A stunning article in the Chicago Sun-Times demonstrates that charter schools in Chicago do not get better results than public schools. Where differences exist, they are small.
Last year, Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed 50 neighborhood public schools, which will be replaced eventually by privately managed charter schools. But this article suggests that the results of the chaos and heartbreak in fragmenting communities and their schools will be minimal or nil.
Here is how the article begins:
“Since Mayor Rahm Emanuel took office in 2011, Chicago has ordered the closings of dozens of neighborhood public schools while approving a new wave of publicly financed, privately operated charter schools, in a much-touted effort to improve education.
“Emanuel’s push continues an effort begun under former Mayor Richard M. Daley and supported by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan that’s seen the number of privately run schools across the city grow from none in 1996 to more than 130 today, with more set to open later this year. Charters and other privately run schools now serve nearly one of every seven Chicago public school students.
“But even as many parents have embraced the new schools, there’s little evidence in standardized test results that charters are performing better than traditional schools operated by the Chicago Public Schools system, an examination by the Chicago Sun-Times and the Medill Data Project at Northwestern University has found.
“In fact, in 2013, CPS schools had a higher percentage of elementary students who exceeded the standards for state tests for reading and math than the schools that are privately run with Chicago taxpayer funds.
“That was true for all CPS-run schools and also just for traditional neighborhood schools, which don’t require admissions tests or offer specialized courses of instruction.
“The analysis looked at the scores of every Chicago student who took the state tests last year — nearly 173,000 students at traditional CPS-run schools and more than 23,000 students at charter schools and the much smaller group attending so-called contract schools. Like charters, contract schools are run by private organizations with the authorization and financial backing of Chicago schools officials.
“The Sun-Times/Medill Data Project analysis showed:
◆ On the math portion of the Illinois Standards Achievement Test, 7.3 percent of CPS neighborhood school students exceeded standards, while 5.3 percent of kids at the privately run schools did so.
◆ Among charter or contract elementary students, 7.9 percent exceeded standards on the ISAT for reading, compared with 9.8 percent of students at neighborhood schools. The ISAT in math and reading is given to third- through eighth-graders.
◆ Neighborhood and privately run high schools both saw just 1.6 percent of their students exceeding standards for reading on the Prairie State Achievement Examination, which is given to high school juniors.
◆ Charters and contract schools edged out neighborhood high schools — 1.3 percent to 0.7 percent — when it came to exceeding standards on the math portion of the PSAE last year.
A previously unreleased study in 2010 showed the same results, yet that did not stop either Rahm Emanuel or Arne Duncan from showering charter schools with praise and largesse:
“The analysis of the 2013 test results was similar to what CPS officials found in a 2010 study ordered by Terry Mazany, who was interim schools chief during the last six months of the Daley administration. According to previously unreleased records, that internal review found that charter students did far worse on the ISAT than students at CPS-run magnet schools and only slightly better than students at neighborhood schools.
“The results showed that they were virtually identical,” Mazany said of the 2010 study. “I found that surprising because charters are based on a model that they have greater freedom, opportunity to be innovative and be more flexible. So I would have intuitively expected they would have been performing much better than the neighborhood schools they were pitted against.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Don’t allow evidence to interfere with being right.
(tongue in cheek from M. Schneider)
Captain Renault and I are shocked that charter schools do not outperform public schools
Well, DUH! While the “reformers” and members of the private sector want to simplify the act, art, and science of teaching into simple “silver bullets” or canned curricula/programs/methods — that isn’t what works for KIDS. Much of this still boils down to a lack of respect for the education professional — we continue to be seen as inferior to the elite… surely, the schools they fund and operate with untrained — or novice — teachers would do better with a packaged curriculum and “best practices”! HA!
Alas, “good government types” like your readers, the LWV members, and dedicated government employees from earlier generations respect and heed evidence… today’s government employees not so much… today’s media and USDOE leaders not at all…
Reblogged this on McBlog.
