Amanda Potterton of Arizona State University presented this paper at the recent annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. Now that these charter chains are going national, it is a good time to review them.
Potterton writes:
Last November, I wrote a commentary published in Teachers College Record about two “highly performing” charter school management organizations (CMOs) in Arizona, BASIS and Great Hearts Academies; I summarize the findings below. These top-ranked schools rarely serve all students. When the demographics of these schools are compared to demographics of all public school students in the state, it is clear that disadvantaged students are vastly underserved by these schools. This is a critical issue that should be considered alongside enthusiastic calls for increasing the numbers of charter schools.
I compared the demographics of these schools using the most recent data available(2010-11) in Common Core of Data (CCD) (U.S. Department of Education, 2013). The BASIS schools I examined did not serve any students who received free or reduced lunches (a common indicator of family poverty), or who were English Language Learners. In comparison, 45% of Arizona’s public school students received free or reduced lunchand 7% were English Language Learners. Few students who had Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) attended BASIS schools, compared to 12% of Arizona’s total student population. Similarly, the Great Hearts Academy schools provided little to no service to students with special needs and to those who were English Language Learners. Five English Language Learners attended Great Hearts schools, four of whom attended Teleos Preparatory Academy. With the exception of Teleos Preparatory Academy, which serves a diverse population of students, all of these top-ranked schools served between 53% and 86% white students. In comparison, 43% of Arizona’s public school students are white. On the other hand, American Indian students, Hispanic students and Black students were underrepresented at these schools compared to state averages (except for Teleos Preparatory Academy, whose majority percentage of students were Black/ non-Hispanic). Among the schools noted above, Teleos serves the greatest number of poor and minority students. According to state accountability data, student achievement at Teleos is lower than student performance at the other Great Hearts Academy schools (Arizona Department of Education, 2013). Producing high test scores with low income minority children is apparently as hard for charter schools to do as it is for regular public schools.
I also highlighted some recent reports about BASIS schools that document questionable methods for enrollment procedures, high attrition rates, and methods including “counseling out” of students who might negatively affect average school performance rankings (Safier, 2013; see also Welner, 2013). The figures above suggest that “highly-ranked” BASIS schools serve a privileged demographic; Safier’s story suggests that they likely select even further amongst that privileged group. Visually striking declines in student enrollment at Arizona’s BASIS and Great Hearts schools in 2010-2011 are evident in the figure below:
Enrollment Declines: Arizona’s BASIS and Great Hearts Schools
Other researchers have highlighted declining enrollment numbers in the years nearing graduation at BASIS schools (see, for example, Casanova, 2012). BASIS school representatives responded (BASIS_Communications, 2012) by challenging interpretations of the low numbers shown in the data, albeit without adequately addressing Casanova’s main concern about the “enrollment drop across grades.” Casanova’s analysis highlights the low numbers of enrolled students in the upper grades. The graph displayed above raises a question of basic comparability: is it even fair to include these schools in a comparison with Arizona’s public schools, since they are not drawing a representative population of Arizona’s public school students?
Finally, Ann Ryman (2012) documented business practices within BASIS and Great Hearts Academy schools that reveal potential conflicts of interest between board members and owners (see, also, these comments from Gene V Glass, 2012, here and here). These charter school organizations make large profits at the expense of the government and community members, through fees, book purchases, and building contracts. Other investigators have highlighted questionable practices that provide considerable access to policy makers who influence Arizona’s lawmakers. For example, Mercedes Schneider (2013) created a map of Great Hearts political connections, highlighting significant access between CMO executives and policy makers who influence laws, including members at the Goldwater Institute and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
The connections between executives of CMOs and policy leaders who influence lawmakers further complicate the problems of educational inequality and appear to provide charter schools with unfair competitive advantages. Children and taxpayers are the losers when public education dollars are at stake.
