A study by the city’s Independent Budget Office finds that charter schools have incredibly high attrition for students with disabilities.
Ben Chapman writes in the New York Daily News:
“A whopping 80% of special-needs kids who enroll as kindergartners in city charter schools leave by the time they reach third grade, a report by the Independent Budget Office released Thursday shows.”
He adds:
“Critics have said for years that charters push out needy kids and serve fewer difficult students. Overall, just 9% of charter school students have special needs — much lower than the citywide average of 18%.
“District schools also had a tough time holding onto special-needs kids in the time period covered during the report. Just half who enrolled in traditional public school as kindergartners remained in the same school at the end of grade three.”
Where do they go? Presumably to other district schools, not to charters.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
In Los Angeles, charter schools commonly tell parents “Maybe this isn’t the best school for your child” as soon as any learning difficulty–disability or typical–is revealed. This starts to happen more around 3rd or 4th grade when the curriculum gets tougher and less predictable and learning disabilities start to show up. I’m not just making a generalization. It happened over and over at the charter elementary school my children attended and many of my friends at other charters report the same thing. To me, it is the defining distinction between a comprehensive school and a charter school. You would never, ever hear those words at a traditional public school.
The L.A. Times once said that you said that
“there are charter schools that have
decided they can get equally good results with inexpensive
teachers.” You should add to that sentence, “with the
easiest-to-educate students.” Yeah, that’s right. I’m
talking about “cherry-picking” or “creaming”.
(and for the record, even with those charter schools with
the easiest-to-educate students still rarely outscore the
district schools)
Case-in-point: AUDUBON MIDDLE SCHOOL
Dr. DeWayne Davis, the principal at LAUSD’s Audubon
Middle school, wrote Dr. Diane Ravitch a letter which Diane
posted on her site. In this letter, Dr. Davis condemned the
“midyear dump” of students from the nearby charter
schools. Every year, just after winter break, there are
about 147 or so kids that have left those charter schools—
either kicked out or “counseled out”. I can’t recall
the exact figures, but he said about 142 of those are FBB
(Far Below Basic)—kids who score low because of being
innately “slower”, non-cooperative, “Special Ed”,
newcomers to the country who are brand new to
English, those students just plain not willing to
work hard, from distressed home lives, foster care,
homeless, etc.
Davis tells about the great difficulties that teachers have
in their efforts to absorb these charter cast-off’s into their
classes. For the next month or two—or for even the remainder
of the school year—teachers and the pre-existing students
report varying states of chaos as a result of the nearby
charter schools engaging in this despicable “midyear
dump”.
Of course, think of the effect this has on Audubon’s
scores—they go DOWN—and on the nearby charter
schools—they go UP.
Charter school executives were furious with
Dr. Davis that he was “airing dirty laundry” to
Dr. Ravitch.
Here’s the quote from Dr. Davis:
DR. DEWAYNE DAVIS:
“It is ridiculous that they (charter operators) can
pick and choose kids and pretend that they are
raising scores when, in fact, they are just purging
nonperforming students at an alarming rate.
That is how they are raising their scores, not by
improving the performance of students.
“Such a large number of FBB students will handicap
the growth that the Audubon staff initiated this year,
and further, will negatively impact the school’s
overall scores as we continue to receive a recurring
tide of low-performing students.”
One teacher activist explained this phenomenon with
the following analogy:
“It’s like you have two oncology (cancer treatment) practices:
Oncology Practice A
&
Oncology Practice B.
“Oncology Practice A only accepts patients with
Stage 1 cancers, carefully screening out those with
Stages 2, 3, or 4 cancers. They send the latter down
the street to Oncology Practice B. If one of the latter
happens to sneak by this screening process, they
likewise are immediately referred down the street to
Oncology Practice B. Similarly, if one of their
patients’ cancer advances from State 1 to Stage 4,
they also kick them out and send them down
the street to Oncology Practice B.
“Meanwhile, Oncology Practice B, by law, MUST
ACCEPT ALL PATIENTS who show up in their
waiting room, and are banned from doing what
Oncology Practice A is doing—again, being selective
at the outset to only accept the Stage 1 cancer patients,
and doing a later screening out to maintain that
their patients are exclusively Stage 1.
“Well, low and behold, as things play out, the ‘data’
shows that Oncology Practice A has much higher
cure rates and higher remissions, while Oncology
Practice B has a greater percentage of patients
who are relapsing, having to undergo multiple
surgeries, enduring extra rounds of chemotherapy,
etc., and of course, dying.
“Proponents of Oncology Practice A then claim, ‘Look
at all that’s wrong with all Oncology Practice B. Their
patients are suffering, not being cured, and even dying.
And then look at how wonderfully we’re doing here
over at Oncology Practice A’.”
To extend the above analogy, imagine
the promoters of a chain of “Oncology
Practice A” treatment centers then
arguing:
“And guess what? Oncology Practice
A’s doctors are a lot cheaper, too—and
cost the taxpayers less—because they
never went to one of those expensive
so-called ‘medical schools’ (or they
dropped out halfway through). After all,
medical school grads have to be paid so
much more, even when we know they’re
not that all that great, as determined by
the ‘data’ (“data” that was made to order
by organizations funded by the
promoters of Oncology Practice
A treatment centers.)
“Instead, these unlicensed, (or
alternatively-licensed) care-providers
at Oncology Practice A merely went to
an ‘alternative certification’ medical
program (think Teach for America
er… Doctors for America).
“Sure, it’s just a short 5-week ‘crash
course’, but look at how their data/
results/patient outcomes outdo that
of those expensive Oncology Practice
B doctors, with all their high-falutin’
but ineffective…
” ‘M.D. degrees’,
” ‘four-year
residency programs’,
” ‘internships at the Harvard Medical
School.
” ‘attending-ships at the Mayo Clinic’, etc.
“Don’t you see? This just proves how
useless all that expensive extra higher
education and training that Oncology
Practice B physicians get is, and what
a waste of money it is for taxpayers to
pay them for it.”
(I’m referring the NCTQ’s ‘studies’
proving that university teacher training
is “worthless”… as detailed on this site).
They then further impugn the
“medical schools” as being out to protect
the livelihood of all who teach and work
there, at the expense of patients… as
they don’t allow “competition” from
“Doctors for America.”
So sad – the unwanted child. It costs so much more to educate a child with learning disabilities who not only need extra learning time, but also speech, OT, and even PT. One of the reasons they are rejected by For Profit Charter Schools. And they are ostracized by third grade. Plus the new high stakes testing penalizes them and their teachers. Add psychologists to the mix to deal with the damage to their egos – their teachers might need some counseling as well.
What have we done? And all in the name of CCSS and VAM.
It’s awful and by that time, it can be too late, Early intervention is effective. With insufficient support, by 3rd grade, they’ve missed out on years of accomodations /modifications/goals that help students to become readers, attenders, interactors/ students. All those therapies that build endurance/stamilna/skill sets/strategies/coping/mindfullness/self awareness/skills.
I have the honor of witnessing this transformation from K-3, and it’s awe inspiring. So sad. What a crime/shame for those students.
So by 3rd grade, after having quality sped they’re ready and confident enough to mainstream for all or part of their day.
The point of Charter Schools: For the ELITE…period. So, those who send their children to charter schools, think their kids are getting an ELITE education. OY! So NOT TRUE. And it bothers me when parents think that keeping their children safe, means sending them to charters. Charters have shown their UGLY heads.
I’m guessing, that this, beyond the PR blitz, is the reason parents send their kids to obviously flawed, unresourced charters–for safety reasons related to impoverished inner city public schools. What is the chance of the charter school model being successful in suburbs or rural areas, which are much more spread out?
Many of my suburban friends and relatives haven’t the faintest clue what a charter school is.
What does that tell you?
A number of states have successful suburban charters. Some states don’t.
Please read the actual report. See longer comment below.
Some May home school. It is difficult to meet the individual needs of special education students in any venue. They develop differently than other students. Learning materials and assessments therefore need to be individualized. This is difficult in any large group setting, but in one that is highly regulated it might be impossible. As a parent of two mildly disabled students, I had to question if my students would be able get an education in this environment. I went back to school and studied special education to investigate why it was so difficult to get the help my students really needed. It was eye opening! The laws pertaining to special education make it difficult and time consuming to qualify students. Time spent in special education settings pulls kids out of their regular classrooms where they may miss critical instruction. This critical instruction may or may not be aligned with child’s specific learning needs. Students are generally two or more years behind in basic reading/math skills before they can qualify for special education. This often leaves a child in what I call intervention limbo.
My fourth child lived there from k-3 grade. This is when I asked for a copy of his file. They placed him in less that two weeks. In third grade he was still working on basic kindergarten skills for reading and math. I found this particularly disturbing because he was born significantly pre-term. He had early intervention services. He had apparently caught up with his peers by kindergarten. But he made no new progress. Meanwhile I got to listen to all sorts of complaints about him from his general education teacher and be labeled as uncaring or negligent parent. But how do you finish third grade assignments when your student is functioning at a first grade level? My second child was placed in kindergarten after I noted that he did not know colors, letters or numbers. He could rote count to five by April of that year. I had provided two years of pre-school with a reputable program before kindergarten. I knew there was a problem. His teacher was sure he had those skills because he wasn’t disruptive. In high school, I placed him with a tutor at Sylvan. It cost us over $10,000 dollars but he was able to pass his high school exams and graduate. I simply did not have the funds to help my second special needs child. He currently attends an adult special education program.
As a current teacher, in this data driven world, I find myself caught between the needs of my students and the demands of my government that all students progress at the same rate of development. The idea that any teacher or person, for that matter, can change the internal personal developmental time line has no basis in scientific reasoning! Students develop with their personal interests, needs and rates. The funny thing about all this non-sense, my oldest child was accepted into a gifted and talented program. She and my second child work for the same company, doing the same job and earning about the same wage.
The truth is, THERE IS NO EASY SOLUTIONS FOR SPECIAL NEEDS STUDENTS. There are however laws in place to protect them and ensure that they get a free and appropriate education. I find it ludicrous that charter schools are allowed to ignore and bypass those laws!
They do deserve the same human dignity as other people, at the very least.
One of the major problems with the resource room model is that schools place too many students with a variety of needs in the resource classroom together, so the teacher really cannot teach any one of the children effectively. I have had kids in a resource room for a variety of subjects all at very different levels, including some children with behavioral difficulties. Most of these children desperately need 1 to 1 instruction. It is much worse at the high school level when kids are placed in resource based on open periods in their schedule. The very sad thing is–that these students can learn, but they need the individual attention of a teacher to coach them at their rate of earning, providing just enough support at their skill level to take on the next step. No teacher can effectively teach 8-10 students with attention issues math, reading, writing, social skills all at the same time especially when they need instruction at 2-3 different grade levels.
My son had a learning disability and could not handle the noise and confusion of a special ed classroom. We had him mainstreamed through middle school, but the high school did not have a model which he felt comfortable in (and we tried everything), so he ended up with a GED. It wasn’t a matter of intelligence, but in finding a learning environment where he could thrive. My only wish was that he could have remained in high school as he fulfilled his GED requirements so he could participate in sports and other activities, plus walk across the stage with his class for graduation. We celebrated as a family, after he passed the exam, as if it was a regular graduation. Im not sure what happens to the children whose parents aren’t actively involved with the process.
What happens to those children considered to have special needs that are dumped by the charter schools in NYC?
Depending on the severity of their special needs, most will end up in District 75 schools ( Special Education district), and will end up being classified and placed in classrooms and schools according to those needs. If they are severely disabled in any way, they will end up in a specialized school (such as the one I teach in).
As firstgrademonkey said above:” There are no easy solutions for special needs students”. As a parent of a child that has what is considered to be mild mental retardation, and as a teacher of severely disabled students, I can attest to that.
And if charter schools are funded by public monies, I really don’t understand why charter schools are not held to the same expectations and standards of any other public school. WHY is that so?