As a former Chicagoan, “Damn.” Rahm is too smart for his own good and too dumb for the children of Chicago.
The real advantage charter schools have comes in the donation category. Yet, public school teachers will quit serving as “foot soldiers” during election time (I know I’m done until Democratic education policies change). So, which will win elections, money or people? And…Are the Republicans so bad (see the Kansas article) that Democrats think public school teachers will keep volunteering for them no matter what, since the alternative is so bad? Too bad neither party supports public education.
The loss of neighborhood schools is a tradegy that most politicos simply don’t understand or acknowledge. People will support a neighborhood school on an invested emotional level and in ways they will not support the alternatives being offered.
D’oh — meant to type “tragedy.” Some of that Common Core spelling, I guess.
Terry M should have left the intuition thing to trained Psychics and used the business model of analysis of data .i.e scores
More breaking news on Chicago charter schools, except from rigorous scholarship rather than yellow journalism:
Click to access charter_long-term_wp.pdf
“High school graduation is a key first step in changing the life trajectory of some of our country’s most at-risk students. On this measure, charter schools in Florida and Chicago are producing impressive results. According to the study, students enrolled in a charter public high school are 7 to 11 percentage points more likely to graduate compared to their peers in district-run schools.
“The study also examined whether charters were successful in boosting college enrollment rates in the year following high school graduation. The study found students attending a charter public school significantly improved the probability they would enroll in college by 10 and 11 percentage points in Florida and Chicago, respectively.”
From the study: “We found that
students attending Chicago and Florida charter high schools were 7 to 15 percentage points more
likely to graduate and 8 to 10 percentage points more likely to enroll in college than comparison
groups of students who attended charter middle schools but matriculated to traditional public
high schools.”
So students who continued on in charter schools were more likely to enroll* in college than those who dropped out. Well, color me surprised. Did the study compare equitable samples of students?
* Just because students enroll in college doesn’t mean they graduate. In fact, a high proportion of charter graduates end up enrolling in for-profit colleges and end up dropping out after going deep in debt without any degree to show for it. A student would be better off not going to college at all than ending up in that situation.
Yes, equitable samples. They took all students who were in a charter school in 8th grade. Then, it happens that some students switched back to a regular public school in 9th grade while some stayed in a charter school. They then had a charter group and a comparison group, both of which were from families that had been motivated to sign up for charters in 8th grade. They also controlled for other factors, including 8th grade test scores.
So what this finding means is that among 8th graders who were all in charters and who all had the same test scores, the ones who stayed in a charter just for one more year ended up being substantially more likely to graduate from high school 3 years later. This is pretty huge.
ALSO, in Florida (where the sample size was larger), they were able to follow charter kids not just to the start of college but for 2-3 years beyond college. The kids who stayed in charters for the 9th grade rather than going back to public school for the 9th grade ended up earning about $2,200 more per years AFTER college.
Mathmatica is a joke. They were doing a study in a charter I worked in and there is no way their findings had any validity because the teacher turnover was so high. I don’t trust anything published by Mathmatica.
That isn’t exactly a refutation . . .
I noticed on a skim of the matematica study that students who stayed in charters from eighth grade through to graduation were compared to students who left the charters to return to public schools. A lot of evidence has been presented on Ravitch’s website and elsewhere that students performing more poorly are chased out of the charters, presumably then returning to the public schools. Unless the matematica study “rigorously” addresses this concern, its results would seem to me to just provide further evidence that the more you can cherry pick your students, the better you can make your results.
And speaking of rigor, on the basis of which rigorous analysis, WT, did you conclude the Chicago Sun-Times engaged in “yellow journalism”? The matematica study does not specifically address the newspaper’s study.
Read the study before offering mindless objections. The study controls for 8th grade test scores. This means that even if some charter kids who scored low in the 8th grade were “chased out” (a contention for which there is little to no evidence in the first place), they were being compared only to charter kids who had identically low scores but who stayed on in the charter.