Citation:
Potterton, A. U. (2013). A citizen’s response to the President’s charter school education proclamation: With a profile of two “Highly Performing” charter school organizations in Arizona. Teachers College Record. Retrieved from http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=17309
References:
Arizona Department of Education (2013). Teleos Preparatory Academy > Great Hearts Academies- Teleos Prep. Retrieved from http://www10.ade.az.gov/ReportCard/SchoolSummary.aspx?id=90143&ReportLevel=1
BASIS_Communications. (2012, April 13). Re: The newest problem with graduation rates. [online forum comment]. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-newest-problem-with-graduation-rates/2012/04/12/gIQAwsH2DT_blog.html
Casanova, U. (2012, April 13). The newest problem with graduation rates. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/the-newest-problem-with-graduation-rates/2012/04/12/gIQAwsH2DT_blog.html
Glass, G. V. (2012, November 18). May I have the envelope please. And the Pulitzer for education reporting goes…. Retrieved from http://ed2worlds.blogspot.com/2012/11/may-i-have-envelope-please-and-pulitzer.html
Glass, G. V. (2012, December 2). “Judge us by our results”. Retrieved from http://ed2worlds.blogspot.com/2012/12/judge-us-by-our-results.html
Ryman, A. (2012, October 12). Insiders benefiting in charter deals. Retrieved from http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/20121016insiders-benefiting-charter-deals.html
Safier, D. (2013, April 17). BASIS charter’s education model: Success by attrition. Retrieved from http://blogforarizona.net/?p=645
Schneider, M. (2013, March 25). Arizona education: A pocket-lining, “conflict of interest” mecca. Retrieved from http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/arizona-education-a-pocket-lining-conflict-of-interest-mecca/
U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics. (2013). Search for schools, colleges, and libraries. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/globallocator/
Welner, K. G. (2013, April). The dirty dozen: How charter schools influence student enrollment. Teachers College Record. Retrieved from http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/TCR-Dirty-Dozen
Diane Ravitch's blog 
always love the comments :producing high test scores with low income minority students” is as hard for charters as for publics. I have also heard a version of this from the ed prep programs related to the issue of preparing minority teachers who could pass PRAXIS exams and get licensed–if the scores were set too high. How many decades has this been an issue? Instead of asking ourselves what we need to do differently as teachers in schools and as ed preppers in order to reach these students and help them learn in order to pass the exams, we rub our heads and lower expectations. People, this can be done. Instead, charters/choice/voucher mindtrusters and rheealitites take easy pot shots at public schools, offer untested sound good programs and skim billions from our already underresourced public schools.
In this AERA paper, did the author only compare the charters to all public school student demographics–or to the specific public schools from which the students came? Her point is well taken though, skimming leads to a bit better performance.
Thank you for your comment. I compared the demographics of the students at the BASIS and Great Hearts schools in AZ to the demographics of all public school students in the state, mainly to provide context about their general underrepresentation of disadvantaged groups of students.
I asked beacuase to demonstrate that they serve a population underrepresented in minority students you need to compare their school location to the kids from the local school they would have attended. In Indiana, comparing Indiananapolis charter schools (the majority of which are failing btw) to statewide numbers makes it seem as if they are serving a higher percentage of minority students, when in fact many of them seem to be able to serve a very low percentage compared to IPS. Any response to Ms Weiss? She does raise some important points if she is correct. As someone else pointed out, the data is private, schools are public but the data is private. go figure.
The numbers in the commentary show extreme levels of underrepresentation of disadvantaged groups of students in comparison to the public school students in the state. It would also be interesting to compare each school with the demographics of the surrounding district. It is likely that similar patterns will be evident.
Ezra Klein had an interesting post in Vox called How Politics Makes Us Stupid. It suggests that policy is based on POLITICS and not on EVIDENCE… and when people hold deep-seated beliefs they tend to cherry-pick evidence that supports their beliefs and completely ignore evidence that is contrary to their position. Here’s a link to the article, which seems germane to many of the policy debates in public education:
http://www.vox.com/2014/4/6/5556462/brain-dead-how-politics-makes-us-stupid
THANK YOU, wgersen. Yes, politicis does indeed make us stupid.
Reblogged this on Cloaking Inequity and commented:
What charter ideology hath San Antonio imported to Texas from Arizona?!
I have a colleague who sent her daughter to Basis for 6th through 8th grade. My colleague and her husband are both full-time working professionals. Their child took an entrance exam and was accepted. The parents were engaged nightly with their daughter and her three hours of homework. After three years of parent exhaustion, the daughter returned to public high school at 9th grade. Basis takes smart kids, with lots of parent support, but even that is not enough to stop the attrition rate. A graduating class that starts with 140 members and ends with 20, is nothing to crow about.
