Charter schools: Helpful, but not the miracle answer

According to the U.S. Charter School website, charter schools are defined as “a nonsectarian public school of choice that operates with freedom from many of the regulations that apply to traditional public schools.” While they are exempt from regulations, they are in theory, held accountable for fulfilling the outlined mission that directs their program.
 
Charter schools have recently become the new fix for American public education in the eyes of politicians as well as parents, and for good reasons. Recent media, such as the movie "Waiting for Superman," have focused on the successful programs and compared it with the problems traditional public schools have been facing. Charter schools are touted as having more freedom, smaller administration, experimental programs and are thus, able to get education going without the rules and regulations that may become cumbersome.
 
On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have people pointing out the fact that a study from Stanford indicated only 17% of charter schools actually perform better than public ones. In other words, there’s a majority of them who don’t perform better than public schools. What’s lacking is interest in how those 17% did better.
 
To be fair, money given to open successful charter schools are excellent for creating more programs where students can have a good education. On the other hand, we have a pre-existing system that isn’t working, and until we evaluate how to improve and what to improve, we’re only creating American Public Education System Part II. There is still, after all, 83% of charter schools who did poorer than traditional public schools. Then there is the American public education system in general that’s been bemoaned as inferior to its other industrialized counterparts.
 
There is nothing wrong with having charter schools. Their experimental nature allows them flexibility and adds to the general landscape of public education today. What isn’t working is this general feeling of “abandon ship,” where the public ones are left with students who aren’t able to get the education they need because we aren’t taking what we’ve learned from successful schools and using it to fix our problem. And what, you might ask, do we know works?
 
The Achievement Gap at Harvard University released a report in 2009 documenting 15 schools in Massachusetts that had turn themselves around and have become successful. What’s worth noting is that that abstract states “that student achievement rose when leadership teams focused thoughtfully and relentlessly on improving the quality of instruction. Core groups of leaders took public responsibility for leading the charge to raise achievement.” Indeed, one of the schools in this study is Brockton High School who had started to change when a group of teachers came together and decided to collaborate on improving academic standards at the school through implementing a writing component in every course. Brockton is not a charter school. It’s important to note that while the motivating factor for these teachers was the urgency of getting their students to pass the Massachusetts’ High School exit exam, the teachers came together on their own volition and implemented their changes independently apart from administrators.
 
Some can argue that this is part of the reason why charter schools work and why they’re better than the traditional counterparts. Indeed, if anything it points to the fact that the power needs to be given back to the teachers in the classrooms who are teaching because they are the ones who know what their students need to improve on. Each school has its own socio-economic issues that they're dealing with, and these are things that only the local community can hone in on and change.  Those looking to replicate the successes of charter schools and other such cases should also note that success stories require collaboration and time.
 
Simply throwing money by creating charter schools and not understanding the elements at play that would enable proper education is going to lead us nowhere. Instead, why not use what’ve learned from the charter schools that have done well and apply these lessons to our current school system at large, which, by the way, includes that 83% of charter schools who did not do as well.