Which 10% of charter schools were left out? Why? What characteristics do they have in common? Is that 10% by number of schools, number of pupils, or what?
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After all, if we left out 10% of the public schools at our disposal, we could show that public schools are destroying charter schools. Or, the opposite. Or, have no significant impact on the comparison. It all depends on which 10%.
<
p>
Which reminds me: it seems to me that charter schools are likely to be smaller. Not smaller class size necessarily, but fewer pupils overall. While that may reduce the number of specialty courses offered, it may also result in fewer kids feeling “lost” as well as result in nearly all teachers&admins knowing all kids better. End result: tighter knit community, which could account for better performance. Is there anything to this?
that’s why the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is trying to get so many big (about 1,000 to 2,000 kids) schools to break into small schools (about 200 to 400 kids).
<
p>
Good point about the 10%–why were they left out? which schools are they?
because they didn’t respond to the surveys, then they really should be looked at, because that would mean their resources could stretched too thin to report data.
goldsteingonewildsays
Four schools were left out – the reasons why are detailed in the study.
<
p>
3 of them are regional. So there was no single district to compare them to.
<
p>
The 4th school was KIPP Lynn which was brand new, so it had no test scores.
<
p>
Funny thing is you charter opponents are lucky they were left out – b/c KIPPs tend to score really high (it’ll be included next time), and the other 3 happen to score very well.
Like most folks in the general public I do not know that much about the charter school system, processes, or the financial side of this debate. But I do know these schools often offer more one on one attention and smaller class sizes, the ability to learn about a specific subject like the match school which is for students who are really into technology, etc. and many charter schools teach to the whole student not just to the test – which is something Deval talked about when discussing mcas.
<
p>
As a gay student in a public high school in rural Pennsylvania I would have given anything for the opportunity to go to a more artsy school, or a technology focussed school, etc. but the one public school with a conservative school board was my only choice. After years of harassment etc. My parents ended up spending 9,000 a year to send me to another public high school an hour away with better academics and a more accepting environment.
Many of the youth at the boston alliance of gay and lesbian youth attend specialized schools or programs in an effort to find acceptance and a more nurturing atmosphere.
<
p>
I think the voice that is missing in all of our discussions about charter schools is the voice of the young people. We need to ask them what is working for them and what is not.
Just over 90% of the charter schools that were in operation in the 2004-05 school year were included in the study (52 out of 56 schools). As part of the analysis included examining MCAS data from 2001, my guess is that those four omitted schools weren’t in operation for that full time.
<
p>
After a quick look at the DoE’s charter school enrollment data, it seems most charters are small, but their student/teacher ratios are too far from the norm. However, many have percentage of low-income students far greater than the state average.
<
p>
As for the question of whether small schools are better, here is a good synopsis of the research. Despite the popularity of the small school movement, there still seem to be questions — both for researchers and policy makers. While you can still find mention of the small school initiatives on the Gates Foundation website, its presence has diminished over the past couple of years. See here for a related article.
goldsteingonewildsays
I do think that small schools are part of the picture.
<
p>
However, small is not enough.
<
p>
Gates has divided a number of large Boston high schools into “small schools” – and student achievement has not improved.
<
p>
Autonomy + small, however, is a powerful combo.
A few of the research summaries I have read indicate that these need to be treated differently. The “school within a school” model has not shown the same results as small schools.
<
p>
Seeing as many of the touted benefits of small schools are social (better behavior, less dropouts), it is reasonable that these outcomes are diminished with the SWAS model whereas social interactions aren’t significantly changed.
Back when I was in high school, I was a ranking member (on the executive council and chair of a Committee) of the State Student Advisory Council to the Board of Education. We directly worked with the Board and had a sitting, full-voting student member who served on the board.
<
p>
Let me just say that I know a thing or two about the Board, the development of the MCAS into what it is today and any biases/prejudices going on there. I can say for a FACT that the Board is stuffed with people that don’t only support Charter Schools, but have clear conflicts of interest when it comes to Charter Schools – at least back a few years ago when I was serving. I still recieve Board of Ed meeting minutes, though I don’t read them as closely anymore.