Not to mention that a privately held corporation, owned by Basis founders Michael and Olga Block, runs BASIS and their books are not public.
Ms Potterson,
1) Why did you ignore the fact that attrition drops off at these schools because of students leaving in 8th grade to attend private high schools or full service public high schools?
2) Why would a school track ‘free or reduced lunches’ when they do not offer a lunch program or receive federal money for lunches?
3) Instead of using data from 2010, why did you not look at data from 2013 readily available via the AZ ADE. Many of these schools were not even open in 2005 or have been around long enough for an original cohort to graduate or develop a reputation for excellence.
4) Did you know at many of these schools students have fulfilled the requirements for graduation in 11th grade and choose to graduate early? Do you know what a Grand Canyon Diploma is? Did you correct for this?
5) Did you contact any school official directly or FOIA to get data or answers to your questions?
6) Did you know that BASIS and Great Hearts now enroll over 13000 students in Arizona and they have\will opened locations in low SES areas such as Maryvale, Prescott, Flagstaff, and Mesa? BASIS even opened a top rated charter is DC that is +60% African American\Hispanic.
7) Your evidence of counseling out is hearsay, based on a suspect report from a blogger. Do you have direct evidence that this actually occurs at these schools with regular frequency?
Maybe you should go interview Gabriel Carranza who graduated from BASIS Tucson and is now attending Harvard, an opportunity he attributes completely to BASIS and that he likely never would have had he attended a Tucson Unified school.
If presenting a report full of outdated data with major citations from bloggers is how they teach you to perform research at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, then lord help the future students and teachers of Arizona.
Most of Ms. Weiss’ comments are aimed at suggesting that I have presented inaccurate or incomplete data, or that I have not accounted for factors that would explain the substantial grade-to-grade declines in enrollment in these schools. The point of this commentary was to highlight how these schools have been identified as exemplars, both locally and nationally, yet are not drawing a representative population of Arizona’s public school students.
The data I used are the most recent, readily available, national source of data on public schools. This data is reported to the National Center for Education Statistics by state departments of education. The patterns I document for 2010-11 are also evident if a similar analysis is conducted with data from the Arizona Department of Education for academic years 2012-13 and 2013-14.
There is a steady decline in enrollment from grade to grade with significant declines evident between the 8th and 9th grades. If students are transferring to private or full-service high schools (and, indeed, they must be going somewhere), and irrespective of whether or not they pursue a special “track” or a Grand Canyon Diploma, then the points further highlight how the students these schools graduate tend to be a self-selected group rather than broadly representative of the state’s public school students as a whole. I welcome the opportunity to talk with school officials from BASIS or Great Hearts schools, in case they have private data, that would help me better understand the reasons for these declines in enrollment; still, such a conversation was not necessary for a descriptive analysis of publicly available material.
Schools that are not offering a lunch program or that are not receiving federal money for lunches further draw attention to my point that they are also underrepresenting some disadvantaged groups of students.
Ms. Weiss also points out that both BASIS and Great Hearts are moving into low SES areas. As I noted, Great Hearts Teleos is the school in this group that serves the greatest number of poor and minority students. Yet, student achievement at Teleos is lower than student performance at the other Great Hearts Academy schools, which suggests that these schools, like their traditional public school counterparts, will face similar challenges in producing high test scores.
I have no doubt that there are students who have benefitted from attending BASIS and Great Hearts schools. As a teacher myself, I am always inspired when I hear about students whose lives have changed for the better after having had positive school experiences. Yet outlier stories are not enough. According to the data I provided, every school in my study underrepresented the state’s percentage of students who received free or reduced price lunches, students with special needs, English Language Learners, American Indian students, Hispanic students and Black students (except for Teleos Preparatory Academy).
Finally, Dr. Kevin Welner’s (2013) article, “The Dirty Dozen: How Charter Schools Influence Student Enrollment,” published in the Teachers College Record and from the National Education Policy Center, describes the various ways that many charter schools systematically engage in student enrollment practices that give them a competitive advantage over other schools, and these practices obviously widen gaps between disadvantaged students and their more advantaged peers. The bloggers I cite are all highly trained researchers and educators who have raised important questions about the role of charter schools in public education, so I invite readers to take a deeper look at their work related to this type of privatization and to evaluate their claims and evidence for themselves.