Joan, what about the elite magnet schools in NYC that use admissions tests? Many kids will never pass those tests, including kids with special needs.
You eay these students are put in district 75 schools. Are district 75 schools the traditional district public schools?
teachingeconomist: Here’s the link for District 75 : schools.nyc.gov/Offices/District75/default.htm.
Thanks for the link. It seems that the traditional neighborhood schools do not take all students.
Can it be that every NYC district school does not have a program for every student with some form of special need? Yes
Can it be that some NYC parents are told that no way will their kid get into the selective admissions “district” schools? Yes
Joe Nathan: Explain for me, please, what it is that you’re trying to say. Thanks.
Joan, thanks for your question. I’ll try to respond briefly.
First, it’s perhaps worth noting that our 3 children all attended and graduated from urban non-selective district public schools, that I worked in urban districts for 14 years and my wife retired recently after being a teacher with special needs urban students for 33 years. I also was a urban PTA president.
Part of what i’m trying to say is that the battle, often promoted here between district & chartered public schools probably does not help kids. There are vast differences in district, as well as chartered schools. When you’ve seen one district school, you’ve seen one. Same in the charter world.
As to this study:
Sure is valuable to read the actual report (which I have done). Some of the comments above do not appear to have been informed by doing so.
A few key points:
* This was a study of about 10,000 kids in NYC elementary schools…not all charters, not all district schools.
* Researchers looked at students grades k-3.
“On average, student at charters stay at their schools at a higher rate than students at nearby traditional schools.” Please re-read that sentence.
“This higher rate of staying at charter schools also is found when students are compared in terms of gender,race/ethnicity, poverty, and English learner status” So students from low income families and students who are English Language Learners are MORE likely to stay in charters.
“The one major is special education students, who leave charter schools at a much higher rate than either general education students in charter schools or special education students in traditional public schools. Only 20 percent of students classified as requiring special education services who started kindergarten in charter schools remained in the same school after three years.”
This definitely DOES need more examination. But those of you critical of charters might want to consider the findings re low income kids and ELL students.
Hope that helps.
Joe
70% stay at the charter school, while 61% stay at the public school in grades K – 3. This is not a huge difference, which can easily be explained by student transiency. The other number is 50% of special ed students leave the public school, while 80% leave the charter school. Yet only 8% of students are special ed in charters while 16% are in public schools.
Lots of numbers and stats. I can’t guarantee the validity of any of this because we have not looked at or analyzed the original study. Before any conclusions can be drawn, the issue has to be revisited with additional studies and perhaps a larger sample group.
A lot of ruckus over a lack of reliable data or facts.
And should this be our main focus? We have bigger fish to fry.
I’ve got so much more to say on this.
At union meetings, I always have my ears open.—and
in LAUSD, I can tell you that this “creaming”
of the “best and the brightest kids” by LAUSD
charter schools is widespread,
and
that the concurrent “purging” (Dr. Davis’ word) of the
lowest performing/hardest-to-educate back into the
public school system is similarly rampant.
The current UTLA chair at one school tells
me the big dump of FBB’s from
the nearby charter schools happens just before…
you guessed it… the CST’s. Isn’t that timing a little
suspicious? The elementary school where I
teach has the same problem.
Here’s the other problem with dumping/moving
kids from Charter schools to public schools…
THE MONEY DOES NOT FOLLOW THE
STUDENTS. A charter school can keep a student
for just a month, a week, or even just a day (though
they’re rarely that blatant), and THEY KEEP THE
FUNDING FOR THAT STUDENT FOR THE
REMAINDER OF THE SCHOOL YEAR. No
pro-rata amount of funding follows that child
to the public school to which he/she is being
dumped.
Think of the resulting impact on both schools—
public and charter. The charter school now
has MORE money to teach less (and easiest-to-
educate) kids, while the public school must
struggle to teach more (and hardest-to-educate
kids) with LESS money.
In another example, a 5th grade GATE (Gifted
And Talented Education) teacher from
an elementary school in the South Area,
told me about the P.S.C. battle over a
newly-built school in her area.
The P.S.C.—Public School Choice—
was a program thankfully abandoned
due to a positive change in the makeup
of LAUSD’s schoolboard. Incredibly
and outrageously it gave over
low-performing campuses—old
and brand new—to charter school
operators.
There was even a non-binding vote
from the parents and community as
to what their preferences were for
who took over the school…. which
were all overwhelmingly in favor
of keeping the schools within
the oversight of the district with
unionized teachers.
In the vote regarding the new
“Firestone Avenue” campus (discussed below),
the community was unanimous in their
rejection of having an outside charter
operator (ASPIRE) taking the campus, and
instead supporting the teacher/community
plan. Numerous meetings, door-to-door
walks etc. led to a near unanimous (95%)
vote in favor of the UTLA teacher/community
plan followed.
Did they get the school? No, Yolie Flores, then LAUSD
board member with connections to ASPIRE, ignored
the will of the community and was the prime mover
in giving this brand knew multi-million-dollar school
site to over to the ASPIRE charter school company.
(Ms. Flores was rewarded for this with a $200,000
job in the charter industry after she left the board…
but that’s another story.)
(It’s now called ASPIRE FIRESTONE. Every time I
drive by, it pisses me off.)
Here’s where the “creaming” issue comes in. This
GATE teacher, whom I know well, told me about
the George Steinbrenner-like attempts to recruit
her gifted students over to ASPIRE FIRESTONE.
“Someone at the District gave ASPIRE all the contact info
on all my students—addresses, phone numbers, emails,”
she told me, “My students’ parents are being
deluged with phone calls, mailings, and even
door knockings in person from ASPIRE telling them
how much better it will be for the students if they
transfer to ASPIRE FIRESTONE. They use these
ridiculous lies and scare tactics about how if they stay
at our school, ‘their children will never be
able to go to college.’ They’re trashing our school,
and by implication, me, and in this context, we and I
have no way to counter these lies.”
“Is it working?” I asked.
“No, we only lost two kids. One parent even compared
it to when she was stalked by some guy who kept
trying to ask her out on a date, but would not take
no for an answer. The ASPIRE people were very polite,
but also very pushy and creepy, like someone from a religious
cult. Most of the parents are angry at their contact
info being given out without their consent, and the
harassment that resulted.”
Another thing you have to consider is… “how
did these kids get to this point where they
are now so desirable for the charters to attempt
to poach them from the public schools?”
Apart from the innate abilities these kids
have, it was due to the hard work, skills, and
dedication of those unionized permanent
teachers at the traditional public schools
that got these students to this point—from
Pre-K all the way to 4th or 5th or whatever
grade the kids are when they are targeted
for poaching.
And then, if the kids are successfully
poached and lured over to the school,
THE CHARTERS THEN TAKE ALL
THE CREDIT FOR THESE STUDENTS
ACADEMIC SUCCESS (???!!!)
You see no such outreach from the
charters for:
—special ed kis
—homeless kids
—foster care kids
—kids with behavior issues
—low-performing kids.
I’ve talked with over a dozen 4th grade
and higher teachers who describe charter
schools’ George Steinbrenner approach to
selecting their student body… You “buy
the Yankees”… as the saying goes, “and
you’ll win the World Series.”
And here’s the kicker to all of this…
even with all this kicking out, poaching,
etc. THE CHARTERS STILL DO NOT
OUTDO THE TRADITIONAL PUBLIC
SCHOOLS IN ACHIEVEMENT (on the
dubious measure of test scores)!!!
They should be kicking ass, and they’re
not. At best, they get similar results,
and at worst, results below traditional
schools.
I don’t know if anyone has mentioned it, but from what I understand State laws permit the charters to keep the monthly funding for expelled pupils until the end of the school year without replacing the students. So they can go through the year funded as if they had more pupils than they do. This would not be the case in public schools — for which there has to be a one-to-one correspondence between the pupils they have and the funding per pupil they get (not to mention the advantage of being able to have smaller classes than the public schools).
The charter “CEO”s fully comprehend that expelling students at planned intervals is a win-win proposition for them, both in terms of increased funding, smaller classes, and higher end-of-year test score results.
That’s what happens in Utah, my state. Often the charter schools won’t accept any children after October 1, which is the cut-off for funding, but we regular public schools sure get a lot of those kids back after October 1. This year, I had a student with some behavioral issues that suddenly left for the “better opportunities” at a charter school on September 30. He was back by November 15. The charter school keeps ALL of the student’s money for this year, but only had the student at their school for six weeks.
Jack, I, too, worked at a Gifted and Talented School. We didn’t have anyone stealing the kids away (except if you consider the nearby suburban school districts), but sometimes the grass would look greener over at the nearby charter school. My principal would laugh and say “They’ll be begging to come back.” And sure enough, back they’d come. Sometimes you don’t appreciate what you have until you discover that it’s better than what you missed.
Oh yeah, the pre CST dump. We get it every year at my kids’ middle school. John Deasy told our school that that factually, statistically did not happen. I guess it’s just another of those things you can’t measure.
There is a closely related post on Edushyster, 1-10-14 with the title “Broken Windows Schooling” and the subtitle “Suspending huge numbers of minority students is bad — unless it’s done in the name of *college prep*”
Link: http://edushyster.com/?p=4013
I urge all viewers of this blog to click on the above link.
😎
I’m the parent of children identified with dyslexia and an advocate for dyslexia awareness.
There have been numerous blog posts here pertaining to children with learning differences (or disabilities). Add in the Reign of Error chapter about students with disabilities in a Florida charter school (which was sickening and kept me up at night). Then put this knowledge with the continuing reports of how charter schools suck up public money and keep hiring teachers with little training (a crucial element in dyslexia identification and remediation).
This leaves me wondering WHY aren’t my fellow dyslexia awareness advocates understanding what is going on with the national movement to privatize education? Why are they not VERY concerned with this national trend?
Some public school districts in my area have only just begun to make changes to help dyslexic students (due process hearings, child advocates and powerful parent groups will do that). Yet even with things going in the right direction, these same concerned parents have only the scantest knowledge about the privatization subject.
What I’ve finally decided is that this is a class issue. It often takes money to figure out a child is dyslexic, money to hire tutors to remediate a dyslexic child, money to hire a child advocate if there are lies being told about a student “qualifying” for an IEP.
Most of the parents who are able to afford to walk this path to get their dyslexic child what they need live in wealthy suburban districts. Privatization has not yet reared it’s ugly head (in my area) in these places. Suburbs in my area have not felt the threat of school closures. The privatization movement seems to be currently targeting urban districts. I don’t expect this to remain the case. Should there be continued momentum in the privatization movement eventually it will hit the suburban districts and it will make it’s mark on children with disabilities and learning differences in those areas too.
Clearly the numerous children with learning differences are going to be cast out since even basic knowledge about this subject by school staff is not available or required in charter schools.
Public school will continue to have to pay the additional costs of providing FAPE to children who have been kicked out of charter schools (and are further behind and will need even more tutoring to be remediated).
Those same children will most likely not test well for at least a few years (provided they can even get what they need in the public school which doesn’t happen often enough) bringing down public school test scores which are being used to judge these same schools.
All of this vicious cycle is not in the best interest of students with learning differences, the future of public schools or any national desire to improve education.
Maybe one day my peers in the dyslexia advocacy world will understand this subject better.
Michelle – there is definitely a law suit in there somewhere. Even now, there is not enough being done to deal with dyslexia. With the current system, those children will become pariahs, since their instruction is expensive and their test scores are low. I hope something can be done, before it is too late for a whole generation of students with special needs.
Agree completely. Also agree with your previous comments on this subject in other posts. You have the understanding I wish so many of my acquaintances in the world of dyslexia awareness could have.
Thank you Michelle. I’m passionate about the subject because I lived it through my son. I would have pushed for the district to send my son to the Gow School (a boarding school for dyslexic boys), but my son had too many anxieties. I even considered giving up my career and working there so he could access the program, but I had three other children to support.
