Mayor Rahm Emanuel once praised the Noble network of charter schools in Chicago as having a “secret sauce” for success. Part of its “secret sauce” was fining students $5 for every disciplinary infraction. Some families owed the school hundreds or even thousands of dollars. That was one way of pushing out difficult students. It works. But that’s not all.
A new report from Chicago Public Schools shows that one important ingredient of the secret sauce is expulsions. It makes perfect sense. If a school can kick out the kids with low scores, the school will have higher scores and the public school that gets the low-scoring kids will have lower scores. How simple! Charter advocates like to say that public schools should copy the successful strategies of the charter schools. Now, if the Chicago public schools learn from the charters, who will take those kids? Ideas?
As it continues to modify strict disciplinary policies in an effort to keep students in the classroom, Chicago Public Schools on Tuesday released data showing privately run charter schools expel students at a vastly higher rate than the rest of the district.
The data reveal that during the last school year, 307 students were kicked out of charter schools, which have a total enrollment of about 50,000. In district-run schools, there were 182 kids expelled out of a student body of more than 353,000.
That means charters expelled 61 of every 10,000 students while the district-run schools expelled just 5 of every 10,000 students.
It’s the first time the district has released student suspension data for every school and also the first time it has released data on expulsions for charters. For charter critics, the numbers will buttress long-standing complaints that the privately run operations push out troubled students, allowing their schools to record stronger academic performances.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What’s the big deal? The Private sector doing what it does best? In the immortal words of Donald Trump, “You’re Fired.”
Okay, time for Eva Moskowitz’s trolls to pipe up…
Coercing students to pay for disciplinary infractions is classism considering it disproportionately impacts students of low socio-economic status. In the US, class and race are often intertwined, thus these draconian procedures inevitably impact students of color.
An expulsion is a serious issue for a student. Are students entitled to due process? Could it be a violation of the students rights if the types of offenses that qualify for expulsion vary across “public” schools?
Statistics like these only support what I’ve been saying for a while about “school choice.” School choice is the right term because it isn’t necessarily parent choice.
The entire idea that “parents should choose the school where their child goes is bunk. I understand that parents get the opportunity to choose in these chaotic systems but how often do they get their first choice? I’m guessing not often. Because the schools then choose who can come and who gets to stay through policies that could drive out problem students or those with special needs.
Then in an era of test score ratings and accountability, schools brag about their success when they have the right combination of guaranteed success factors that are not instructionally related. In order to produce these scores, they must wean the lower achievers.
So what happens to the lower achievers in a true, full choice system? Eventually they have no schools left to take them.
I don’t know how they regulate this. The schools have already expelled the kids. Obviously they don’t want them. Are they planning on forcing them to take X number? How’s that going to go for the kids they don’t want?
Won’t parents just self-select? If you have a high-need kid don’t “choose” one of these academies, because your kid isn’t welcome there?
I’m relieved they didn’t completely privatize that system. It’s great that charter schools have the completely abandoned “back up” public school system to rely on.
How many are “counseled” out and how many return to public schools. Isn’t “expulsion” a legal term?
Is the legal process the same for expulsion in charter schools? Do they have the administrative reviews and state code due process protections for students?
I’m continually amazed at how reckless this all is. It’s as if there’s NO thought or recognition that “a public school system” is a SYSTEM. Can this really be news to them? That when you make decisions that affect one part of a system those decisions ripple through the whole? Where did they think these kids were going?
And, actually, the expulsion rate probably understates the attrition from charter schools, because it is indeed a legal process. Many, perhaps most, times, parents are counseled to withdraw their child and return him/her to the regular public schools, and frequently the charter school will indicate that if the parent does that the matter will go no further.
For EdReformers, this is a deal made in Heaven! Kick kids out of charters, enroll same kids in public schools, they perform poorly, blame teachers, fire teachers, close schools, start more charters, select students to meet charter standards….cycle continues until Poor People of Chicago disappear…somehow! Bingo, enter big corporations buying expensive realestate. $$$$$$>>>> the American Way!?
We should also remember that when a child leaves a charter, at least here in Chicago, the money does not follow the child to the public school setting. The money stays in the charter school. In other words, they have a strong incentive to remove kids by any means necessary. Given this incentive, I would expect expulsions to remain the same or increase whether on the books or off.
Daniel Spaniel: same in Los Angeles.
