When Julie O’Connor of the Star-Ledger called to ask me about a Newark KIPP charter school that got amazing results, I told her I had no information or knowledge about the school. I suggested she should consider three possibilities: 1) it is indeed a wonderful school; 2) it is not enrolling the same proportion of students with disabilities and English language learners as the public schools; 3) check the attrition rate over time. I directed her to Bruce Baker and Mark Weber, who have studied charter school performance in Néw Jersey (I have not). I published O’Connor’s comment and Baker’s response in the previous post. What follows is Mark Weber’s response.
Jersey Jazzman (aka Mark Weber) is a teacher in Néw Jersey and a graduate student at Rutgers, working with Bruce Baker. He posted two other responses to O’Connor and “the KIPP Propaganda Machine,” referenced below in his first paragraph.
Here is the opening of Weber’s analysis:
“I really don’t want to keep debunking this past Sunday’s big, fat, wet kiss from the Star-Ledger’s Julie O’Connor to the TEAM/KIPP charter school in Newark — see here and here. But O’Connor has given us such a perfect example of reformy propaganda that it really does merit further deconstruction.
“O’Connor’s love letter to TEAM/KIPP is based on a collection of received truths:
“Urban public schools suck (and suburban schools aren’t that great, either).
“We’ve spent too much already on district schools.
“Charter schools are awesome because they “prove” that poverty can be overcome in our schools; they are also “doing more with less.”
“To make her case, O’Connor gives us several talking points, clearly pre-digested by TEAM/KIPP for her easy consumption. Among them:
“One KIPP elementary school even outscored Montclair kids in 2013, a much higher income group.”
“In a city where almost half the students don’t graduate, nearly all its kids finish, and a remarkable 95 percent of them go on to college.”
“At last count, nearly 10,000 families were on a waiting list to get their children in.”
“There are others, and I’ll get to them in due course. But let’s take these three for right now. Are these points of data factually correct? Yes, absolutely.
“But are they true? That’s an entirely different question.”
“The master propagandist never puts a piece of data before the public that isn’t factually correct. Why would she? Facts are not malleable in and of themselves, but their application certainly is. And what O’Connor has managed to do here is tell a story that is certainly “factual,” but leaves out so much critical information that it can hardly be called “true.”
In the remainder of his post, he explains how facts can be used to misrepresent the truth.
Here is my take, for what it’s worth. The charter school in question seems to have good results, even after the exaggerations are stripped away. What we don’t know is whether the school excludes the students with the most severe disabilities, whom the public schools are obliged to accept. We don’t know if it “counsels out” the students who are trouble-makers, whom the public schools are obliged to accept. We can assume that KIPP spends more per pupil than the district public schools (KIPP often receives multi-million dollar gifts from foundations, corporations, and the U.S. Department of Education.
For these reasons, I long ago issued what I called “The KIPP Challenge.” The challenge was for KIPP to take over an entire impoverished district and show what it could do if it were tasked with the same expectation that public schools must meet: educate all children. Educate the children with the full range of abilities. Educate the children who don’t speak English. Educate the children just released from the juvenile justice system. Educate the gifted. Educate the kids who are turned off by school. Educate them all. No exceptions. No excuses.
The last time I wrote about The KIPP Challenge, a number of KIPP advocates reacted angrily, said this was not its purpose. But if KIPP wants to be considered a model for urban education, then it should indeed take on an entire district and prove that its good results are not enhanced by cherry-picking, skimming, or attrition.
Until it does accept the Challenge, it should not boast about its outcomes or claim to be superior to public schools that do accept all children. I am willing to be convinced. But, first, meet the Challenge.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What sad dishonesty on the part of Julie O’Connor and the KIPP-TEAM charter school people. Comparing the ability to exclude students from their population, their attrition rate, and their generous extra funding, the cynical boasting fostered by O’Connor is deplorable. Weber is right: until a Newark charter school fulfills his “Kipp Challenge,” their empty comparisons with public schools are odious.
Diane,
Julie spoke with me as well as reaching out to Bruce and Mark. I shared with her this analysis of TEAM’s very high attrition, particularly for Black males. Bruce Baker did a similar analysis previously.
Julie did not include this data in her article.
