A New Orleans research group says comparing select and non-select schools is wrong.

Yet boosters of select charters do it often.

Categories Education Reform

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kkastle says:

February 2, 2013 at 1:50 pm

The answer is No. But, nothing will change until we educators wrestle control of the education conversation in this country from corporate types, the politicians, and the multi-billionaires philanderers. Oops, meant philanthropists.

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Michael Brocoum says:

February 2, 2013 at 1:54 pm

In today’s NY Times there is an editorial that references charters v. public schools. The editorial mentions the fact that 17% of the charters outperform public schools while 37% of the charters are worse than public schools. The implication is that charters can do better, but state & city gov’ts should slow down opening new charter schools until the applicants can be properly vetted to determine their chances of success. However, I’ve yet to see in the statistics how the top 17% of charters compare to the top 17% of public schools.

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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  February 2, 2013 at 5:19 pm
  
  You won’t unless you do the work yourself. But I think you already know the answer, eh! (And it ain’t pretty for the charters-cue Joe Nathan about now!)
  
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  - Linda says:
    
    February 2, 2013 at 6:04 pm
    
    Funny! Where is the charter cheerleader when you don’t need him?
- Joe Nathan says:
  
  February 3, 2013 at 3:29 am
  
  Stupid study that lumped together some charters (as if they have the same philosophy or curriculum or pedagogy, which they don’t) with a composite of students who attend different district schools.
  
  Again, district schools don’t all have same philosophy, curriculum or instructional techniques. District educators rightly don’t like generalizations. Same principle should apply to chartered schools. But of course, it’s far easier to point fingers than to actually sit down together & discuss what’s working for students.
  
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  - readingexchange says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 8:21 am
    
    Charter schools may have some differences but they all have the same deleterious effect on communities and the “unselected” students who remain in the public schools.
    
    Joe Nathan, your identity seems so wrapped up in the failed charter school reform movement that you cannot see your reasoning as, in part, continuing the educational problems in this country. Charters are
    not the solution. You are missing the forest for the trees. There is no need for you to respond to my statement.
  - Joe Nathan says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 9:42 am
    
    The fact that the charter movement has failed will come as news to the increasing number of families who are sending their children to these schools. It will come as news to the educators who have found that the charter movement allows them to carry out their dreams.
    
    Unquestionably there have been mistakes and scandals. Same is true in district schools.
    
    One impact of the charter movement is that more districts are turning to teachers to create schools they think make sense. It does require a lot of work to create and implement a new school or school within school. Far less effort to get on a list serve do name calling.
  - Linda says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 9:45 am
    
    And since you are a united, similar to W, I am certain your next post will be about a traditional public school that makes sense.
  - readingexchange says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 1:33 pm
    
    Please try to understand. The charter movement will ultimately fail because the “unselected” are marginalized. Public funds are taken away and given to the “selected”.
    
    Please consider this illustration…
    
    I come home one day to find that my home has been bulldozed. The people operating the earth movers smile at me and want to “have a conversation” about the “improvement” they just made. Smiling, they tell me that a beautiful new road will be built over my property but only “selected” citizens will get to drive on it.
    
    I naturally would like to know if I will receive money to put toward a new house and I wonder if I will be able to maintain the standard of living I had prior to this unwelcome “improvement”. The bulldozer operators tell me I will receive a small compensation and that my “life
    style” will be permanently altered. They suggest I hold a fundraiser.
    
    Joe Nathan, justice will have its day … soon.
  - Joe Nathan says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 4:20 pm
    
    Here’s a metaphor closer to the way a lot of low income people see it. There don’t have the option of living in an exclusive mostly white suburb, and the state does not have a law allowing them to attend schools in those suburbs.
    
    Some of the people in the low income community are satisfied living there. Some want something different. They think with a more effective education, their children can have more options in life. So they look for other options (including some where their children are encouraged and helped to get a good education and then return to the low income community and help improve it for many more. So they send their children to the new option.
    
    And in fact, some of the graduates of that school do in fact return to that community and help improve the education for others. They set up new schools for others in that community. Gradually, through their efforts, and the efforts of other people, the community gets better.
    
    That is in part the story of YES Prep in Houston. It’s the story of some other charters.
    
    It’s also the story of some district public schools that do wonderful things for their kids, and also encourage their kids to return to their community to help improve it. This ABC Nightly news piece is over-simplified. The work involved a lot of educators and community but it is a great example of what a district high school can do.
    
    http://abcnews.go.com/US/PersonOfWeek/principal-turns-school-student-time/story?id=13166519
  - teachingeconomisot says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 2:50 pm
    
    Are those not selected for IB or AP classes marginalized? Are those not selected for high ability public high schools marginalized? Are those that live just outside the Scarsdale district line marginalized? There might be a lot of marginalization going on in the public school system.
  - readingexchange says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 3:00 pm
    
    Good questions. Fairness must always be monitored in any institution, However, don’t you agree, Teaching Economist, that charter schools, undoubtedly guarantee the marginalization of the “unselected” ?
  - teachingeconomist says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 3:59 pm
    
    What is your view on marginalization within the building? My son took several AP classes while in high school, but took even more university classes as a high school student. Did his exercising of that opportunity marginalize the students that could not take advantage of those opportunities?
    