The link below accesses a recent posting here on this blog that is relevant to your point. Look in the comments section.
One sample from “Jack:”
“Yes, when a charter dumps a child, the money does NOT follow that child. They have to keep the students for a week—or a month—and they get to keep the entire year’s money allocated for that child.
Put another way, there is no pro rata amount of money that goes along with the child. If the charter kicks the kid out after a month, a nine-month allocation does not go along with that child.
Whenever public school advocates try to change this, the charter folks throw up every roadblock and obstacle that they can.”
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/02/15/reader-offers-a-dose-of-common-sense-about-high-test-scores/
For folks who have good sense and value decency and fairly play: outrageous! For those pushing the charterite/privatizer program: one of the ingredients to their “secret sauce” of $tudent $ucce$$.
That’s why you should always take any numbers thrown out by the “leaders of the new civil rights” and their edubully enforcers and accountabully underlings with a heavy dose of skepticism:
“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts — for support rather than for illumination.” [Andrew Lang]
😎
It’s more than test scores, though. The claim is they have a “culture of success” where the schools are orderly and safe.
It’s pretty easy to “create” an orderly and safe environment when you boot all the fractious kids. I mean, private schools have been doing it for years. No one ever claimed THEY were working miracles.
What did Rhee say? Every kid should have a backpack full of education money? That way the charter school can kick out the kid and steal their backpack. Student’s money first? No, that’s too cumbersome a name.
Krazy great quote at the end there! So are we saying that if the money followed that expelled student back to public school, this will improve the educational outcomes for that student? I may be confused on the topic. Academic success of students or???
The numbers of expulsion don’t look good. But let’s be honest, many of those public schools expelled students land in charter schools that houses them temporarily until they are eligible to return to public school. So to infer that charter schools expulsions are directly related to their academic success is a bit of a stretch. My truth; we are not equipping teachers or schools (public or charter) to successfully handle hard to handle students so they just get shifted around until they lose interest and/or drop out altogether. Urban public schools across the country have a hard time embracing innovation; charters are built and funded on innovation. America’s school system needs innovation. As education professional we should be slow to wag our fingers at charter school when the American school system has been on a steady decline for more than 50 years now and continues to buck at true overhaul and innovation. We need innovation in public education and we need solutions that work for ALL learners.
Where are the Civil Rights leaders, community leaders, church folks, and legal watchdogs? Not a peep! Have they all been bought by corpedreformer$?
I remember the video of Arne Duncan eating and meeting in a Backroom of a restaurant in Chicago, as super, when folks crashed this private community Let’s Make a Deal dinner, and he had not a thing to say. But his reaction said it all!
These schmucks & shysters have made sure that no community organizers mess with their ChiMasterPlan.
Only dedicated Chicago teachers march, demonstrate, sing 60’s sings, tweet their hearts out, and support their students and their parents in ‘keeping it real’ for their students. Small stuff for the RahmEmanuelMachine, Arne/Obama & Co. Did we mention that all their roads paved in Gold lead back to Chicago?
What expelled kids?
What Charters?
What $ staying in charters?
What teachers?
Oh, well….just another day in USA.
From the Hartford Courant, last May:
http://articles.courant.com/2013-05-25/news/hc-kindergarten-suspensions-20130525_1_child-advocate-children-gilliam
“Put another way, an estimated 11.7 percent of kindergartners and first-graders at Achievement First Hartford Academy were suspended last year an average of 5.4 times each. In the Hartford public school system, 3.3 percent of kindergartners and first-graders were suspended an average of 2.1 times.”
Remember, these are 5 and 6 year-olds. When uncertified TFA wonders staff these charters, they don’t have a clue about Mazlow, they lack child development and child psychology classes as well as having only 5 weeks training at all in class management – if you consider SLANTing and snapping to be class management. The framework becomes these are “bad” kids – because they are non-compliant, and the solution is they need to go away. Real teachers know that 5 and 6 year olds who act out have something underlying these behaviors that must be addressed.
And from The EduShyster: http://edushyster.com/?p=4013
“In Massachusetts, for example, charter schools suspend up to ten times as many students as public school districts. Tops on the list: Roxbury Preparatory Charter, a college prep academy for 5th-8th graders that is part of the Uncommon Schools network and sent home an Uncommonly high 56% of its students in 2012. In Boston, by contrast, which has overhauled its discipline policies to allow *restorative justice* in place of out-of-school suspensions, the suspension rate has dropped to just 4%.”