Please see Exhibits 7, 9 and 10 for attrition and the earlier slides for demographic comparisons to Newark public schools.
http://danley.camden.rutgers.edu/2014/08/11/guest-post-where-will-all-the-boys-go/
Julia Sass Rubin’s charts are a revelation. Diane, you should publish these separately, and find out if similar statistics apply elsewhere. Even more deplorably, these young castoffs are shunted to the public school system, which must endeavor to repair the harm done by these exclusionary charter ripoffs.
This is a shocking disgrace.
Why not turn the challenge up a notch? while these charters enjoy donations and an increasing amount of federal money, public schools continue to lose financial support and are still expected to perform at an optimum level while getting less to perform with. A new challenge to charters is still the same basic challenge, but with the addition with a systemic and continual gradual cut to all financial aid every year, yet still try to acheive results that make the money lenders sit up and take notice.
Can it be done? I don’t believe it could. these charters rely on rising funding, not diminishing funding. their success hinges on attracting financiers and government support. But given the same problems now faced by public schools, they would fail miserably. their numbers, their success rates, their very appeal would vanish.
For me the bias comes in when charter schools that do well are presented as representative of the system or theory of charter schools.
That’s just not valid when it’s only applied to charter schools. If that’s the argument, then a successful district with a comparable population should have the same weight.
Can’t I just find a solid school district and say “here’s my argument for expanding and investing in district schools”? Why does this only work one way?
I didn’t post a quciklink to this story, but I included a link to it, on the article published by Publisher of OEN, Rob Kall: ” What Are the Biggest Lies and Delusions That Keep People Voting Against Their Own Best Interests?”http://www.opednews.com/articles/What-Are-the-Biggest-Lies-by-Rob-Kall-Billionaires_Consumption_Corporations_Delusion-150513-693.html#comment545229 Here is my comment, which is among scores of intelligent comments on this subject of LIES!
“I just had to add this link to a Ravitch Post about charter takeover in New Jersey, because it is a prime example of how the media misrepresents the truth.It may seem that the propaganda revealed here, about the KIPP charter schools is small stuff, but the reality is HUGE> Charter schools have replaced public schools, but they do not EDUCATE everyone! When a journalists who is in the pocket of the lobbyists falsifies the facts… the public does not see how public schools are under attack… which means the end of democracy and the road to opportunity for all those kids who are left behind.”
Thanks Diane, as always. I don’t see the fundamental issue here being KIPP’s performance; as you say, they get fairly good results. The issues are HOW they do so, whether their “success” can be replicated to scale, and whether there is a deleterious effect on district schools if they are allowed to expand.
O’Connor refused to confront these questions, instead cherry picking data points that were clearly fed to her to spin a tale that KIPP is “proving the skeptics wrong.” She isn’t alone in the media: too many have credulously bought the KIPP story, not stopping to ask themselves if maybe there is a side to the argument different from that presented by professional PR departments within the charter school industry.
As Bob Somerby has said for years, it’s as if our press doesn’t actually care about urban education. They refuse to do the work; they just regurgitate what they are fed.
What scares me is that this is almost certainly true in every other field of public policy. Are we getting the full story on climate change? Foreign affairs? Energy policy? Race relations? Taxation? Fiscal policy?
Or are we simply getting the preferred narrative from those who can afford to hire professional spinmeisters?
“What scares me is that this is almost certainly true in every other field of public policy. Are we getting the full story on climate change? Foreign affairs? Energy policy? Race relations? Taxation? Fiscal policy?
Or are we simply getting the preferred narrative from those who can afford to hire professional spinmeisters?”
There can be little doubt about the answer, or that the generation of pubic school students subjected to the CCSS will have been shorted on education directed toward civic engagement and discerning the varieties of propaganda that they and many others are helping to enable, many of these artfully contrived to by-pass reasoning. Combine that “gap” in thinking and discernment with outright censorship from state legislatures eager to remove from schools serious studies of history, evolution, global warming, the ongoing stuggle for voter rights, but also eager to insert specific content into the curriculum in addition to an unrelenting campaign to break through restrictions on advertising in schools.
Laura-
Your concerns are legitimate. We have already seen the Koch Bros. introduce history materials. Billionaires have the means to hire a spinmeister to write curricula for any realm of study. This should be a national concern. Public schools, while sometimes accused of promoting leftist views, stand a better chance of providing a more balanced view of most issues. Do most people feel that their children’s world view should be interpreted through the lens of selected billionaires?