    I don’t see that charters marginalize non-charter students, but even if charters did that, however, the impact of charter schools is far less than the impact of traditional public schools. Lets take Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax County as an example. Given your view on the matter, it has been marginalizing students in Fairfax County high schools for a very long time. The same might be said for allowing private schools to exist.
    
    Public schools educate 85% of students, private schools educate 10%, and charter schools educate 5%. I am not sure why you want to nibble around the edge of the marginalization process rather than going at the heart of the problem: traditional zoned public schools and limited admission public (and private) schools.
  - readingexchange says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 4:05 pm
    
    At the heart of the matter is the siphoning of public finds to charter schools that only select certain students. This fact alone marginalizes the “unselected”.
  - teachingeconomist says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 4:08 pm
    
    Readingexchange,
    
    That is EXACTLY what AP classes do inside a building and what schools like Thomas Jefferson do between buildings. They siphon resources to a select group of students.
  - readingexchange says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 6:32 pm
    
    AP classes in our public schools do not siphon money away from other students. Your point does not hold water.
  - teachingeconomist says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 6:42 pm
    
    AP classes siphon money by requiring staff to teach these students, often in small classes. AP teachers are among the most talented, enthusiastic and accomplished in a school. They are not available to teach the students who are not selected for AP classes. Those not selected for the AP class have to deal with the resulting reduction of resources available to them.
  - Joe Nathan says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 6:49 pm
    
    Ap also require special training that cap teachers must take with $ going to college bd that runs AP.
  - readingexchange says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 6:48 pm
    
    All our public schools are staffed by student/teacher ratios per school. AP classes are NOT small, by any means. I truly don’t know where you are getting your information.
  - teachingeconomisot says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 6:55 pm
    
    From my child’s AP classes.
    
    I note you have not talked about public limited admission magnet schools like Thomas Jefferson. Are we in agreement that your position is that Thomas Jefferson High School marginalizes the other students in Fairfax County?
  - readingexchange says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 9:55 pm
    
    Here is a link to Dr. Ravitch’s blog about charter and magnet schools.
    
    Perhaps it will be helpful to you.
    
    Charter Schools and Magnet Schools
  - teachingeconomist says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 10:10 pm
    
    I see a distinction without a difference.
    
    Your argument against charter schools is that they “..all have the same deleterious effect on communities and the “unselected” students who remain in the public schools.” This argument is FAR more applicable to limited admission public schools than it is to charter schools in New York, for example, where admission must be by lottery. The public school students in outside of Thomas Jefferson High School are UNSELECTED. I think you are uncomfortable with the reach of your criticism, but if you base your opposition to charter schools on this argument, you must also oppose ANY public expenditure that allows gifted students to take full advantage of their academic gifts.
    
    Could you explain why the students at Thomas Jefferson have not been selected?
  - Joe Nathan says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 10:15 pm
    
    Thanks. Over and over I hear how opposed Dr. Ravitch is to some charters that allegedly don’t enroll all kinds of kids. But she’s made it clear that she is perfectly ok for quasi private “magnet” schools to screen out kids with special needs who don’t meet admissions tests, or kids eager to participate who can’t pass the standardized tests that are used for admission.
    
    Aren’t those the standardized tests she rails against? Yup – but it is ok to use them to screen out kids using them.
    
    Also, in some places magnets receive and spend extra dollars – more than the neighborhood schools.
    
    All this is why some public school teachers and parents, frustrated by what they think are massively unfair practices by publicly funded quasi-private magnets, have worked in some states for charter laws. Some of these people also have helped start charters.
  - readingexchange says:
    
    February 4, 2013 at 6:30 am
    
    Your argument does not wash. We will agree to disagree.
George Buzzetti says:

February 2, 2013 at 2:31 pm

You cannot compare inequitable situations without a “Correction Factor.” This is a standard in any honest comparative analysis. Without this you cannot determine who or what is actually doing in a comparative fashion. Inequitable is not fair to judge straight up without the “Correction Factor.” Even without the “Correction Factor” charter schools do not do so well according to the Stanford Credo Study. On top of that you must read the Sept. 2012 DOE OIG report on the total lack of accountability of charter schools in Florida, Arizona and California. This report is DOE-OIG/A02L0002. Put the two studies together and you have tragedy being made in “Real Public Education” for all equitably. Privatization and corporatization is a process to destroy us and create the two tier of more society with a fringe on the top and the rest being automatons for consumption by the elite. The other goal they have is “Permadebt.” This occurs through the student loan program, school construction bonds at 55% and not beginning to be paid for 20 years after receiving the money which makes the payoff go from (2-3)-1 to up to 16.5-1. Any school district which does this is financially dead for the next 40-50 years. Currently, after we presented this problem to the California Superintendent of Education, Tom Torlakson, and the State Board of Education and asked them to go to the legislature and have legislation to make this illegal there is now a bill to eliminate this in California. We also just beat Measure J in L.A. County for a $90 billion tax until 2069 with only one paragraph of controlling language. What they did is to then put up legislation to lower the passage of transportation bonds from 66-55% to create “Permadebt” in that political world also. In California school districts are illegally using school construction bond funds to buy I-Pads. It is illegal in California to use school construction bond funds for general fund purposes. I-Pads are general fund as they are essentially the same as books the way they look at it legally. We live in a lawless world as no one cares if these bonds do not meet the legal requirements or for what the money is spent on.

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Linda Johnson says:

February 2, 2013 at 2:57 pm

Of course these schools cannot be compared to one another and I’ll bet everyone knows it too, especially the people who are perpetrating this fraud on unsuspecting citizens. The good news is that people are waking up, just as I knew they would.

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Brian Ford says:

February 2, 2013 at 3:02 pm

The real issue is not the performance of charters.
The real issue is what sort of impact starting so many charters will
have on public education as a whole.
In an indefinitely expanding universe of charters,
public schools will eventually be sucked into black holes.

(Educational cosmology at its best . . . )

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Arthur Goldstein says:

February 2, 2013 at 3:48 pm

I frequently wonder, after all I read in the papers and see on TV, why charters don’t simply snatch up all the high-needs kids and work their magic. Why on earth would they trust such kids with the likes of me, a unionized teacher with decades of experience?

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- Old Teacher says:
  
  February 2, 2013 at 4:58 pm
  
  You know why Arthur. Remember Geofrey Canada and his essential firing of an entire cohort? He claimed they were not making sufficient gains and would be bad for his brand (his words, not mine). They really do treat people like commodities, their quality control can not allow for lesser quality raw material.
  
  Reply
- Duane Swacker says:
  
  February 2, 2013 at 5:24 pm
  
  Arthur,
  Kind of the same reason that whenever I’ve been on any committees they don’t listen to what I have to say because it usually goes against their ideologies and desires. Why on earth would they listen to an old fart Spanish teacher with (along with you) decades of experience and researching problems in education? The examples of them getting it wrong are so legion that I don’t even want to start other than to say “See I told you this would be the results but you wouldn’t listen to “an old fart Spanish teacher”. What the hell does he know?
  
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Joe Nathan says:

February 2, 2013 at 9:06 pm

I think such comparisons are not helpful. Some district and charter advocates play this game, citing one study or another to prove their point.

But the fact is that Both district and charters vary widely. There is nothing you can tell about a school’s curriculum or philosophy or pedagogy by describing it as “district” or “charter.”

Both include everything from Core Knowledge to French, German, Spanish, Chinese or whatever immersion, to “project based” to Montessori and on and on.

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- Megan Pledger says:
  
  February 3, 2013 at 3:03 am
  
  But if you can’t tell whether charters are doing better or not then how can you migrate the “wonderful” things they are doing back into the public school system?
  
  Reply
  - Linda says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 3:19 am
    
    Good point and why do you rarely hear about the great things happening in public schools being migrated to charters? Oh….I think because the teachers are union thugs.
  - Joe Nathan says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 3:24 am
    
    Megan & Linda, Saturday we brought together district & charter educators, together with a wonderful Univ of Mn prof, to discuss what was and was not working to help high school students enjoy and do better in math. They learned from each other. They don’t see eachother as “deformers” or “thugs.” They see each other as professionals trying to help youngsters.
    Minneapolis is not the only place this is happening.
  - Linda says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 3:26 am
    
    We all know what you did on Saturday Joe. You keep telling us. We got the message.
  - Joe Nathan says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 5:35 pm
    
    Megan, I think we can tell WHICH district and charters are helping more students succeed. And we can learn from them. But I don’t think a label of either district or charter tells you anything about what’s happening in the school.
- readingexchange says:
  
  February 3, 2013 at 3:13 pm
  
  You must realize that public school teachers, who welcome ALL students, regardless of the degree of instructional challenge they present, would not put much stake in the instructional “revelations” of charter school teachers and leaders who only work with “selected” students. The parameters are wholly different and I do not have the same respect for charter employees that I have for those working and succeeding in public school environments.
  
  Reply
  - Joe Nathan says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 3:19 pm
    
    As noted in many earlier posts, there are many district school teachers who work in select, quasi-private “magnet” schools where all students definitely are not welcome.
    
