Some while ago, a reporter contacted me and asked if I would comment on the stellar, incredible, miraculous results achieved by KIPP in Newark. I referred her to Bruce Baker and Jersey Jazxman, who have studied charter schools in Néw Jersey. I sensed that she wanted to write a positive story and nothing I said would cause her to stop and question her presumptions
It turned out that nothing said by BB or JJ would dissuade her from finding a miracle at KIPP.
Read Jersey Jazzman here: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-kipp-propaganda-machine-and-its.html
Read Bruce Baker here: https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2015/05/09/the-willful-ignorance-of-the-nj-star-ledger/
Diane Ravitch's blog 
After you read the two linked articles, stop and consider this: every article you read in a newspaper, every story you see on TV was quite likely produced in the exact same way.
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Provided info to Twitter convo regarding this last night and found lots of evidence demonstrating it’s definitely NOT a miracle (scroll up to see start): https://twitter.com/Cosmic_Tinker/status/597275631114592256
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It is simply in the nature of a Private Corporation to lie about its product — then turn around and use its Right of Privacy to block anyone from checking its claims.
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And con artists, like other purveyors of fiction, rely on the Willing Suspension Of Disbelief among their marks to put over their con.
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I’m sure the “reporter” (ad copy writer) had been told what her assignment was and what her “story” should be.
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While I admire Bruce Baker, I think he may have been more persuasive with O’Connor, the Star-Ledger editorial board writer, if he’d put his critiques in layperson’s terms. Generalists like O’Connor should be able to get somewhat wonky, but we can’t expect them to get hyper-wonky on every issue they cover. For instance perhaps he could have said, “Yes, KIPP kids are poor, but they’re the “creme de la poor” –KIPP’s policies insure this. Therefore it’s not surprising that they equal the state averages. Were neighborhood schools able to skim the best and reject the worst, their scores would jump too.”
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This does sound like an excellent soundbite — I just think it’s a shame that it seems the only way to deal with reporters who are either not too bright, or extremely lazy, is to use the same kind of soundbites that the charter school industry has successfully been using for years.
I understand that this stuff is wonky, but the reporter should get clarification of data that seems unintelligible by asking Baker more questions about it. She should go back to the Kipp people with that interpretation and see if they are offering some facts that would contradict the data, and if they do, she should return to Baker and ask about that. If they don’t, and just keep claiming “the students who stay in our schools do well” without addressing who leaves, the reporter will understand that the claims of success may be exaggerated. It’s called reporting.
Right now, most education reporters are guilty of the “Judith Miller” style of reporting — “X says Iraq has WMD” “Y says it doesn’t”, but look how wonderful “X” is so let’s not address any of the actual facts either of the sides are offering to support their arguments because it’s just too hard to understand or too much work. It’s very telling that in ALL the communication, this reporter obviously never bothered to read and try to understand data, but instead just kept looking for the soundbite so she could write “other sides disagree” just like Judith Miller did as her “offering both sides” of the issue. Later, when the destruction of the public school system is complete, and charter schools are robbing taxpayers blind while poor students continue to struggle, citizens may ask “what happened, why were we so deceived?” And like Judith Miller, O’Connor can deny any responsibility and claim “I just wrote what people told me, don’t blame me”.
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It’s the Star-Ledger and it was editorial. Truth was dead from the start. It wouldn’t have mattered how Baker explained it. The SL has its own agenda.
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The corporate playbook uses positive hooks to garner media attention, and then they obfuscate and prevaricate in order to keep the hard facts in the shadows in the name of “privacy.” Better yet, they roll out their in house faux “researchers” to rubber stamp their claims, but don’t ask for any source materials. “It’s private.”
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Yet again.
Don’t confuse me with the facts. My mind is already made up.
The battle cry of the “reformists”.
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Come on Diane, name the name of the reporter! Don’t let em get away with that crap!
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The reporter is named in the links she provided, Julie O’Connor.
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Thanks, Teacher Ed. I am reading the discussions right now.
I just think its better to name those who continually spout bullshit about charters and their inane arguments.
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Duane,
Julie O’Connor.
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And the discussions of Baker and O’Connar hinge on the concept that we can “measure” the teaching and learning process, that there are SUPPOSEDLY VALID MEASURES, that can be ratio-logically debated, when the fact is that they are in essence debating duendes, ghosts, figments of the imagination and otherwise non-real nonsense, what I call irreality (different from surreal although surreal is a part of it).
