the country – Maine – to quickly see our point. Please don’t misunderstand, we love Maine. In fact, we’ve rooted for and supported local citizens there for years as they worked to enact a law. It took more than a decade of disappointments, but this year, they passed a law that even its ardent sponsors acknowledge is modest and in need of improvement. Still, it’s a start. But a leader to be duplicated around the country? Is the creation of yet another layer of bureaucracy to create new schools built on top of an existing bureaucracy long resistant to their existence the right answer? Or limiting charter growth by the state board (the authorizer more likely to say yes to a charter application than a local board) to 10 schools in 10 years (and not even this year)? Is this the best model we have?

How about the District of Columbia (ranked 1st by CER, 11th by NAPCS)? Almost universally regarded as a great law that limits the imposition of work rules; allows school leaders the freedom they deserve and the accountability they embrace; provides facilities assistance and a nearly equitable funding stream; and puts trust in an authorizing and accountability system that removes the entrenched bias of traditional school administrators. Just as importantly fostered community support unparalleled elsewhere.

And Arkansas (32nd in our analysis, 17th according to NAPCS), a state that has only one authorizer (the state board of education with prior school board’s approval), a cap on the number of schools that can open, inequitable funding making it difficult for charters to operate, and little freedoms for the school and their teachers. Arkansas’ law doesn’t just need some tweaks, it needs a serious overhaul before it can be considered in the top 50 percent of charter laws.

We believe that in order for our children to be best served, there must be the ability to start as many (quantity) excellent (quality) charter schools in a reasonable period of time. We live in a nation that still sees fewer than 45 percent of its students able to complete grade-level work! We are part of a global economy that suffers daily from its educational decline and malaise! So whether you live in Maine or Delaware, 10 schools in 10 years managed by the very same people who have denied reform again and again is not exactly a recipe for success.

Organizations with missions designed to advance certain critical education reforms should understand and respect their obligation and role as leaders when developing and releasing data that can affect public policy. Leadership is not exercised through the creation of formulas and their application to an activity solely to support their creation. Leaders have vision. Leaders are imaginative. Leaders are ambitious.

None of the aforementioned adjectives can be applied to NAPCS’s charter law ranking. It would be akin to the traditional way of doing business promoted by the school districts that charters were created to challenge.

Processes and formulas don’t make good laws. More importantly, they don’t make good schools.

Charter schools are public schools that operate on performance-based accountability, are open by choice, and are free to operate with the kind of flexibility many educators would (and do) trade their iron-clad union contracts for. Charters must meet all rules and regulations with respect to standards, testing, civil rights, health and safety. That’s why more than 5,700 exist today, serving nearly two million children. And surveys show they are helping a disproportionate number of poor and minority students achieve at levels not experienced (and not expected) at their conventional public schools.

Charter school success is not borne of formulas, but it does need critical components to find success. First, a charter can only truly be successful if it is created under a law that ensures the school has a chance of being given proper consideration and, once approved, can operate with flexibility and autonomy in exchange for results.

Second, a charter can only be successful if there are consequences in place for both success and failure. This means there must be strong entities in place charged with ensuring their progress and enforcing their performance contract.

That is educational justice – the availability of a range of great schools to which students and their families are not confined by virtue of social status, money, zip code or race.

And no matter which way you slice it, the NAPCS report and rankings defy this very clear, critical principle of education reform.

A longtime debate surrounding charter schools is whether or not those that are not working – for whatever reason – are closed. Our new report, which provides the first-ever national analysis of charter school closures, finds a movement very much accountable for its contract and commitment to quality educational options.

Since 1992, 15 percent, or 1,036, of the approximately 6,700 charter schools ever opened have been closed for five primary reasons – financial (41.7 percent), mismanagement (24 percent), academic (18.6 percent), district obstacles (6.3 percent) and facilities (4.6 percent). There are 500 additional charter schools that have been consolidated back into the district or received a charter but were unable to open.

This level of analysis and transparency is critical for the public to understand that poorly performing or problematic charter schools are being closed. And that charter schools are working. Knowing what happens to charter schools that fail is critical, but one must be careful in making assumptions with data that does away with the full context.

Huffington Posts’ Joy Resmovits took the initiative to explore and report on the number of academic closures within the full universe of charters ever opened to make the case that charter schools are rarely closed for academic performance. However, this type of analysis takes the report findings out of context and maligns the high-level of accountability currently in place.