Sad but true, Laura. There’s little evidence ‘truth’ has any importance to those who inform us about events or policy at every level. I do contest your belief that CCSS ‘subjects’ kids to unrealistic goals or prevents them from getting an education that encourages critical thinking. A little research reveals most kids are allowed to ‘graduate’ from High School without grade level proficiency in the ‘skills’ required to succeed in school and in life. Take that literally as millions of teens and twenty somethings are currently living with their parents because they never learned to read ‘with good comprehension’. Job seekers these days need to be able run complicated equipment, the kind that have operating manuals…..the kind that need to be reprogrammed occasionally….the kind that cost a lot to repair if an inept operator can’t exercise critical thinking skills when things go wrong.
The kids that we allowed to fall through the cracks used to find pretty good jobs as laborers and assembly line workers. Those jobs and other ‘unskilled’ positions have moved overseas and our 21st century economy require workers who have gained real proficiency in the skills or reading, writing and basic math. History, geography, civics, environmental sciences can all be delayed until elementary school kids have ‘practiced’ the basic skills enough to master them at the 6th grade level before they move on to Jr. High. Few seem to see this tragic shortfall in our public school system. How would you like to see your son or daughter try to keep up with their peers in a 7th grade knowledge based class when they’re still reading at the 4th grade level? It’s happening everyday.
Oh for pity’s sake, Kent. Really? Those 20 somethings are living at home because There. Are. No. Jobs. And that includes white collar jobs. A lot of those young people have college degrees – are you trying to say that colleges are turning out kids with no reading comprehension?
Please wake up and see what the neoliberal agenda has done to this world, especially this country, and stop blaming everything on schools. And think before you post.
Kent- American public schools graduates many young people that are prepared to meet the challenges of the working world. Unfortunately, most of these jobs are filled with middle class students that go to college to study in a STEM field. It is the poor students that have been short changed. Also, the big push for everyone to attend college has resulted in dropping the tech ed. programs in many schools. If a student has academic problems and does not have any training for a skilled job, that student has limited options.
My daughter live in Texas. Many Texans do not attend college. Unlike other states Texas still has many lucrative skilled labor jobs. I have been impressed with their workforce programs and community colleges. They are very responsive to the needs of the workplace. If you can weld, you can get a job paying $25 per hour in Texas. You can study how to install wind turbines in one of the community colleges. They also have apprenticeship programs to be a plumber, electrician, or chemical lab assistant. Other states should look at the needs of their area and make skilled training available in the inner cities, instead of allowing these for profit vulture schools to trick them and rip them off.
Kent wrote:
” A little research reveals most kids are allowed to ‘graduate’ from High School without grade level proficiency in the ‘skills’ required to succeed in school and in life.”
Really, most kid???
You want to back that statement up with some links to some of that research!?!
Things worse than you thought?
[PDF]High Standards Necessary To Raise Literacy Levels of All … – PBS
www-tc.pbs.org/teacherline/courses/…/teachersource_highstandards.pdf
What percentage of career-oriented high school seniors are proficient in reading … high-performing students to be enrolled in low-level language arts courses in …
PBS is your source?
no
The exchanges between you and Baker and O’Connor can only provoke despair about the prospects of an informed public and about journalism.
Journalists need to be fed information, if they are unable to think for themselves. If KIPP is feeding them one story, we have to feed them another.
We need to hit journalists on the head by saying, “These data are meaningless,” or else the message is too subtle for a journalist like O’Connor.
Let’s not forget KIPP does not accept special needs kids, problem kids or ESL kids. They only take HIGH PERFORMING KIDS! When KIPP releases test scores they combine all their schools to go up against one school and they have not yet release scores for their 5th grade because they are HORRIBLE! Far as a graduation rate, if you’re graduating 64 students only, then yes they all should graduate with scholarships. And please don’t forget that the Charter community is allowed a 20 point mark up in there grading system. So if your child was getting a “C” in public school, when he /she goes to charter it will be an “A”. I can go on for days about the KIPP dream, yes dream NOT REALITY!
Please read this article about an all charter school district prior to making all these judgement calls, opinions, inuvendos (link below). This 100% charter school district must take all students because there are no other schools to shunt the so called undesirables. They cannot select the best and reject the rest.
You are going to see more all charter school districts in the future and more school districts with 20% or more charter schools like LAUSD. Then the comparisons will be more accurate and one cannot keep saying that charters cherry pick their students and therefore and so on and so forth. I am not sure that they do because I cannot find reliable published data. I have been reading these blogs and I have developed a sour taste in my mouth. What is normally found in these blogs is someone’s unsubstantiated opinion that cannot be verified.
