A report released by Representative James R. Roebuck, chair of the House Education Committee, found that one of every six charters in the state is “high-performing.
None of the state’s cyber charters is high-performing.
Pennsylvania has 162 brick-and-mortar charters, with 86 in Philadelphia. It has 14 cyber charters.
Representative Roebuck recommended that public schools might learn from the practices of the state’s 28 high-performing charters.
Public schools outperform charter schools. Cyber charters perform worst of all schools. Charter schools, with a few exceptions, do not improve their performance over time. The report says:
“In terms of school performance, in 2013 the state changed how it measures academic performance of schools from Adequate Yearly progress to a School Performance Score on the new School Performance Profiles. Although the measures have changed on average, charter schools, particularly cyber charter schools, still perform academically worse than other traditional public schools. For 2012-2013, based on a scale of 100, the average SPP score for traditional public schools was 77.1, for charter schools 66.4 and for cyber charter schools 46.8. None of the 14 cyber charter schools had SPP scores over 70, considered the minimal level of academic success and 8 cyber charter schools had SPP scores below 50.
These results mirror results in both the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 school year where traditional public schools performed better than charter schools and significantly better than cyber charter schools in terms of achieving Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), the federal school performance standard established under the federal No Child Left Behind law. AYP is determined by student academic performance on state reading and math assessments (PSSAs).
For 2010-11, while 94% of school districts met AYP, 75% of public schools met AYP. In contrast, only 61% of charter schools met AYP and only two of the 12 cyber charter schools met AYP.
The percentage of students performing at grade level in Math and Reading in order for a school to achieve AYP increased from 67% of students in Math in 2010-2011 to 78% in 2011-2012 and increased from 72% in Reading in 2010-2011 to 81% in 2011-2012. This resulted in reducing the percentage of all public schools achieving AYP in 2011-12 with larger declines for charter and cyber charter schools.
For 2011-12, while 61% of school districts met AYP, 50% of public schools met AYP. In stark contrast, only 29% of charter schools met AYP and none of the 12 cyber charter schools met AYP.
Performance of Charter Schools Based on How Long They Have Existed
In looking at the performance of just brick-and-mortar charter schools, their results do not significantly improve the longer that a charter school has been open. Fifty percent of brick-and-mortar charter schools have now been open for ten years or more. Unfortunately, for 2012-2013, a majority, 51%, of the charter school open 10 years or more have SPP scores below 70. While this is better than those charter schools opened within the last 3 years, where 85% have SPP scores below 70, these results are not encouraging and it raises concerns about renewing many charters with poor performance over so many years.
Charter schools in the Philadelphia school district do slightly better that charter schools located outside Philadelphia the longer that they have been opened, with 52% of charters open 10 years or more in Philadelphia having SPP scores above 70. In contrast, none of the 10 Philadelphia charters open 3 years or less has an SPP score above 70.
For cyber charter schools, no cyber school, no matter how long they have been open has an SPP score above 70.
The report recommends that the state’s 28 high-performing charters might serve as a model. It says:
“Twenty-eight of the 163 charter schools had SPP scores of 80 or above. When examining the characteristics of these high performing charter schools there are certain common characteristics amongst the 28 charter schools. What is most common is that they offer innovative education programs with most of them focused on a specific approach to education instruction or a specific academic area of instructional focus. Three offer the Montessori approach to instruction, many offer longer school days and more days of schools and many offer more individualized education programs. These charter schools also tend to be smaller with less than 1,000 students in part because more of them are elementary schools. Only seven out of the 28 had enrollments more than 1,000 students and only two of the 28 schools serve only a high school population, though there are five charter schools that serve K-12 grades.
“These charter schools also serve significantly fewer special education students than traditional students. Only two of these 28 high performing charter schools have a special education student population greater than the 15% average of traditional public schools. Further, as noted in the 2013 Special Education Funding Commission report, charter school enroll significantly less special education students with severe disabilities than traditional public schools.”
Half of the 28 high-performing charter schools enroll 10% or fewer students with disabilities.