Nobody can understand the frustration of a parent when their child has difficulty handling the public school system until you have been through it. My son is fortunate that I was in education and knew have to navigate a course, although it was a constant struggle. I feel bad for parents who don’t have a clue how to help their children.
What a bassackwards world we live in now. My two middle siblings are dyslexic. Age difference of 7 yrs meant that the elder (schooled in late ’60’s) felt stupid, was held back, never got hs diploma. The younger (schooled in ’70’s) was identified early, taught compensatory skills, majored in speced, teacher of the year of a NYC borough first year out of college, & is now a well-paid administrator in a prestigious upstate high school.
It appears we are coming full circle.
It is a sad day when any person with dyslexia is not given what they need. This happens too often as it is, if privatized schools become the norm it will happen even more. I’m very fearful of this becoming the case.
Michelle – how do you feel about the many magnet schools that use admissions tests to keep out students who can’t pass the traditional tests?
The predictable crutch gets played again? Is this all you got?
Nope, lots more.
I can tell you how admissions works at a traditional public school in Los Angeles, as I’ve witnessed it with my own eyes on countless occasions.
Parents (or a parent) brings their/his/her child to the counter of a school’s Main Office, and presents the office manager with proof that that child lives in the attendance area—apartment lease, utility bill, etc.
Watch what happens next.
While that parent is still filling out the paperwork, the child is then escorted to a classroom with an admissions slip, and introduced to the new teacher and classmates, then is immediately given a desk, books, etc. (or, if they had been in a special ed. class at their previous public school, are escorted to a special ed class appropriate to their needs.)
You got that?
In a traditional public school, anyone within the attendance area—and can prove it with just a valid document—and who shows up in that office gets immediately placed, with no conditions or qualifications (other than special ed, as described in the above paragraphy.)… at any day during that 180-days school year.
That’s how the traditional public school dream of accessibility and opportunity for all works.
We take ’em all, Baby!
In the charters… not so much… with the KIPP schools and others, there’s a total ban on transfers students being admitted, after the start of school.
Think of it as an arrow on a flow chart that only flows ONE WAY… and that’s OUT THE FRONT door for the harder-to-educate kids getting kicked out… errr… excuse me… “counseled out” from charter schools, and no accompanying arrow going the other way. (Exceptions are made, of course, for gifted and high-achieving students who will raise charter schools’ overall test scores, of course.)
As for ESL, many charters have applications which inquire as to the following:
— primary language spoken in the home;
— the household income;
— number of occupants in the household (???!!!)
When asked why such things are on the application, charter operators will say, “It’s so we can best meet the students’ needs.”
Oh yeah, THEN WHY DON’T YOU ASK THIS -AFTER- THEY’VE BEEN ACCEPTED AND PLACED IN A CLASSROOM? Why is that on the application that also says of itself that “Submission of this form does not constitute enrollment”? (SEE BELOW)
If this information is not used to screen out certain classes of kids, why do you need it BEFORE a child is accepted and placed?
This dovetails to the discussion of the infamous lotteries. Charter operators stubbornly refuse to have their lotteries operated by an outside, neutral third party, one that would ensure that every parent that puts in an application has a card with their kids’ name will end up in the lottery’s rolling drum… you know, like you see in those grotesque, manipulative spectacles you see in all the propaganda documentaries like WAITING FOR SUPERMAN.
With this the case, it’s so easy for charter folks to make sure that Juan or Maria with mono-lingual Spanish-speaking immigrant parents to “accidentally” have their card left out of the rolling drum…
Ditto for the applications of low-income parents, or—SEE BELOW—the students who have too many occupants in the household…
If that question about “number of occupants in the household” is not racist against Latino immigrants, then what the-Hell is?
Also, as shown in Michael Winerup’s exposes of NYC charters, even those kids who win the lottery can be throw out… er excuse me again…. “counseled out” of the schools of Eva and Geoffrey and whomever.
In L.A., the schools charter application can say in large print that they’re out to serve the attendance area near the school’s location, but conveniently in the small print, state that they’re also open to students who live in a wider geographic area… in effect, rendering their promise to educate students in the attendance area effectively meaningless and worthless.
What they want is real estate and funding, with the freedom to cream an easier-to-educate student body from an unlimited attendance area.
A couple year back, I downloaded the application for CITIZENS OF THE WORLD Charter school here in Los Angeles.
Here’s some of what I saved: (as it has since been removed, and applications are no longer downloadable on the internet… more on that later):
——————————————-
“APPLICATION FOR ENROLLMENT 2012-2013
(SOLICITUD DE INSCRIPCION)
“due by 3/1/12
“Please read the instructions carefully. Submission of this form does not constitute enrollment. Please complete one enrollment form per student.”
——————————————————
Note this “does not constitute enrollment” disclaimer is unlike the public school scenario I have witnessed, and which I’ve described above.
Below is more. Before they start with the notorious questions, they then post the “me-thinks-the-lady-doth-protest-too-much” disclaiimer:
—————————————
“The following questions do NOT impact your chances for enrollment or any other status at CWC – admission to CWC is based on lottery. CWC will not discriminate against any person on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, religion, marital status, sexual orientation, disability or other characteristic protected by law.”
——————————————–
Oh really? Then why are you asking this stuff? Why don’t you accept kids BLIND TO THIS INFORMATION as the public schools do, or run the lotteries BLIND to this information?
Here come the questions. They want the parent to check the following:
——————————————-
“___ YES, we qualify for free/reduced-price lunch (see chart on
reverse)
Sí, calificamos para el almuerzo gratis o rebajado (vea la tabla en reverso)
“___ NO, we do not qualify”
————————————
There’s an accompanying chart which sets the free/reduced lunch qualifications based on: 1) income; and 2) number of people who live in the home.
THIS WOULD NEVER BE ASKED OF A PARENT PLACING THEIR CHILD IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL CLASSROOM… PRIOR TO BEING ACCEPTED AND PLACES.
In any truly “public” school, it would and should have no bearing on a child’s admission to a school.
Joe, there’s more:
——————————————————————————
“Language most frequently used at home:
“_______________________________________________________ ”
—————————————————————————-
Again, why is that being asked PRIOR to acceptance and admission?
Here’s more:
————————————————-
“Child’s Ethnicity: ___African American ___ American Indian/Alaska Native ___ Asian ___Caucasian”
————————————————
Why the-Hell are they asking this… again prior to the child being accepted and place?
and let’s not forget:
—————————————
“Household Size
Personas En Hogar
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8”
———————————————
Oy vey!
At the time, I saved the url for downloading the application forms for Citizens of the World—Hollywood:
http://www.citizensoftheworld.org/docs/APPLICTION_FOR_ADMISSION_TO_CWC_HOLLYWOOD_2012-2013/pdf
I then passed this on to an organized and quite vocal group of public school parents opposing a co-location from this charter chain, who then voiced the same objections I have voiced here.
Shortly afterward, CWC mysteriously pulled this application from the CWC website and internet altogether. From that point on, and to this day, you get a “404” message when you try and click this.
I just did a thorough search of their site, and unlike before, there’s no application anywhere on-line that can be downloaded by parents. You have to go in person to the school site to see what the application looks like today.
Thankfully, I saved it.
Another thing that I recall is that Citizens of the World did all their promotions in upscale neighborhoods, and with English-only fliers… at places like the West Hollywood Library, the Ralph’s Grocery Store at Beverly & Doheny., etc. That’s yet another way to screen certain groups of students in/out.
That’s all for now.
If anyone is interested, here is a link to the beginning of the admission process to Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax County: http://www.tjhsst.edu/abouttj/admission/index.html
If you click through you will find the admission handbook. It includes a sample admission test and runs 54 pages. A high enough score on the standardized exam combined with GPA allows a student to become a semifinalist. At the semifinalist stage, two teacher recommendations are required, a “student information sheet” is required (actually a ninety minute proctored essay exam asking students about their dreams and aspirations), and an untimed separate admission essay. Admission decisions are based on all of the material in the admission process.
That is how admissions works for one public magnet school.
Michelle, this is what happens when you impose a market-based business model on public schools—and privatize those schools. The children are reduced to “commodities,” and the desirability of those commodities are judge by two factors:
No. 1) lowest cost to educate;
No. 2) highest outputs (i.e. profits) based on test scores.
Regarding No. 1, the students with Special Ed. are legally required to have smaller classes, with teachers who have extensive training, and also require multiple teacher aides (the number depending on the degree of disability of the students.). When you approach schools from a capitalist perspective, YOU CAN’T HAVE THOSE KIDS ANYWHERE NEAR YOUR SCHOOL.
Regarding No. 2, those same special ed kids will never score high and thus deliver those high outputs you desire. The same goes for:
— dyslexic students
— ESL students
— newly arrived immigrant children who are brand new
to learning English;
— Homeless students;
— Foster care students;
— Just plain average students
The high-end charters take it even further, and in their application forms and process, screen out kids who:
— have parents who never attended college;
— have a household income below a certain threshold.
— cannot pass an “entrance test” (I’m reminded of activist Caroline Grannan who wanted to see if the KIPP school would take her child, only to find out that her daughter needed to pass a test in order to “test into” KIPP.)
— cannot produce a report card with high enough grades
— do not bring their most recent test scores, or who do bring them, but the scores are not high enough
… and on and on…
Michelle, these students are not commodities; they’re human beings.
My friend we are singing the same song. Human beings not commodities, exactly. Keep singing our song and please be as loud as possible.
Jack, as noted below, ELL students and students from low income families in the NYC elementary schools that were studied were MORE likely than district public school students to stay in their schools. Please see longer comment, below.
A 9% difference. And this study did not address any variables which could account for this. The article also claimed it was a small difference. I felt that both rates of “transfers” were too high – 30% to 39%. That’s about a third of a school (of course, that was for grades K to 3). Perhaps after third grade, some parents opted for a private school.
The true-life story of former L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa, a product of the much-maligned-in-
recent-days public school system, is instructive in this instance.
(Mind you, Villaraigosa was “bought” by the privatizing “school reform” crowd shortly after being elected… and is today a highly-paid puppet and mouthpiece for the union-busting, privatizing “ed reform” croud… but that’s another story… a sad one.)
When he was a boy, Antonio’s biological father abandoned his mother
and siblings. As a consequence, he was involved in gangs,
and criminal behavior as a teenager. Back then, he would certainly
have been barred from the typical charter school, or kicked out
shortly afterward.
However, there was one public school teacher, Herman Katz, who took an
interest in Antonio. A surrogate father, he encouraged him to make
something of himself, pushed him to turn his life around,
work harder at school, and then later, apply for college, and on and on…
(And I know this sounds like a Hollywood movie, but it’s our former mayor
who claims this all to be true). In lieu of his father, former Mayor Villairagosa
had Mr. Katz sitting in the front row behind him while he was
twice inaugurated.
Here’s a 2-minute video of former Mayor Villaraigosa and Herman Katz”
http://myteachermyhero.com/story/98/usa/ca/los-angeles/antonio-villaraigosa/
Do you think if education officials and a teacher like Mr. Katz had
the same attitude towards and treatment of difficult students
that charter school so, that Mayor Villaraigosa’s life would have
turned out the way it did?
Do you think that the Walmart-ized charter schools that the privatizers
want to replace traditional public schools with—i.e. low-paid teachers, poor/mediocre results, and sky-high attrition of both teachers and students—would produce an outcome like that of Mayor Villaraigosa?
Indeed, a student with the same behavior profile as Antonio would likely be kicked out … er excuse me… “counseled out” of these schools, and dumped back into the resource-starved public schools.
You know… the same “failure factories”, or “dropout factories” that privatizers also want to privatize eventually?
Sure is valuable to read the actual report (which I have done). Some of the comments above do not appear to have been informed by doing so.
A few key points:
* This was a study of about 10,000 kids in NYC elementary schools…not all charters, not all district schools.
* Researchers looked at students grades k-3.
“On average, student at charters stay at their schools at a higher rate than students at nearby traditional schools.” Please re-read that sentence.