I predict that 20% charter school penetration as a critical point at which time all these arguments will be proven correct or false. Failure to see the future and try to respond to it in the present will be painful.
Instead of constantly finding faults with all charter schools why not spend the same the time and energy on improving the teaching in the public schools? Also the attitude that ‘the public school system has been working for a hundred years and does not need any changes’ is unsupportable. Many public schools are deplorable for a nation as mighty as ours.
Finally Charter schools raise more funding from philonthropies, but I am amazed why public schools do not attempt to do the same.
My comments does not mean that charter schools are superior. They are a choice where none existed before. Curently one does not even have the right to choose another school in the same school district. Even the choice of selecting a teacher in the given school is denied in most public schools. Charters on the other hand operate under a death penalty clause, they will have to close if they provide poor service and all those teachers are fired.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/4/4/new-orleans-charterschoolseducationreformracesegregation
Your link doesn’t seem to be working, but I’m surprised (and saddened) that Al Jazeera would publish anything positive about the New Orleans charter district. Diane has posted dozens of debunkings of that alleged “miracle”, as has Mercedes Schneider.
And if you want a really fun example of an all charter district, do some research on the one in Michigan where the charter chain fled when they couldn’t make a profit. That’s after they destroyed what semblance of order and sanity the district had left after Snyder and his minions defunded and attacked them.
Sure, charters are a “choice”, but not a good one. The choice is on the part of the schools, which pick the students they want (and quickly return the ones they don’t). That poor excuse for “choice” comes at the expense of all the other kids still in the public schools left with less funding, fewer resources and higher expectations (and more punitive consequences for not meeting those expectations).
Choice – with public voice – can be, and has been, provided within the public system. There is no reason to create a duplicative system (or multiple systems) pulling resources from public schools that provide no benefit beyond what can be – and has been – done in the public schools. “No excuses” is a fatal cure to a non-existent disease.
If a district becomes 100% charter, where is the “choice” the champions of choice keep harping on? How important is choice then?
A Néw Orleans parent said to me, “the one choice we don’t have is a neighborhood school”
Well, as you know, the only illegitimate choice is a well-funded/resourced local public school.
Raj, if charter schools were as good as advertised, the best ones would have a far lower attrition rate than a typical public school. Not a higher one.
The charter schools with low attrition rates invariably either serve the same middle class or upper middle class kids found in good public schools, or they don’t have results that allow them to crow that they are better.
Why is it that every charter school with good results has a correspondingly high attrition rate? (If they serve at-risk students, that is.) Often, the higher the attrition rate, the better the charter school! Is there such a thing as a charter school that uses its generous donations to keep every student when almost every student is an at-risk student? I know the ones that serve affluent parents have no problem jumping through hoops to keep their students, just like the “successful” ones that serve at-risk students have no problem jumping through hoops to find better schools for the students who don’t “fit”.
What you say is sincere, and for that mire which is LAUSD, after Deasy and Cortines, perhaps charter schools may become the choice for that poverty stricken ethnic population… although it is hard to believe.
… but know this — there are 15,880 districts, and in many public schools worked!
There was a coordinated conspiracy to take public education down, and it included the complicity of the top people in the unions, who allowed the contracts to be broken. I have all the evidence of this, and I am not alone.
With no legs to stand on the professionals were removed, and the schools, adopted anti-learning curricula. Money dried up with austerity paranoia, and the cities were starved. Fireman , police and all services were hurt, but the schools were targeted first and bled dry.
Charter schools are a travesty on our nation, offered as and Orwellian ‘choice’ only when public education was MADE TO FAIL.
There may be some good ones for sure, but the COMMON GOOD is served by a genuine INSTITUTION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. Profit is NOT the motive. The nation profits from an educated citizenry. Democracy profits when knowledge is shared.
Infrastructure and transportation also need the GOVERNMENT’s participation to provide for the COMMON GOOD. This is the tenant of our CONSTITUTION for the purpose of GOVERNMENT.
In all successful modern states, the transportation system is not starved or operated for profit… Japan is not the only nation that ensures its people can get to work!
Public education is as crucial to our democracy as the military. But as Bill Maher pointed out this week, our military spent over a trillion dollars TO PROMOTE ONE PLANE which has failed…and (if you wish to enter into the theater of the absurd) is badly affected by LIGHTNING….gotta watch out when it travels in the clouds! A TRILLION DOALLAR FAILURE.