Two interesting findings emerge from this report. One, it echoes the 2009 CREDO report that found that only one of every six charters was high-performing. Two, it echoed previous studies that found that cyber charters get abysmal academic results. It also found that a significant number of students in cyber charters were previously home schooling, meaning that money is siphoned out of the districts’ budgets to pay the sponsors of the cyber charter for their low-quality services to homeschooled students.
Representative Roebuck recommends that the state’s schools can learn from the examples of the 28 high-performing charters. One lesson: accept small numbers of students with disabilities (nothing is said about the nature of disabilities, as many charters do not accept those children with the most challenging disabilities). Given the large proportion of low-performing charter schools, it would have seemed apt to recommend that the charter sector might learn from high-performing public schools. One lesson from high-performing public schools: it is better to have 100% of your teachers certified, not 75%.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Is it worth destroying public education for a .167 “batting average” (1 out of every 6 charters is high performing.)? If this were baseball, the general manager would release the weak, anemic hitter from the club.
You should see the tv ads for Ohio k-12 online schools. You’d think it was miraculous. One of their “selling points” is that kids “can’t fail” because the school and parents are working so closely together. Another is a crying mom saying how unhappy her kid was in public school because his teachers didn’t “get what he was about”.
Granted, there are unhappy students, usually because of social problems that may or may not be due to things beyond the child’s control. And, maybe a few will grow up to be like Bill Gates. I doubt that will happen since opportunity is always changing. And, as we see, Gates data mining isn’t working out so well…
There are no guarantees.
I know.
We had a series of community meetings here (we’re building a new school, so they assembled about 40 local people to discuss the plans) and the issue of cybercharter kids coming in and out of public schools was raised. My sense was it’s a real problem, although everyone was very diplomatic and made sure to mention they take all comers 🙂
My sense was it has been discussed before, as a “problem” for the public schools. There were a lot of knowing looks going around among school staff that were there. The issue is they’re out and then back in and then the school has to “catch them up” quick or risk sanctions for test scores, etc.
In my neck of the woods, it’s not a “huge” issue, but it IS an issue for specific kids. Those kids, particularly if they are at the cybercharter for longer than a year, are woefully behind. I really feel for the kids, actually, because they get so far behind that whatever social or anxiety issues were there to begin with are just exacerbated by the fact that they are behind and they know it.
Chiara Duggan and Louisiana Purchase: a couple of months ago there was a posting on this blog which elicited comments about the “mid-year” dump of charter students on public schools and its differential impact on charters and public schools.
To get a flavor of the comments, I cite those made by Louisiana Purchase:
[start quote]
In Utah, anyway, once the “October 1st Count” has occurred, the charter school keeps ALL of the money for those students for the entire year. Thus, any students sent back to public schools after that date come with no money. My colleagues are getting tired of me complaining about this. I have a student this year who left two days before the count to the “better opportunity” of a charter school. He was back within 6 weeks, now credit deficient. His public school now has to pick up the slack of his missing credits, and we have no extra money to do it. Happens every year, although not at the staggering numbers of Audubon Middle.
[end quote]
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/02/15/reader-offers-a-dose-of-common-sense-about-high-test-scores/
A small extra point: leaving aside all the hype and pr and slogans, what is “miraculous” about anything that the charterites/privatizers are doing? For example, getting test scores up by making sure that the ‘test suppressors’ remain in, or are sent back to, public schools, is rigging the “competition.” Worse, it is reprehensible and morally wrong.
Just my dos centavitos worth…
Thank you both for your comments.
😎
In Michigan they have heavily targeted minority children.
That campaign’s actually nationwide, Deb. It seems to get heaviest rotation in these parts on the cable network Cartoon Network. “Because the teacher and the parent work so closely together, there’s no WAY your child can fail!” As an online teacher assigned hundreds of students, many of whom turn in one or two assignments at the beginning of the semester or never login at all, believe me, there’s plenty of “way” your child can and will not succeed.
What are your thoughts on online education for public schools? I currently work in a public school. In fact the one that I teach at is an alternative school for those students who have been expelled for inappropriate activity, behaviors, etc. This year we began using Edgenuity as our sole curriculum. I have my thoughts and I will keep them to myself at this time.