That irreality is what we are up against folks. How does one counteract pure bullshit arguments??? Why even play that game, other than to point out the sheer insanity and inanity of it all.
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logico-rational not ratio-logically. Que idiota, eh!
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For those of us who grew up in the Archdiocese of Newark and studied theology, there is nothing surprising about this Star-Ledger KIPP propaganda piece. The only thing missing from this faith-based “reporting” job is the sounds of Gregorian Chant in the background. As we’ve noted recently from a dozen directions, we are now refuting articles of faith, both here in Chicago and across the USA as the organizing against corporate “reform” — and charter proliferations — consolidates. The Church of Charterism will not be stopped by facts, but it’s always fun to read them all and share…
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I wish Bruce Baker would do some real research on charter school laws. I don’t think we’re going to get it anywhere else.
One could start with Ohio as the deregulatory baseline (the state that is the bottom in the race to the bottom) and then follow other states as they deregulate. The deregulatory actions include pushing regulation up to the state level from the local level, adding multiple authorizers, and exempting charter schools from more and more of the laws that apply to public schools.
I don’t know, but I think one would see a national pattern- the schools start out as tightly regulated but charter promoters don’t stop there – in order to get the growth they seek they deregulate.
I say this because the charter laws I see being promoted in New Jersey and New York are identical to the charter laws that were promoted in Ohio a decade ago.
I know there are various reform lobbying groups that “rank” states according to how easy it is to open a charter school, but obviously that’s not real research- it’s marketing.
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Chiara, what exactly about New York’s laws do you think are similar to Ohio’s? Are you referring to proposals that would raise or reapportion the cap on the number of charters?
Because otherwise I don’t see many similarities. No one is proposing to allow for-profit charters or management organizations, or virtual charters, or any changes in the authorization process. If someone did propose such things, I have no doubt that the charter sector in NY would be leading the fight against them.
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Perhaps she means that the only regulation of NY State charter schools comes from the SUNY Charter Institute, which has already proven to be very lax (remember when Pedro Noguera resigned from SUNY after too many rubber stamping incidents and failure of oversight). It doesn’t matter whether a charter school calls itself “for-profit” or “non-profit” or “non-profit” that gives contracts to a for-profit entity. If there is no oversight and charters (whether non-profit or for-profit) seem to have the millions of dollars necessary to sue in court to prevent audits and make large donations to politicians, it is a problem. Who can disagree with oversight?
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It is so funny that you are quick to try and tar those who disagree with you as liars and fudgers — you lie and fudge all the time! Noguera’s resignation had nothing to do with rubber stamps or a lack of oversight. Here is what Pedro Noguera himself wrote about his resignation:
“Despite the controversy [over network expansion and co-locations], I stayed on as chairman because I was proud of SUNY’s charter schools that have been recognized as among the highest performing charter schools in the nation. I had confidence in the staff of the Charter School Institute (C.S.I.), who approached their work with professionalism and rigor, and who held the schools we authorized to the highest standards.”
. . .
“KIPP schools are often better managed and frequently get better results. Schools like Excellence for Boys and La Cima in Bedford Stuyvesant are obtaining impressive results with children who more often than not fail to achieve in traditional public schools.
“And despite the controversies raised by co-location, the Success Academies are providing the children they serve with extraordinary learning opportunities.”
http://www.wnyc.org/story/303223-why-i-resigned-from-the-suny-board-of-trustees/
Maybe you think you better understand what Pedro Noguera believes in than he does himself, kind of the same way you think you know what’s best for other people’s kids.
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Tim, at least post ALL of his comments when he resigned – as usual you pick and choose:
“Despite my optimism, I have also had a growing awareness that the proliferation of charter schools and their co-location — placement within an existing public school — were actually undermining rather than improving the public schools. Particularly in neighborhoods such as central Harlem and cities such as Albany and Rochester where there is now a concentration of charter schools, it was becoming increasingly clear that we were contributing to a problem.
Although charter schools were serving low-income children of color, they were often under-enrolling the most disadvantaged children — those with learning disabilities, English language learners, and those with chronic behavior problems.
These children are typically under-represented in the lotteries used to select students for charters, and as a result, these children are being concentrated in the “failing” public schools.