“This higher rate of staying at charter schools also is found when students are compared in terms of gender,race/ethnicity, poverty, and English learner status” So students from low income families and students who are English Language Learners are MORE likely to stay in charters.
“The one major is special education students, who leave charter schools at a much higher rate than either general education students in charter schools or special education students in traditional public schools. Only 20 percent of students classified as requiring special education services who started kindergarten in charter schools remained in the same school after three years.”
This definitely DOES need more examination. But those of you critical of charters might want to consider the findings re low income kids and ELL students.
Sure is valuable to read the headline of this post. Your comment does not appear to have been informed by doing so.
I read the headline. Having read the entire report, do you feel it is a good summary of the whole report?
In my teaching with inner city public school students, in university classes I encourage others to write a overall summary sentence. The headline picked out a part – that in significant ways ways inconsistent with a number of other major points the report made.
It will probably take class action suits by parents against charter schools to require them to follow the IDEA and provide FAPE for students with disabilities. Charters are taking public monies they must service these students. Or are charter schools a way to bypass IDEA using public funds?
It wasn’t intended to be a complete summary of the report. You obviously missed the main point. Public v Charter – very uneven playing fields. Can’t change more than one variable and draw a fair comparison.
We agree that it was not intended to be a complete summary. It took one of many points and ignored points that were not consistent with a regular theme presented here.
What the charters do when faced with such a lawsuit is that they will then claim that they are not “public” entities subject to law such as IDEA. No, their lawyers then argue that these schools essentially “private” schools that can do as they please.
So it’s the profiteering, free market, voucher-supporters’ dream— a system of what, in actual practice, are effectively “private schools” …
— with no accountability or transparency to the public via a democratically-elected school board having any oversight of these schools…
— with no elected school board providing any oversight that will prevent any corruption in the first place, or sanction such corruption—close the schools, fire the perpetrators—if and when it occurs
— with no responsibility to follow any laws or curriculum/testing (i.e. Common Core) that public schools are required to follow
— with a creamed student body made up of easiest-to-eduate students
… and all of this funded with public money.
The only thing “public” about these schools is the money that funds them.
From the research that I have seen, most attrition occurs in middle/high schools for charters. It is rather difficult on parents to switch K-3 children around to new schools.
There are a few “assumptions” made in the study that could be troublesome. See footnotes 3, 5, and 8.
Considering that charters had less than half of all the ELL, special education, and lower income students and considering more traditional public schools were used in the study than charters, I am not sure Joe’s point about the ELL and low income students is an apples to apples comparison. It seems rather unbalanced to me. And when you adjust for these factors, the fewer charters schools actually look bad under the same data microscope.
One thing that Joe failed to mention about this study was that when a K-3 student leaves any school for another, a dip in scores occurs. That should be the headline. What does this say about choice in K-3?
Too bad the study didn’t ask the parents why their children left a particular school or where they ended up. That would be some useful data to discuss.
Significantly, researchers only looked at grades k-3. The IBO report is looking at the WRONG GRADES to see if there is an unusual level of attrition in charter schools.
The only grades where state tests results matter are grades 3 and up. Until then, the charters are glad to take the per-pupil fee of most kids, slowing attriting the kids who are slow, have IEPs, ELL needs, etc. The pace of attrition really kids up in grade three and up.
I think more interesting would be to learn who left AFTER the third grade scores came out, and who got counseled out IN third grade, because the parents were warned (based on third grade early-fall predictive assessments used to see where kids might score on the state tests) that the charter school, with extremely high standards, might require the child to repeat the grade, but the neighborhood school wouldn’t.
You can look at charter school test scores on the NY Times website. Look at number of kids in each testing level from 1 (worst) to 4 (best). The number of children tested goes down each grade level you go up.
Look for example at this Kipp Charter school: http://preview.tinyurl.com/mz9dvda
162 5th graders were tested, slightly fewer 6th graders, slightly fewer 7th graders, and by 8th grade, only 116 kids tested. and the 8th grade group had 70 percent passing instead of 64 percent passing.
Or this source, the NYS Ed Dept excel spreadsheets on the 2013 test scores:
2013 Harlem Sucess Academy:
Grade 3 ELA/Math: 132 kids
Grade 4 ELA/Math 117 kids
Grade 5 ELA/Math 62 kids
from grade 3 to 5, less than half as many kids, and median score
boosted from 321 to 346!
http://www.p12.nysed.gov/irs/ela-math/
In case you think the change in numbers of kids just
reflects a change in number of kids per grade, you can look at e
this other NYS DOE spread sheet from 2012 and compare it
to the numbers of kids taking the same test in the preceding
grade at the same school the preceding year:
Available in all its glory at:
http://www.p12.nysed.gov/irs/ela-math/home2012.html
Harlem Sucess Academy Charter School:
The third grade 2012 ELA test: 131 kids
The fourth grade 2013 ELA test (same cohort) 117 kids
The fourth grade 2012 ELA test: 113 kids
The fifth grade 2012 ELA test (same cohort): 62 kids!
No surprise, the test scores go up each grade, as more and
more kids get counseled out.
A favorite trick to get rid of poor testers is to call a parent mid-day and demand the parent leave work immediately, because little Johnny is making trouble (minor classroom infraction) and must leave school. Three weeks in a row of this, mom can’t leave work anymore, pulls Johnny from Harlem Success Academy Charter School, and sends him to the zoned school instead.
Harlem Success Academy has figured out how to be $uccessful: Get rid of the low-testers, claim success. Founder makes more than $400K per year. Now that’s $ucce$$.
IBO needs to do its homework and look at grades 3 and up.
Parochial schools have been doing this for years. Here’s the formula:
Admit only children whose parents apply and agree to support the school. Then “counsel out” or expel any child “whose needs cannot be met.” With this approach, a school can hire inexperienced teachers, pay low salaries and still have scores that are superior to the local public school. That said, these parochial schools are usually upfront about what they do and don’t lie about it.
What these “public” charter schools need are a bunch of lawsuits and I predict that’s what will happen.
Why do co-located zoned schools have higher attrition rates then the charters in their same buildings?
Is it because the parents have been given a choice and choose the better education for thier child? Or is it because zoned schools councel out more students? Either way, zoned schools are being outperformed by charters.
It’s because kids in the regular schools were getting SHAFTED when the charter co-located, taking needed space. Who wants to send their kid to a school where their lunch is at 10:30 to make room for the charter school’s 11:30-12:30 lunch schedule? Or where the charter takes the dance space? or most hours of the gym? Charters got treated like teacher’s pets by the old administration: Free use of buildings, without having to contribute to building costs, best times of use of shared facilities, and sometimes they didn’t even have to share. One of my kids’ schools faced loss of space needed for OT/PT etc. because Success Academy wanted to move in. The building was already shared with another school, lunches were already starting very early, and our kids would have had to have given up a bathroom, use of the gym, and use of an entranceway, in addition to lost classroom space.
What the charters do when faced with such a lawsuit is that they will then claim that they are not “public” entities subject to law such as IDEA. No, their lawyers then argue that these schools essentially “private” schools that can do as they please.
So it’s the profiteering, free market, voucher-supporters’ dream— a system of what, in actual practice, are effectively “private schools” …
— with no accountability or transparency to the public via a democratically-elected school board having any oversight of these schools…
— with no elected school board providing any oversight that will prevent any corruption in the first place, or sanction such corruption—close the schools, fire the perpetrators—if and when it occurs
— with no responsibility to follow any laws or curriculum/testing (i.e. Common Core) that public schools are required to follow
— with a creamed student body made up of easiest-to-eduate students
… and all of this funded with public money.
The only thing “public” about these schools is the money that funds them.
Jack, where are you from? Clearly not from NY. NYC Charters have defeated union financed or backed lawsuits for years. The lawsuits are frivilous in nature and have no real legitimacy other then attempting to bankrupt charters with legal bills. Take for example the lawsuit to force Success Academy to pay rent. Its already been defeated by the NY Supreme Court, but the union and their backers wont let it die, so a new one is working its way thru the system. Guess how this one is gonna end?
Sorry mate, charter schools in NYC are all public, and all non for profit as well. That is by law in case you cared. Every public charter in this town are 501(c) entities which are barred by law from making a profit or having shareholders.
Clearly you are not from NY.
MS:
As I am sure you are well aware, Charters, even non-profit ones, can hand out some hefty salaries, to executive directors of their management companies, even to their PR hacks trolling websites.
The Daily News recently ran an article about the sickeningly high salaries of several charter school heads, who prey on idealistic teachers willing to work for peanuts with the collusion of the former mayor, who didn’t charge them a cent for use of City buildings.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/lzdxtd6
Yes, some of those salaries are extremely high, much higher than I would support.
Also, on the issue of sharing space – Julia Richman, a district owned building in Manhattan, has pioneered good agreements about about 8 different schools that share space. There’s a lot of give and take. That’s a model for space sharing.
http://www.jrec.org/
The latest wrinkle in all this is that Charter associations are going to the wall to defend charter school officials, even when the corruption they perpetrate is beyond dispute:
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/04/local/la-me-1005-charter-sentence-20131005
So you have this couple running a chain or charter schools who are as corrupt as the day is long, and are found guilty of criminal acts and sentenced to jail.
The Charter association argues that, no matter how heinous the actions… so what?… the schools are “non-profits”, so technically, “no crime” was committed:
———————————————————————–
“Charter advocates followed the case closely. They said it could expose other operators to prosecution and could undermine the flexibility of California campuses that now enroll more than 410,000 students.
“The California Charter Schools Assn. filed a brief with the court seeking a new trial, contending that ‘there was no crime here.’
“For charter critics, however, the result is a long-overdue rebuke of what they say is an anything-goes mentality that sometimes abuses the public trust and drains resources from students.
“Charters are independently managed, publicly funded and exempt from some rules that apply to traditional schools.
” ‘The operators of charter schools cannot use public funds for their own personal use or else they will be prosecuted,’ said Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Dana Aratani.
“Defense attorneys argued that charter schools — California has about 1,000 — should be treated as nonprofits, which have flexibility in spending money, provided that they are furthering the mission of the organization. The couple insisted that much of their questioned spending was for such activities as teacher appreciation, either group events or individual gestures, to build morale.”
” … ”
“Selivanov will appeal his sentence, said his attorney, Jeffrey H. Rutherford.
” ‘We maintain that this prosecution is driven by a fundamental misunderstanding of charter schools and how they operate,’ Rutherford said.”
LOL, talking about missing the point. FIrst sentance of the article:
General students from kindergarten to third grade are retained by the privately operated schools at a slightly higher rate than district schools, according to the study report by the Independent Budget Office released Thursday.
So the charters have a better retention rate then zoned schools!!! Game over!!!
The key word is slightly higher.
Not really. The study only looked at the early grades. The charters start dropping low-testing kids as soon as those third grade test scores hit. See my post above.
I dont get it, the anti choice extremist left that this very sad and deteriorating in credibility blog represent consistently claim that charters push students out. Yet, the reality is public schools have higher attrition rates then charters across NYC.
What gives anti choice extremists? The facts seem to paint a rather different picture then your wildly obtuse claims. In the end, it is zoned schools that are pushing more kids out then public charters!!!
D’oh!!!
MS, I was afraid you’d been hit by a bus after you didn’t let us know Success had confirmed for you that they don’t currently or ever intend to admit new kids after the first day of third grade. Welcome back.
It is good to see the “they educate the same kids” argument blown out of the water. 1% special ed and 7% ELL is pathetic, frankly. Hopefully the IBO will further study schools that don’t backfill and the effect it has on test scores.
Hey Tim, I see you are back to peddle your wildly innacruate fodder on the forum. You said SA has a ‘attrition problem’. Well it seems the zoned schools they colocate with have an even greater one. What gives, why are the zoned schools pushing out so many students compared with charters?