Would love to hear your feedback regarding public schools, or any schools using online education as their sole curriculum for a middle and high school program.
Thank you,
Joanne
Students need human interaction
Online learning has its place but it is secondary to human presence
Diane,
I appreciate your comment and opinion as an educator. It mirrors my own as a concerned parent. I live south of the metro Atlanta area and our middle school principal has approval to institute Edgenuity as the primary learning tool for our 6-8 graders. It was optional last year and while it had some successes, it was very flawed.
I’m working with a group of parents to have the BOE intercede and re-institute a traditional learning environment for those kids who want it.
Wish me luck – it’s hard swimming up stream.
I’d really rather my school “learn” from public schools, because while I’m sure Montessori is wonderful, our public schools here have a different mission, where they are called to educate every kid that comes thru the door.
There are lots and lots of great public schools (although you certainly won’t read about them, anywhere). How about we learn from those?
I get that the talking point is “public schools must always learn from charter schools” but I don’t accept that. I never accepted it. I wasn’t in on this “consensus” that was reached.
Why aren’t charter schools ever called to “learn from” public schools? They could start by learning how to accept the same kids. That seems like a valuable lesson.
I had to read this post several times because I was confused. The report says how public school outperform charters and yet it call for schools to learn from the few charters that are succeeding (but not necessarily outperforming public schools). That did not make sense until I reminded myself that the charter school movement was not about improving education for all students, but rather destroying public education. Ahhh now it makes sense!
I think there are different factions of ed reform, because it never hangs together for me, either. You have the group that proudly declares these are “schools of choice!” and therefore somehow specialized or unique and then there’s the politicians who always insisting public schools have to become charter schools.
I thought they were schools of choice and therefore geared to a subset of students? That was one of the 5000 different justifications for them, right?
That everyone should be able to pick a school they prefer?
If you did that here you’d end up with a whole bunch of small underfunded and fragmented schools. This approach seems to rely on some assumptions about population and geography, and, well, CHOICE. One of the reasons I like public schools here is they’re all thrown in together and they have to sort it out, serve everyone, compromise, etc. I think it’s one of the functions of public schools, really, that they serve the whole community with all the messiness and imperfection that comes with that.
“Given the large proportion of low-performing charter schools, it would have seemed apt to recommend that the charter sector might learn from high-performing public schools. One lesson from high-performing public schools: it is better to have 100% of your teachers certified, not 75%.”
Good point, maybe Representative James R. Roebuck should be held accountable for an answer why he didn’t recommend that.
Blueprint for a successful charter school:
1. Serve only the “good” neighborhoods. (you know what I mean)
2. Offer no transportation to and from school. (so they can’t “choose” you)
3. Require parents to perform “voluntary” service in the school. (so they won’t have time)
4. Require parents to purchase spiffy uniforms. (so they can’t afford you)
5. Require parents to pay technology fees. (ditto)
6. Require student to provide their own laptops.(ditto)
7. Offer no breakfast or lunch program. (kids hate going hungry)
8. Charge parents to participate in the after-school program. (if they can’t pay,who want’s them?)
9. Expel unruly students. (if they do get in, they won’t last)
10. Have little or no ethnic diversity.(they won’t fit in, anyway)
Yes, move into an already high performing district and then drain students from the already high performing district. Waste taxpayer money by weakening the existing district. It is all so stupid.
The Walton Rural Center Charter School seems to be successful and would not seem to follow these rules. I am not sure what constitutes a neighborhood in a town with less than 300 citizens though.
Rueters.com reported on this school with less than 200 students.
Nationally, the number of charter schools has more than tripled since 1999 and stood at 5,618 in the 2011-12 academic year, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. They represent 5.8 percent of all public schools.
Only 15 percent of all charter schools in the United States are classified as rural, but the numbers are growing faster than for urban schools, according to the alliance.