Thus far, the only strategy that the D.O.E. and State Education Department has had to address the plight of these schools is to label them as “failing” and call for their closure. It is a set up, and it is blatantly unfair.
In too many cases, the new charter schools are not serving the same children as the schools that have been shut down. Instead, those children are being reassigned to other schools that will soon be labeled failing once again.
Whether it was intended or not, in many cases charter schools are contributing to a more inequitable educational playing field.”
By the way, Tim, as usual you have yet to admit your error in pretending there were more than 20,000 low-income students in District 2 for Success Academy to serve. Will you ever?
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http://www.thenation.com/article/181753/why-dont-we-have-real-data-charter-schools#
Honestly, Tim, I have a hard time believing you are “just a parent of a traditional public school student” because of your complete lack of any interest in facts that don’t support your pro-charter agenda. Will you even bother to read this article I posted? Take a guess who wrote it. If you were really a parent who wanted to learn more facts, you would.
Unlike you, my opinions aren’t knee-jerk reactions. That’s because real parents are actually interested in both sides. There are charter schools that do it right, and charter schools who educate a small number of students and pretend they are just like other schools and are happy to pretend public schools don’t need resources to match their results. The latter are the ones you defend with incorrect facts. Like this one. By the way, this quote from the above article might interest you:
“A recent study of the highly acclaimed charter-school chain KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) found that “KIPP receives an estimated $6,500 more per pupil in revenues from public or private sources” compared to local school districts. The study could only document an additional $457 in spending per pupil, however, because KIPP does not disclose how it uses money received from private sources.”
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Thanks for the added material, but nowhere in it does Noguera say anything about rubber-stamping or a lack of oversight. On oversight in particular, Noguera’s views are the *exact opposite* of what you characterized them to be.
I made no mistake regarding District 2. There are 34,000 economically at-risk kids enrolled in District 2 schools. No matter what qualifications you want to apply, as the state law is currently written there are more than enough at-risk kids at every level to justify the placement of charter schools in Districts 2, 3, and 15.
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Tim, let me give you an example of how you can’t answer a straightforward question.
What school Districts in NYC have the LOWEST number of at risk students and the highest number of affluent ones who are of elementary school age?
What school Districts in NYC have the HIGHEST number of at risk students and the lowest number of affluent ones who are of elementary school age?
Why would SUNY keep granting charters for elementary schools to be open in a district with the LOWEST number of at-risk students of elementary school age when there are so many at-risk students of elementary school age to serve elsewhere? Why would ANY charter operator who wanted to serve at-risk students keep requesting more schools to be open in the districts with the lowest number of at-risk students?
And yes, instead of acknowledging that District 2 has under 6,000 at-risk kids of elementary school age and that does make you question the need for a THIRD Success Academy school there instead of in the very poor districts in the Bronx, you insist on fudging facts again and including a number (34,000) which is primarily poor, out of district high school students who attend high schools that just happen to be located in District 2 but serve very few of the wealthy District 2 students. Since Success Academy wants to open a school to serve elementary school students, and it insists that priority should go to the elementary school students that live in the district, wouldn’t it be a lie for them to claim that there are 34,000 at-risk students for them to serve? The fact that you insist otherwise tells me you have some agenda that isn’t about having an honest discussion of this issues. Why?
Tim, why not just say that 28% of the Kindergarten students in District 2 were economically disadvantaged last year, and Success Academy wants to open charter schools that serve a similar number of at-risk students, and that’s why District 2 is so appealing that they’d want a 3rd school there. After all, isn’t that true?
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As usual, Tim is ill-informed, or deceptive, or both.
The charter school law in NYS that requires them to be non-profits is a fig leaf, at best, and an intentional misdirection at worst, since the schools often farm out their management and otherneeds to for-profit companies,often companies that have ties to the management of the “non-profit” school.
