A Legacy of School Choice Benefitting Arizona Children
[/fusion_text][fusion_text columns=”” column_min_width=”” column_spacing=”” rule_style=”default” rule_size=”” rule_color=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=””]The benefits of school choice are well known to Arizona children and families. What might not be as apparent is that for more than 20 years, the private sector has played a critical role in improving the quality of K-12 public education by empowering innovators in the private sector to start and operate charter schools.
Origins of School Choice
In 1994, Arizona passed legislation to create charter schools in an effort to reform a sluggish public education system. Up until then, parents had little choice as to where they could send their children if their local public school was not meeting their needs. This was especially hard on unprivileged communities, where barriers existed for students wanting to attend public schools outside their neighborhood boundaries. The choice then was either their local school, performing or not, or an expensive private school, which was impossible for many parents. Though education reform had been in the national spotlight for decades, students weren’t learning fast enough, schools weren’t prepared to meet the needs of 21st century students, and the entire sector needed a substantial reinvention in ways that incentivized innovation but also controlled costs.
With these goals in mind, the Arizona State Legislature was at the forefront of education reform. They became national trailblazers by empowering charter schools to bring new ideas and more options into the educational landscape. When the first charter schools opened in the mid-1990s they offered new choices, a variety of new approaches, innovative environments and choices for every student in Arizona.
Today, Arizona’s charter schools are significantly increasing student achievement. They are independent public schools that don’t charge tuition and must, by law, enroll any student who comes to their doors. By design, charters receive tax dollars in exchange for the educational services that they provide, but they can also receive private funding. This incentivizing funding model has made it possible for charters to be creative and innovative in their curriculum, while still being held accountable for improving student achievement. This system also saves taxpayers money, as they only reimburse charter schools for the education services they deliver. Online schools save even more: they are reimbursed at a lower rate, they are paid on a real-time formula, based on the number of minutes of student instruction, and are required to educate high school students about 20% more per dollar than traditional brick and mortar schools or charters. Taxpayers do not pay a penny upfront for school construction, operations or curriculum development. All of that initial investment and risk is born by the charter founders.
Benefits of Funding Partnerships
To make more charter schools possible, the State of Arizona began looking to the private sector for help. Through a public-private partnership model (PPP, or P3), the private sector was given the opportunity to develop and operate public charter schools. P3’s involve long-term contract — typically 20 years — between private and government entities to provide a public asset or service, in which the private party bears significant risk, and remuneration is linked to meeting specified education goals.
Public-private partnerships play an important role in helping the governments at all levels fulfill their obligations in providing valuable services to their citizens. For example, through P3’s we all enjoy driving on paved roads. The government doesn’t build our roads. They pay contractors to build them.
Thousands of companies contract with the state through public-private partnerships to provide services — everything from tourism, conservation, water management, transportation and technology. These private companies absorb all of the risk, make all of the upfront investment, pay taxes and, like any other private company, their financial information isn’t public. The Arizona Lottery pays millions of dollars for advertising, and a lot of that is profit.
When it comes to charter schools, a P3 is used to allow the private sector to design, finance, build, operate, innovate, compete and manage schools. The private sector is also responsible for recruiting, matriculating, educating, retaining, performing on state assessments and graduating the student body. The government does not bear any financial risk in this endeavor (taxpayers are protected from failed endeavors). If a school goes out of business, the taxpayers don’t bear any financial risk; it’s the private enterprise that loses out. By the same token, if the enterprise is successful, the enterprise rightfully expects a return on its investment.
Public-private partnerships allowed the private sector to start and run public schools. Like every partnership, a contract (charter) was developed between the entities to spell out what services were to be performed, how to measure the outcomes and what the reimbursement would be to the private entity performing these services.
Legacy of Learning
Today, we know one size does not fit all in our education system. Charters have provided new choices for Arizona students to succeed in school for more than two decades. They can particularly help those who are falling behind, want to get ahead or don’t fit the traditional school mold.
As charters continue to positively impact our children, it’s clear that public-private partnerships are a viable way for them to provide the choices Arizona students need to succeed now and in the future.
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