The epidemic of suspensions and expulsions has a pernicious side effect for high school students. When applying to colleges, students must respond to a question on the Common App – “Have you ever been suspended or expelled?” and must then explain the circumstances. For kids who are on their own filling out applications, this can be enough to stop them in their tracks. How many 17 year olds can finesse the answer to this question?
A few years ago, my low SES, 89% minority-student school suffered at the hands of a wunderkind headmaster, who out of fear and a lack of experience shuffled a huge number of kids to an off-site citywide suspension center for mostly minor infractions better handled in other ways. A freshman of mine – instead of receiving counseling to deal with problems at home – was sent there because he determined she posed “a danger to herself or others” by cutting herself in the bathroom. (At the same time she was sent to this facility, there was another, far more typical case. It was a student who had been released from jail, pending his trial for killing a 15 year old at a school bus stop one morning by shooting him in the head; a charge of which he was found guilty.)
Fortunately, the headmaster, having gained some experience, moved on to a wealthy ‘burb, a better fit for him, where nearly no one “needs” to be suspended.
I understand that a big thrust of this story is about whether schools’ test scores accurately reflect their quality.
But leaving that aside, in the interest of debate:
* Are public school expulsion rates too *low*?
* If not, are they too high?
* Is 5 out of 10,000 students the perfect number of students to expel?
“Are public school expulsion rates too *low*?”
Thoughts:
A child has a legal right to an education. So expulsion cannot be willy nilly at public schools. I mean, what are we going to say to the family…”go back to your neighborhood charter”? Don’t think so. So actual expulsion is reserved for super serious situations, others must be offered alternative schools.
However, at least down here, expulsion/suspension rates have been held against the public schools. Published in the paper and commented upon as evidence of “out of control”, “failing schools”. Incentive/directive to avoid those punishments often comes from on high.
The reformers advocate the slogan — “No Excuses!” Perhaps, we should proclaim that they serve all students with “NO EXCEPTIONS!” Terry A. Ward El Paso, TX > dianeravitch posted: “Mayor Rahm Emanuel once praised the Noble > network of charter schools in Chicago as having a “secret sauce” > for success. Part of its “secret sauce” was fining students $5 for > every disciplinary infraction. Some families owed the school > hundreds or even tho” > > >
Suppose for the sake of argument that the average academic achievement level of a student in a charter school that had weeded out (either by expulsion or by denying admittance) all the “problem” kids was higher than what would be the average academic achievement of the same student in a public school that had to include all the “problem kids”. Suppose further (again, for sake of argument) that the average academic achievement level of a “problem” kid would be unchanged by having many of the top students leave his public school for the local high-achieving charter.
Would ya’ll still disapprove of the charter in that situation? If so, why?
I’m trying to get clear on what the issue is here. I’m not saying there is no issue, and I’m not saying that I in any way approve of the practices described in the article. I am not a “SHILL FOR THE DERHEEFORMER$$$$$$$$$$$$” or whatever… I’m just trying to learn more about why people find the practices described in the article repugnant.
CTee, how do you feel about segregation by race, class, SES?
I’m against it… but we already have it. Its tough to come up with a US system that won’t end up with racial and SES segregation.
This is essentially an economics question, the question of “skimming.” Accepting your premises, and assuming that the skimming in your hypothetical has absolutely zero impact on anything that matters besides “academic achievement,” I’d say you’ve loaded the dice in favor of skimming.
In the real world, with all outcomes considered and with all premises challenged, I find the question unanswerable.
“In the real world, with all outcomes considered and with all premises challenged, I find the question unanswerable.”
I agree, and thats why I’m trying to isolate certain features and analyze them individually. I want to state emphatically that I do not think that the hypothetical I posed is an accurate reflection of reality.
I don’t live in a place with charters so thats why I have to sort of dissect the situation piece by piece… because I have no overall impression from which to make a judgment.
FLERP: with all due respect, I think reality has solved the “abstract” question. You may not think my comments engage yours sufficiently, but—
Charters raised the banner of “lifting all boats”—most especially public schools!—but instead are increasingly shown to be a tsunami that swamps and destroys public schools.
To look at it from one angle, some charters don’t just subtract the test-score suppressors from their own ranks—they dump them back into the public schools for a twofer, i.e., they both [superficially] improve their own standing while pushing down that of the public schools they affect. But the dumping doesn’t occur until after they collect the yearly monies that go with those students, hence adding to their own bottom line while saddling the public schools involved with more to do and less to do it with.