For more information on this charade, http://www.propublica.org/…/when-charter-schools-are-nonprofit-in-name-only
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Tim, you might want to be careful about insisting that District 2 has 34,000 economically at-risk kids, since that is 57% of the students in District 2. Because when SUNY does their “oversight”, they are going to be appalled that Success Academy in Union Square only has 25% economically disadvantaged students when they are supposed to be serving close (if not MORE) than the district average. Remember, you keep insisting it is 57% of the students! Oops – you want to have it both ways, don’t you? Pretend that District 2 has so many low-income students to justify opening more elementary charter schools, but then when people question why the % at Success Academy schools there is so low, you have to acknowledge District 2 DOESN’T have very many low-income elementary school age students. If SUNY starts to believe your 57% number you keep throwing around, they are certainly going to be shocked that a charter school would serve so few of them and wonder what was going on. And since it is clear that having 57% of the students at a District 2 Success Academy elementary school is not something that Success Academy would like (since they have no priority for at-risk students) you may find that Success Academy won’t like it if you keep insisting that their District 2 schools are supposed to serve 57% at-risk students to mirror the number in District 2! So if you want to retract your insistence that there are really that many economically disadvantaged elementary school students to serve, you should do so now. Because it makes Success Academy look like they aren’t serving even close to their share of those students and I’m sure that wasn’t what you intended, was it?
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Michael, you’ve launched another ad-hominem attack against me without having a full grasp of the facts (and here’s a working link to your article: http://www.propublica.org/article/when-charter-schools-are-nonprofit-in-name-only).
There are only nine charter schools (out of 285) in New York State with the arrangement described in the ProPublica piece: a non-profit charter school contracting with a for-profit management organization. In 2010, responding to concern over a variety of issues – the potential for fraud, the tendency of schools with for-profit management to have worse outcomes for kids, and so on – the state legislature banned for-profit management organizations in New York State. The small number of charters with for-profit management were grandfathered in. It is inexplicable that ProPublica piece would omit this context (who am I kidding, it isn’t inexplicable at all).
All charter schools in New York are nonprofit, period, and about half don’t contract with a management organization. Of the charters who do choose to work with a management organization, only nine work with a for-profit, and that number will never get any larger.
Hope that clears things up for you.
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Calling you deceptive is not an ad hominem attack, since it is accurate, based on your track record here. For example, last week you posted a link that purported to prove your point about charter school funding, but which in fact had nothing to do with it. I guess you just assume that readers are lazy and won’t click on the links that provide your “evidence.”
Here, too, is the same: the fact remains that for-profit CMOs are still operating in NY, and there is nothing in the state law that prevents additional layers of sub-contracting to for-profit entities, or that prohibits the potential and reality of corruption via leasing of space for charter schools.
That isn’t even counting the reality that, with the likes of Moskowitz earning more than double what the Chancellor earns, there’s ever-less difference between for-profit and non-profit in Charterland.
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Michael, of course I post supporting links in the hopes that people will read them. To suggest otherwise is preposterous (but you knew that already). Please post a link to the conversation and I will address your concerns.
Schools contract with private for profit firms all the time. Does your school have furniture, lights, books, Internet service, and food? The ProPublica piece focuses on something that is possible at just 9/285 charter schools in the state and does not come close to supporting your smears against the entire sector.
Eva Moskowitz gets paid far less per student than many superintendents of traditional districts in New York, and most of her salary is paid by private donors. It may annoy you that they get a tax deduction for this, just as it annoys me that PS 321 parents get to deduct their PTA donations (and don’t forget the corporate match!), but the fact that someone working for a nonprofit receives a high salary is not an indication of fraud or malfeasance.
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Tim,
Buying supplies from for-profit firms is not the same as turning the entire school over to a private firm, whether for profit or nonprofit
You want an end to public education
Sorry, wrong space to make that argument
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“You want an end to public education”
I have reason to believe that Tim also hates America.
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Tim, let’s see if you can answer a straightforward question. Where does District 2 rank among ALL NYC school districts in the total number AND the total % of low-income K students who are zoned for failing public schools? Last? Bottom five? Is there any doubt in your mind that it has fewer poor students AND a lower % of poor students than almost every other NYC public school district?
Why would Eva Moskowitz have MORE charter schools for ONLY elementary age students in District 2 and why would she ask for yet another one, citing the very great demand? Only a PR tool would not fail to note that if she really cared about the students she keeps talking about “thousands of students trapped in failing schools”, the last place she would open more and more schools is District 2. Or Park Slope, Brooklyn, home of $3 million dollar brownstones.
You may complain about the PS 321 having too many rich kids, but those are exactly the students that Eva Moskowitz feels need the “choice” of Success Academy! Remember her supporters love to tell those rich parents that they don’t have to spend a penny of their own money anymore because her rich hedge fund donors are happy to subsidize their children’s education if they will only abandon their overcrowded public schools! Isn’t that what you want them to do? All I can say is shame on you. You pretend you are just a regular parent but no parent would be so selfish as to celebrate every time funding gets cut from the most vulnerable public school kids.