We do not need to attract private funding for our schools. That is what our taxes are for.
27 trillion dollars is sent OUT OF THE COUNTRY, hidden in private accounts.
99% of the GNP goes to 1/10th of 1% of our people.
We do not need to ‘attract’ funding from these robber barons who stole the national wealth.
We need to vote out the sycophants and criminals who legislate nothing for our people and refuse to fix the loopholes that give our national wealth away.
The time for the liars and charlatans to be sent packing is NOW!
Public education not charter schools must be restored, and the professionals brought in to ensure that LEARNING is the rule!
“My comments does not mean that charter schools are superior. They are a choice where none existed before.”
What the? Huh? Do you live on another planet.
I was born i 1941 and went to PUBLIC SCHOOL down the block, in the forties& fifties and ‘public’ college in the sixties,.. Brooklyn College… $50 bucks a semester.
My kids went to public schools down the road in the sixties and seventies.
If public schools were made to fail, then it is time to ask wy, and fix them…and charter schools are not the answer, even if they work in a few of the 15,880 districts.
Every now and then I read your nonsense.
Public schools should beg the philanthropists for funding?
I repeat what I said elsewhere on this post, in case you only read when people respond to you:
We do not need to attract private funding for our schools. That is what our taxes are for.
27 trillion dollars is sent OUT OF THE COUNTRY, hidden in private accounts.
99% of the GNP goes to 1/10th of 1% of our people. Public education is as crucial to our democracy as the military.
As Bill Maher pointed out this week, our military spent over a trillion dollars TO PROMOTE ONE PLANE which has failed…and (if you wish to enter into the theater of the absurd) is badly affected by LIGHTNING….gotta watch out when it travels in the clouds! A TRILLION DOALLAR FAILURE.
We do not need to ‘attract’ funding from these robber barons who stole the national wealth.
We need to vote out the sycophants and criminals who legislate nothing for our people and refuse to fix the loopholes that give our national wealth away.
1% of the GNP of $14 trillion devided by 300 million people gives $477 a year for every man woman and child. Your math needs work. Please do not make up facts to support false premises.
Besides we spend over half a trillion on K-12 public education and that is about 5% of GNP.
Education – 5% of GNP
Health care upwards of 16% of GNP and going up
Military ~ 10% of GNP ?
Housing – ?
I agree we probably spend a little more on the military than education but not much more.
Your claim that $ 27 trillion is stashed way by these people in foreign countries is preposterous.
You need to get a good definition of GNP. Please do not teach this unsubstantiated facts to the children.
Raj,
In your comment, you say we spend 5% of GNP on education and 10% on the military. You call that just “a little more”; I call it double. What if we reversed that allocation and spent 10% on education and 5% on the military? What % does Canada, France, Germany, UK, and other major nations spend on the military?
NY Times.. said it.. I never post anything that I invent, as you do opinions that I cannot back up. Congrats on your math skills.
Raj – an awful lot of our military/defense budget is included in other budgets besides defense – energy, homeland security, etc. And then, of course, there’s the “unfunded” expenses (like a couple minor wars, ahem) that we’re paying for off-budget. Not to mention payments to private companies (like $7 cans of soda from Halliburton) that are not directly included in the military budget. What we actually spend on the military dwarfs every other expense by far.
Education is an investment in the future! While a certain amount of defense is necessary, do we really need to support the industrial complex war machine, which as Dienne points out, is rife with corporate welfare? The F35s are a great investment.
Raj,
I am on a train to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and I don’t have time to find the dozens of studies showing that charters do not serve the same demographic as public schools. They enroll few students with disabilities other than the mildest kinds, and few ELLs.
As to Néw Orleans, go to Mercedes Schneider’s website–deutsch29–and read the state data. Most charters in NOLA are rated D or F. The A charters are selective schools. Mercedes revealed that the average ACT scores for seniors in NOLA were below 16, not college ready.
You might also check out the all-charter district in Muskegon Heights, Michigan, which was abandoned by its for-profit operator because it could not make a profit or a difference
Well I was also on a train from Scotland the Manchester. I see here people making statements that cannot be supported by data, such as 99% of the GNP kept by the one tenth of one percent of the population. Misrepresentation of facts is the primary focus of this blog.
