The Texas Business and Education Council commissioned a major review of high-performing charter schools by Dr. Ed Fuller.
The question addressed by Fuller is whether the charters are enrolling the same kinds of students who enroll in nearby public schools.
The final conclusions included this summary:
This study is a preliminary examination of high-profile/high-performing charter management organizations in Texas. Specifically, the study examined the characteristics of students entering the schools, retention/attrition rates; and,the impact of attrition/retention rates on the distribution of students.
Contrary to the profile often portrayed in the media, by some policymakers, and by some charter school proponents (including some charter CEOs), the high-profile/high-enrollment CMOs in Texas enrolled groups of students that would arguably be easier to teach and would be more likely to exhibit high levels of achievement and greater growth on state achievement tests. Indeed, the above analyses showed that, relative to comparison schools, CMOs had:
- Entering students with greater prior TAKS scores in both mathematics and reading;
- Entering economically disadvantaged students with substantially greater prior TAKS scores in both mathematics and reading;
- Lower percentages of incoming students designated as ELL;
- Lower percentages of incoming students identified as special needs; and,
- Only slightly greater percentages of incoming students identified as economically disadvantaged.
In other words, rather than serving more disadvantaged students, the findings of this study suggest that the high-profile/high-enrollment CMOs actually served a more advantaged clientele relative to comparison schools—especially as compared to schools in the same zip code as the CMO schools. This is often referred to as the “skimming” of more advantaged students from other schools. While CMOs may not intentionally skim, the skimming of students may simply be an artifact of the policies and procedures surrounding entrance into these CMOs.
Thus, the comparisons that have been made between these CMOs and traditional public schools—especially traditional public schools in the same neighborhoods as the CMO schools—have been “apples-to-oranges” comparisons rather than “apples-to-apples” comparisons. The public and policymakers need to look past the percentages of economically disadvantaged students and disabuse themselves of the notion that enrolling a high percentage of economically disadvantaged students is the same as having a large percentage of lower-performing students. In fact, despite a large majority of students entering the CMOs identified as economically disadvantaged, students at the selected CMOs tended to have average or above average TAKS achievement and certainly greater achievement levels than comparison schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is unrelated, I just wanted to make sure it caught your attention: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/parentsandthepublic/2012/08/when_mama_aint_happy_screening_wont_back_down.html
You’ve already written several negative things about the movie. Do you plan to see it? Can you write a post about why you are/aren’t seeing it? I’m sure there are several readers like myself who are unsure whether seeing the movie equates to supporting the parent trigger or, based on the last paragraph of the blog summary above, encouraging others to see the movie so they see the affect of poverty on student “performance.”
Of course, I plan to see it. I plan to review it. Be sure to read my review of “Waiting for Superman” I oppose the parent trigger because it is a naked power grab by corporate charter chains.
Here is a link to my review of “Waiting for Superman” http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-charter-schools/?pagination=false
I totally agree about the parent trigger, but I’m hoping there is a way for teachers and communities to use this movie is a vehicle for discussing the real culprit behind the so-called “failings” of public education- poverty. That might be wishful thinking, but I think it is more productive than panning the entire thing when we know full well that millions of people will see the film.
Great study that validates what we already know about charters. And how much did that cost?
BTW, I love that “high-performing” tag. It needs to be abolished, unless we can attach these: non, barely, low, minimal and medium performing,
Full-transparency–$5,000 for the middle school study and $5,000 for the upcoming high school study. That covered about 1/10th of the actual time involved in completing the studies.
The label of high-performing is really a satirical one because it is a self-proclaimed title by charter CEOs and funders. In fact, some of the KIPP schools have near the worst student growth in Texas.Kids actually get worse in one particular school.
I am not a proponent of ed reform as it is used, but I have had some questions regarding the reasons why it has gotten its foothold in public ed in the first place.
I think that there has been a decline in standards in public education. Some of it is just bad pedagogy: erosion of basic skill instruction alongside the promotion of disreputable education theories: whole language, invented spelling, ebonics, for example. I believe in project based instruction, intrinsic motivation and a variety of assessment tools, but (and this may mark me as an old fashioned teacher), there’s also a place for learning the structure of your own language, for developing grapho motor skills through penmanship, through increasing complexity of texts rather than just complexity of discussion around simple texts.