You won’t address this because it would involve telling the truth. Keep insisting those 30,000 poor kids in District 2 “need” a 3rd, 4th and 5th Success Academy. One that 25,000 of them can never attend, but hey you aren’t really lying, are you?
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By the way, Tim, you STILL haven’t explained how Success Academy Union Square ONLY has 25% low income students when you have insisted over and over again that there are 57% low-income students in District 2 who get priority in their lottery. Is there something funny going on? Because I think Union Square’s lottery should be investigated if mysteriously so many rich kids are getting in when obviously at least 57% should be low-income. You must agree that an investigation should be done, correct? It is impossible for so many low-income kids to get that unlucky.
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Sorry, making the link easier to read for Tim, since he is very interested in Pedro Noguera’s writing and he wrote this article:
http://www.thenation.com/article/181753/why-dont-we-have-real-data-charter-schools#
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Noguera’s Nation article contains absolutely nothing to support your assertion that he said he resigned from the SUNY Charter School Institute due to lax oversight. In fact, Noguera wrote that SUNY is holding authorized schools to the highest standards.
You may have the last word. Anyone else who is reading can go to the supplied links and read Noguera’s own words regarding the quality of the authorization and oversight processes in New York State.
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Tim,
Regardless of what Pedro Noguera said about charter authorization, how can you explain the for-profit National Heritage Academy in Brooklyn that leases a byilding for$240,000 from the Archdiocese, the charges the state $2.4 million in rent? Or the charter that was set to go in Buffalo with a 22-year-old as CEO, whose degrees were dubious? Careful authorization?
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Tim, my “last word” is that oversight is GOOD! You’re “last word” is that in New York State, if anyone but SUNY tries to look into the workings of a charter school, that is BAD. Let’s agree to disagree. But I find it odd you are so adamant about it.
Is your takeaway from Pedro Noguera’s article in The Nation shows that he thinks there should be no additional oversight or transparency over New York State charter schools, because it isn’t needed? If that was the case, why would he have bothered to write this:
“In New York City, Eva Moskowitz has emerged as a national spokeswoman for the charter movement; she earns over $500,000 a year—more than double what the city’s public-schools chancellor makes, even though Moskowitz is responsible for only a fraction of the number of students.”
Pedro Noguera’s entire article above is about TRANSPARENCY. Why does the notion of transparency frighten you so much? What kind of real parent would be afraid of transparency? That’s why I doubt you are a real parent, or at least, one without an agenda that is not about your own kids.
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Pedro Noguera is an academic entrepreneur with highly-developed political antennae, whose niche is based on playing both sides against each other, and speaking out of both sides of his mouth, as he does in the very article Tim links to.
I was among the first people to challenge him publicly about his enabling of charter school invasions of public school facilities, at a public discussion in 2011 at The School of the Future in Manhattan, which was moderated by Laura Flanders.
Then, as in the NYT link, he sought to misdirect attention away from his opportunism and hypocrisy (terms I use now, but did not at the time) by falsely claiming he was being personally attacked. He wasn’t; rather, he was being challenged on his hypocrisy and the destruction to public schools he was enabling.
The man is very smooth operator, but that doesn’t negate the fact that he will never, ever say anything that will offend the money interests that seek to take over the schools, instead affecting a pose of above-it-all scholarship.
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Michael, my knowledge just comes from reading these articles (and my recollection of when Pedro Noguera stepped down since it was after SUNY allowed Success Academy to open a school in a wealthy district AND drop lottery priority to any at-risk students). He tried to be somewhat measured in his resignation letter, but he certainly pointed out most clearly that charter schools were not educating their share of at-risk students. And 2 years later, in The Nation, it seemed that he has become even more critical, especially at the lack of oversight and transparency. If someone who is a long-time supporter of charter schools recognizes that the transparency and oversight is missing, that is important. No matter how much Tim pretends that Pedro Noguera thinks that SUNY oversight is all that is needed, there is nothing in that article that says that.
By the way what is the deal with Tim? He keeps insisting he is just a disinterested public school parent, but he certainly writes like a paid PR troll.
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“He keeps insisting he is just a disinterested public school parent, but he certainly writes like a paid PR troll.”
