Amanda U. Potterton, a doctoral student at Arizona State University, analyzed the success stories of two of Arizona’s most celebrated charter chains: BASIS and Great Hearts Academies.
The myth of charter miracles is built on stories generated by chains like these two. This myth has been celebrated repeatedly by President Obama and Secretary Duncan. Therefore this analysis is of more than local interest.
She calls it “A Citizen’s Response to the President’s Charter School Education Proclamation.” She profiles two “highly performing charter school organizations in Arizona, BASIS and Great Hearts Academy.
The full text of the article may be found here.
It is available and free for one week only.
President Barack Obama has been the nation’s most important cheerleader for charter schools. He declared a week in May to be “National Charter Schools Week.” He seems not to know or care that in many districts the charter schools are more segregated than the surrounding school district. Some accomplishment. He seems not to know or care that charter schools do not serve the same students as public schools.
The two charter chains that Potterton reviewed, using public data, enroll unusually high proportions of white students and unusually small proportions of English learners, of students who are poor, and students who have disabilities.
Is this what the President wants?
In the old days, we used to call that a dual school system: separate and unequal.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Kind of ironic I say. The Nation’s first African-American President endorses policies that result in further segregation. Obviously not a history scholar.
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I don’t understand the double-dip approach of the President and Secretary of Education re: charter schools.
They’re all constantly repeating that “charter schools are public schools” yet there’s a whole DOE area now devoted exclusively to charter schools and grants available ONLY to charter schools.
Of course then the shape-shifting charters can go back to being public schools when they plug into the funds devoted to the larger category of “public schools”
It becomes more and more difficult to believe that reformers are “agnostic” re: charter schools and public schools. They spend 90% of their time acting as advocates for the 10% of kids who attend their preferred model, a charter school. It’s the BEST reason not to hire them at the state and district level, as far as I’m concerned, because that’s a ludicrous approach to public education.
http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oii/csp/index.html
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There’s have been whole grant area available only to magnet schools, (which explicitly are allowed to use admissions test); there have been whole grant areas open only to schools that serve virtually all Native American students, or to schools that are on military bases. There is a long history of what are called ‘categorial’ programs.
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Right, Joe, but you’re also claiming the opposite of those approaches. The claim is charter schools are public schools like any other.
The whole controversy over these two charter chains revolves around just that issue, these schools are selective, but are insisting they’re not selective, BASIS and Great Hearts Academies:
“Along with Basis, a second Arizona-based school that opened its doors in northwest San Antonio this year, Great Hearts’ presence
signifies the emergence of a new kind of charter school in Texas. Often dependent on infusions of private money and parents’ contributions to supplement their programs, these schools go after students seeking intensely focused academics in a collegiate atmosphere and acknowledge that they do not serve every kind of child. But the reliance on additional fees and other policies at the new schools have amplified an already contentious debate over what it means to provide a public education.”
http://www.texastribune.org/2013/11/08/top-academics-little-diversity-two-new-charters/
The public schools in that district will be harmed by this, because they will be left with a disproportionate share of the most challenging kids.
Where is the concern for existing public schools in this reform scheme? Where are the government advocates for THOSE kids? The reform proponents intend to skim 20% of the kids from district schools in this latest Texas push. Is anyone studying what happens to the 80% once of these plans is put in place? Public school parents were told reforms would improve PUBLIC schools, not harm the schools 90% of our kids attend. Would the public have supported this if reformers have presenting it as helping 10% of kids at the expense of harming the whole system? I don’t think they would have.
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Read the article I linked and see if you can find one reformer who mentions the public schools that existed when they parachuted into that Texas district, and whether there is ANY consideration to what these reforms will do to those public school kids.
They’re never mentioned, except in the context of reformers “replacing” 20% of the “seats”.
80% of the kids. Completely disregarded. Not even important enough to mention. Will their schools get better, worse, remain the same? No one seems to care.