<
p>
So, I’m going to take that whole entire survey gathered by Driscoll as a very small grain of salt. I’m not saying it isn’t true, but I’d like to see an independent organization review it because I don’t trust the Board of Ed. as far as I can throw them. No offense, but when half of them had ties to a for-profit charter school company I’m not going to be a big fan.
We did work with Charter schools. Specifically, two charter schools came before us because they were underachieving and eventually lost their charters. One was right near where I live and – ultimately, the SSAC decided not to support their charter renewal specifically because they weren’t performing up to standards.
<
p>
If 10% of charter schools were left out of this survey, as I just read in the comments, I have a strange suspicion that this entire survey is worthless.
<
p>
That said, I’m not inherently against charter schools – just for-profit charter schools. I just think that Charter schools need to get their money directly from the state and that public school systems can’t be left behind in funding, that’s the danger Charter schools represent. When towns and cities have to give up their limited, precious resources so 200 kids can have a seperate education – that may or may not be better – it isn’t a good thing.
<
p>
I love pilot schools, I love the concept of charter schools, I love schools that have specific purposes (be it art, theatre, agriculture, technology, etc.) but I don’t love it when they take away resources from our struggling-to-make-it public education system. Massachusetts does well in k-12 public education, but boy are our towns and cities struggling to afford it.
goldsteingonewildsays
Rye,
<
p>
2 schools were not serving kids well. Obviously parents were sending kids there, but performance was low. Staff tried to improve and failed.
<
p>
So, as charters, they were shut down. Isn’t that good?
<
p>
By contrast, there are several traditional MA schools that EVERY SINGLE YEAR are in the lowest 5%. Money is poured into them. Nothing changes. Isn’t that bad?
goldsteingonewildsays
Commissioner David Driscoll was an MA Superintendent for many, many years. All of his buddies are superintendents. There’s pressure on him with a charter vs district study would be to show charters UNDERperforming, too.
<
p>
2. The study wasn’t done by our DOE. It was PRECISELY done by an independent organization. I’m not saying independent organizations equal automatic accuracy, of course not, but the DOE did go out of its way to keep things clean.
The Massachusetts Board of Education has been expanding charter schools, while the funding stream for public schools has been cut. As others have posted, the Board has ideological and financial ties to the charter school industry. An “independent” evaluator under contract to this agency isn’t exactly independent, they are paid for by the charter school advocates at the DOE.
<
p>
That said, the study is severely flawed. They appear to have deleted students from communities other than the district in which the school is located. They didn’t differentiate between Horace Mann charters (with local governance) and independent Commonwealth Charters. Remember this was a key difference cited in the NY Times editorial, that charters affiliated with their local school districts had much better performance than the freestanding schools.
<
p>
Also, when they compare categories, special needs students in charters tend to have far less severe disabilities than the broad range found in publicly governed districts. First year English Language Learners cannot get into charter schools, simply because of the hoops you need to jump through to apply to a charter. Charters also can market to selected popluations.
<
p>
One other problem is the Boston issue – Boston is home to a majority of charter schools, so this really becomes a study of what is happening in Boston, not a statewide story.
<
p>
Go look at the documents. Go look at the differences between Lowell Community Charter and the Lowell Public Schools. Look at the differences between Benjamin Banneker and Cambridge.
<
p>
Then consider that the newspapers are reacting to the DOE press release, not the actual study.
<
p>
Humbug.
goldsteingonewildsays
Well, once again, I disagree with a number of your assertions.
<
p>
But no matter, there’s a testable assertion in here! So a challenge:
<
p>
How about I re-run the data EXCLUDING Horace Mann schools for 2005 MCAS, and I’ll post here, email you (and perhaps a BMG editor neutral party) the spreadsheet as backup?
<
p>
We’ll put a case of beer on it….
<
p>
If that’s not legal, loser must put a “I heart Dick Cheney” bumpersticker on his car.
<
p>
If Commonwealth charters (the fully autonomous, no union, no connection to district) beat their sending districts, you owe me; if sending districts beat charters, I owe you….are we on?
garysays
You’ve raised the issue of independence, with respect to the evaluator. You’re so very anti-Charter, I think it’s fair to know if you are independent, or, alternatively have some reliance, employment or relationship to public education.
heraklessays
There is nothing that could convince you otherwise. You stand steadfast, ignoring everything that hurtles around you. That is what the good tin soldierdoes.