Those two things don’t have to be mutually exclusive. In other words he can be both at the same time.
Tim could easily clarify that.
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For you, Duane, I’ll clarify (although this is at least the tenth time I’ve done this: not a penny of my household’s income is derived from any aspect of education or education reform. I am not paid to comment. I work in the private sector. I have donated very small sums of money (<$100) to two independent charters and one charter network (Icahn). My children attend diverse, high-needs traditional district NYC DOE schools.
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NYC public school parent,
My main point is that Noguera has a finely-tuned political antennae, and left the SUNY Charter Institute because it was starting to affect his ability to play both sides of this issue. I think he is a political log-roller who is first and foremost concerned with protecting his brand.
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Tim, your answer to Duane is far too cleverly worded. How about a straightforward answer to this: Why do you feel the need to post here ad nauseam to defend some of the worst practices of charter schools?
I like some charter schools and I am happy to say that, but also criticize the ones who aren’t doing what they are supposed to be doing.
You use misleading facts to defend charter schools serving the wealthiest students. Why? Why do you post over and over again defending them? Many pro-charter people are able to criticize some practices, but you aren’t. So why do you feel the need to post here?
Quit posting cleverly worded denials and give us some reason why a person whose kids are in regular public schools feels compelled to post endlessly on here to defend the worst practices of charter schools? You can be pro-charter and recognize when one is not serving the students who they are supposed to be serving. So why do you feel the need to defend them? If you really had a good reason, it would be very easy to answer that question in a straightforward manner.
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I’d also like to see a comparison of charter chains across states. So, for example, one could look at KIPP Texas and compare to KIPP NJ. It doesn’t have to be KIPP, it could be any of the large chains.
It seems like it would be a great thing to study, because there are no national chains of public schools so charters are the only model. Since Congress obviously intends to expand certain chains the state to state comparison should be done anyway.
I would be particularly interested in funding- if NJ funds at 12k and Texas funds at 9k, does KIPP “make up” that difference? Do they spread funding across the chain?
You’d need much better finance reporting from charters because you’d need not just what the state puts in per pupil but total expenditure per pupil, from all sources.
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Chiara, Your point re NJ funding cf TX funding probably relates to cost-of-living differences between the two states.
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Ms. Julie O’Connor needs to read, comprehend and put into practice what Thomas R. Nilsen has to say in his “Ethics of Speech Communication”.
As a matter of fact all should read this small but powerful treatise realizing that writing is a form of speech.
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The first casualty of war is truth. Make no mistake about it, this is a war on public education and the modus operandi of those who want to destroy public ed is the high frequency use of euphemisms, misinformation and outright lies. They are promulgated by a well oiled public relations machine that includes mainstream media and trolls who spread propaganda. People who care about public education have every reason to be skeptical of such attacks and should not believe the skewed views that are intended to damage public education and promote privatization and profiteering.
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NYC public school parent, I have reached the limits of what I feel has been a reasonable effort to prove my bona fides. I can live with your thinking that I’m not who I say I am.
The accusation that I am an apologist for charters – or even more laughably, that I want to “end public education,” as Diane put it – is wildly off base and completely untrue. You haven’t been paying attention: I’ve posted dozens of times on this and other sites about Success’s failure to backfill. I’ve pointed out that the “miraculous” results that Democracy Prep touted after their takeover of Harlem Day were the result of nothing more than holding back 100 kids. I’ve strongly supported the closure of Peninsula Prep due to its failure to live up to the terms of its charter and its probation. I am opposed to for-profit charters, for-profit management, virtual charters, and anything that would weaken the regulations in New York State—in fact, that’s why I commented on this post in the first place!
Here is a link to New York’s charter school law — http://www.nyccharterschools.org/sites/default/files/resources/NYSCharterSchoolsActof1998_with2014amendments_0.pdf. It doesn’t say that charter schools must open up in districts with the highest concentration of need. It doesn’t say that kids who aren’t at risk can’t attend charters, or even comprise a majority of a charter school’s enrollment. It doesn’t even say that charters must have demographics that exactly match those of their home district (read carefully). Apart from backfill, it appears to me that the Success schools are complying with all existing regulations. Your relentless scouring of the internet for charter-related content to comment upon (and to reply to your own comments) isn’t going to accomplish anything; changing the laws might. Have you ever written to the charter authorizing bodies and to your elected officials with your concerns about charter schools? I have.