More “mindless objections”: Students who received a GED or special ed. degree were counted as not having graduated from high school.
I think this colors the results. While it’s true that a study such as from Vanderbilt did not find substantial evidence of students getting pushed out of charter schools, if you check through the internet and on this blog, you will find many examples of concerns about this being a problem, including stories from parents. Also, the Vanderbilt study conceded that they were not sure their study was thorough enough to rule out this phenomenon. Also, I did not see anywhere in the matematica study mention of the actual attrition rate, how many students graduated versus how many started. Maybe I missed it. The math all looks and sounds very impressive, but so do calculations for discredited VAM and, while we’re at it, horoscope readings. And before you label me again, I did take calculus in high school and advanced calculus in college, I am not some know-nothing. There are so many variables possibly related to why those students students left the charters, even though the study proffers equations to allow for them, until I see indepedent analysis to assure these are not smoke and mirrors based on too little hard data, I’m not buying. Periodically recently, there have been studies like this claiming to offer something fairly definitive that break down on further analysis.
I think Diane Ravitch offered a valuable guidepost with her earlier posting, “How to Analyze False Claims About Charter Schools.”
Mathematica is the ultimate in independent and qualified research here. Dr. Ravitch’s advice in that post is more properly applied to the yellow journalism that gave rise to this post (i.e., just comparing raw scores with no context, let alone a valid empirical study).
On your main point about attrition: Attrition doesn’t matter. If you read to the bottom of page 15, you’ll see that anyone who starts a charter school in 9th grade is counted towards that school’s graduation rate, EVEN IF they switch back to public schools in 10th, 11th, or 12th grade.
This is a very conservative approach. What it means is that if there were 200 students in charter schools in 8th grade, and 100 went on to a charter high school in the 9th grade, those 100 would be compared against the other 100 who went back to a public high school no matter what.
That is, even if the 100 charter 9th graders dropped down to a mere 30 charter 12th graders by the time of graduation, the ENTIRE HUNDRED would still be counted as “charter high schoolers.” What this means is that even if the “worse” students had left the charters by 12th grade, they STILL graduated at a higher rate due to having spent at least some time in the charter high school.
In many charter schools, attrition means that kids leave and are not replaced. It is not simply attrition but winnowing out the kids whose scores are not helping the schools’ statistics.
What Dr. Ravitch mentioned means there are interaction dynamics between those hundred students you mentioned and the other students who remain after attrition that I do not see the study addressing in any of the described equations. Ditto for the interaction dynamics between the students who return to public schools and the rest of their public school colleagues. What I learned years ago in a graduate course on doing behavior research is that there is nothing trickier, no research more fraught with peril, then research trying to quantify human behavior. The reining question is always whether the math really has anything to do with reality. Which is why concerns have popped up so often about how standardized testing cannot measure such things as student enthusiasm for learning and creativity development.
By the way, you again have labeled the newspaper article yellow journalism with no attempt to back up your claim specifically addressing the content of the article.
WT, you should not be surprised by such results. You can say that Mathematica is “purely empirical” but they have shown a bias toward charter schools on numerous occasions. This has especially been true of their KIPP studies. I haven’t looked at the report but I’d like to know who funded the research. Mathematica also has the habit of providing the results its funders desire.
For every report you can show me that charters “work”, we can find another that says they don’t. Truth of the matter is that charters make virtually no difference. They’re a tool of choice for two reasons: no unions and cheaper costs. But educationally, no significant difference.
Steve K, I don’t know an exception to this rule: Charters don’t get different results from public schools when they enroll the same kinds of kids. They have no secret sauce.
It is almost embarrassing to bring this up again:
“Principle of Data Interpretation: When comparing groups, make sure the groups are comparable.” [Gerald Bracey, EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH: HOW TO AVOID GETTING STATISTICALLY SNOOKERED, 2009, p. 31]
Given that we are not talking about an individual person at one point in time and in one particular situation—and that by itself can be incredibly complex!—but a number of individuals in different situations and over time, reducing that to one or two data points is absurd. *And I am being restrained.”