Ms Potterton wrote…
“The point of this commentary was to highlight how these schools have been identified as exemplars…”
I guess I am confused, is your paper research or commentary?
“According to the data I provided, every school in my study underrepresented the state’s percentage of students who received free or reduced price lunches,”
How is this possible when the schools DO NOT COLLECT THIS DATA? In most cases the schools do not offer lunch because they do not have full service cafeterias. You need to differentiate between 0 and “Not Collected” otherwise your research\commentary is disingenuous and misleading.
” I welcome the opportunity to talk with school officials from BASIS or Great Hearts schools”
So is it typical when doing this type or research\commentary about specific institutions, that you do not talk to them prior to publishing or presenting your commentary\research?
“The data I used are the most recent, readily available, national source of data on public schools.”
Is it typical when doing this research\commentary to only use older national sources of data when newer local data is readily available? You claim that these schools should not be held up as exemplars today, yet you base this claim on 3 year old data.
“Yet, student achievement at Teleos is lower than student performance at the other Great Hearts Academy schools, which suggests that these schools, like their traditional public school counterparts, will face similar challenges in producing high test scores.”
Why did you not compare Teleos to schools with similar demographics instead of other GH schools? As Ms Ravitch frequently points out, poverty and family background matters.
“Kevin Welner…describes the various ways that many charter schools systematically engage in student enrollment practice”
Mr. Welner presents no evidence of counseling out at BASIS or Great Hearts, yet you cite this as proof? Is this also typical of education research\commentary to cite a paper that makes broad generalizations and relate it to specific entities with no direct evidence?
“Yet outlier stories are not enough.”
What makes you think that Gabriel Carranza is an outlier? You should go study the enrollment into Barrett Honor College and see if a disproportionate number of students accepted there are from the top charter chains in Arizona. I’d bet you would find that they are overrepresented.
And so is what it enough? Gabriel Carranza attending Harvard due to the educational opportunities he received is likely good enough for him and his family. Having these opportunities all students in Arizona is something we should strive for, not trying to denigrate them or dismiss them as outliers.
You may have noticed that other states are actually recruiting top Arizona charter chains to come and open schools. This is the biggest educational success story that Arizona has ever seen and these chains rightly should be held up as exemplars.
Thank you to Dr. Vasquez Heilig, because when he reblogged this post on Cloaking Inequality, he poignantly captured the essence of the commentary with the following quote:
“We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community… Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own.” Cesar Chavez
Ms. Potterton, I apologize, that I misspelled your name.
It is likely (even proof beyond a reasonable doubt) that Basis and GH are providing education (publicly supported) to a select and biased group of students. But, I am missing why this is a bad thing. I would prefer that all students have a great education, but at least with these charter schools every kid has an OPPORTUNITY for a great education. If some kids can’t get in or are not capable of keeping up, then that is unfortunate but it does not mean that we should eliminate the opportunity for the kids that can meet the criteria. Better to get a few hundred kids a top notch education that they could not get in public school than to eliminate it due to others that can’t meet the standard.
Should we eliminate all AP classes in public school because they are biased in favor of select groups of students (in my AP classes we did not have any non-English speakers for instance)?
Thank you for this reply. I echo your sentiment. My son has high test scores and is very bright, but was not challenged in public schools that have no choice but to teach to the middle. I, being underprivileged (single mom working full time), could not afford private school nor to live in a wealthier school district. I tried the nearby charter school that catered to the poor in my district. The education was on par with that in the public school and focused on repetition and test taking skills. These are not skills that help an above average child. I chose to drive to a great hearts school that was 30 minutes away and not on a bus line. I soon found other parents that were willing to give my son rides home as he was home alone after school until I got off work. The teachers supplied my son with all his needed school supplies, the athletics director bought him cleats and the uniform needed for football. Honestly, I believe he was the only underprivileged child in his grade, but he was never teased nor rebuked. His classmates respected his intelligence and his teachers recruited him to help tutor others. I will be forever grateful to this school for offering my son this level of education that is impossible to find even in private schools. This school does not cater to every child, but does cater to a particular subset them. But then, I was unable to find any other school that would cater to a child like mine, so don’t think that just because a school meets some students’ needs that it is good enough for all.