Our report found that the majority of charter schools close for financial or operational deficiencies and do so within the first five years of the school’s existence. Academic closures usually take longer because it takes the whole charter term to gather enough sound data and make proper comparisons.

This is a good sign. One cannot expect charter schools that face financial or mismanagement issues to achieve high levels of academic success. These issues present themselves much sooner and give authorizers the tools to close schools long before we can see what happens academically. In essence, authorizers can nip it in the bud.

The correlation between strong charter school laws, accountability and effective charter schools cannot be emphasized enough. Independent authorizers have full control over how they evaluate charter schools and have their own staff and funding streams. This enables them to create streamlined, effective tools to manage their portfolio of charter schools and close those that are not living up to their contract.

These facts reveal not only that charters are successful, but also that accountability for results is alive and well in a way that is unique to these public schools.

I might not be Santa, but I love his philosophy! There comes a time in everyone’s life (and for me it’s now) where one’s tolerance for injustice becomes too much. For the Occupy movement, that means taking over public parks and becoming an ever-present obstacle to remind people of their positions. Like it or hate it, you can’t get too far from it.

As long as I’ve been at the helm of CER, I’ve been proud to stand alongside individuals within the organization and without who don’t let people stray too far from what their positions and obligations are all about. We’ve taken on Democrats and Republicans alike, including presidents. We’ve called out the Blob, and we’ve challenged those who are allies or friends. We’ve called out non-profits and for-profits. We’ve both praised and torn apart the media.

My personal responsibility is to those who turn to us for help and those who support us to do so. They run the gamut from $10 donors to big foundations. They fund many of the same people we support and some that we criticize. I’ve often repeated to my kids that old but true saying, “Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is looking.”  So it gets to me, in particular, when people conduct themselves poorly because they think no one is watching, particularly public officials.

Take New Jersey’s Commissioner of Education, whom I’ve been proud in the past to stand by when he called or asked for help in numerous positions he’s held. Yet lately, he’s stood by a flawed charter review process and has decided to turn personal on the business issue at hand. After reading Newswire’s critique of his department’s stepping aside to allow the Garden State Virtual Charter to take a dive, one example of the many charters denied authorization despite a quality application, Christopher Cerf fired off an angry missive to me (not the first) accusing me of “shilling” for the charter. Shilling? Standing up for what is best for the kids of his state, even if it means taking on a friend, is more like it. Glad to hear, though, that Cerf is an avid reader of Newswire, but must we really conduct ourselves like this?

Not to be outdone by Cerf, the press secretary for Pennsylvania Speaker of the House Sam Smith berated my assistant on the phone the other day after he read our press statement which takes he and his colleagues to task for failing to live up to promises — verbal and well-documented — that if the Senate passed school choice legislation they would gladly take it up before the end of the session. Yet Steve Miskin called to tell me it wasn’t true. Becoming angry upon learning I was not in the office, he said, “This is the speaker’s office. I need to speak with her. She is a liar.”

Nice behavior for public officials, who are tasked with putting the people they represent first. Look folks, if you don’t believe what you read and hear, prove it. If we’re wrong, show us. Until then, Santa Claus is not coming to town to deliver you, or anyone else that behaves badly all year, any gifts.

What’s wrong with the NY Times article, “Profits and Questions at Online Charter Schools”?

Let me count the ways:

1) Alex Molnar — used as an expert. Has been a known ideological opponent of reform since I was in college. Literally. Crazy man. Has no academic standing.

2) Gary Miron — a little better and sometimes a fairly good researcher, but who’s devoted a lifetime to studying for-profit companies, always with a slant as to how they hurt charter schools. Not much credibility here, either.

3) Jack Wagner — PA State Auditor, who wants to be governor some day with the support of the teachers union. Has been saying for years that having charter schools funded from same pool as other public schools is unfair. Strike 3

4) Lawyer for school districts used as a source

5) By page 5 (online), we still haven’t heard from someone with a different point of view. Now the NEA is being used as a source for policy and data.

6) CREDO — Yep, that study. Too bad there’s no corollary provided. More on that here and here.

6) Reagan. Had to bring him up. PR guy for local Ohio choice group used to work in that Administration. Clearly this is all the former president’s fault!

And this reporter won a Pulitzer Prize? Obviously, it’s not just the education system that’s been dumbed down!

For the facts on online learning, check out the Center for Education Reform’s Digital Learning Toolkit.

For another analysis on the story, visit this post on Getting Smart.