Which 10% of charter schools were left out? Why? What characteristics do they have in common? Is that 10% by number of schools, number of pupils, or what?
<
p>
After all, if we left out 10% of the public schools at our disposal, we could show that public schools are destroying charter schools. Or, the opposite. Or, have no significant impact on the comparison. It all depends on which 10%.
<
p>
Which reminds me: it seems to me that charter schools are likely to be smaller. Not smaller class size necessarily, but fewer pupils overall. While that may reduce the number of specialty courses offered, it may also result in fewer kids feeling “lost” as well as result in nearly all teachers&admins knowing all kids better. End result: tighter knit community, which could account for better performance. Is there anything to this?
that’s why the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is trying to get so many big (about 1,000 to 2,000 kids) schools to break into small schools (about 200 to 400 kids).
<
p>
Good point about the 10%–why were they left out? which schools are they?
because they didn’t respond to the surveys, then they really should be looked at, because that would mean their resources could stretched too thin to report data.
Four schools were left out – the reasons why are detailed in the study.
<
p>
3 of them are regional. So there was no single district to compare them to.
<
p>
The 4th school was KIPP Lynn which was brand new, so it had no test scores.
<
p>
Funny thing is you charter opponents are lucky they were left out – b/c KIPPs tend to score really high (it’ll be included next time), and the other 3 happen to score very well.
Like most folks in the general public I do not know that much about the charter school system, processes, or the financial side of this debate. But I do know these schools often offer more one on one attention and smaller class sizes, the ability to learn about a specific subject like the match school which is for students who are really into technology, etc. and many charter schools teach to the whole student not just to the test – which is something Deval talked about when discussing mcas.
<
p>
As a gay student in a public high school in rural Pennsylvania I would have given anything for the opportunity to go to a more artsy school, or a technology focussed school, etc. but the one public school with a conservative school board was my only choice. After years of harassment etc. My parents ended up spending 9,000 a year to send me to another public high school an hour away with better academics and a more accepting environment.
Many of the youth at the boston alliance of gay and lesbian youth attend specialized schools or programs in an effort to find acceptance and a more nurturing atmosphere.
<
p>
I think the voice that is missing in all of our discussions about charter schools is the voice of the young people. We need to ask them what is working for them and what is not.
Just over 90% of the charter schools that were in operation in the 2004-05 school year were included in the study (52 out of 56 schools). As part of the analysis included examining MCAS data from 2001, my guess is that those four omitted schools weren’t in operation for that full time.
<
p>
After a quick look at the DoE’s charter school enrollment data, it seems most charters are small, but their student/teacher ratios are too far from the norm. However, many have percentage of low-income students far greater than the state average.
<
p>
As for the question of whether small schools are better, here is a good synopsis of the research. Despite the popularity of the small school movement, there still seem to be questions — both for researchers and policy makers. While you can still find mention of the small school initiatives on the Gates Foundation website, its presence has diminished over the past couple of years. See here for a related article.
I do think that small schools are part of the picture.
<
p>
However, small is not enough.
<
p>
Gates has divided a number of large Boston high schools into “small schools” – and student achievement has not improved.
<
p>
Autonomy + small, however, is a powerful combo.
A few of the research summaries I have read indicate that these need to be treated differently. The “school within a school” model has not shown the same results as small schools.
<
p>
Seeing as many of the touted benefits of small schools are social (better behavior, less dropouts), it is reasonable that these outcomes are diminished with the SWAS model whereas social interactions aren’t significantly changed.
Back when I was in high school, I was a ranking member (on the executive council and chair of a Committee) of the State Student Advisory Council to the Board of Education. We directly worked with the Board and had a sitting, full-voting student member who served on the board.
<
p>
Let me just say that I know a thing or two about the Board, the development of the MCAS into what it is today and any biases/prejudices going on there. I can say for a FACT that the Board is stuffed with people that don’t only support Charter Schools, but have clear conflicts of interest when it comes to Charter Schools – at least back a few years ago when I was serving. I still recieve Board of Ed meeting minutes, though I don’t read them as closely anymore.