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‘There’s many a slip twixt cup and lip’. All of these programs were originally devised in an attempt to equalize educational funds to disenfranchised groups– including charters. But charter schools (similar to magnet schools), unlike schools for Native Americans or army brats, are open for application by all kids, & by virtue of limited space can teach only some kids.
Let’s take the selective-admissions NYC magnet high schools. What was the original motivation? Probably to provide opportunities to poor but talented kids in lousy neighborhoods. In practice they are of little value to ordinary kids (let alone the disabled, LD, or hard-core poor). The decades-long practice undercut funds to neighborhood schools & siphoned off their most talented students, creating a competitive fervor among parents of ordinary kids, causing those who can afford it to seek private education, those who cannot to flee to suburban public schools, & more importantly creating a transitory sense to neighborhoods– after 8th grade my kid will have to go elsewhere. Fertile ground for ‘school choice’, charters, Bloomberg.
Some towns adopted magnet schools wholesale, K12– Montclair NJ comes to mind. Promulgated no doubt to create integration sans busing. It worked for a while, but it exists on the shifting sands of neighborhoods with no elementary schools to hold them together– they are already ‘school-choice’ people, & are now under assault by the privatization sharks.
And what of ‘true’ charter schools, for whom these grants were intended? The original idea was to create experimental arenas to serve specialized populations, unrestricted by ordinary standards, fomenting innovation that would be informative to regular public schools. One or two were started in my expensive school district, but folded for lack of enrollment; the well-endowed public schools were amply able to meet the needs of special populations. There are some success stories in poor school districts, but for the most part what has happened is that lack of funds has contributed to poor oversight & change of law encouraging for-profit enterprise to take up the slack. ‘McSchools’ supported by Walmart, Gates, Broad, etc, with under-qualified, poorly-paid teachers can afford to pay their CEO’s by double-dipping, taking $ from local public taxpayers & these federal grants.
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Reblogged this on 21st Century Theater and commented:
Add it to the list: Obama: champion of segregation and increasing inequality: carrying on and strengthening bush’s “legacy.”
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If we have a “public schools week” are charters part of that, too?
Here’s the dictionary definition of “agnostic” that reformers are relying on:
“a person who is unwilling to commit to an opinion about something”
Really? this constant high-level advocacy for charter schools and complete disregard for and disinterest in public schools isn’t evidence of an “opinion”? I mean, come on. Who buys this? What’s the effect of the Obama/Duncan “reforms” on EXISTING public schools, the schools 90% of kids attend? Does anyone know or care?
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Does Arizona require/allow high performing students to have IEPs? My state does, so looking at the number of IEPs in my state would not a reliable indicator of students with learning disabilities.
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High performing students can and do have IEPs. However, they are not as common as low performing students who have IEPs.
The article states that charters have fewer students with IEPs than their traditional public school counterparts. Even though there are a few high performing students with IEPs, it is still a relatively valid indicator that the charter industry is not servicing the same “type” of child as TPS. Based on 2010 data from NCES, my guess would be that it is slightly more than 2% of all students with IEPs in Arizona who might fit this special category (http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=64). Even if we allowed for this discrepancy, charters schools are still not servicing the same “type” of students.
In addition, there have been several well-documented studies that demonstrate that charters are not servicing their proportion of learning disabled students:
http://www.ncld.org/disability-advocacy/where-we-stand-policies/charter-schools
Click to access 591435.pdf
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High performing students in AZ do not have IEPs.
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Tanks for the information. Different state practices that make comparisons across states very difficult.
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AZ must follow IDEA. I see nothing in the state laws that would prohibit developing an IEP for a student who currently scores Proficient or Advanced and needs modifications during the school day for academic success (http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/ars/15/00761.htm&Title=15&DocType=ARS) and (http://www.azed.gov/special-education/files/2012/02/evaluation-aztas-6-13-12.pdf).