Their record of student achievement is mixed, with some – such as the Kansas farm school – boasting good test scores while others do no better than public schools or worse, according to national studies.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/16/us-usa-school-farm-idUSBRE91F07Q20130216
And here’s an assessment of the school–not all that much better than the local school district average. In fact, the Walton school was four percent points higher in Math (100% compared to 96% for the local school district) but one percent lower for reading. It also had 10% more White students than the district, 12% less Hispanic and 7% fewer students on free or reduced lunch.
http://www.zillow.com/walton-ks/schools/walton-rural-life-center-159031/
The Walton Charter school was started as an effort to save a school for the town. The traditional public elementary school was down to around 100 students and the district was looking to close it. As Dr. Ravitch has said, a school is the heart of a small town, so the folks there formed a charter school to save the town. Without the charter there would be no school in Walton at all.
As for the ethnic makeup of the school, this is rural Kansas. 10% more of anything can represent a half dozen students. There are many more students in Manhattan, NY than in the entire state of Kansas.
So, there no Corporation running this Walton school to make a profit?
I don’t believe so. If you were a corporation, would you see a great deal of potential profit in a farm school located in a rural town of less than 300?
It is a charter school though, and orthodox posters here condemn all charters, and in this case, likely the small town of Walton as well.
I’m not sure everyone condemns all charters. In “Reign of Error” Diane points out that there are good charters, but most of them are the traditional kind that were started by teachers in the 1970s—and are still part of public school districts—-with the intent of working with at risk kids that the public schools found challenging. And it has been mentioned here (maybe not in this comment thread) that there are some good ones but they are in the minority compared to the total. I think most of the corporate, for profit charters are giving charters a bad name.
In fact, there’s a charter high school in the district where I taught but it’s called by another name. In that district it’s called an alternative high school but modeled after the original Charter school concept launched by those two teachers back in the 1970s. When I started teaching in that district in 1975, that high school was already there serving at risk kids and graduation for those kids wasn’t set at 17/18. The teachers at that high school worked with their kids until they were qualified to graduate. I was told that the oldest graduate who stuck with them and kept taking classes arranged around his job schedule earned his high school degree from that alternative high school at 24. And the teachers who taught there had the lowest turn over rate in the district. Maybe because district administration pretty much left them alone and that wasn’t true for the rest of us in that district.
Is this Walton school still part of the local public district?
I don’t think every poster here would close all charter schools, just the orthodox ones. If I am wrong perhaps they will explain why am incorrect (they are typically very happy to do that). I look forward to their comments and hope it might be the basis of a discussion about an appropriate regulatory scheme.
I’d like to see a list that names the Charters that are succeeding but only those that are comparable (what I mean is by ethnic ratios, kids living in poverty, and kids with learning disabilities) to the local public schools nearest them—not the ones that are kicking kids out in higher numbers than the public school average and not accepting those who are most at risk.
Before we embark on this list construction, could you clarify your concern about charter schools needing to be comparable to the public school nearest them? One concern is that there are a number of charter schools that are set up to educate special populations. Some are very old, like the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf while others, like the New York Center for Autism Charter School are relatively new. These schools are obviously going to have a higher percentage of students with learning disabilities than nearby public schools. There is a similar issue with ethnic ratios because of either the location or mission of the charter school. Charter schools in New York City are criticized for having a higher percentage of minority enrollment than public schools in their area, but this is very sensitive to how you define area. There are some that also define their mission to serve special populations. In the post secondary world, traditionally black colleges and universities like Howard and Spellman are not condemned for having a special mission.
You are focusing on exceptions. I’m talking about the whole, and the evidence flowing in from Florida, Ohio and other cities and states indicates that most Charter schools are failures compared to public school.
Headline: Charter Schools That Start Bad Stay Bad, Stanford Report Says
The report, “Charter School Growth and Replications,” found that, with some exceptions, charter schools that start strong are likely to stay that way, just as low-performing schools usually remain at the bottom. The study ranked charter schools within five levels based on performance, and found that 80 percent of schools in the bottom level during their first year remained there for five years. Similarly, 94 percent of schools that started at the top remained there. The only schools that changed levels were elementary schools and those in the second-lowest group, with half becoming worse and half becoming better.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/31/charter-schools-stanford-report_n_2586231.html
Study: Majority of U.S. Charter schools perform equal or worse than traditional schools
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865582169/Study-Majority-of-US-charter-schools-perform-equal-or-worse-than-traditional-schools.html?pg=all
I’m sure this study must list the Charters that are working so why not look at what they are doing as see if they are stacking the deck in the favor or are really using methods that work compared to public schools.