With about 5000 charter schools in existence you can always find a story on a charter school failure every day in the media. If one attempted to find similar stories on public schools one will also succeed to a greater extent since there are 20 times as many of them. All kinds of stuff goes on in public schools but no one likes to dwell on them because it looks bad on the educators. You only smell roses when you look at public schools. You cannot smell the bad odor that also comes out. Besides you cannot take one occurrence of fraud, mismanagement and generalize it only in the case of charters. If you are honest do the same with public schools. Let us cleanup both public schools as well as the charters.
Lot of talk about fraud in charter school realm is discussed here. Are we to assume reading this blog that public schools are free of fraud?
Yes there are dozens of studies on charter schools, but you will not accept studies like those by Stanford university CREDO study because it says that LAUSD charters are performing better. You only want to accept studies that prove your point and everything else is wrong. This is cherry picking at its best.
You always attempt to answer only part of a legitimate query, but never the whole thing.
Raj, if there is “fraud” in a public school, people go to jail. Remember the superintendent of Roslyn High school in Long Island going to jail for stealing funds? Meanwhile, it seems as if a charter operator can merely take out whatever money he pleases and it’s almost all legal.
The idea that 100% charters in a district will do away with the cherry picking issue laughably rests on the idea that charters could not continue to push out students they do not want or that there will not emerge a tier of charter schools that is the equivalent of “Crazy Eddie’s Used Car Lot” in a state that doesn’t have a lemon law.
The “success” of the charter sector is almost always resting on the test scores of the “no excuses” brands. Those models are incapable of being scaled to an entire district because they rely upon other schools taking the children they force out. There is nothing in an all charter school district that prevents those other schools from being charters themselves — they will just likely be poorly supported charters that are closed routinely and send their children off to other schools.
I agree. All the “miracles” such as DC or New Orleans have been the result of faux, in house “research,” that have been disproved upon further inspection.
Traditional classrooms never expected to bring all kids in a class up to a ‘minimum’ level. Some kids need special help and teachers in classes with as few as 15 kids can’t be expected to find time to help underachievers catch up with their peers. Special needs implies special resources and teachers don’t have the extra time and schools don’t have extra resources. Personalized learning is the obvious solution, but only if it can be funded without additional resources! Electronic, automated, interactive software is available and can in many ways match it’s pace, lesson content and starting point each day to each students individual preferences as well as, or even more efficiently than a ‘human’ tutor. It seems such a ‘no brainer’!
I’d suggest a drinking game for all the lies and distortions in this post, but it would probably cause alcohol poisoning. Just the first sentence alone is laughable. Apparently you’ve slept through NCLB and its bigger, meaner cousin RttT. Maybe you should talk to all the teachers who have been fired for being “ineffective”.
And if you’ve spent any time on this blog at all, you would understand the many, many shortfalls of allegedly “individualized” computer learning programs. Learning is a relational process – computers cannot relate.
And then there’s your assumptions buried in words/phrases like “underachievers” (by which I take it you mean, “low test scorers”?) and “catch up with their peers”. Do you realize how many of those “underachievers” can take apart and reassemble a car or motorcycle engine? How many can sing to make tears come to your eyes? How many have artistic, social, athletic and other talents that they pour a great deal of time and energy into? Just because you don’t recognize their achievements doesn’t mean they’re not real and valid.
As far as “catching up”, how do you propose to do that when the same factors that cause poor kids to start off behind rich kids are the same factors that keep poor kids lagging further and further behind rich kids(academically speaking of course – again, poor kids have their own strengths that may not be recognized in a school setting)? For whatever “growth” the poor kids make against all the obstacles they face, rich kids are making greater gains because they have less standing in their way and holding them back.
I’d really suggest that before you post more around here you spend a great deal of time reading Diane’s posts and the comments. Most of what you’re on about has been covered in great depth by very knowledgeable and eloquent writers, backed up by a great deal of research. Frankly, you’re making yourself look foolish by spouting half-truths and lies that have long since been debunked.
Dianne, sorry I haven’t ben on this blog long ‘enough’ for you! Exactly which half truth and lies have I spouted that have long since been debunked? I take great exception to those who use ‘glowing generalities’ in their arguments. Give me something specific to refute, please.
” I take great exception to those who use ‘glowing generalities’ in their arguments. ”
So do I.