Dee Dee: another answer to your rhetorical question.
😎
WT charters throw kids out left and right. I have seen it with my own eyes. I can remember a freshman class that had at least 50 out of 290 thrown out. That was the freshman year. Many more were gone after that.
Read above — no one seems to grasp the point that even if this is occurring, the Mathematica study counts those kids against the charter high schools’ graduation rate, so it CANNOT POSSIBLY be skewing the results.
Again, the study does not even offer an equation/horoscope chart that deals with the variable of the interaction of students returning to public schools with fellow public school students. And this assuming the other equations actually account for the several other variables and are not just high-tech superstition. I think that Ravitch, Dee Dee, Krazy Ta and the rest of this dedicated gang full well grasp the issues.
And what about Steve K’s note about the other studies comparing charters with public schools? Those were all bogus?
A bunch of anonymous Internet commenters are so anti-science and anti-knowledge that they even object to basic math (“here are kids who all started at charter schools and who had the same test scores; the ones who stayed in charter schools one more year ended up graduating from high school 3 years later at a higher rate”).
That is supposed to convince someone who cares about evidence, even if it (gasp) favors charter schools in Chicago?
Not anti-science. Just questioning the methodology. Also remember that the comparison isn’t valid in terms of those who spend any time in a charter to begin with. Charters require applications and that is generally only happening with functioning families. Therefore, it isn’t the same cohort.
A kid who has never been in a charter is much more likely to come from a dysfunctional background. Comparing one-time charter kids to “never in a charter” kids isn’t the same group.
Any thoughts about the methodology used in the Chicago Sun Times article?
This is completely wrong.
You don’t even have to read the study, you just have to read the multiple comments in which I have pointed out that they did NOT compare kids who were “never in a charter.” No such kids were in the study.
The study was ONLY about kids who were ALL (100%) in charter schools in the 8th grade — which means, to explain the obvious once again, that 100% of their parents were “functioning” enough to apply to a charter. The comparison was between kids who left for a traditional public school in the 9th grade versus those who stayed in charters in the 9th grade.
The Chicago Sun-Times sponsored study was conducted by the Medill Project, a research arm of Northwestern University in Chicago.
All the Pulitzers they’ve won are obviously a smokescreen for their “yellow journalism.”
One more item re the matematica study, I don’t think the posters here who talk about children who never make it into charters are oblivious to how the study was ocnducted, using only students who at one point or another were in the charter. I believe they are saying that by the exclusion altogether of students who were never in the charters that there is questionable value right off the bat. And I’ll repeat for the third and last time here: there is no accounting in this study of the interaction variable between students who remain in charters with other charter students versus the interaction of students who leave charters with other students in their “home” public schools.
Also, pretty ironic stuff about “anonymous posters” coming from someone named WT.
David,
When you are talking about the interaction between charter students with each other and non-charter students with other non-charter students, are you thinking that there is a positive peer impact inside the charter school that is missing outside of it?
“I believe they are saying that by the exclusion altogether of students who were never in the charters that there is questionable value right off the bat. ”
What you say is the exact opposite of what Steve K. just said. He criticized Mathematica (wrongly, of course) for supposedly having included such students, not for having excluded them.
Even Dr. Ravitch got it exactly wrong. Her comment was, “Charters don’t get different results from public schools when they enroll the same kinds of kids.”
But for the umpteenth time, the Mathematica study was precisely comparing the “same kinds of kids” — kids who had the same test scores in 8th grade and who were all in charters in the 8th grade. And Mathematica definitely found that kids who stayed in charters longer beyond the 8th grade ended up graduating from high school at a substantially higher rate, plus going to college more often.
You should admit this is a good thing, rather than invent spurious reasons to ignore the evidence.
