The Forward Institute sent me their latest study of charter school performance compared to public schools in Milwaukee. Here is the takeaway: There is no significant difference between the performance of public schools and charter schools. However, public schools in Milwaukee are more successful with the poorest students than are charter schools. None of this matters to Governor Scott Walker and the Republican-dominated legislature, which is intent of privatizing more schools, regardless of evidence.
Here is a link and a synopsis:
Milwaukee and statewide school districts show a significant correlation between the level of Economic Disadvantage and Report Card scores. The higher the level of poverty, the lower the Report Card scores. The plot also shows charter schools at the lowest income levels having lower scores than their public school counterparts – consistent with the statewide data. There is a difference in the data, however – one not addressed by charter school advocates.
In the statewide data, charter schools have a significantly higher percentage of low-income enrollment than public schools (43.6% Charters, 32.7% Public). In Milwaukee, public schools have a greater percentage of low-income enrollment than charter schools (88.5% Charters, 95% Public). (Low income is defined in this study as schools with ED enrollment higher than 48.9%. Middle income is ED enrollment of 30.4% to less than 48.9%. High income is ED enrollment less than 30.4%).
Based on the statewide outcome, we would have expected Milwaukee charter schools to perform better on the Report Cards in the lowest income group than public schools – having a lower percentage of high poverty schools. That is not the case. Figure 3 shows that in the middle and low-income groups, charter schools scored lower than public schools in Milwaukee.
At the very least, based on the standard deviation, charter schools scored no better than public schools in Milwaukee. This would suggest that in spite of MPS traditional public schools having more schools with high ED enrollment than charter schools, they are still scoring no worse than their non-traditional charter school counterparts.
The data does not support the claim that Milwaukee Charter schools outperform traditional public schools. At the very least, the difference is not statistically significant. At the most, the mean Report Card scores indicate that Milwaukee Public Schools are outperforming their Charter School counterparts – particularly in the schools of highest poverty. In Racine, the highest poverty RUSD schools are performing on a par with statewide Charter Schools, and only slightly lower than statewide Public Schools.
*Note – Our data considers any non-traditional charter school as defined by DPI as a “Charter.” This includes non-instrumentality and instrumentality (but non-traditional) schools.
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
This is how we hold the “champions of accountability” accountable. How do we launch these findings into mainstream media? Solid evidence needs to be a part of the discourse.
You know, I really believe it is not a great argument, and untrue, to tout the “no difference” between charters and public school notion. Accepting that argument essentially bolsters the Obama administration and Ilk like Rhee in their drive to privatize education. For, if it is true that there is no difference, then why would teachers, parents and students–especially urban and diverse students who daily face segregated outcomes in addition to segregated schooling–have any difficulty “changing” the means by which they are educated? Wouldn’t it be “at least doing something” do something “different”? It’s a poor argument and patently untrue, not because charter schools are more segregated, both public and charter schools are segregated, or because teachers reflect unevenly the communities, especially urban communities, where they teach; both charters and public schools are egregiously dismal in their diversity of teachers, though one could argue there is more diversity in some charters, largely because they are segregated and unequal.
Rather, charter schools are a hopeless and racist solution to the problems of public education because they result in segregated schooling and even worse academic outcomes than the public schools (not something to tout in itself), and because unlike public schools there is no chance that changes in pubic policy and improved teacher activism to address such ills will even be approximated in charters as opposed to public schools. The most important ingredient if we are ever to improve the education of historically under-served and academically segregated children and adolescents is the fact that with teacher unions and organization, parents and students have at least a fighting chance improve what passes for “quality education” in capitalist “America”.
How many charter school teachers or parents or students are organizing to stop the hopelessly flawed state accountability testing that has largely destroyed any semblance of democratic or even scholarly curriculum in our schools? On the other hand, it is teachers and teacher unions that have led the way on this issue nationally and begun to build real gains in democratizing the unions as well as making them organs of struggle for communities and children.
The plight (or blight) of pubic schools is the same plight of charter schools, but the difference is that teachers in public schools are beginning to connect in struggle with parents and students to change things and fight the model of privatization being led by, of all people, President Obama and his henchmen in collusion with the for-profit education industry; a President, by the way,, that people like the host of this blog actually voted to support because he was considered the oxymoronic “lesser-evil”.
We need a political as well as organizational approach to fighting for public schools. Certainly the fight of the Chicago Teachers Union and organizing against the MAP test in Seattle are of vital and foundational importance. However, we also need a force to counter the political assault on students, teachers, and public education as well. In the upcoming elections for 2014,
it would be a tremendous boost to the fight for public education if there were teachers, parents, and students who ran for public office INDEPENDENT of the Twin Parties of War, Plunder, Racism, and Privatization of Education. A real alternative to the people that have created and continue to preside over the demise of public education is necessary to bring the social fight for truly democratic public education onto the political arena.
To be sure, the fight against standardized testing and the defense of teachers and their unions IS a political struggle. What is needed now more than ever is take that political struggle into the arena where working people and oppressed communities can register their solidarity with teachers and children in a manner that promotes a fight for changing public policy to reflect the true needs of the majority; In Our Own Voice.
I notice people use the word “henchmen” a lot here. I’ll just throw this out there — and I’ll defer to any argumentative writing teachers here — but my gut tells me that the hearts and minds of ordinary parents won’t be won with content that looks like it was lifted from the pages of the Daily Worker. I could be totally wrong. Just a gut feeling I have.
Like I said, I could be wrong. Maybe words that pre-dispose anti-communists to dismiss an argument are the solution.
I fail to see why “henchmen” would connote communism. If anything, it connotes the mob, which is just capitalism run amok.
Sadly, what is absent from this analysis is a comparison that includes percentages of special needs students which each set of schools serve. As we’ve seen in comparing voucher schools and MPS, adding this data in reveals two striking things: 1) voucher schools serve very few children with disabilities; and 2) public schools outperform voucher schools if you compare non-disabled students only. While charters are legally obligated to serve students with disabilities and implement the IDEA, it is common knowledge that children with disabilities tend not to be placed in charters unless they are segregated charter schools serving only children with disabilities, which creates a completely separate problem.
Jay P Greene, only the second man in history with clenched hair, attacks you with sophisticated arguments. Not.
I reposted the link you gave to his article attacking you for not acknowledging him as right on Milwaukee:
http://jaypgreene.com/2013/01/18/wolfe-and-witte-slam-ravitch-on-milwaukee-school-choice/