    There are many public school teachers who eagerly meet with their colleagues in charters.
  - readingexchange says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 3:45 pm
    
    Your answer, Joe Nathan, is inadequate. Any school that “selects” their students cannot offer viable suggestions to public school teachers who must accommodate everyone. Even if some charter and public school teachers exchange ideas, I question the valuable transitivity of these exchanges in reality. Surely, you can wrap yourself around this concept.
  - Joe Nathan says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 4:32 pm
    
    The fact is that many district schools are not open to all. Suburban district schools in many states are not open to students whose families can not afford to live there. Many magnet schools are not open to all students.
    
    Nevertheless, there are district & charter educators eager to learn from eachother.
  - teachingeconomist says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 4:05 pm
    
    Reading Exchange,
    
    I would think that a teacher who teaches at the Community Roots Charter School in Brooklyn would have far more in common with a New York City public school teacher than a public school teacher in Scarsdale or in my high plains public school district.
  - readingexchange says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 4:18 pm
    
    Again, I think you are overstating the issue. I teach in a public school that is considered one of the best in the state. That being said, we take ALL students. We have a wide range of needs. Even in my “elite” public school, I teach students who are homeless, hungry, abused, have various serious behavior disorders, suffer from mental illness, etc. We do not have the “luxury” of “unselecting” any student, nor would I want to do so. Even in the so called “best” public schools we have students that would become the “unselected” in the charter school industry.
    
    Your argument demonstrates your lack of understanding regarding all types of public schools. Tunnel vision has that effect.
  - Joe Nathan says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 4:43 pm
    
    Reading exchange sounds like you and I have seen different things. In the last year I worked in 16 states. In the last five years I’ve worked with and learned from educators in 35 states. I also read a fair amount of research. What I see in many states includes:
    * affluent suburban districts, mostly white, very few if any low income students, clearly not “open to all”
    * thousands of “magnet schools” that, according to USDE research, use admissions tests. They definitely are not ope to all kids.
    
    I don’t blame any of this on classroom teachers. They don’t make these policies. But there are thousands of “public” schools that are not “open to all students.”
  - readingexchange says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 6:38 pm
    
    I think you are cherry picking issues and your statements about public schools are inaccurate. You can’t justify charters by deflection.
Lance Hill says:

February 3, 2013 at 9:04 am

Excellent article by Barbara and ROR. Another form of “selective retention” is that several New Orleans charters that claim to be open admission schools have minimum grade requirements once the student is admitted, i.e. students can be kicked out for making a grade below a “C”.

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Linda says:

February 3, 2013 at 4:18 pm

Consider reading:

The Inconvenient Truth of education reform revealed:

In the recent Presidential Election, both candidates proclaimed education reform to be “the civil rights issue of our time” – the very same words uttered by former president George Bush over a decade ago when he signed the No Child Left Behind legislation.
Over 10 years later we see how education reform mandates have played out – powerful corporate interests are mining new profit centers while poor children of color, who were the intended beneficiaries of reform, are getting stuck with the shaft.

Those whose only value is to “let the free market work” are doubtlessly content with this sistuation. But the inconvenient truth is that despite any stated intention to use education reform as a means to advance civil rights, the reality is that reform measures in their current frame are resulting in deep and pervasive civil wrongs.

And people still considering themselves to be allied with the noble cause of “education reform” need to either drop the pretension of being “for students” and “civil rights” or pause to reconsider “whose side are you on.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/02/the-inconvenient-truth-of-education-reform/

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- Joe Nathan says:
  
  February 3, 2013 at 4:39 pm
  
  I am on the side of expanding stronger opportunities for low income kids, via district & charters. I’m also on the side of expanding professional opportunities for educators.
  
  A few days ago, you described a program you’d like to create, Linda. In some districts, teachers are being allowed to do that. I’d like to see that happening in a lot more places. Would you like an opportunity to do that? Do you know some teachers who would like to have the chance to create a public school that uses their ideas?
  
  Check out the Pilot School Program in Boston and in LA, for two examples.
  
  Reply
  - Linda says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 4:43 pm
    
    Actually I do all of what I described EXCEPT we do not have the proper supports for the students with severe deficits and those labeled sped. They have pushed all of their needs onto regular Ed….that is where things must improve. I have control of everything else mentioned.
    
    I will check your link. I am originally from the Boston area.
  - Joe Nathan says:
    
    February 3, 2013 at 4:48 pm
    
    For Linda and others interested in the collaboration between the Boston Teachers Union, the Boston Public Schools and the City which gives district teachers a chance to create new public schools, here’s a link:
    http://www.bostonpublicschools.org/view/pilot-schools
    The school that Deborah Meier helped start in Boston is one of these schools.
    
    Here’s a link to the Center for Collaborative Education in Boston, which helps educators who want help, start these schools:
    http://www.ccebos.org/