NYT Charter Article – Good Read

It is well worth taking the time to read this article, and there are some interesting points that usually don’t make it to print in the charter-friendly media.  First, there are high-flying charter schools that are always the focus of attention, but on average you will find that charter school students are not faring as well as students in traditional schools.

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For all their support and cultural cachet, the majority of the 5,000 or so charter schools nationwide appear to be no better, and in many cases worse, than local public schools when measured by achievement on standardized tests, according to experts citing years of research. Last year one of the most comprehensive studies, by researchers from Stanford University, found that fewer than one-fifth of charter schools nationally offered a better education than comparable local schools, almost half offered an equivalent education and more than a third, 37 percent, were “significantly worse.”

Although “charter schools have become a rallying cry for education reformers,” the report, by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, warned, “this study reveals in unmistakable terms that, in the aggregate, charter students are not faring as well” as students in traditional schools.

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p>In addition, there are two separate sections of the article that focus on the “free market” theory of charter schools.  Marketplace accountability does not work – the only way to ensure charter school quality is through a stringent accreditation system.  

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Perhaps the sharpest knock on charters – one that even some proponents acknowledge – is that mediocrity is widely tolerated. Authorities are reluctant to close poor schools. Some advocates concede that the intellectual premise behind school choice – that in a free market for education, parents will remove students from bad schools in favor of good ones – has not proved true.

“If you look at the hopes and dreams from 1992, it didn’t pan out that quality would rise because of marketplace accountability,” said James Merriman, chief executive of the New York City Charter School Center. “It turns out you need government accreditation to drive quality, and the human capital to make schools go. The hard lesson is, it is so dependent on human capital.”

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p>When the Times describes how mediocrity is widely tolerated, and that regulators are reluctant to close poorly-performing charters, we can look at the Lowell Community Charter School.  From its inception ten years ago, the school has trailed the Lowell Public Schools in student achievement.  When the evidence cried out for non-renewal of the charter, the school proved to be “too big to fail,” as the Lowell Public Schools could not suddenly absorb 900 students from the charter school.

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p>The Times article returns to Ohio for a discussion on the disconnect between market forces and student achievement.

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In Ohio, the Cleveland Arts and Social Sciences Academy is not the kind of charter school that celebrities visit. It is, however, close to the norm for urban Ohio, where 60 percent of charter school students in the eight largest districts attend a school that earned a D or F on its last state report card, according to an analysis by Catalyst Ohio, an independent publication supporting school improvement.

Even though the school did worse on the Ohio math and English exams than the average Cleveland public school, families did not flee Arts and Social Sciences Academy. On the contrary, enrollment has doubled in each of the past two years. It is a phenomenon often seen in academically failing charter schools when parents perceive them as having better discipline than district schools.

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p>In Lowell, the charter school has a kindergarten cut-off age that is four months younger than the public schools, and offers an extended day program that is nothing more than free day-care.  Highly marketable, but the prime selling points have nothing to do with teaching and learning.

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p>New England schools tend to have higher student achievement than anywhere else in the nation.  I think the accountability of local school committees, superintendents who are visible and accountable in their communities, all work to ensure high levels of student achievement.  Private boards of trustees and market factors just can’t do the job that democracy and citizen involvement have done so very well since the inception of American public schools.

I commented on this article yesterday. At least I thought I did. It was in the Globe of all places. Yesterday. Bill Schechter posted on it. The Globe’s version is an extremely truncated version of the Time’s actual article.

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p>I’m glad to see that charter schools are now paying for their 20-year ride in educational policy circles and the press, and the NYT article confirms what many of us have been saying all along.

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p>With that said, I don’t think turn about is fair play. Public education has been treated unfairly, politically and intellectually, by the educational policy-making establishment and the press. However, we shouldn’t treat charter schools the way public schools have been treated.

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p>Treating research as research and not merely as a punches exchanged in an ideological war over education is a good place to start. The CREDO study, which the article refers to is pretty authoritative, and its authors have successfully fended off attacks from charter school opponents. However, all research has limitations. We should acknowledge them. From the thoughtless acceptance of test scores as measures of learning to inherent limitations that any good study discusses.

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p>For example, does anyone know, off the top of his or her head, what the limitations of the CREDO study were? How about the limitations of The Boston Foundation’s study?

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p>What happened in Gloucester was political and wrong. It is representative of the arrogance written into 1993 educational reform legislation and the arrogance of policymakers at the state level (not to mention the nearly criminal arrogance of Arne Duncan). Neither the NYT article, the CREDO study, nor Gloucester means charter schools are completely bad.

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p>While 95% percent of charter schools are hardly the laboratories of innovation ed reform claimed they would be, we can learn a lot from their mere existence, even if they are no better than the public schools. We should continue with that.

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p>But most of all, we should turn educational discussion toward research and facts. We should face the complexity of education with the humility it deserves. An incremental approach focused on steady improvement taking into account local circumstances and desires is best. I think the tide–at least as far as dialogue–is turning. We should work to turn it in the right direction.  

This is great.  NOW can the Patrick administration grow some stones and actually correct the multifarious mistakes and misdeeds that they made approving this idiotic concept of a charter school up here in Gloucester?  Now that we know for a fact that these schools and particularly this school is destined to be an expensive fail?

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p>Or are they going to get Sting involved?

as an incubator of new teaching techniques, unimpeded by hidebound methods in the traditional public school systems, and unfettered by union work rules, has a lot of merit, but its value diminishes for the most part by their ability to be academically and behaviorally selective who they admit. Public schools have no such leeway, and their results reflect that. If charters are so good, then let them be compared against the likes of Boston Latin and Latin Academy, two Boston public schools that are selective. How well would they do, then?