American Charter School Accountability
...ns determine the goodness or badness of the causing actions. It causes us to ask,"Does it work?" Rather than "Is that right?" For pragmatists, only the results count. Peirce, the founder of Pragmatism wrote How to Make Our Ideas Clear what he regarded as the central thesis of Pragmatism the theory "that the whole function of thought is to produce habits of action."(William S. Sahakian, 256) For him, thought can't be separated from action, thought is the anticipation of possible conduct, and becaus the consequence of any theory fullfills the very purpose of the thought, such result contributes to the test of its validity. The central themem of pragmatism is the "Truth". William James, the leading figure of Pragmatism introduced it in Pragmatism by pragmatic method. "Grant," he says, "an idea or a belief o be true...what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone's actual life? how will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which whould obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth's cash-value in experimental terms?"(A.J. Ayer,79) The answe which he immediately gives is that "True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify. False ideas are those we cannot." (A.J. Ayer, 80)According to James, truth must have consequential outcomes or bring about practical significance. Abstract truths are nonsense unless they make a difference in concrete facts. Truth is based on the workability of a theory or a proposition. If the idea works when you put it to test, then it's a true idea. What can not be worked out cannot be true. True ideas have practical significance, while false ones don't have. The theoretical has value only when it can be put into practical application. In Pragmatism, James mentioned "the true" as being "only the expedient in the way of our thinking", and "what meets expediently all the experiences in sight won't necessarily meet all farther experiences equally satisfactorily."(A.J. Ayer, 81) James belives that there is no static truth, no absolute truth. Truth is constantly updated through our ever-changing experience. Truth is the instrument by which we human solve the problems, and it changes as our knowledge, experience and problems change. John Dewey, another leading pragmatist, in How We Think defined truth as a means of satisfying human needs and improving social conditions which creat problems. All sciences must be humanized, must serve human needs. Truth benifits society, not only individual. All pragmatists believed that practical consequences are the only valid test of truth, but it was Dewey who worked out the specific process for solving problems by identifying problems in the initial stage and endding with a satisfactory solution. The charter school movement takes roots in some reform ideas,such as public school choice, privatization, and community-parental empowerment. The term "charter" originated in the 1970s when New England educator Ray Budde suggested that small groups of teachers be given contracts or "charters" by their local school boards to explore new approaches. Albert Shanker, former president of the AFT, then publicized the idea, suggesting that local boards could charter an entire school with union and teacher approval. In 1991 Minnesota passed the first charter school law, followed by California in 1992. By 1995, 19 states had passed laws approving the establishment of charter schools, and by 2003 that number increased to 40 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. As one of the fastest growing innovations in education policy, charter school enjoys broad support from governors, state legislators, ecucational authorizers. In the 1997 State of the Union Address, former President Clinton called for the creation of 3,000 charter schools by the year 2002. In 2002, President Bush called for $200 million to support charter schools. His proposed budget called for another $100 million for a new Credit Enhancement for Charter Schools Facilities Program. By 2005,nearly 3,000 new schools have been launched, serving over 700,000 students. Chartering is an educational innovation that challenges the traditional concept of public education and influence the exsisting conventional public schools to improve their operation. The promise that charter school hold for public education innovation lies greatly in accountability, which is an efficient machanism for achieving results. Accountability refers to a relationship of responsibility that an individual or organization is responsible to another for the performance or a perticular service. A charter school's accountabiliy has two aspects:external accountability and internal accountability. The former refers to accountability to government agencie that sponsor them for their implementation of charter law and for demonstrating student learning; while the latter refers to accountability to parents and teachers for fullfilling promises made about school climate, student learning and instruction to maintain their confidence. The state and local agencies(hereafter called authorizers) are empowered by the charter laws to enter into school-performance agreements with schools eligible to get public funds and to withdraw the charter contracts from the schools that don't perform as promised. In general, authorizers can be divided to four categories:state boards of education, district school boards, indepent agencies specifically created to grant charters, and state institutions like colleges and universities, and state departments of education. Annualy, authorizer visit charter schools on sight and the schools must assess their academic performancde and provide required data and report to authorizers. These data and report are released to public. When the authorzers identify deficiencies in student performance, the schools must act quickly to work out improvement strategies. The governing boards of independent nonprofit organizations also enter into charter contracts to provide schools. Unlike traditional public schools, which depend on their local school district cenctral offices for everrything-funding, teaching staff. facilities, teacher training, supplies, etc, charter schools must obtain many essential goods and facilities for themselves. External funders and providers, however, contract directly with charter schools. Many such providers have real influence on charter ...