As for SA, they confirmed for me they only accept children to 3rd grade SPECIFICALLY because that is all they have room for. They have 100% full intentions of allowing new students in past 3rd grade once their schools develop. Sorry bud, but your tin foil hat needs to be put back in the closet, your conspiracy theory is bunk mate!
It’s funny to watch the charter cheerleaders tapdance wildly like Savion Glover when confronted with the facts about how charters don’t replace kids they lose.
Take Jay Mathews’ response. The charters refuse taking in transfer students because of they did, Jay argues, they would have to put those transfer students in holding pens or rubber rooms for the rest of the year so they won’t infect the charter school classrooms’ and their students’ awesome-ness. They would then have to wait until next fall until they had been sufficiently molded into being acceptable to be included in an actual charter school classroom.
No, seriously.
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/04/jay-mathews-condemns-miron-kipp-study_15.html
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
JIM HORN:
“Finally, Jay is miffed that Miron and his colleagues find that KIPP does not take children during the school year as public schools must.
“(We know that KIPP has the luxury of requiring that 3 weeks of brainwashing during the previous summer to KIPP-notize new recruits, where would-be KIPPsters learn to walk and go the bathroom the KIPP way?).
“So once again, for Jay this simply points out the need for the rest of the world to change in order to comply with the KIPP organizational needs. We, therefore, should create something like student rubber rooms or holding pens for students who transfer in so that they do not break the spell of the treatment for KIPPsters who have been readied for their yearlong treatment in how to pass tests and how to resiliently absorb abuse and say thank you for it:
JAY MATHEWS: “Admitting students at midyear in urban neighborhoods also holds back classes in regular schools, the report notes. If that is the case, then why do it in that unpromising way? Why not have special classes for students who arrive at midyear that focus on their special problems and ready them for a fresh start in the new school year?”
JIM HORN: “If Jay Mathews truly believes this ridiculous babble, he is, indeed, dumber than I thought, which is to say, life continues to be full of surprises.
——————————————————-
Somehow, the traditional public schools have to take on mid-year transfer students, but the charter schools are relieved of such a burden.
Aren’t charters supposed to be the answer for everything?
Let me just say another time that I’m sincerely glad you’re okay. The way you abandoned that other thread after having posting manically had me fearing the worst!
As for the response you claim to have been given by Success, it’s not that I don’t trust you, but what you were told is 100% contradicted by every other bit of evidence that we have, which I’ll run through below. In light of that, I’m sure that you won’t mind providing the name of the person at Success who gave you this information.
— Success’s own admissions website clearly states that they only take applications for students entering third grade (and Success doesn’t accept any new students in grades K-3 after the very first day of the school year).
–“Once their schools develop?” Success already has 6 schools that go beyond 3rd grade–HSA 1 (K-8), HSA 2 (K-6), HSA 3 (K-6), HSA 4 (K-6), HSA 5 (K-4), and BSA 1 (K-4). The K-8 and K-6 schools have experienced significant attrition after third grade, so there is most certainly room to add new students, but none of them admit new students after third grade.
— All EIS’s for future Success elementary, middle, and high schools reinforce and restate the network’s policy of not accepting any new students after the first day of third grade.
— In November 2013, Success personnel confirmed to me via phone and several email inquiries that a Success K-8 proposed for my home district would not accept any new students after third grade. Keep in mind this proposed school would not have a fourth grade class until the *2017-2018* school year.
Success schools do not currently admit children beyond the first day of third grade. They have many schools that run beyond third grade. There is absolutely no concrete evidence to suggest that their admissions policy will change at any point in the near or distant future. I anxiously await the name of your contact at Success so I can reach out to them and get to the bottom of this seeming disconnect.
Tim, the problem you are having is that you are making conclusions not based on facts or relaity but on conspiracy theories. I spoke with the principle at my SA and I also emailed the admissions office. YOu can find their email on the admissions page of the webiste. THey confirmed for me that they were only accepting children to 3rd grade yet it was only due to spacing in schools. I have a feeling you got the same response but chose to ignore it and let your mind run wild with theories.
NOw, the SA’s in harlem do go past 3, but you are again clueless as to how the progression of the school works. THey open up each new grade with 1 class, then the following year grow it into 2, then 3. FOr example, SACH currently has 2 2nds grades, 3 first grades and 4 K’s. Next year they will have 2 3rd grades, 3 2nd grades, 4 first grades and 5ks. It makes perfect sense that the SA’s in Harlem will have smaller higher grade levels given they are the first to grow into those grades.
You claim that SA has an attrition problem, yet the IBO study states that the co-located zoned schools have greater attrition rates. Why arent you arguing that the zoned schools have an attrition problem? Why arent you criticizing the greater attrition at zoned schools in the same buildings as SA’s? I think you have chosen SA for special treatment for personal reasons and unfortunately the conspiracy theories you have are not based in fact.
Review principle and principal. Your advice: Please educate yourself.
MS, in your flurry of deflection and making excuses, you had a couple of significant failures in reading comprehension;
This report measured attrition between K-3. There are SIX Success schools that currently go beyond third grade. None of them accept new students after that point. The most recently available report cards for four of them show attrition after that point: in other words, available space for new applicants, plain and simple.
Second, as I stated, I did not get a generic reply from Success that I then twisted to suit my own needs. People in my district are hungry for great choices, as Success likes to say, and especially for middle school! So I asked a very, very specific question: will this school that you are proposing to open have seats for people who are happy with their K-5 but might want to apply for late elementary or middle school? The answer, for a school that will not have a fourth grade class until the 2017-2017 school year? An emphatic “no.” Success schools at that time will not accept kids after the first day of third grade.
Ok Tim, Lets follow your tin foil hat theory to its end. Tell me, how many students are in 6th, 5th and 4th grade system wide at SA and what are the attrition rates from each grade to the next? And how many seats will be available for SA students at the HS planned in upper Manhattan?
HINT: I already know the answer, and the fact is, at the attrition rates they have, there would not be enough students left to field a high schools. But the attrition rates you claim are not legitimate. You fail to grasp how the school is growing. The founding years are the smallest classes, the younger groups have greater acceptance rates as they have more seats to appropriate.
But for fun, do your own research. You posted the report cards with all the data in the other thread, tell me, how will SA have any students left for high school at current attrition rates?
MS, you must be a horrible poker player. When you know you are wrong about something, you either research numbers that have absolutely nothing to do with the argument at hand, or you ask me to do it.
You’re wrong. I know you’re wrong, you know you’re wrong. Success has a wide and deep portfolio of schools that run past third grade, yet none of them take new kids past that point. Success has no intention of changing the policy.
Tim, I am simply asking you to follow your theory to its endpoint. You provided the data showing these attrition rates. If they continue, SA will not have any students left from its current 6th grades to field a 9th grade. So how do you expect them to run an entire high school?
Have you thought out your theory this far?
More deliberate obtuseness from MS. Either that or you didn’t bother to read some of the links I’ve provided for you; in this case the EIS for the proposed Success high school at the Norman Thomas HS campus. See pages 2-5 for how it’s all going to work. They’ll have eighth graders in the HS for three years to bulk up enrollment, and the low end final enrollment projection calls for Harlem 1-5 to send only 34 kids per grade on to the HS–a model that can accommodate plenty of attrition.
Tim, instead of digging yourself a bigger foxhole, why not just answer the question? Do you think I will stop asking and let you get away with it? You are making a very serious claim. In order to give it any credibility we must see it thru to its extent. You claim that SA is creaming out the dumb kids and keeping the smart ones and base it on attrition rates. Yet those attrition rates for the grades you cite show that the school can not survive moving forward. Something has to give.
I am only asking you put forth a view as to how SA could survive at the high school level with such attrition rates. That you are becoming so visibly aggitated by a question shows you are fearful or not able to answer the question. I get it, I know the answer and it puts your cute little green aliens stealing our kittens conspiracy to bed…
So, in lieu of you running and hiding from your claim, I will ask again…..
How could Success Academy maintain a high school with attrition rates that would leave them with no students in the school whatsoever?
More deliberate obtuseness, more arguing with a straw man, more deflecting from the central argument: Success schools do not now, nor do they ever intend to, admit new children past the very first day of third grade.
I’m not “visibly” upset, I’m not running anywhere, and most importantly I certainly never, ever made the claim that attrition rates were so steep at Success schools that all the kids would be gone by 8th grade and none would be left to fill a high school. You said that, not me.
Try reading the EIS. Try processing it. All HSA 1-5 have to do is send a minimum of 34 graduating 8th graders on to the high school every year, and that’ll be enough kids for a 676-seat HS, the low end of the projected enrollment. These are Success’s numbers, not mine.
Granted, HSA 1 is barely hanging on to make that number–they lost *another* five kids (who weren’t replaced, of course) and ended 7th grade with only 35 kids (source: 2013 ELA/math state test results). So they will be cutting it close!
Thanks, Tim. You beat me to it.
MS, there’s two key differences here.
1) charter schools don’t replace their students; public schools do.
2) the reason for students exiting the charter schools are decidedly different.
With the public school students, particularly the urban and low income, the population is often very transient, as the parents’ job and living situation force them into moving often. Unlike the charter school kids who are kicked out, the kids “leaving” are not “kick-outs” … er excuse me… “counselled-outs”, but kids who voluntarily leave and are placed at another public school near their parents’ new place of residence.
So the charter schools typically have less students as the year progresses, but the same amount of funding to educate them.
The public schools, meanwhile, will either have a net increase—sometimes a large one—in the number students enrolled throughout the school year, or a net number that is roughly the same… and again, unlike the charter schools and their ever-decreasing population and whose “kick-outs” not relaced, the same amount of funding to educate those students.
Jack, you make a lot of very incorrect statements here. Let me clean this up a bit for you.
1. Charters are 95% non white minioritie students from urban low income areas of NYC who are also often transient. You must not be from the area of have any education on who charters in this city actually educate. This study covers co-location in the same zone. THerefore, the charter and zoned schools have the SAME KIDS!!!
2. You mention ‘counseling out’. If charters counsel out, then why do they hold on to more students then the colocated zoned shools they were reviewed with? Based on the data, which you clearly have not reviewed or grasped, it would indicate that the local zoned schools are the ones doing the counseling out. CHarter are keeping more students then the colocated zoned schools Care to venture a guess as to why?
3. You seem to base your incorrect argument on money. Public charters in NYC are severly underfunded from public dollars. Zoned schools get some 20k per child in this city whereas public charters get only $13.5k. Zoned schools are not underfunded, and receive additional dollars from myrads of sources both state and federal. This preposterous assumption that more money equates to better results is trash. Charters are crushing the zoned schools in terms of results and doing it with much less public money!
Do me a favor, simple explian to me why public charters in NYC have lower attrition rates then zoned schools? To take away your race baiting claim, both charters and zoned serve the identical population. So why do charters hold on to more students? Are the zoned schools counseling out?
MS
Please review then vs. than.
Also, when the student leaves your charter, can you be sure the pro-rated per pupil expenditure returns with him to his public school?
They need the money. Thanks.
Just one point – one reason zoned schools get more money than charter schools might be due to larger populations of special ed students who are more expensive to educate. The BPS has a very large special educational population so it looks like they are spending more money per pupil than elsewhere in the region, but actually, the general ed child gets much less than their suburban counterpart, even though, on paper, it looks like they are getting more.
Lots of denial going on. NYC charters in grades K-3 did a BETTER job of retaining low income kids…kids likely to be more mobile…than district schools. In some cases, charters have figured out ways to build better working relationships with families.
NYC charters in grades k-3 did a better job of retaining ELL students.
I understand this is not what some of you want to believe.
And I understand the point about special ed students – except that I want to look carefully at what Jim Merriman is saying – that the number of special ed students involved in the study is 25. I assume he gets this from the % of students with special needs 0.8% and the overall number of charter students… 3043. Multiplying those two numbers, you get 25 kids.
Linda,
Why do more children leave zoned schools than public charter schools in NYC?
Are zoned schools counseling out children?