They are rare, but they do exist. They would qualify in the following categories: Hearing Impairment; Other Health Impairments; Orthopedic Impairment; Speech Impairment; or Visual Impairment. These students may be bright but need accommodations/modifications to be successful in a regular classroom setting (due to hospital stays, or use of sign interpreters or captionists, for instance; the only way to get these services/modifications would be through an IEP and if a state did not provide this option, they would be in violation of IDEA).
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In my state at least they recognize that very bright students will often have trouble in classes because they are bright and gives them an IEP.
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“At the 16 campuses that Great Hearts operates in the Phoenix area (where nearly 60 percent of public school students are Hispanic or black), 69 percent of the nearly 7,000 students are white. Only two of Great Hearts’ Arizona campuses participate in a federal program that offers free and reduced-price meals for low-income students. Of the almost 5,000 Basis students in Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff, roughly 12 percent are Hispanic and 2 percent are black. None of the eight campuses in Arizona offer free and reduced-price meals, which is also the case at the San Antonio school.”
“Clint Bolick, member of the Great Hearts board of directors, also serves as the litigation director for the Goldwater Institute, an Arizona-based, conservative public policy advocacy and research organization”
Goldwater probably never dreamed things could be this good for privatization efforts.
He’d be thrilled to see the modern reform movement. This is beyond the hard Right’s wildest dreams, back in his day.
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You malign Goldwater’s record as an employer. He paid his employees fairly and provided benefits. Dispute the policies of The Hard Right if you wish, but please refrain from using Goldwater as a metonymy for it.
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If we can make diversity a celebrated and coveted attribute in schools, then Charters (or any school) that lacks diversity will look bad. In fact, ten years or so ago that was a trend—my very WASP college worked extremely hard to get minorities in order to diversify. It seems it should be coveted at the early ages also.
It’s kind of like a woman who is not model thin declaring “I eat! And I’ve got curves! And it’s a good thing!” If she cowers at not being rail thin like a supermodel, she will be less attractive because she will lack the joie-de-vivre spark. But if she loves life as a healthy woman, she will glow and model-thin popular image be damned.
Shake what your mama gave ya. Let’s flaunt our diversity in public schools MORE LOUDLY than test score banter or published grades. (I do understand that in certain places the diversity was celebrated and then the school was shut down. . .but we still have to hold strong). Diversity is beautiful!
I love that my school is 30% Hispanic. We have a good time and we work hard. I think that is a strength at our school and I’m sorry there are parents who want to shield their children from the true diversity of our country.
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kinda reminds me of a song I like to hear. The Smiths.
Reformers took over the sound waves with a conversation that alleges the worth of schools is in their test scores. And it’s bull!
“Panic”
Panic on the streets of London
Panic on the streets of Birmingham
I wonder to myself
Could life ever be sane again?
The Leeds side-streets that you slip down
I wonder to myself
Hopes may rise on the Grasmere
But Honey Pie, you’re not safe here
So you run down
To the safety of the town
But there’s Panic on the streets of Carlisle
Dublin, Dundee, Humberside
I wonder to myself
Burn down the disco
Hang the blessed DJ
Because the music that they constantly play
IT SAYS NOTHING TO ME ABOUT MY LIFE
Hang the blessed DJ
Because the music they constantly play
On the Leeds side-streets that you slip down
Provincial towns you jog ’round
Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ
Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ
HANG THE DJ
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and of course there are more peaceful ways to take back the air waves!
Shout it out: Diversity makes schools strong! Diversity in culture, diversity in learning styles, diversity in preferences and goal.s
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I work in an AZ charter and we are subject to all regulations regarding special ed. services. Funny that an ASU study is cited here…ASU operates three charters in the Phoenix area.
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Are you telling us that your school allows every special ed applicant in your school? Do you serve the full spectrum of special ed students? Are you involved in the admissions process? There are plenty of universities that make money off of charters but have faculty who would like the truth about charters to be known. Obama and Duncan have absolutely no idea what is going on out in these schools.