And while we are at it, why not look closely at the states that have the highest on-time high school graduation rates and ratio of students going to college. What are they doing different or what’s different?
For instance: Iowa, 88%, Wisconsin 87%, Vermont 87%, North Dakota 86%, New Hampshire 86%, Indiana 86%, Tennessee 86%, Texas 86%—-that just high school.
Don’t forget that these are academic graduation rates. IF we look closer at the top five ranked PISA countries, we will discover that their academic on-time high school graduation rates are all lower, guaranteed because a significant number of their high school graduates are awarded degrees from vocational schools.
Now for college graduation rates: Massachusetts 68%, Delaware 65.7%, Pennsylvania 64.9%, Rhode Island 64.9%, Maryland 64.6%, Vermont 63.7%, Washington (the state) 63.2%, Iowa 63.1%, Connecticut 63%, Virginia 63%, New Hampshire 62.7%, California 62%, New Jersey 61.2%, Minnesota 59.6%, and Illinois 58.7%
Again, compare these college graduation rates to the top five PISA rated countries and there is no comparison. Only South Korea comes close to these states with a 55.5% college graduation rate—much lower than the 15 states listed in the previous paragraph.
This is a success ratio that’s the envy of the world. Why isn’t anyone studying how these states operate their public schools and learn why so many of their children go to college and graduate? What are they doing differently that’s beating the entire world hands down?
How about this: U.S. Scores Flat on International Test; Massachusetts Exceeds Average.
Massachusetts students scored above the international average in reading, math and science literacy on the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), while U.S. scores as a whole remained at or below average in all three subjects.
In the United States:
Massachusetts scored higher than all but three other education systems (Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore) in reading. In science and math, Massachusetts tied for seventh and 10th place.
Connecticut beat the international average in reading and science and scored average in math.
http://www.pewstates.org/projects/stateline/headlines/us-scores-flat-on-international-test-massachusetts-exceeds-average-85899524026
Instead of studying what Mass and Conn are doing right, what is Arne Duncan doing?
Duncan says, ““Frankly Massachusetts is being out-competed by the majority of children in many other countries.”
Now, look back and how many countries scored higher than Mass.
Sixty-five countries participated in the 2012 PISA test. That means Mass was in the top 6% for reading and the top 10.7% for science and top 15.4% for math and that translates to “majority of children in many other countries.”
Let’s reverse that: 94% of the countries PISA tested scored lower than MASS in reading; 89.3% in science, and 84.6% in math.
And Obama and Duncan want to scrap what Mass does right and replace it with the untested, unproven Common Core standards that are revealing some serious flaws; its Draconian testing that judges teachers and schools as failing and that will shut down the public schools in Mass to be replaced with corporate run, for profit Charters that are mostly failing according to the Stanford study.
I am still waiting for the regular posters here to explain how I am wrong that the orthodox position of folks on this blog is that ALL charter schools should be abolished. People are not generally shy about saying that I am mistaken, so perhaps we might take this as affirmation of my statement.
How many said all Charter schools should be abolished compared to the whole?
I, for one, wouldn’t want the Charter (called an alternative high school) in the district where I taught abolished, because it works but that doesn’t mean it measures up to the 100% (that every child at age 17/18 has to be college ready or else) bar set in place by Common Core’s demands.
In addition, I have no argument against any Charter that proves it works by using the same criteria and measurements being applied to the public schools—NO DOUBLE STANDARD! And that what the roll out of the White House and Bill Gates Common Core program creates, a double standard that doesn’t care what happens in the private sector charter schools while setting standards so high for every public school in American that most of them can’t help but fail.
There isn’t one country in the world, even South Korea, that has every child ready by age 17/18 to go to college and succeed. And that’s not even asking if the child as a young adult wants to go to college or cares about being ready.