Hi teachingeconomist,
Yes, I think that is a possibility. And it’s a possibility of consequence in the context of high attrition rates removing students with more personal challenges from charter schools. If there was such a positive dynamic, and it was occurring without the attrition rate issue, then of course that would provide evidence suggestive of charter schools’ positive impact, but as reality stands…
If you take positive peer impacts seriously, you have to view the charter/traditional school debate as a zero sum situation. Pushing the students back out of charter schools would eliminate the positive peer impact and worsen the education of students who are in the positive peer environment of the charter school. It might improve the peer environment of those is the traditional neighborhood school, so it would benefit the students that were already in the neighborhood schools.
I would still like to know if the graduation rate increased for the entire population. If charters are having a true positive impact on society, then the graduation rates across the board should increase.
Also, it doesn’t take many students to disrupt a classroom. Even if charters are only dismissing a handful of students, it could make a big difference in the classroom dynamics.
Hi teachingeconomist,
My understanding of the attrition issue is that worse-performing students are more likely to leave back for public schools than the high achievers. I would think that, although this would tend to impoverish remaining charter school students by their not getting to associate with the broad range of backgrounds found in many public schools, for the academic achievement purposes that these studies seem to be exclusively preoccupied with, achievement would get enhanced by de facto cherry-picking of the higher achieving students. When there are so many documented stories out there of entering charter school classes in the hundreds boiling down to a dramatically smaller percentage at graduation, I agree with Ravitch and many others that this is a significant issue.
I am not thinking about attrition, I am concerned that putting a group of students from more involved homes together increases the effectiveness of the education they receive, and not allowing them to come together would decrease the effectiveness of the education they receive.
These results will not deter or slow the fake ed reformers because their goal is not to improve education but to turn tax-payer money over to corporations and the super rich.
One thing I’m sure that they haven’t considered yet is what destroying more than four million college educated middle class teachers (and their families) will do to the economy in the long run as these teachers are replaced by lower paid less skilled teachers who earn much less; have much higher class loads and have no retirement benefits other than an already failed 401k program.
How many other Americans who are supported by those more than four million middle class college educated teachers will also lose their jobs and drop out of the middle class, and/or drop lower in the poverty rankings?
I’ve read that 80% of taxes that support public schools is paid to staff and that money buys consumer goods, pays mortgages, insurance, funds vacations/cruises, buys cars, etc. supporting other jobs in other sectors.
Has anyone looked at how this will hit the economy over time as the wealthy suck half of the tax payer money into a few hefty bank accounts instead of spreading it among millions of people. President Reagen’s trickle down theory was a failure long ago because the top 0.1% don’t spend freely and if you pay attention they hold on to their wealth and invest it so it grows, grows, grows and doesn’t support much job creation. In fact, as the manufacturing sector continues to grow in the US, the number of jobs in manufacturing keeps declining due to automation.
For instance, how much food can the 400+ US billionaires eat and how many cars can they buy and drive compared to millions of teachers and the jobs those teachers support in other sectors of the economy with the money they earn and spend.
“But this article suggests that the results of the chaos and heartbreak in fragmenting communities and their schools will be minimal or nil.”
Diane, I’m not sure that that sentence says what you want it to say. Are you saying that the Rahmbo’s closings are not problematic for those affected?
I beg to differ. The CEO outperforms the public school leaders in bankroll. Money, money, and more money.
CPS officials said they created a “warning list” last year for low-scoring charters, telling them they must improve or ultimately face closing. And Byrd-Bennett noted that two charters were closed in 2013 for poor performance. “When any school fails to perform to the standards our students deserve, we will take action,” she said.
Two national studies in recent years also found little difference in test scores between charters and other public schools in many areas across the country, said Elaine Allensworth, director of the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research.”
Dump the losers, in other words.
Don’t get too attached to that neighborhood school, citizens. It could close tomorrow.
Isn’t this rather cavalier “portfolio” attitude in direct contradiction to the goals of continuity, stability and local buy-in? It’s not liking selling off your Verizon stock. This is in someone’s neighborhood. Kids form relationships there.