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You might be subject all regulations, but if you don’t have any special Ed kids left…or the ones that are there have IEPs in minor things like expressive language that requires a 20 in speech visit once a week….
As a former AZ resident, I saw all the tricks the charters played as they decimated our local neighborhood elementary school. It was left with mostly ELL and special Ed students after the 2 new charters nearby started their “failing school” whisper campaign in their attempt to get the higher-income parents in my neighborhood to change to charter rather than public. Despicable tactics.
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Thanks for this post from the trenches. It supports everything I’ve speculated about charters– motivations, and results.
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K Quinn: as a former SpecEd TA, I can attest to the fact that SpecEd students [even those with the same officially designated labels] are a highly varied group. A great deal depends on out-of-school factors like the support and understanding—or lack thereof—of the family, the neighborhood the students and their families live in, and the exact nature of the learning difficulty.
In addition, a severe problem I observed firsthand (and confirmed by speaking to a number of teachers I worked with) is that SpecEd was treated as Remedial Education. For example, students who had been in juvenile detention [fancy word for jail for young people] that had missed quite a lot of school would be tested prior to school placement, score very low [what a surprise considering how much school they had missed and minor distractions like being incarcerated with violent and disturbed individuals, sometimes the leaders of the gangs they belonged to!] and placed in SpecEd despite the fact that they had absolutely no genuine learning difficulties.
I was also a bilingual TA and the range of abilities among those whose first language is not English is likewise quite broad.
Last but not least, the whole business of using free- and reduced-lunch stats as proxies for SES status is an uncertain enterprise at best given the very wide range of situations that can be encompassed within such designations.
After five years on ed blogs I have learned to be very cautious with the charterite/privatizer hype about the nature of the populations they serve. Their motto seems to be:
“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.” [Mark Twain]
😒
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Thanks for the caution, Krazy TA, but I do know of what I speak. Part of my current job is to work with kids with who need assistive technology, and I was in the classroom for many years.
This particular neighborhood school was at one time part gen-ed, part special-ed for moderate to severe disabilities. The 2 charters started in with their whisper campaign around the neighborhood about failing schools, and really, by the next year, that was all that was left. The gen ed side went from 2-3 classrooms per grade to 1-2 classrooms per grade – consisting largely of 0 level ELL students at the primary grades – meanwhile the special ed enrollment stayed the same, since these charters wouldn’t take any of those kids.
These charters would only take kids who had the mildest of disabilities if they had an IEP, and most often they were kids who had speech impediments or slight expressive or receptive language issues. And guess where they had to go to get their SLP services? Why back to the public school, unless mom and dad were rich enough to do private SLP services.
Furthermore, our former dear neighbor in AZ has a child with autism whom she tried to get into one of these charters in the hopes that a smaller class size might help her child feel more comfortable in a classroom setting, as he was very much overwhelmed by the 26 kids in his K class, despite the presence of his 1:1 aide he’d had since preschool, paid for by the district. After much stringing along, the charter finally told her that they did not feel her child would be the “right fit” for their environment. They eventually moved and found a good structured program in their local public school (PVSD, I think) and he is thriving. She has nothing good to say about her experiences as the parent of a child with challenges and the charter system in AZ.
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Thanks for sharing your experiences. For what it’s worth, some parents with youngsters on the autistic spectrum, with years of frustration, have created a charter public school in Minnesota that focuses on these youngsters. Same with some parents of students who wanted their children to learn American Sign Language.
Use of the charter approach varies widely. There are some district schools doing a great job with youngsters, and same is true of some charters.
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Joe, I am all in favor of charter schools for kids with autism; for kids who dropped out; for kids who need extra help and motivation. I oppose charters that promote racial and ethnic segregation. I oppose charters that exclude children with special needs and children who can’t read English. I am totally opposed to for-profit schools, regardless of whom they enroll. Knowing that at least 17 of the charter leaders in New York City make more than $250,000 a year makes me shudder. It’s all about the kids, right? Even when the top honcho is drawing close to half a million for overseeing a few thousands kids.