Please send the money back when they leave, okay? Thanks
Initially, I put this in the wrong place above.
Here’s where it should be:
————————————
It’s funny to watch the charter cheerleaders tapdance wildly like Savion Glover when confronted with the facts about how charters don’t replace kids they lose.
Take Jay Mathews’ response. The charters refuse taking in transfer students because of they did, Jay argues, they would have to put those transfer students in holding pens or rubber rooms for the rest of the year so they won’t infect the charter school classrooms’ and their students’ awesome-ness. They would then have to wait until next fall until they had been sufficiently molded into being acceptable to be included in an actual charter school classroom.
No, seriously.
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/04/jay-mathews-condemns-miron-kipp-study_15.html
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
JIM HORN:
“Finally, Jay is miffed that Miron and his colleagues find that KIPP does not take children during the school year as public schools must.
“(We know that KIPP has the luxury of requiring that 3 weeks of brainwashing during the previous summer to KIPP-notize new recruits, where would-be KIPPsters learn to walk and go the bathroom the KIPP way?).
“So once again, for Jay this simply points out the need for the rest of the world to change in order to comply with the KIPP organizational needs. We, therefore, should create something like student rubber rooms or holding pens for students who transfer in so that they do not break the spell of the treatment for KIPPsters who have been readied for their yearlong treatment in how to pass tests and how to resiliently absorb abuse and say thank you for it:
JAY MATHEWS: “Admitting students at midyear in urban neighborhoods also holds back classes in regular schools, the report notes. If that is the case, then why do it in that unpromising way? Why not have special classes for students who arrive at midyear that focus on their special problems and ready them for a fresh start in the new school year?”
JIM HORN: “If Jay Mathews truly believes this ridiculous babble, he is, indeed, dumber than I thought, which is to say, life continues to be full of surprises.
——————————————————-
Somehow, the traditional public schools have to take on mid-year transfer students, but the charter schools are relieved of such a burden.
Aren’t charters supposed to be the answer for everything?
Joe Nathan, I am for the most part pro-charter and pro-choice, but not schools or networks that don’t backfill seats lost to attrition. KIPP doesn’t backfill during the school year, as Jack points out, but they do make all empty seats available. Success does not backfill after the first day of first grade, and as I’ve said before, forget about rent: if I were de Blasio, I’d phase them out of DOE space entirely until they change this policy.
Tim would you stop providing space to the NYC selective magnet schools that make no pretense whatever of being open to all students?
Joe Nathan wrote: “Tim would you stop providing space to the NYC selective magnet schools that make no pretense whatever of being open to all students?”
The issue isn’t that the Success schools aren’t open to all students, it’s that they don’t replace the students who leave. This is absolutely not the case with NYC DOE selective, unzoned, or lottery schools. Some of these schools may not have a lot of attrition, but whatever seats do open up are made available for new students. K-5 selective schools can be tested into as late as 5th grade; K-8s until 7th, selective middle schools until 7th, and high schools until 10th (10th grade is the last transfer point for all DOE high schools, not just the selective ones).
Success plans to have a network of schools covering K-12 where the last entry point is the very first day of third grade. That sort of operation doesn’t deserve to have publicly funded space, period.
Tim, I don’t think that schools that 95% or more of NYC students can get into because they can’t pass the admissions tests deserve public funding.
One of the reasons the charter movement has grown is that there are a lot of people who want options, whose kids can’t get into elite “public” schools in cities all over the country.
Joe,
I think we’re due for one or your stories about traditional public schools and their great teachers.
Not sure you really want this, Linda. But since you asked, here are 3 of the 18 you-tube videos we’ve done with high school students. Each is designed to encourage students to take some form of Dual (High School/College) Credit course. They’ve been done with various urban students, and are in 7 different languages (Arabic, Dakota, English, Hmong, Karen, Spanish & Somali.
Here’s a link to 3 of them done with district school kids who are American Indian, describing district schools in Minneapolis & St. Paul.
http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2014/01/07/mn-videos-three-american-indian-students-getting-jump-start-college-through-dual-cre
We have a lot more of these on our website. They are free and people are welcome to use them.
For one thing, it’s not a level playing field to begin with. The very fact that a parent has to apply to attend a charter—and often go through a very involved application process— has the effect of self-selecting kids and parents who are more cooperative and motivated, and repelling those who are less cooperative and less motivated.
In addition, the parents often sign contracts promising to volunteer a set number of hours per week, and to monitor the kids homework, etc.
Public schools can’t make such demands on parents: “Do all of this or else your kids can’t go to school here.” Indeed, some parents—because of demanding, low-level jobs that demand long hours, or because they just don’t want to take on such demands—balk at these contract demands. So Joe’s claim “building better relationships with parents” leaves all that out of the picture he paints. It’s easy to “build better relationships” if you have a subset of parents who are more cooperative and motivated.
Also, on the subject of this not being a level playing field: the charters, including those in co-locations, typically have millions more from outside funding to pay for expensive computers, and re-furbished classrooms and brand new desks and tables. Visually, it is more enticing.
You’re right about not being from the area. I’m from L.A., but I follow the Big Apple and other cities from afar.
Writers like NYC’s Gary Rubenstein have done a good job of refuting the whole “charters educate the same kids” nonsense. “Same buildings, same kids, same lies.”
(granted this school in the following link is located in Chicago, but the point stands)
http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2011/03/06/same-kids-same-building-same-lies/
And when you’re done reading that, here’s a post where Gary goes after a prominent NYC charter school operator—Deborah Kenny’s HARLEM VILLAGE ACADEMY—and Kenny’s “same kids but better results” claims:
http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2012/06/12/it-takes-a-village/
(NOTE, what follows also highlights other problems common to other high-profile charters Deborah Kenny’s HARLEM VILLAGE ACADEMY… including one teacher’s testimony in how this charter school is such a wonderful place to work and teach… NOT!!!).
——————————————
GARY RUBENSTEIN:
“Throughout the years, though, this school has been criticized for its high attrition rate of both students and teachers. Two good posts from about two years ago are here and here. With the release of the new book, I thought I’d check the most recent 2010-2011 data to see what is happening there.
“I downloaded the recent state and city report cards from here and also the state report cards for New York City district 5 here, and found some interesting information.
“In 2010-2011, HVA had 55% free lunch and 13% reduced lunch. The district, that year, had 74% free with 5% reduced.
“In 2010-2011, HVA had 3% LEP vs. 11% for the whole district.
“In 2010-2011 38% of the students at HVA were suspended for at least one day while 7% were suspended for the whole district.
“Student attrition at HVA is huge. For example, the 66 5th graders in 2007-2008 have shrunk to just 16 9th graders in the 2010-2011 school year. This is a 75% attrition. In that same time, the district that the school is in went from 904 5th graders in 2007-2008 to 1313 9th graders in 2010-2011. That is a 45% growth.
“Though these are different cohorts, the graph below from The Charter Center show HVA’s enrollment by grade for 2010-2011. This is not what this graph would look like in a regular school.
(NOTE: there’s a cool bar graph here that powerfully illustrates his point, but it can’t be cut and pasted here… so follow the link and see it for yourself.)
“As far as their achievement, it is true that the students had a high passing rate on their state tests, particularly in math. But when I looked at their Regents grades, I noticed that, according to their state report card, no students took the Geometry or the Algebra II / Trigonometry Regents. So their 100% passing rate seems to come from all their students, through 12th grade, only taking the 9th grade level Algebra Regents.
“When I asked the school, though a mutual acquaintance, why this was, they wrote back that the state didn’t include all the data and they actually had 90 students take Geometry (nothing about Algebra II), and that 82% passed. But since they only had 80 students who could feasibly qualify to take that test, this seems unlikely. I currently have a data request into the NYC DOE to clear this up, so I will update if I get new information.
“When a school is truly great, teachers want to keep teaching there year after year. So it should be telling that in this school over the past three years the amount of staff turnover was 2007-2008 53%, for 2008-2009, 38%, and for 2009-2010, a whopping 61%. By comparison, the teacher attrition for the entire district in 2009-2010 was just 19%.
“To me, this teacher turnover is the most alarming statistic of all. So I tracked down a TFA alum named Sabrina Strand who taught for one year there. Sabrina wrote an excellent blog post called ‘I’m no Superman.’ I asked her if she would give more details about her experience, and here is what she wrote:
SABRINA STRAND: “I’m really glad you’re dedicated to exposing the truth behind the whole TFA/charter school charade. It is very much a charade, an elaborate, expensive smoke & mirrors. HVA, as I knew it, was one of the worst offenders of creating and sustaining the myth that teachers can solve everything. Waiting for Superman infuriated me because just like HVA – just like Deborah Kenny – it sent the message that good teachers should be martyrs, not people with lives and passions of their own that happen to also be talented and passionate about educating children. I am not a martyr, and as I titled my op-ed, I am also not superman. But yet many would say I am a very good teacher. In Deborah Kenny’s world, that would be impossible.
“During the 2006-2007 school year at HVA, I taught huge classes of 5th graders who were poorly behaved. The administration was weak and ineffective. Everyone, including the principal and the dean, was so stressed out that there were often medical problems. I used to take the bus up to Harlem with my co-teacher and best friend at the school, Johanna Fishbein, and we would often cry on our way to work.
“The working conditions at the school were plainly unreasonable. They took advantage of young, idealistic, competent teachers; they squeezed and squeezed until there was nothing left to give, even our dignity.
“Deborah Kenny is LARGELY to blame for this, as we were all desperately trying to play our parts in the Deborah Kenny play – one where she produced and directed but never wrote or starred in the productions. I have zero respect for that woman. The only time she actually came into the trenches is when she was preparing the kids for some dignitary’s visit. At that time, she would talk to them like they were slow kindergarteners, and when she left, they would all ask me who she was. That’s how connected she is to the school.
“Yet when President Bush came to laud our teachers’ efforts for earning the highest math test scores in the city, it was Deborah who schmoozed and gave the tour, Deborah who took the credit.
“Deborah Kenny and her Village Academies take advantage of budding teachers, often crushing their spirits in the process. Though we barely made more than NYC public school teachers while working seven weeks over the summer, teaching on multiple Saturdays, and averaging 12-hour work days during the week, Deborah pays herself the HIGHEST SALARY out of any charter school executive in NYC (that stat was recently published in The New York Post). She makes almost nine times as much as her teachers who are doing all the real work, the hard work, that lands her in the press so often and helps her send her own kids to tony private schools.
“Her ‘vision’ is a bunch of bullshit – basically, work your teachers to death, and you’ll see results. Sure, and you’ll also see a lot of unhappy teachers, and a lot of people leaving your school and vowing to never come back.
“The year I left, my entire fifth grade team left with me. Deborah refused to write letters of recommendation for any of us. Contrary to what she preaches, teachers are her lowest priority and she never has their best interests at heart.”
“No school with a 60% teacher turnover rate should be praised in the press as the model for other schools to follow. Now that I’ve taught in a relatively stable independent school for four years, I see that a school’s real success comes from its sense of community. When teachers are leaving left and right because they’re being asked to perform superhuman feats for little compensation, the idea of “community” essentially vanishes. All that holds Village Academies together is Deborah Kenny’s unrelenting ambition and greed.”
GARY RUBENSTEIN: “In summary: HVA, No miracle for you!”
——————————————————————-
Here’s another one from Gary on NYC charter school performance at:
http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2013/08/09/driven-by-data/
(NOTE: the CAPITALS in one sentence are mine… Jack)
——————————————————–
GARY RUBENSTEIN: “In the Stephanie Simon report she mentions that KIPP Star and Democracy Prep hadn’t done so well with their proficiency rate, but she doesn’t mention how far they had dropped. Out of over 500 schools, which includes about 35 charter schools, of the one hundred largest drops, 22 were charter schools.
“The most stunning example is the famed Harlem Village Academy which had 100% passing in 2012, but only 21% passing in 2013 for a 79% drop (you can see that sad dot all the way at the right of the scatter plot).