Let’s take a look at them:
1) “Electronic, automated, interactive software is available and can in many ways match it’s pace, lesson content and starting point each day to each students individual preferences as well as, or even more efficiently than a ‘human’ tutor.”
Adaptive learning is still in its infancy and its success rate at institutions of higher ed and K-12 virtual charters is hardly celebratory for most students all over the spectrum of needs. Please point to a single shiny example where the success rate beats the success rate of regular one-on-one tutoring or 15-1. It simply doesn’t exist now so please stop with flying cars and the life on the moon or any other argument to the future fallacy about how it will greatly change our lives.
2) “Personalized learning is the obvious solution, but only if it can be funded without additional resources!”
No, it’s not. I suppose it might be in a false choice world where there is only your choice and adaptive learning.
3) “It seems such a ‘no brainer’!”
Then make it happen. So far, it hasn’t happened yet, so be the change you argue (lie?) about and make it happen now. It would “seem” like a no brainer but there’s the whole problem of it just simply does not exist yet.
By now you should realize I’m taking about basic skill acquisition when I discuss the underutilized potential of computer aided instruction…..reading is great example. There are many sources for fully developed interactive reading software available. These are able to continuously gather data permitting real time detection as to which area of reading skills a child may need help. Intervention techniques in traditional classrooms address this need to personalize learning but not nearly as rapidly or economically as when automated. Most educators seem to acknowledge “skills” (such as reading) are best taught through repitition while “knowledge” based learning needed for science, history etc. relies on the student having become proficient at reading comprehension before a child can handle word problems and civics texts.
Just as an iPad can be programmed to identify specific (reading) weaknesses requiring ‘relative mastery’ before the student can be expected to productively engage in more advanced lessons, it can also vary the format, style and pace of lessons to keep the child much more engaged that what’s possible with a class teacher who’s frankly bored by the amount of repetitive studies a disadvantaged student may need to gain the proficiency he or she needs to have a chance of success at the next level. Instead of teachers using (admitted unsophisticated) automated remedial tools available, too many consider them a threat. I recently visited a title I school and saw the sense of pride and accomplishment in the eyes of an elementary student sitting in front of an interactive vocabulary improvement screen as she reached a new plateau in word recognition. Success feels good and this girl had obviously felt ‘inadequate’ in the classrooms she had experienced. One-on-one is clearly superior to any other teaching method. We can’t afford tutors wouldn’t you feel computer software will soon give our kids the learning experience they’ve always deserved. I’m surprised it’s not happening more quickly but a little more encouragement from teachers themselves just might the new paradigm fully develop in our lifetime.
You keep plugging away with the “most” and “many,” consciously ignoring the obvious fact that there has been no data, no reliable study, nothing substantial to support your claims. Simply point to a specific –non-anecdotal–case where these claims can be seen in the flesh from an outside observer.
Did you even read about the LA Ipad fiasco with Pearson? Have you looked at the Read 180 studies? Do you know the difference between being engaged with reading and engaging in activities about reading (based on your little anecdote about the little girl, I think not)? Did you know that adaptive technologies are only moderately correlated to reading success at later ages? Are you conflating instruction with supplemental free time/play with technologies like DaisyQuest, Wiggle Works, or Little Planet, for instance? Have you examined the effects of Accelerated Reader? Are you aware that there are a whole host of non-technology reading programs that have significantly better track records than adaptive technologies at a cheaper price? Are you aware that the best way to use these adaptive technologies is to modify them with some form of direct/whole group instruction so as to make their summative/overall effect rather questionable?
You sound like you are selling something, Kent. Cheap, fake fixes do not last long.. How many have come and gone in the last five years alone?
Fine, Kent, continue coming here and spewing your ignorance. We’ll continue to laugh at you and, if we have the time and energy to bother, debunk your tired talking points. We’ve been doing it for three years now with better trolls than you, as you would know if you bothered to read before spewing.
Kent,
Your link above to the pbs source doesn’t work. Can you get one that works?
TIA.
” Personalized learning is the obvious solution, but only if it can be funded without additional resources! Electronic, automated, interactive software is available and can in many ways match it’s pace, lesson content and starting point each day to each students individual preferences as well as, or even more efficiently than a ‘human’ tutor. It seems such a ‘no brainer’!”
Your belief in the “obvious, no brainer solutions” in the form of “personalized learning” with “electronic, automated, interactive software” reveals a level of ignorance about struggling learners that should embarrass you. You. have. no. clue. And you typify the modern day edu-faker that thinks pure, adult logic can solve the problems that we teachers just can’t seem to figure out. Get out of our way you ignorant asshat!