What do they care? Saying so was just a ruse to bring parents over to the corporate charter schools side. The fact that the children don’t really do any better is of little interest to the heartless in the long run.
No, it’s a business model. You tell a bunch of lies to sell your product. You defame your competitor. Once you have your consumers you pass on as many costs to them as possible while providing less.
What responsibility do the parents themselves have for the demise of neighborhood schools?
Given there is no difference in scores and outcomes between public and charters, charters win because there are no unions, just big profits for big business.
Not true (better graduation rates are a good thing, even if scores didn’t rise . . . or do you think test scores are the be all and end all of schooling?).
Also, Illinois charter schools are required to be non-profit and aren’t even allowed to contract with for-profit managers. So the idea that Chicago charter schools are producing big profits for big business is particularly ignorant.
WT, I didn’t say that charters in Chicago are producing profits. They are vanity plates on somebody’s Porsche. What do they have to do with better education for all children?
I don’t think test scores are the be-all end-all but they are endlessly thrown out to attack public schools. And charters bask in the glow.
But when the test scores don’t show a difference, well, then the charters say there are other statistics that are meaningful. Saw it here with Detroit charter schools. Bad test scores but graduation is up. Same argument as you once they were outed as insignificant.
I agree that test scores aren’t the only thing that matters, but as a teacher I can tell you that’s all I ever hear about from people who aren’t in education and the media.
Graduation rates are graduation rates are graduation rates?
As in, when does a 60.2% graduation rate translate into a 95% graduation rate? When it’s a charter school and you’re using Whole Brain Teaching Like A Champ New Math!
Link: http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2013/06/28/debunking-the-latest-ny-daily-news-miracle-school/
I sincerely thank the prankster who followed doctor’s orders in order to fulfill our prescription for today:
“A day without laughter is a day wasted.” [Charlie Chaplin]
¿? A PhD in Laughology, of course.
😎
If teachers fail students in charter they lose their jobs. No failing means higher grad rate. We all know how the scam works.
Did more student start graduating once charters came on the scene? If there was not a significant increase in graduation rates when grouping standard public school and charter students together, then can you claim charters increased graduation rates or did the students who would have graduated regardless of what school they attended just switched to charters?
I assume the goal is to increase graduation rates, does anyone know if this happened for the entire population?
This is my favorite charter story of the year, I think:
“DETROIT – Today, teachers and parents rallied together with signs outside of the Cesar Chavez Academy in Detroit, sending a message they’re ready to work together to improve schools in Southwest Detroit. Thursday morning, the teachers officially filed for a union election to be represented by the Michigan Alliance of Charter Teachers & Staff, which is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers/AFL-CIO.
Employees at Cesar Chavez Academy have been working to organize since 2006. Their initial attempts were tied up in legal delays by the for-profit company that runs the charter school, the Leona Group, LLC. Parents say they support educators’ efforts to join a union and hope the Leona Group does not attempt to block the process. The parents have also organized a group, “Mujeres Mejorando Educacion,” which translates to “Women Improving Education.” They are also requesting recognition from the Academy. ”
The employees won, eventually, despite best efforts of the charter management company and the Leona Group had to pay them 75k in back wages.
That the Right wing, vehemently anti-labor, for-profit Leona Group owns s school called “The Cesar Chavez Academy” has to be the craziest charter “innovation” yet.
http://www.progressmichigan.org/2012/12/teachers-and-parents-of-cesar-chavez-academy-call-on-for-profit-company-leona-group-to-come-to-the-table-to-start-fair-contract-talks/
Leona is awful. I hope the staff can make progress here but I can see Leona going into overdrive to destroy the union no matter if it hurts the kids.
This is so called S.I.T.Y.S(See I Told You So) moment. It’s epic failure for charters since they replaced underbudgeted public schools and could not even get better than many struggling schools… I think them should be labled “Turnedover” schools.
What will be the alternative to the alternative?