“Democracy Prep Harlem Charter, run and staffed by many TFAers, dropped 84% in 2012 to 13% in 2013.
“KIPP Amp dropped from 79% in 2012 to just 9% in 2013.
“The Equity Project (TEP) which pays $125,000 for the best teachers had finally gotten some test scores they can brag about with 76% in 2012, but that has now sunk to just 20% in 2013.
“The Bronx Charter School Of Excellence, which recently received money from a $4.5 million grant to help public schools emulate what they do, dropped from 96% in 2012 to 33% in 2013.
“So these are the schools that are the red ‘outliers’ hovering near the bottom right of the scatter plot. In general, THE AVERAGE CHARTER SCHOOL WENT DOWN BY 51 PERCENTAGE POINTS COMPARED TO 34 PERCENTAGE POINTS FOR THE AVERAGE PUBLIC SCHOOL. The most plausible explanation for charters dropping so much more than public schools is that their test prep methods were not sufficient for the more difficult tests.
“In other words: ‘You’re busted.’
“I just don’t see how the ‘reformers’ can reconcile these statistics with their statement that these lower scores are a good thing since we are now being honest about where we stand. The low scores in general do not decisively prove anything. The cutoff scores for passing were an arbitrary choice by some politicians in Albany. But the evidence that charters are certainly not working the miracles they claim is very clear from this data.
“Now, remember that I don’t think that test scores capture all the good in a school. Perhaps these charter school have a lot of those intangibles that help kids eat grits or whatever. I don’t know. But I do know that if the ‘reformers’ really value their ‘data’ so much, they should really think about how to interpret the charter grade crash. To me, this suggests that maybe the hundreds of millions of dollars given to charters, both from the government and from private benefactors could be spent elsewhere in education more effectively.”
Joe, I’m aware of and deeply respect your personal experiences with your kids. I have no doubt that there are plenty of non-exam schools in heterogeneous urban settings that can do a great job with advanced and accelerated learners. I also have no doubt that there are plenty that can’t. Should the only options for families with bright children and a shaky (perceived or otherwise) local zoned school be to apply to $40,000/year private schools, move to an exclusive suburb, or just cross their fingers that it all works out?
No, those should not be the only options, Tim.
Urban School districts should adopt programs like New Visions in NYC and Pilots in Boston and LA, giving district (unionized) teachers the opportunity to create new options within districts.
I give the Boston Teachers Union lots of credit for developing the Pilot approach. The St. Paul & Minneapolis Teachers Unions have tried hard to interest local school boards in the Pilot approach, but have not been very successful.
In part because Mpls Public Schools has been so resistant to site-governed schools (what we call the Pilot approach), the Mpls Teachers Union has applied to, and been approved to set up a group led by public school teachers, that authorizers chartered public schools.
I’m glad the MFT did this. A second option should for groups of parents & teachers with community groups to set up new charter public schools so long as they are open to all kinds of kids, with no admissions tests. As mentioned previously, I have worked hard (thought not always successfully) to help write state charter laws that prohibit admissions tests, as well as to help create new options within districts.
Perhaps they stay because they don’t want to mix with the “less desirable” children in the public schools – you know, the minorities, impoverished, and immigrant populations, not to mention those special needs kids. I’m just questioning their motivations. Now, in Buffalo, the charters are another way to segregate. However, not all the charters have survived, the students are transient – meaning they are counseled out in measurable numbers or go back to the public schools on their own, and the test scores are the same. I’m not sure what is happening in NYC, but it isn’t necessarily the same as in other locations.
Ellen, 95% of charter school students reviewed in this study are minorities who come from impoverished and immigrant populations.
Clearly you did not take the time to actually read the study. If you did you would realize that the charters have lower attrition rates with the same low income minority students that the zoned schools have, they are in the same building ffs. Do you think rich white parents are busing their children in from the Upper West to go to a school in Harlem?
Before posting utter nonsense why dont you educate yourself and post in a coherent fashion with facts on your side?
As I said, NYC must be very different from Buffalo. We don’t have large attrition rates from the public schools since all children are bused and remain in the same school whether they move or not. This provides for some stability. Parents do, however, move their children back and forth between various charter and public schools. Some of our charters are almost all black or all white. I guess you don’t have that issue in NYC. Luckily, our public schools don’t have to share buildings with charter schools, each charter school has their own site. I’ve been in a building which had to temporarily share its space with another public school, and it is not an ideal situation. I assume NYC is forced to split buildings due to a lack of empty facilities.
I am not an expert on NYC issues. I will let you debate with others. I just wondered if parents chose and had their children remain at the Charter Schools because they felt the children in the public schools were undesirable peers for their offspring. For example, how and why did you chose a certain school for your child?
THere are roughly 3,000-4000 special needs students in public charters in NYC, this study bases its review on 25 of them!!! LOL. The anti choice communists really have no credibility what so ever!
As compared to the pro-“choice” (we choose who we want to keep choice) privatizers? LMFAOROTF
Linda,
Why do more children leave zoned schools than public charter schools in NYC?
Are zoned schools counseling out children?
Why don’t you ask them? Eva has plenty of minions who can go door to door during the school day. Get busy.
I did not think you had the courage to answer…
MS…you’re also suffering delusions of grandeur as though it takes courage to respond to you. Get over yourself. Don’t you have papers to grade, lessons to plan, children to mentor. Eva?
Linda: thank you for responding so politely to racially charged insults. I don’t have the patience.
But as someone who actually lived through something like much of what is being discussed here—and I’m white—I can state with absolute 100% assurance that there is absolutely no basis in stating that just because, e.g., black people live in the same neighborhood and might have the same SES, blah blah blah, that they are exactly and perfectly the same.
As in the asinine statement: ‘exactly the same kids.’
Absolutely not true. The differences just between families, and within families, can be stark and life-changing. For people of all backgrounds and mixes. Charters rely on those differences to skim in and counsel out and then brag about gaining advantage without mentioning those differences. A clear abdication of the moral imperative to be honest and fair.
Keep posting. I’ll keep reading.
😎
Will do more research on this. What types of needs?
Since others are attempting to bring perspective to this discussion, we should not fail to mention that 27 traditional public schools were being compared to 5 charters or roughly 7,000 TPS students to approximately 3,000 CS students.
If you look at the percentage, even though there are more zoned schools, the charter schools only have a 1.3% difference to their supposed advantage. That really doesn’t say a whole lot by itself. And when we take into account the extra +4000 TPS students and the dearth of charter schools in the study, it really doesn’t say much of anything.
There is no secret here. To imply that “more” students are leaving zoned schools just shows a callous disregard for facts when the data clearly shows that the difference is insignificant (1%). It also demonstrates the layers concrete cocoon some people have insulated themselves in to prove an empty point.
We will have more kids in special education, because they cannot meet the inappropriate “rigor” of CCS. Parents, if not fueled by its implementation, will be disappointed then outraged hopefully when they discover that their average child is below according to CC assessment. It will be evident in public schools. We don’t need charter schools to tell us.
Charters kick kids out by third grade if they are failing, because they know the implications of the prognosis of kids not being able to read by third grade.
Joe,
You seem to be making a false equivalency between magnet schools and charter schools… and how they both are free to have stringent requirments for entry.
Magnet schools within a public school district—and staffed with unionized public school teachers—are the mirror image of special ed… Just as special ed kids need … well… “special” teachers and curriculum to compensate for their innate disability and maximize their potential, magnet schools also provide a different but, again, special (more challenging) learning environment and curriculum for kids who are at the other end of the genetic lotto in ability, and corresponding achievement. They exist so that these children’s gifts can be maximized in a way that, if they remained in a mainstream class, those gifts would not be maximized.
Magnet schools, their administrators, and their public school districts are pretty upfront about what magnet schools are, whom they service, and what their mission actually is. I have no problem with their existence, or with their admissions process, and frankly, I don’t understand anyone who would.
Charter officials and their shills, on the other hand, lie their asses off all the ding-dong day with statements like: “we educate all students… we have the exact same admittance and expulsion policies as the regular public schools” and on and on… when the fact is that they don’t.
The charter schools never claim that they are competing with or taking the place of public magnet schools, and thus, are likewise free to have stringent requirements for entering and staying at their schools. No, the image the promote it that their goal is to replace the regular, neighborhood public school—not the magnet school—and that those kids need to leave those “failure factories” and enroll in the charters.
Indeed, they engage in highly-selective creaming process at the front end, and kick out the hardest-to-educate kids, BUT NEVER OWN UP TO EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE DOING… “we teach the same kids as the public schools, blah-blah-blah…” Then, when the data is to their advantange, they try to make comparisons with the traditional public schools, NOT the magnet schools.
In Buffalo, with a large special ed population, all schools, even magnet schools, have special ed classes and that includes City Honors which is exclusively chosen through a vetting process. City Honors and the Gifted and Talented School where I worked (which also had a neighborhood component), specialized in autistic children, but had other lower functioning students as well.
“Grades, attendance and standardized test scores are used ONLY (sic) for the following schools: #156 Frederick Law Olmstead, #195 City Honors, #200 Bennett HS – Law Program Only, #212 Leonardo DaVinci, #304 Hutchinson Technical and #415 Middle College Early HS”
Click to access hs%20app%202014-2015%20final.pdf
So there you are – quasi private, publicly funded schools in Buffalo New York that use “grades, attendance and standardized test scores” to help determine who is admitted.
So much for schools open to all kinds of kids.
Joe – all is not as it seems in the Buffalo Public Schools.
In eighth grade, all students have to apply to high school, very similar to a college application process. They rank their school choices. Some choose their neighborhood high schools, some apply to specialty schools.
ALL the schools have a special ed population.
City Honors is the only school with high standards which is extremely difficult to gain admittance to – you usually have to test in at the fifth or sixth grade level. Performing Arts requires an audition (this school also starts in fifth grade). Olmsted starts in Kindergarten with a 30% neighborhood component. You do have to pass an exam to get into the gifted program. Students are automatically admitted to the high school if they maintain a B average or pass a creativity (not an IQ) test. Bennett High School is a general high school with a special program you have to test into, but the majority of the school is definitely not privileged. Middle College is looking for underachievers, C students. They receive an associates degree in five years and go to classes at Erie Community College. DaVinci is a regular high school on a college campus. Hutch Tech is geared for students in the math and sciences, thus the need for an entrance exam. There is also a culinary school who is picky, they’re not looking for failing students. The other schools I haven’t mentioned are Burgard, a vocational school, McKinley, MST (specializing in Math, Science, Technology), South Park, and East. Plus Lafayette who specializes in Refugees and other ELL students, and an Alternative School for students having difficulty in the regular high schools. All the schools look at standardized test scores and student grades. All the schools have to take choice students (students who opt out of a particular high school) if they have room.
The only truly elite school is City Honors, one of the best schools in the country. You wouldn’t want your child to attend if they couldn’t maintain a high achievement level since there is both an IB program as well as AP classes. It is very intense and definitely not for everyone. If you were a struggling student, you also wouldn’t want to attend Olmsted or Hutch Tech. The standards are high and you would be expected to actually complete homework assignments and do class work. I have seen wonderful children flounder because they couldn’t keep up the pace. They eventually transfer to a school where they can be successful. Yes, the better students do go there, but that doesn’t mean that the other schools don’t have something to offer.
Joe, since Buffalo embraced the magnet program many years ago and almost all schools have special programming, I guess they are all elite. A child must choose their preference. To differentiate, the schools must have some sort of criteria. Sometimes it’s a test, sometimes it’s a teacher’s recommendation, sometimes it’s a special talent, sometimes it’s a matter of location. It’s not necessarily promoting a private education (except, perhaps, for City Honors).
Ellen, I’ve spent time in Buffalo, talking with and listening to African American parents. Some of them view the situation quite differently than what you describe. Some believe that the board and district have carved out schools for affluent parents who don’t want their children going to school with their children.