I think the key to all of this is debate around heterogeneous and homogeneous instruction. Charters are a means for getting more homogeneous grouping. To be fair, you can understand why some people might wish for it. Heterogeneous grouping is inelegant. As long as there is a mix of ability, there’s often no effort to mold the groups to achieve particular ends: mix whatever you’ve got in top middle and bottom, done. Sometimes, the result is a heterogeneous group that can’t serve all children adequately. Many mixed ability classes are poor learning environments for one or more ability levels. The argument is that teachers just need to differentiate, but that’s not always sufficient. And proponents of heterogeneity take the practice on principal. They dn’t look at the individual case, and are stubbornly dogmatic regardless of the circumstances. Even suggesting a tweak of the system is met with hostility. Why should a 7th grade student at a 12th Grade reading level be in the same class with a student with a 2nd grade reading level? That’s a very wide disparity in skill base. But, any solution other than keeping them together in one room is considered elitist. As a result, in any given setting, the top scorers may not get sufficiently or consistently challenged and the bottom scorers may not get sufficiently and consistently remediated (except through the afterschool academies that allow for homogeneous grouping of low skilled children).
This isn’t to say that heterogeneity should be abandoned. It is essential for children to see what is possible, for socialization to help all the children to build in basic skills and to create mixed racial and class communities. But, it’s got a problem and that needs to be addressed too. A homogeneous classroom where the skill base is too broad is like a mixed ability basketball game. The skilled players play around the non players who run up and down the court outside of the play, or the non players get thrown the ball and the players step back so that the non player can try to make a basket. That’s not really the game.
It appears to me that from the point of view of a parent, the advantage of a charter is that it removes the most disruptive and least able students from a class giving all the other students a better learning environment. Why wouldn’t most parents want that for their children? What can our public school system do to give all students the best environment possible? The unintended outcome of heterogeneity shouldn’t be that capable middle class children go to school to remediate less ready, usually poorer children… while the wealthy children go to private schools or live in unattainable wealth enclaves where they get their superior education and connections.
Wouldn’t smaller class size more or less eliminate the heterogeneous vs. homogeneous instruction debate. If you have a class of 39 fourth grade kids in which one child is reading on a second grade level, another is reading on a sixth grade level and the rest of the children are somwhere in between, yes, you have serious problems. But if you had the same reading range in a class of 14 pupils plus you have a reading specialist who can give extra time to the struggling child, then there would be no need for homogeneous grouping. But the latter is a dream.
Let me first note that your example of 39 4th graders with a disparity of 2 years on either side of grade level is not my experience. From my point of view, that class is already pretty homogeneous. Or let’s say instead, it’s a crafted heterogeneity… one that limits the disparity in level. 6th to 2nd is not too bad for a 4th grade class. I have about 25 in a class of 7th graders who are economically and ethnically diverse. The disparity in reading level in my classes is PHS (post high school) to 2nd grade with a middle that is just as diverse. In one class, I might have students at the cognitive levels of Faust, Hunt for Red October, Harry Potter, and The Cat in the Hat.
It sounds so wonderfully diverse, doesn’t it? It is. And smaller class size allows for more individualization of curriculum.
But, children learn from each other. Sometimes the best source of new understandings come from peers to peers who are cognitively similar. In a group of any size, children who have the fewest number of similarly skilled peers have the least opportunity to benefit from being among those who are at their level. Where there are wide disparities, children lose the benefit of the ah ha! moments of interaction among similarly skilled peers, and it is an important loss. The wider the disparity, the greater the problem.
How often have I seen this? The highly skilled child has an insight and says it. It falls flat in the class because no one else gets it, (other than me, that is and those two other children who already realize that their social opportunities depended on no one knowing what they know.) So the conversation never happens. We just move on. The more capable child learns to hide their ability in order to survive in this system. Is that what we want for our best able students? Go along to get along, smarty pants? Similarly, a child who is way below grade level needs a kind of remediation that is focused. They don’t derive any academic benefit from being surrounded with children of impossibly greater skill. That’s a recipe for feeling stupid every day, a reason not to read rather than let anyone know how much farther below their peers they are.
I have to go back to my original assertion. Heterogeneous grouping needs to be crafted and I’ll add to that. It needs to be flexible in an institutionally organized way that not only allows for mixed and homogeneous grouping, but structures it into the day so that all children can learn from each other without being told that there’s something terribly wrong with running the race they are ready to run.
I agree completely with your post. As the parent of two students with ieps, the matching of a school’s resources to my student’s needs was paramount. I see that as the main.advantage of school choice.
Smaller class save might lower the impact of class heterogeneity, but at an escalating cost. Why not have a class of 28 students with roughly the same academic ability?
This is an excellent comment. Truly excellent. I love that my children’s elementary school does such a good job with differentiated instruction, but I see more and more that the DI model brings more challenges at the middle school level. You have expressed so well so many of the considerations. Thank you.