I wonder if there is a palpable attitude among those who sponsor KIPP schools that they are superior people, able to produce superior results, and a how dare you attitude towards those who criticize them. Maybe they are not all like the Danforths in Missouri. I would not say John Danforth was the worst senator Missouri ever elected, but he has there is an aspect of holier than thou which permeates his entire family. I would ask those who are skeptical about what KIPP does, to keep an eye on the soon to be opened Hawthorne school….”Pending approval of the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Hawthorn will open in August 2015 with sixth- and seventh-grade classes and will add a class each year. Ultimately, the school will serve 500 girls in grades six through 12 by 2020. Enrollment will be open and tuition will be free. The school has yet to identify a location.
http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/26353.aspx
Mary Danforth Stillman, daughter of Sen. John Danforth and niece of former WUSTL Chancellor William H. Danforth, is the school’s founder and is leading efforts to open the school. Hawthorn is affiliated with the Young Women’s Leadership Network (YWLN), which supports five high-performing all-girls public schools in New York City and nine affiliate schools in Illinois, Maryland, New York and Texas.” Those who witnessed the takeover of the st. Louis public schools probably do not remember the key role played by some sort of Danforth commission to make sure those who believe in democracy to make changes….a somewhat successful effort which had to be cut short…..not only by Mayor Slay and billionaire Rex Sinquefield, but the more powerful and influential wealth of the Danforth family.
It has caused huge damage to SLPS……but Hawthorne will be the big reward……500 carefully chosen girls out of a student population of more than 30,000 will be served in style. With Danforth’s daughter in charge.
No one in the media will interfere…..I suppose there might be faint hope that someone who cares about the dignity and prestige of Washington University will be embarrassed by the cynical, self-serving involment of all the Danforths.
WOW! These billionaires are creating a network schools where they will educate the scions in the ways of th oligarchy.
JJ
Taking over a struggling urban district may be asking too much. The KIPP miracle may not be that scalable. I suggest that you ramp down the challenge. Give them a target challenge that they can focus on. How about School 8 in Paterson?
Heck, looks like this is about to happen in Camden. Students at Camden’s current Whittier School will move to a new building in Lanning Square operated by the TEAM Academy charter network, part of the national KIPP network.Go get ’em KIPP!
In fact five of the lowest performing schools in Camden are about to undergo the charter miracle.
http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/15/03/25/five-of-camden-s-worst-public-schools-will-go-the-charter-route/
The problem is that if it’s not an entire district, they can simply transfer out the “problem” kids to other schools in the district and still make their school look the best. They need to take over an entire district to prove that they’re scalable – they’ll have nowhere else to send the problem kids.
NYT,
The Renaissance schools in Camden are, indeed, supposed to be enrolling every student in their catchment. But ONLY for those grades the charter chains running them care to enroll:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2015/04/are-camdens-renaissance-schools-really.html
This is a fundamentally different job than that done by CCPS, which must find a space for every child in the district, no matter when they enroll and no matter what grade they are in.
Why don’t you try the much simpler, “Peter Greene Challenge:
From his post today:
So when a turnaround expert turns up in your neighborhood and starts asking for control of public schools, here are the two questions to ask:
1) What specific successful techniques and programs do you propose to use in turning around the school?
2) Is there any reason those techniques could not be used in the current public school?
Without clear, compelling, and evidence-supported answers to those questions, there is simply no reason to close a public school just to open a money-making (and that includes money-making “non-profits”) charter operation.
I did a lot of research on KIPP in the past as an education blogger (due to life circumstances, I was free to do so then). KIPP did take over one struggling school, in Colorado, and rapidly departed from the school. Charters prefer to start their own schools rather than take on schools with existing problems and where they’ll have to push out existing challenged kids.
I want to correct one thing a commenter said. KIPP doesn’t take only high-performing kids. But the various hurdles involved in its admissions processes mean it takes only kids who are motivated and compliant and who have supportive, motivated and compliant families.
And the saddest thing of all is that
continued: And the saddest thing of all is that despite only taking kids who are motivated and compliant and who have supportive, motivated and compliant families, Kipp still seems to lose far too many students. If they aren’t keeping nearly 100% of the students from the most motivated families, how can we expect public school that get their cast offs and the students who aren’t from such families to match their results?