As Jack pointed out, it’s unlikely that these selective admissions schools will be closed. Some public education advocates have accepted and in some cases promoted them for decades, over the opposition of some families. I found the same situation in, for example, Atlanta Milwaukee metro area, Atlanta, Cincinnati and St. Louis. Each have created “elite” selective high schools using a combination of grades, standardized tests and other measures that are used to determine which students are admitted.
One of the reasons the charter movement was born was that some families and educators strongly disagree with this approach. Both the charter movement and district public schools include people who continue to oppose allowing public schools to use admissions tests.
There are examples of such people working together to help improve schools and help youngsters.
Joe – there is just so much to the story, especially regarding the parent organization (a topic for another day). I tried to look up the statistics (which I have seen in the past) but I didn’t have the site. However, the fact is that only 20% of the school population in Buffalo is white while 60% is African American. About 12% is Hispanic with the rest consisting of Asian and a small Native American component. While City Honors has a larger than normal white population, over half the student body is minority. At Olmsted, about 30% of the kids are white. Both of these schools have about 3% Asians in their student body. Riverside (which I didn’t mention before) has a large Hispanic component. Hutch Tech is also about 30% white. And South Buffalo also has a white neighborhood component, so it probably has 30% or more white students. The other schools more closely resemble the 60-20-20 split, with Bennett and East having a larger black population than other schools.
Don’t make it sound like all the white kids go to the better schools and the black students can’t gain entrance. This is not true. While the better schools might have a slightly higher proportion of white to black than the other schools, they are still not the majority. There is the perception that the African American community is excluded, but that is not the case. The students who are consistently absent, tardy, and/or disruptive, and who give little effort towards their personal educational needs, are the ones who ruin their chances of being excepted in schools looking for more serious students. If their parents complain, they are not accepting reality. Students who qualify, no matter what their ethnicity, are accepted. And it’s usually the children with supportive families who care about their child’s education who are the better students. And that’s a major component of public education which is rarely discussed.
Ellen, your phrase, “student who qualify” – is telling. Over and over we’ve been told that public schools are open to anyone who wants to attend.
Your phrase “students who qualify” is a more accurate reflection of what happens in some (district) public schools.
Joe – It would be cruel to assign a struggling child to a school where the other students are covering advanced materials. You wouldn’t make a child with two left feet become a dance major or a child who was too shy to speak a drama major. Why would a student want to enter the program in finance or become a chef or auto mechanic if that was not their passion. Maybe they preferred going to their neighborhood school with their friends.
I’m not saying the program is perfect, but it does provide alternatives. I would have loved to go to performing arts, but that is not an academic school. I would have avoided the school in the science museum, since my interests are in music and literature. Neither would I have liked City Honors – too much pressure to produce. The whole idea is to find a good fit for each child. Choice is not a bad thing – it’s just an option.
Ellen, nothing in my comments suggests that anyone would be forced to attend a school they did not want to attend.
Joe – my point is that choice is not a bad thing. Each students is free to apply to any school. Acceptance, just as acceptance to college, is not guaranteed, but most children are given one of their first three choices. If the choice is not appropriate, they can transfer. Several high school students who chose other options ended up back at Olmsted. On paper, their original picks looked good, in reality, it wasn’t for them. Charters schools work in Buffalo. My only complaint might be that they need more options for the vocational students (schools which were closed because they were not meeting the NCLB, CCDS, and Regents requirements.) That is the true travesty.
Ellen, thanks for your note. Yes, I agree that strong vocational programs are an important option. Here’s a column summarizing recent Minnesota research.
This shows that low income students and students of color who took 240 or more hours of vocational courses in public schools are considerably more likely to graduate from high school than other students from the same group.
http://hometownsource.com/2014/01/15/joe-nathan-column-good-news-for-minnesota-students-families-and-taxpayers/
Some Minnesota high schools offer terrific vocational ed programs, not as a “lower track” but as a strong option for youngsters who do better with “hands – on” learning.
Actually, there are a lot of vocational schools in Buffalo. My husband works at one which offers horticulture, hydroponics, aquatic ecology, plumbing, drafting, carpentry, electrical, machine – sheet metal, etc.
About five years ago, they opened the school up to a “liberal arts” component. The voc ed kids are the better students, it’s these extra students who cause the problems and the lower scores. They just are not vested in the results. Sad, but true. (And Joe – there are also “choice” students – or kids who are simply allowed to choose this school without meeting any of the admission requirements.)
And what do we do with these “non” students?
Without knowing more, it would be foolish for me to tell Buffalo what to do – other than give teachers a chance to think carefully about what some previously unsuccessful students need and help design programs that works with these folks – as you work to help strengthen their families, help adults find jobs and help improve medical care.
The essential idea is to work inside and outside the school.
A monumental task for one of the poorest cities in the country.
Joe, one thing I forgot to mention is that some families choose private schools within the city. If their child does not get into a school they like, or even if they do, the child is enrolled in those privileged schools (which also require an entrance exam). And it’s mainly white children.
Understood. I’m not promoting public funds to private k-12 schools. Working on other things today, so I’ll respond to your other thoughtful notes later in the week.
In addition, the majority of charter schools, whether on purpose or not, are segregated communities, either all minority or white. The white school is in South Buffalo and the inner city charters are mostly black. Maybe two Charters meet your choice criteria – and they, too, are a choice similar to the magnet schools. You don’t get immediate admission. Not everyone qualifies. Not everyone is excepted.
Sorry for putting this here and for my part in wrecking the comments on this post, but the nesting (or lack thereof) is killing me, and I wanted to make sure Joe Nathan saw this comment.
Joe, I’m sure there are plenty of progressive workarounds to the selective school dilemma, but I have extreme doubts about scale and how quickly they can be brought on line. You know first-hand how quickly time flies when you have kids in the pipeline.
And selective schools have a long, rich history in New York City. Stuyvesant and Bronx Science have been around since the 1930s; Hunter (the first of the elementary G&T schools) started in 1940; almost every district had some sort of separate tracked program or school for most of the 20th century; Hecht-Calandra, the law that stipulates entry to the specialized school be determined solely by examination, passed in 1972. The DOE’s unzoned lottery schools, almost all of which are progressive, are hugely popular, and even more popular still are the elementary gifted-and-talented schools, which have 35-40,000 test-takers every year.
The selective school cat is way out of the bag here. There would be incredible outrage if these schools were decommissioned or made non-selective; almost as much incredible outrage as if the first day of third grade were made the final entry point.
Double standard at work, big time, Tim.
Tim, for some people, selective schools have a “long rich history.” For others they are another example of privilege, especially for those who conform to a certain set of values.
I agree with you that they are not going away in New York City.
But it seems like a double standard to say “it’s ok for some district schools to have admissions tests, but it’s terrible when some charter schools to have admissions standards.
Personally, and in my professional work, I have opposed admissions standards for any kind of k-12 public school.
Reblogged this on 101 Ways to Make Friends and commented:
Part of an interesting discussion about charter schools and disability (inclusion)
BELOW is a COMMENT from a KIPP charter school alum who goes off the script and tells the truth about whether or not charters “weed out” lesser kids.
Jim Horn posted an interview with a former KIPP teacher who talks about how the kids were forced to sit on the floor for the first week of school… until they “earned” the right to have a desk… I kid you not:
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2013/12/one-hundred-kipp-5th-graders-in-single.html
Below this is the Stockholm Syndrome-inspired COMMENT from the anonymous KIPP-ster in NYC… the Bronx, to be specific (it’s the fourth COMMENT down):
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KIPP BRONX ALUMNUS: “This (practice of him and other kids being forced to sit on the floor for a week and beg for a desk) is what builds TEAMWORK, which is the KIPP motto. It may seem militant to you, but in a system where kids are passed grades because the STATE doesn’t want to look bad, instead of letting the children EARN their education, you need this kind of attitude to weed out who is capable of completing the strenuous 7-5 pm accelerated curriculum that KIPPSTERS endure, not to mention the Saturdays spent if you are in a program like Capoeira or Orchestra. Don’t open your mouth until you UNDERSTAND what it is to be a KIPP student.” from -A KIPP ACADEMY ALUMNI. That’s In The SOUTH BRONX In Case You Would Like To Research Further, You Definitely Need To Jim.”
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Pretty creepy stuff. The mask really dropped from this guy’s face, didn’t it?
What’s that? A charter school alumnus comes clean and proudly brags about how charters like KIPP deliberately “weed out who is capable.” But how can that be? MS says such “weeding out” never happens in NYC’s charter schools.
Who’s telling the truth?
Well Jim Horn responded thusly,
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JIM HORN: “I don’t normally post anonymous comments, but your rant is so compelling that I could not resist. I think the key phrase in your comments comes from identifying KIPP’s purpose, which is to ‘weed out who is capable.’ As one of the obvious ‘capables,’ it would be normal for you to focus on that part of the equation. On the other side of the weeding are those who are self labeled as failures, which is a result of the ‘no excuses’ thought disorder that children are taught to absorbed by the corporate school model, along with their earned failure they are taught to stoically accept (failure comes to 40 to 60% of KIPPsters between fifth and eighth grade).
“I see, too, that you have absorbed some of the common verbal courtesies used at KIPP schools. But if I had endured what you have as a result of learning to embrace your oppressor, I would probably be more angry, still.”
Re-reading this COMMENT shows what a first-class d-bag this KIPP alumnus is — bullying, condescending, controlling, threatening…
It’s kind of like in THE MASTER when Joaquin Phoenix got mad at someone at a party who criticized Phoenix’s L. Ron Hubbard-ish guru—played by Philip Seymour Hoffman—then tracked the guy down to his apartment and bead him senseless.
“you need this kind of attitude to weed out who is capable of completing the strenuous 7-5 pm accelerated curriculum that KIPPSTERS endure… ”
What is this? The Hitler Youth? Get over yourself, dude!
“Don’t open your mouth until you UNDERSTAND what it is to be a KIPP student.”
Oooohhhhh, I’m shaking… is this what passes for a debate of ideas at a KIPP school?
Newsflash: people having an intellectual discussion don’t appreciate some bullying d-bag
barking orders at them…
“Don’t open your mouth until you UNDERSTAND … ”
Yeah, well why don’t you SHUT your mouth instead! Better yet, bite me, you schmuck!
“That’s In The SOUTH BRONX In Case You Would Like To Research Further, You Definitely Need To Jim.”
Neither Jim nor I don’t “need to” do squat, you imbecilic jackball! And what’s with the SOUTH BRONX reference? Is that supposed to be some kind of … “if you’re tough enough to come here” kind of comment?
Whatever… if this is what kind of graduate that the KIPP schools produce…
So is there a difference between a charter school and a high SES public school beside the fact that one is run privately w/public funds and the other with public funds?
Don’t they both devalue underperforming students?
While I worked in a high SES public school, if kids from low SES attended they didn’t need policy to get kicked out because of behavior or lack of academic achievement. They were shunned by teachers, parents, and students.
Relative to the issue of serving everyone – no exceptions – whether in a school or a business:
One of the “Greensboro 4 – among the original people who moved civil rights ahead by asking for service at a Woolworth’s counter, has died. Here’s a tribute from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/11/us/franklin-mccain-who-fought-for-rights-at-all-white-lunch-counter-dies-at-73.html?ref=obituaries&_r=1
Still no answer to my question from the anti-choice leftistas. Clearly they already know the answer.
ANyone else want to take a stab at it? Tell us why public charter schools have lower attrition rates then the zoned schools in the same building? Are the zoned students leaving to join the public charter schools as it is a better education? Are the zoned schools counseling out the kids they dont want? What gives?
It will be interesting to hear dBlaze’s answers when he gets hauled in front of congress to explain why he is anti-choice and why he wants to stop the poorest minorities in our city from receiving a world class public education.
http://www.wnyc.org/story/charter-schools-are-here-stay-now-lets-have-useful-conversation-about-them/
Great piece on the WNYC website that has some alternate views worth considering!