Traditional districts in the state have not devised meaningful strategies for fighting school segregation, nor have they shown even the slightest inclination to do so. There is no evidence to suggest that the presence of charter schools has a negative impact on the outcomes of the children (97% in NYS; 91% in NYC) who don’t attend them. I’ll continue to support charter schools and district choice until there is a substantial change to either of those two conditions.
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Exhibit A
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Tim, I appreciate that you will finally acknowledge what it took endless posts for me to get you to acknowledge: Success Academy’s schools in District 2 are not there to serve at-risk students, although if a small % of them do manage to win a spot, they do get in (I don’t know what % of those kids get to stay or not — certainly the high suspension and attrition rates in the SA schools that do serve at-risk kids make it seem as if Success does not do a terribly good job at keeping low-income at-risk students.)
I’m glad you aren’t still touting the 30,000 low-income students in District 2 as the justification for why Success Academy insists it needs more schools there than in the poorest districts that really do have failing public schools! It is because you claim by law, it’s fine for them to ignore the at-risk kids! I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with that if Eva Moskowitz didn’t keep citing those students each time someone asked her why she was opening yet another school in District 2 where the vast majority of students she can serve in elementary school are affluent! And where she refuses to give priority to low-income students, which other charter schools do. If she wants to serve high income kids along with the few at-risk students who she doesn’t have to suspend or counsel out due to low test scores, she should just OWN IT! A little honesty goes a very long way.
But thank you for your honesty. I appreciate it very much. I am happy to acknowledge that the affluent students at Success Academy Upper West, and Success Academy Union Square, and Success Academy Cobble Hill, etc. are getting a fine education and their parents don’t even have to spend a penny of their own money like the parents at the neighboring public schools do. And I’m sure once Eva Moskowitz opens Success Academy Park Slope, Success Academy Upper East Side, Success Academy financial district, and Success Academy in every other rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, those wealthy parents will also be happy to benefit from the enormous amount of funding that Success Academy has to subsidize their kids’ education. After all “it’s like a free private school for my gifted child” (as we hear from so many affluent parents at those schools).
Unfortunately, that doesn’t do a darn thing for the tens of thousands of students trapped in failing public schools whose parents are far too poor to subsidize their child’s education. But since they aren’t the type of students a wealthy charter chain like Success seems to have much interest in educating, I suppose you are fine with that.
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Unless SA is providing an entirely different kind of education for affluent children from what they give to low income children of color, which would be cause for a discrimination suit, I would not be so quick to claim that the affluent kids “are getting a fine education” there or that it is evenly remotely similar to programs for gifted students. From what I’ve heard, they follow a rigid formula, but gifted education programs promote creativity and critical thinking and that is not something that is standardized like the drill for skill Behavioral oriented programs so typical of military style boot camp charters.
The schools in gentrifying areas are still new and the students are young, so I think this is the honeymoon period, before the kids are subjected to years of regimentation, test prep and testing pressures. If they are getting something very different, I really hope that lower income families of children of color file lawsuits.
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Hi Professor Ravitch. Just saw this post. Want to make sure you know that we have repeatedly invited Professor Baker to come in for an editorial board meeting to discuss and clarify his arguments, and he has refused. If he thinks we are misinformed, it’s certainly not willful. After his blog post – which seems unfair, given all those invitations — we’ve invited him again, and I hope he takes us up on the offer.
I would be happy to talk to you about it, too. We’ve spoken in the past, although you may not remember, and you were a big help on my story back at Columbia, about New York City’s pregnancy schools (when those still existed!) When you say you “sensed nothing I said would make her stop and question her presumptions,” it took me aback, because that’s actually why I reached out to you.
You deferred to Baker on this issue, and he refused to discuss it with me. I don’t think that does anybody good. I have found you to be quite adept at crystallizing your arguments. When I asked you if you view KIPP as an exception, or more of the same, you replied in your email that there are three possibilities: 1) KIPP students have high scores and go to college, 2) KIPP students are not representative of their district or 3) High attrition rates eliminate the students most likely to succeed. You said you didn’t know which it is, and that I should talk to Baker. But if you leave it to him to explain his research, and then he forces everyone to rely exclusively on his writings – which, frankly, are pretty obtuse – I don’t think you can dismiss me as a “propaganda machine.”