That alternative high school in the district where I taught is still a public school with unionized teachers. I suspect that the Common Core supporters would call for its blood and that it be turned over to Bill Gates or the Walton family to run to get its test scores up.
And you avoided mentioning the evidence I provided and answering the questions I asked based on that evidence.
Until there’s a reasonable answer, then yes, I want every corporate run Charter school supported by taxes meant to support public schools shut down until we the people have a say in this process after we the people are educated about what’s going on. Why all the secrecy? Why the rush? Why the lies?
What we needed was this debate before Common Core was even built.
This issue shouldn’t be decided by the White House, Congress or the Supreme Court. This issue should be decided by all the people because it is all of our children and the future children of the United States who will feel the cause and effect of decisions being made by a few. I don’t want the President, the few hundred members of Congress or the few who sit in the Supreme Court deciding the fate of all children in this country. This issue is far too important to leave up to an obviously corrupted government with little or no interest in what happens to the children.
This isn’t about your opinion that everyone who leaves comments on this site is against every Charter school. It’s about the future of this country and every one should have a say in that.
Lloyd,
I am trying to do things in an orderly manner. Your first post required that we only talk about
“Charters that are succeeding but only those that are comparable (what I mean is by ethnic ratios, kids living in poverty, and kids with learning disabilities) to the local public schools nearest them”
To know which charters are eligible under your criteria I think we need to explore your criteria a little further. Some charters are specifically set up to teach students with learning disabilities, some charters are specifically set up to teach minority students, some charters are specifically set up to teach kids living in poverty. Are these schools comparable?
If you want to skip ahead, perhaps we might look at The Community Roots Charter School in NYC. It is not run by a for profit corporation, but NO charter school in NYC is run by a for profit corporation. It does have a TFA veteran as a Co-Directer of the school and a Board of Trustees that includes people who work in finance. Forty one percent of the students are white, thirty seven percent are black, so it is much more racially diverse than NYC public schools, but that also means it does not reflect the racial makeup of the neighborhood. Is that good or bad?
Here is a link to their webpage: http://www.communityroots.org/
You’re changing the subject.
I refuse to talk about this individual charter that’s one of thousands.
I want to know why all the successful public schools are being ignored by President Obama, Arne Duncan and the SS troops behind the role out of the Common Core standards.
You continue to want to focus on specific Charter schools while ignoring the complete picture of all Charter schools, and I’m not interested in why one Charter in NY doesn’t match the public schools around it with racial ratios.
Instead, the debate should be why these Charter schools are being ignored while the public schools are undergoing an American educational inquisition—a double standard.
Again, my focus is on the whole, not one example. And every school no matter if it is private or public should be judged by the same criteria and that tool should be one that is widely debated, tested, adjusted and watched.
Sigh.
Can you at least clarify which charters you are willing to consider for comparison? It is your requirement, after all.
What do you mean by “comparison”?
I want every school in this country—private or public—that teaches kids from the age of three to eighteen to be judged by methods have been seriously debated, field tested and approved by a majority of Americans who want to be part of the debate and decision making process.
After all, many Americans who are eligible to vote and take part in the democratic process don’t. But those who do should be involved in this. The education of our children is too important to put in the hands of the 24 “fools” (my emphasis) picked to create the Common Core.
Have you read the Blog post that appeared recently revealing who these people were and what their backgrounds were? I think I have more years of teaching experience than all 24 combined. I think it was 24. I may be wrong by a few.
The result might be different methods based on the socioeconomic make up of a school. For instance, for a school with a majority of kids that live in poverty, the metrics might be different than for a school that’s in an upper middle class community. After all, one size doesn’t fit all, but of course the Common Core does just that.
In addition, whatever method used to measure the growth of students should not be used to judge teachers or schools. The results of these tests should be used to improve teaching—a tool that teachers use. Not the execution chamber they were designed to be.
I think by now I have a pretty clear idea of how the Common Core was created and even Hitler would probably be proud of those behind it because this is what he did when he ruled Germany (without the concentration camps and gas chambers). Public school teachers in America have become what the Jews in Nazi Germany were.