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Dr. Ravitch,
Would you support charter schools that serve the talented and gifted, or are they not included in the special needs group?
If you will indulge me, I am also interested in your views about historically black colleges and universities. Do they promote segregation?
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Diane, we agree about the value of the charters that help youngsters on the autism spectrum and youngsters whose parents want them to learn ASL. We also agree that charter public schools should not be allowed to have admissions tests.
I’d extend that to district public schools – k-12 public schools should not have admissions tests, in part because it means that the other public schools must deal with a higher percentage of students who can’t pass admissions tests.
For many families of color, there is a big difference between being assigned to an inferior school because of their race, and being given a range of options, one of which is the kind of option that wealthy whites have had for decades – the ability to send their children to a school with mostly students of the same race.
This is in part why some families and young people chose historically black colleges, as well as k-12 schools that are mostly or completely African American, hispanic, Asian American or Native American.
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Joe Nathan – WA State has both public and private schools that serve kids with all types of disabilities. We have no need for charters. In fact, the bulk of the operators who applied to open charters in WA State – assuming the stupid charter-fraud initiative doesn’t get tossed in court – are all failing charter school operators elsewhere, and not a one has proposed to serve special needs kids.
http://kuow.org/post/meet-hopeful-charters-some-mixed-records-others-just-failing
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We’ll see what happens in your state. Some parents from other states (including Washington) with special needs youngsters have called here to find out more about the 2 schools I’ve mentioned.
The use of the term “chain” in the news story suggests that this reporter has strong feelings. Gary Miron, who I have been on a panel with, has strong mostly negative views about charters. There are other authorities who also have studied charters who would present different views.
But it’s too early to know which proposals will be approved in your state. We’ll see. If in fact there is “no need” than of course, no parents/families will send their children to the charters that are approved.
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The article and the lead do not deny that charters are not subject to the same special ed. regulations. However, thank you for that bit of information. (There are some who think that charters are not subject to the same rules regarding special education students as TPS). The article does not question this point. It does say that charters do not educate the same proportion of special education students as TPS, though.
The author of the article is a student at ASU. She is not part of the faculty. The article comes from Teachers College Record: http://www.tcrecord.org/About.asp. I do not see how that is funny, BTW.
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just for clarification– your first couple of sentences are so full of negatives I couldn’t decipher– are you saying that Arizona charter schools DO have to follow the special ed regs? but implying that their admissions (& perhaps expulsion) policies pretty much keep special kids out?
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Sorry, for the excessive nots.
My point for sheafferhistorian was that the article and Ravitch did not address the topic of special education regulations. It is not a point of contention. My guess is that this poster is attempting to muddle the waters here with a strawman argument.
All charters and TPS have to follow special education requirements. I do not know if the voucher schools in LA have to follow them, though; if anyone knows, please tell me.
I cannot comment on the admission policies for these specific charter schools. From my own experience at a charter in CA, though, I can tell you that the charter I worked at did counsel some special education students out–especially since it did not have the facilities or the means to educate a larger population of special education students (some states, like CA, require a certain amount of SE teachers for every 28 SE students). Mostly though, special education families simply do not apply. The hoops that SE families have to go through at public schools are tough enough. And, in some areas, I have heard that SE families do not “feel” welcome at many charters, especially since everything boils down to a test score and not how the student is meeting the IEP goals.
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The Arizona BASIS schools are often cited as models for eduction “reform.” As Diane notes, Arne Duncan and President Obama have adopted the myth. The myth, however, runs deep.
Take, for example, BASIS Tucson.
BASIS Tucson is a school that has tight ties to the very conservative Goldwater Institute, pays “merit bonuses” to teachers for “learning gains,” and pushes the College Board’s Advanced Placement (AP) courses and tests. It’s corporate-style “reform” on steroids.