The Mathematica study said KIPP’s success isn’t explained by demographics or attrition.
If you believe Baker’s research is better than Mathematica’s, I hope one of you will take the time to come in for a meeting with the editorial board and explain why.
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So now the “journalist” and editorial board are scapegoating Bruce Baker, when there is so much info readily available online that they failed to mention or even ask for help with in understanding in their correspondence, such as this state data on KIPP/TEAM: http://www.state.nj.us/education/pr/1314/80/807325965.pdf
For example, a key issue not addressed is the fact that only 12.2% of KIPP grads met the SAT benchmark. That is VERY low and does not bode well for the college success rate of KIPP/TEAM students.
However, 800 colleges in the US do not require SATs or ACTs for students to be admitted, so college attendance rates are meaningless: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/sat-act-not-required-colleges_n_2206391.html and, more importantly, KIPP entered into agreements with colleges to accept AND mentor KIPP students: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/colleges-agree-to-recruit-kipp-alumni/2012/11/26/06f46bec-33d1-11e2-9cfa-e41bac906cc9_story.html
If KIPP students are truly college ready, then why the low SAT scores? It’s college graduation rates that really matter and on this issue, KIPP is no better than traditional schools, despite bombarding their students with daily college-bound propaganda from Kindergarten on up. This is why they’ve tried to get mentoring for their students in college and instituted a “KIPP through college” program –all of which is info that can be readily found online yet was not addressed by you.
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As I wrote to Diane,
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this is just bizarre. first of all, I have spoken with them several times on the phone in the past – at length – her boss Tom Moran in particular. And each time, I’ve been totally ignored or misrepresented. that’s why I took to e-mail and blogging this time.
That aside, the last statement here is just plain stupid. This isn’t about “baker’s research is better than mathematica’s.” I point out that mathematica’s research is irrelevant to her argument in many ways.
1) mathematica does not prove that TEAM is a miracle school as she argues, in terms of graduation. Mathematica studied/aggregated KIPP results nationally. Didn’t study TEAM specifically, or the outcomes she mentions.
2) I provided her with critiques of the limitations of interpretation of mathematica’s study. I didn’t ever say it was bad. Just that she was totally misrepresenting it.
3) I provided an analysis of the relative growth of all NJ schools to show where TEAM fit in that mix. Mathematica doesn’t do this. It’s a totally different (not better or worse) analysis, intended to put test score growth at TEAM into perspective, among all schools, statewide.
This is just plain dumb!
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Anyone reading this, please refer to my original post linked above to see where I refer to the Mathematica study, and how I refer to it.
Mark Weber in follow up posts further elaborates on the misrepresentation of the Mathematica national KIPP (excluding NJ) study.
Note that I spoke to Tom Moran for, oh, about an hour on the phone before he wrote this rah rah Hoboken charter piece: http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/09/in_hoboken_a_fight_over_racial_balance_in_charters_moran.html
Sadly, I don’t have a transcript of my comments that day, which went entirely ignored.
related post: https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2013/11/27/where-are-the-most-economically-segregated-charter-schools-why-does-it-matter/
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Julie O’Connor, who is a reporter for the Star-Ledger in New Jersey, asked me to post the following comment in response to Bruce Baker. The gist of the dispute is that the Star-Ledger frequently writes admiringly about the KIPP schools; Bruce Baker has questioned their results and their demographic composition.
O’Connor writes:
“I have spoken with Prof. Bruce Baker on the phone one time only, several years ago, about counting poverty with free/reduced lunch data in the Elizabeth school district. If I recall correctly, we had no disagreement on that issue. But he implies here that we have spoken several times, on the issue of charters. That is misrepresenting my reporting process. In fact, Baker refused to get on the phone with me at all to discuss charters. Don’t think that’s helping kids, or your cause. Is he afraid to engage with experts on the other side, who might disagree? KIPP’s published report card data shows its Newark schools are among its highest performing. Mathematica included 43 KIPP schools, so it’s arguably a more comprehensive look at KIPP’s methods. And what about KIPP’s college matriculation, on par with much wealthier communities? If Baker thinks his research is more convincing, why not come in and make that case? Our invitation still stands.”
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Ms O’Connor, I’m mystified that a Yale graduate who also has a graduate degree from Columbia School of Journalism would post publicly that Dr Baker’s writings “are pretty obtuse.”
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