Thank you. I think many parents that buy in to charters buy in because they feel that the academic mission of public schools is subverted by its social mission. It is my hope that a dialogue will begin regarding how to address both adequately. We can make it harder for privateers to gain traction in public schools.
Agree with the post — so far as it goes.
But — the principal, albeit rarely mentioned, source for the apples/oranges differences between charter students and neighborhood school students is the fact that charters enroll via application while neighborhood schools enroll via default. A second rarely mentioned factor is the fact that charters — often located outside the students’ neighborhood — usually require parents to provide daily transportation to/from the charter while neighborhood schools — often located within walking distance of the students’ homes or providing free bus transporation — rarely require parents to provide daily transportation.
All charter students have parents who are concerned enough about the child’s education to explore the charter option and functional enough to successfully complete the application process. Most charter students have parents who are committed enough to the child’s education to provide the daily transportation.
By contrast, neighborhood school students may have parents who are unconcerned about the child’s education, dysfunctional, and/or uncommitted to the child’s education. Unfortunately, in the low-SES areas in the inner-cities, where the vast majority of charter students live, many parents will have these unconcerned/dysfunctional/uncommitted characteristics.
It follows that the parents of the charter students will — on average — be more concerned/functional/committed than the parents of the low-SES inner-city neighborhood school students. Common sense/experience teaches that the children of concerned/functional/committed parents will be better behaved, more motivated, and generally better students than the children of unconcerned/dysfunctional/uncommitted parents. Also, this will be true at any given ability level, any given income level and for any given racial or ethnic group.
Bottom line: So long as charters enroll via application (and/or require parents to provide daily transportation), charter students will — on average — be better students than the neighborhood school students.
At least here in Tucson it is not particularly helpful to try and generalize about charter v. public school kids. Seems weak rhetorically too since it seems so defensive (you are only better than us because….) There are all sorts of students at all sorts of schools. There are all sorts of bad and good schools in every community.
Charters are by definition niche schools. We have schools that emphasize rigorous college prep. These schools tend to get great kids (but across the socio-economic spectrum), but even more typically will have very motivated parents. We have other schools that serve as GED factories (state-required 4 hours of instruction, running three times a day) for kids that are working full time. These obviously attract poor performing students primarily from a low socioeconomic background. And we also have one that is geared specifically towards kids who want to go to college but have significant barriers (first generation immigrants, low socioeconomic status, etc.) but who have been underserved by the public schools (many of which here in tucson by and large are just holding tanks). When I worked at this school (9-12 grade) a significant number of our kids coming from the public schools were reading at 3-5 grade level. Needless to say, we had to modify our curriculum slightly. We also focused extensively on citizenship and character-building, because many came from very tough homes.
In sum, I think trying to undermine charters by claiming that “they get better kids” is not particularly helpful. The question is: do they provide better or additional educational opportunities than the public school system as is? I personally reject the one-size-fits-all top down approach offered by large school districts, and even though I am essentially liberal in political outlook, I strongly support this free-market reform PROVIDED THAT transparency and accountability exist. There are transparency issues right now in AZ with charters, but same problem exists for public schools, too.
Another great post.
good grief! to post something that wins your approval is a wonderful surprise!
I thought you would like that. These posts argue for the academic merit of specialization, something that is very difficult for a zoned school to do. There are very very few posts like that here.
And how do you grade this differentiated classroom when we have kids accessing the curriculum at different levels of complexity. I don’t think there are easy answers. You know what, though? If I am a survivor of WWIII, I don’t want to survive with the academic all-stars unless they were also serious scouts, gardeners, carpenters, electricians,…You get the picture. No hedge fund managers in my tribe!
“charters enroll via application while neighborhood schools enroll via default.”
People always say this, but I never know what they mean. Contrary to what seems to be popular belief, there is no such thing as a central registry (continuously updated to the minute) of every human being’s location within America and their exact placement within school zones.
In other words, there’s no such thing as “enrolling by default.” Every place I’ve lived, I’ve had to actively enroll my children in the public school. Otherwise — there being no registry as I mentioned above — the public school would have had no idea that my children even existed, or whether they still lived in the same place.
I also sent my children, one year, to a charter school. The enrollment process was absolutely no different than enrolling them in the public school.
I think what is meant is that if you live in “the zone” they cannot turn you away. At charters, it is first come first served. But at least here in Tucson our public schools have “open enrollment.” It is relatively easy and very common for pro-active (high s/e) parents to get their kids into one of the three decent middle schools here in town. I admit using this system to avoid our neighborhood school. Everyone I know did the same.