The Goldwater Institute advocates all the kinds of economic policies that piled up deficits and debt and broke the economy. Incredibly, its directors make the claim that it “is staffed by the brightest minds.”
Its directors’ ideas for education “reform” are more charter schools, merit pay, more testing, and vouchers. Its directors would prefer to privatize public education.
What about the emphasis on AP? The research on AP –– despite the nonsense dispensed by The Post’s Jay Mathews –- is quite clear. It is grossly overhyped.
A 2002 National Research Council study of AP courses and tests found them to be a “mile wide and an inch deep” and inconsistent with research-based principles of learning.
A 2004 study found that “the best predictor of both first- and second-year college grades” is unweighted high school grade point average, and a high school grade point average “weighted with a full bonus point for AP…is invariably the worst predictor of college performance.”
A 2005 study found AP students “…generally no more likely than non-AP students to return to school for a second year or to have higher first semester grades.” Moreover, the authors wrote that “close inspection of the [College Board] studies cited reveals that the existing evidence regarding the benefits of AP experience is questionable,” and “AP courses are not a necessary component of a rigorous curriculum.”
A 2006 MIT faculty report noted ““there is ‘a growing body of research’ that students who earn top AP scores and place out of institute introductory courses end up having ‘difficulty’ when taking the next course.”
The 2010 book “AP: A Critical Examination” noted that “Students see AP courses on their transcripts as the ticket ensuring entry into the college of their choice,” yet, “there is a shortage of evidence about the efficacy, cost, and value of these programs.” And this: AP has become “the juggernaut of American high school education,” but “ the research evidence on its value is minimal.”
BASIS is ranked highly in the US News list. Jay Mathews loves it. But that doesn’t mean that what it stands for is good policy, or what it does makes sound educational sense. Nor does it mean it’s worth replicating.
But even some who dislike the charter concept accept wholeheartedly what this charter does.
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Democracy, you quoted an anti-AP book as asserting, “Students see AP courses on their transcripts as the ticket ensuring entry into the college of their choice…” Having worked with high school students for more than 40 years, I’ve yet to encounter one who believes that an AP course will “ensure” entry into a college of their choice.
Here’s a link to a study at Columbia University on the benefits of various forms of Dual Enrollment:
Click to access dual-enrollment-research-overview.pdf
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Our family certainly thought of AP exam results as one way that my middle son could demonstrate his academic abilities to admissions offices, so I think collage admission has something to do with the popularity of the system. I do agree that it ensures nothing, however.
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An “anti-AP” book? Seriously?
Is that like saying that scientific evidence on evolution compiled into a text makes it an “anti-Bible” book?
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There’s considerable evidence about the value of various Dual Credit programs, such as AP, IB, College in the Schools and taking courses on college campuses. I cited some of the research above. None of them are perfect, but considerable evidence shows they have a lot of value for helping young people develop what some researchers are calling “academic momentum.”
Personally, I prefer Dual Credit courses that do not depend on how well a student does on one day and one test (as AP) does. But I also believe youngsters and educators should have strong options. Some students and AP teachers have found these courses to be very valuable.
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Yes TE…students know exactly why they take AP courses…and what they say about their motivation(s) is not the learning but trying to make themselves “look good” to college admissions officers.
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I think it is unfair to claim that students who take AP classes are ONLY interested in looking good to admission committees. I have no doubt that for many students that is the appropriate course for them to take at their stage of intellectual development. If you look at the mathematics curriculum at a selective admission public school like Thomas Jefferson, you will find that those students go far beyond what is available in AP classes. For those students even the AP classes are inappropriately easy.
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Dave Safier (cited in the article) at Blog For Arizona has done a lot of research on Basis admissions policies, student retention, the workload required to keep up at this school, and the salaries and family connections of the school’s founders and operators. You can choose any of the articles for deeper understanding of the Basis (not so much) “miracle.”
https://www.google.com/search?q=david+Safier+basis+school&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox
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