See recent postings and comments on this blog:
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/01/11/study-nyc-charters-lose-80-of-students-with-disabilities-by-third-grade/
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/02/15/reader-offers-a-dose-of-common-sense-about-high-test-scores/
You may regard this as petty but IMHO,“academic achievement” too often means “high scores on standardized tests.”
I think there is a lot lot more that needs to be considered—if we are talking about genuine teaching and learning—than standardized tests.
Just my dos centavitos worth…
😎
I agree. Noble is expanding too fast and risk becoming exposed in its system of harsh discipline that is un-constitutional. Either a savvy parent must take them on (to court) over the fines or reps in the GA need to wake up and level the playing field. To think of all the $5 bills piling up in my cash box were I able to levy fines like that!
The issue of charters keeping the money they get for enrollment even for students who have been expelled is a big one. It gets to the key issue for me that leaves me on the fence about charters.
Economists tend to love the idea of charters because it has this great surface plausibility to it. Schools compete for students, and get money based on whether they can attract students. Good schools will attract more students because parents will know what the good schools are and send their kids there. Bad schools will not be able to enroll enough students and will eventually “go out of business”, and over time the quality of schools will just keep going up. The problem is that there are many ways of attracting students other than having a genuinely good school.
People more in the Ravitch camp love the idea of public schools because it too has a great surface plausibility to it. Community schools which serve all students regardless of circumstance, and which form policy on the basis of solidarity and consensus among administrators, teachers, parents, students, and community members. The problem is that in this scenario public schools have monopoly power (for the many students who can’t afford a private school) and so have little reason to actually be good schools, especially in high poverty areas.
So who has it right? Are the Pro-Charter people being ridiculously utopian to think that charter schools actually face a powerful incentive to be genuinely good schools? Are the Pro-Traditional Public School people being ridiculously utopian to think that public schools in high poverty areas will ever be good as long as they remain monopolies? I’m very suspicious of anyone who thinks that the answer to these questions is obvious.
I have no experience with charters, but I live and work in education in a poor area of a developing country, where all we have are public schools which are abysmally bad, and the badness of the schools has nothing to do with their not having enough money and everything to do with the fact that nobody here has an incentive to make the schools good. But I know plenty of people who have had real bad experiences with charters, and I read a lot of scary stuff about them on sites like this one. I’m just not sure where I stand on the issue.
CT, we do not have to navigate between
the Scylla of complacent public schools run by distant, bureaucratic authorities capable only of lowest-common-denominator groupthink
and the Charybdis of student-skimming charters, run for the purpose of personal enrichment by the idiot grifter relatives and golfing buddies of well-placed politicians.
What we can have, instead, is local public schools with an enormous amount of autonomy checked by some legal constraints (e.g., you have to provide equal educational opportunity in integrated facilities). On that their course, local social sanction works as a powerful force to curb abuse and idiocy, local educators have the degrees of freedom within which to innovate and to do what is best for their particular students, and educators can avail themselves of new models and new thinking as these emerge.
cx: On that course, local sanction . . .
In Chicago, there is an announced and official date in the fall when there is an official count of all students in attendance at each CPS school. The amount of money each school receives per pupil for the year is based on that one day. Whatever happens to enrollment after that has no impact on the per pupil amount that a CPS school receives.
Fran Grossman
312 730 0076
Sent from my iPad
>
Competition doesn’t work when you have huge corporate entities which control access to the field. I’m really irritated with our Sprint service and would love to go to a better provider. But who? AT&T? U.S. Cellular? T Mobile? Heck, even the “discount” providers like Boost and CricKet are pretty much the same. The major providers all charge roughly the same with pretty much equally bad service. The discount providers are somewhat cheaper, but you give up features and service.
With charters, you have your basic KIPP, Noble, Concept, etc. type chains backed by billionaires with political connections that all offer bland variations on the same watered-down soup. Non-billionaire, non-connected people occasionally get in the market, but they lack the financing and connections to really make a go of it and, if they do happen to get successful, they are either squeezed out or bought out by the major players.
Until we remember why we passed anti-trust laws in the first place, competition is dead.
If charters are kicking out only 307 students out of 50,000, there’s no conceivable way that could have much of an impact on overall test scores even if those 307 students were all going to score zero.