I mean it in exactly the same way that you did in your post here https://dianeravitch.net/2014/04/23/pennsylvania-1-of-every-6-charters-succeeds-cyber-charters-are-low-performing/comment-page-1/#comment-1240525
And what did I want from that information? I wanted to see if they were all playing by the same rules with the same circumstances. I want all the details for every charter school in one database that’s easy to access—-total transparency except for personal information on the kids. I want to know the socioeconomic, ethnic, racial breakdowns, how much the schools management earns, how much is being donated from outside sources and where that money comes from.
I want to know it all. In other words, school reports cards that include all financial data.
Want to see a school report card, here’s the one from the high school where I taught for the last 16 years of 30 I worked as a classroom teacher.
Click to access 2012%20Nogales%20High%20School%20Accountability%20Report%20Card.pdf
Then when I have all that info on both the public and private schools, we can compare schools that are in the same area and see how they differ.
Your point 10 is interesting. When you say little ethnic diversity, do you mean that successful charters should enroll only minority students? The criticism of NYC charters is that they enroll too few white students (of course given their location in the highly segregated city, enrolling more white students would mean the racial makeup of the charter school does not reflect the neighborhood and they would be damned for that).
As far as I know, a “unified theory of charter school segregation” has yet to be written. In some places, the criticism (and reality) is that charter schools don’t have enough non-minority students. In other places, the criticism (and perhaps the reality) is that they don’t have enough minority students. It may be that charter schools generally lead to increased segregation — and that assertion is easily tested — but it’s not yet clear to me *why* that is the case. The contexts and dynamics are very different depending on the region.
So… how many public schools were “high performing?’… and what does “high performing” mean?
My guess: the percentage of “high performing” PUBLIC schools was omitted because it was bigger than the charter school percentage… and I’m guessing the performance metric is a standardized test…
And here’s another wild guess: the legislators would reason that the reason for the higher percentage of “high performing” PUBLIC schools is that the schools in affluent areas are naturally better because of the demographics, the so-called “Palo Alto effect”…
It must be extraordinarily depressing to believe that public schools are failing, and then to see that charter schools are even worse.
Documented research based upon 2012 proficiency data from California’s STAR, NCLB program suggests that regardless of the school type – public, charter, or private- if a student is NOT promoted by proficiency by fourth grade or higher without effective intervention, the student will not achieve a high level of mastery at subsequent higher levels(*). The empirically based reason is that research suggests that the learning process is slow, linear, comprehensive, additive, incremental, interactive, and independent of social, economic, gender and ethnic situations(*), so that sufficient and effective “direct instruction” is required continuously to maximize student learning. Unfortunately at the local district, school, and classroom level, the educators generally do not have sufficient effective “tools” that will allow student proficiency to occur, especially in the educationally disadvantaged schools.
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A very inexpensive and effective method of avoiding this “social promotion”in K-12 is a new model that promotes students in two different ways (1) by proficiency LEVEL and (2) independent of attendance. In other words, a student could be in second grade by attendance, but could be in SEPARATE academic class LEVEL of K, 1, 2, 3, 4 determined by teacher and empirical proficiency evaluation. In the model, all the students in each class LEVEL would be at approximately the same academic level allowing effective “direct instruction” to occur for EACH student. The student’s promotion by academic proficiency level could be by grading period, semester, or other method and need not be by the traditional classroom year.
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Research also documents that high performing schools, regardless if public, charter, or private define, implement, and evaluate high expectations and apply effective learning tools that allows promotion by proficiency to occur continuously throughout the grades, starting at the K level. However, the lower performing schools, regardless of type, have lower expectations and lesser number of effective learning tools that lessons the school’s ability to improve student and school performance to the proficiency level.
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In summary, the low performance Pennsylvania charter school discussion below just reflects the research discussed above suggesting that a school’s low performance occurs when students are not promoted by proficiency, as students’ advance from grade to grade, as mandated by the NCLB proficiency law.
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Question: Why not “trust and verify’ the above discussion using student, class, and school data?
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(*) Research defined above is available from the researcher via fax #.
ekangas@juno.com