<
p>
So, I’m going to take that whole entire survey gathered by Driscoll as a very small grain of salt. I’m not saying it isn’t true, but I’d like to see an independent organization review it because I don’t trust the Board of Ed. as far as I can throw them. No offense, but when half of them had ties to a for-profit charter school company I’m not going to be a big fan.
We did work with Charter schools. Specifically, two charter schools came before us because they were underachieving and eventually lost their charters. One was right near where I live and – ultimately, the SSAC decided not to support their charter renewal specifically because they weren’t performing up to standards.
<
p>
If 10% of charter schools were left out of this survey, as I just read in the comments, I have a strange suspicion that this entire survey is worthless.
<
p>
That said, I’m not inherently against charter schools – just for-profit charter schools. I just think that Charter schools need to get their money directly from the state and that public school systems can’t be left behind in funding, that’s the danger Charter schools represent. When towns and cities have to give up their limited, precious resources so 200 kids can have a seperate education – that may or may not be better – it isn’t a good thing.
<
p>
I love pilot schools, I love the concept of charter schools, I love schools that have specific purposes (be it art, theatre, agriculture, technology, etc.) but I don’t love it when they take away resources from our struggling-to-make-it public education system. Massachusetts does well in k-12 public education, but boy are our towns and cities struggling to afford it.
Rye,
<
p>
2 schools were not serving kids well. Obviously parents were sending kids there, but performance was low. Staff tried to improve and failed.
<
p>
So, as charters, they were shut down. Isn’t that good?
<
p>
By contrast, there are several traditional MA schools that EVERY SINGLE YEAR are in the lowest 5%. Money is poured into them. Nothing changes. Isn’t that bad?
<
p>
2. The study wasn’t done by our DOE. It was PRECISELY done by an independent organization. I’m not saying independent organizations equal automatic accuracy, of course not, but the DOE did go out of its way to keep things clean.
The Massachusetts Board of Education has been expanding charter schools, while the funding stream for public schools has been cut. As others have posted, the Board has ideological and financial ties to the charter school industry. An “independent” evaluator under contract to this agency isn’t exactly independent, they are paid for by the charter school advocates at the DOE.
<
p>
That said, the study is severely flawed. They appear to have deleted students from communities other than the district in which the school is located. They didn’t differentiate between Horace Mann charters (with local governance) and independent Commonwealth Charters. Remember this was a key difference cited in the NY Times editorial, that charters affiliated with their local school districts had much better performance than the freestanding schools.
<
p>
Also, when they compare categories, special needs students in charters tend to have far less severe disabilities than the broad range found in publicly governed districts. First year English Language Learners cannot get into charter schools, simply because of the hoops you need to jump through to apply to a charter. Charters also can market to selected popluations.
<
p>
One other problem is the Boston issue – Boston is home to a majority of charter schools, so this really becomes a study of what is happening in Boston, not a statewide story.
<
p>
Go look at the documents. Go look at the differences between Lowell Community Charter and the Lowell Public Schools. Look at the differences between Benjamin Banneker and Cambridge.
<
p>
Then consider that the newspapers are reacting to the DOE press release, not the actual study.
<
p>
Humbug.
Well, once again, I disagree with a number of your assertions.
<
p>
But no matter, there’s a testable assertion in here! So a challenge:
<
p>
How about I re-run the data EXCLUDING Horace Mann schools for 2005 MCAS, and I’ll post here, email you (and perhaps a BMG editor neutral party) the spreadsheet as backup?
<
p>
We’ll put a case of beer on it….
<
p>
If that’s not legal, loser must put a “I heart Dick Cheney” bumpersticker on his car.
<
p>
If Commonwealth charters (the fully autonomous, no union, no connection to district) beat their sending districts, you owe me; if sending districts beat charters, I owe you….are we on?
You’ve raised the issue of independence, with respect to the evaluator. You’re so very anti-Charter, I think it’s fair to know if you are independent, or, alternatively have some reliance, employment or relationship to public education.
There is nothing that could convince you otherwise. You stand steadfast, ignoring everything that hurtles around you. That is what the good tin soldierdoes.
Sorry for the formating snafu