In response to a debate about charters in Minneapolis, this reader says the comparison is unfair. The charters enroll different students from the public schools. Moreover, as the charters exclude students with disabilities, the public schools enroll larger proportions of the students with the highest needs.
He writes that charters do NOT beat the odds. They stack the deck in their own favor while harming public schools:
“The few that do [beat the odds] have a lower amount of SPED and or ESL students than their public school counterparts. They also have higher attrition rates, suspension rates and strict academic policies that allow for students to be “pushed out”, and lower class sizes. Also more importantly is the fact that in MPS, The % of SPED students that are level 3 and above is over 30%. Minneapolis Charters that number is around 8%. Simply put public schools educate all that walk through the door. Charters self select. There is no way getting around that fact. I am sure one of the schools Mr. Nathan is talking about is Harvest prep which BTW has a 0% ESL populations and 7% sped. Neighboring Bethune is at 23%.3 times as many. In fact Lake Harriet has a higher SPEd % than Harvest. Please stop comparing charters to public schools because they simply serve different student populations. MPS serves all that walk through the door.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The fact is that charters do not exclude special ed students – some charters have considerably a higher percentage than district public schools.
Minneapolis district schools in some cases push out the most troubled youngsters either to “contract’ alternative schools or “special schools” set up to work with these youngsters.
Much to the chagrin of (district) alternative school educators, the Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals has asked for and received the power to place students they want out of traditional schools into alternative schools.
Some former district public school educators, frustrated with these practices, have created charters.
Finally, I completely agree that schools should not be judged just on test scores.
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“Some” charters have a higher percentage of special ed students than district schools…
“Some” district schools push out troubled youngsters…
Certainly you can do better than that, Joe.
Here in NYC, charters don’t “exclude” special education and ELL students, they just “tend” not to enroll them.
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Joe, good to know you believe schools should not be judged merely by tests scores however the fact is they are and test scores are actually a tool for charters to grow because the state rewards charters for good test scores. Now, although some charters have higher amounts of SPED’s the one ‘s you say are beating the odds do stack the deck. Harvest Prep is a prime example. Not only is their SPED rate lower than other neighboring north side schools (MUCH LOWER)they have 0 level 3 or 4 SPED’s. That makes a very big difference.
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Absolutely, all schools should not be judged on test scores but Joe Nathan in many places they are. The District people came to our school to discuss test scores in our district . Our schools don’t have letter grades but rather a star grading system. All the schools were put on a Power Point ranked from 5 to the 1 star schools. I asked : Where are the charter schools? The presenter said she didn’t know but when the State listed schools, they did rate charters and guess what? The charters didn’t beat out the public except for one betting out the local high schools. If public will be judged and their teachers evaluated on test scores then certainly charter schools who use public funds should have the same scrutiny.
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Megan, I’m not sure what “presenter” you are referring to. One of the things that unites many progressive educators, whether in district or charters, is an effort to broaden the ways schools and students are assessed.
Charter & district educators came together some years ago to successfully challenge the NCAA. The NCAA was using highly questionable means of assessing courses offered by every high school in the country. It took 3 years but a variety of educators, parent and community groups successfully challenged this.
Now a number of progressive educators in both district & charter public schools are challenging the idea that schools can be judged only on test scores (and in high schools), four year graduation rates.
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What we need is for you and your business partners to stop “assessing” schools at all, Joe. Who are all these people, who have “partnered” with public officials and agencies to designate you an expert on holding children accountable on any terms whatsoever?
“Funding for the Center has come from the Annenberg, Blandin, Best Buy, Bradley, Bremer, Cargill, Carlson, Frey, Gates, General Mills, Joyce, Minneapolis, Peters, Pohlad, St. Paul, St. Paul Companies, TCF, Travelers, Rockefeller, Wallin, and Walton Foundations, the Carnegie Corporation, the University of Minnesota, the Minnesota Initiative Funds, and the Minnesota and U.S. Departments of Education.”
Maybe the Gates Foundation started out thinking they could use standardized tests to show some kind of superior results. When the opposite occurred, they just doubled down on their lies and attacks. Now here you are, joining us in the battle to “widen” assessments.
No, thank you.
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And he’s “progressive”? Ha!
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Chem tchr wrote, “What we need is for you and your business partners to stop “assessing” schools at all, Joe.”
Diane Ravitch – do you agree with that?
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Joe, glad you agree on test-based evaluations as an improper tool. Here’s the problem: your (and my) agreement on this issue doesn’t change the establishment of the test as the be-all end-all for reformers and a generally lazy and misinformed public. They think those routinely published scores mean something.
And to that fact, charters are hardly an option at all. Charters do not do better on the whole than traditional publics. Sure, there are some success stories. And those stories are often modeled on having a selective student body. Others are not scalable. (Why did KIPP stop with their schools in that district in Texas? Right, needed more money than schools actually get.)
So what we’ve done is destabilize schools with the so-called panacea of choice. When it’s just choice for the sake of itself. Meanwhile, budgets are disrupted and teachers get blamed because it’s convenient for policymakers who don’t want to admit that this has failed.
Here in Michigan, I see the same thing every year. About mid-March, in the week after Count Day (which determines the money each school gets), our counseling department registers 10-15 new students. 90% were “encouraged” to leave their charter school. I’ve had those kids in class and they are not academically up to par. Not even close. Sure, this is a small sample but I’d bet it could be multiplied across districts.
Charters are a parallel district that do nothing better. They’re cheaper because they don’t do transportation (at least in metro Detroit) and they have no legacy costs. They’re health care is also cheaper. (Because it sucks or because the teachers are young and the turnover is high.)
And that’s the real key here. Every discussion of school choice, every editorial about it, also sneaks in “cost effective.” Usually at about the 80% mark of the article. We know what this is about. And it isn’t about creating a better education.
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Yes, charters kick kids out and often the kids have no school to enroll in right away. What do these students do while they are out of school? They certainly aren’t learning. Charters kick kids out left and right.
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Steve, I agree that your description of students migrating from one school to another during a school year IS a problem. When I was at an alternative district school we had the same problem, and alternative school directors around the country have commented that they encounter similar problems.
it would be good to have solid, independent research on which schools within a state have a pattern of doing this.
At one point there were some terrific district options in Detroit and in Michigan. One of the people who posts here has pointed out a problem in one community where the district alternative school was packed and had a long waiting list. But the board refused to set up a second option.
This is the kind of frustration that helped produce the charter movement. But as I’ve said numerous times, I think we should be trying to learn from the most effective district & charter public schools. That’s a considerable part of our work. And fortunately there are others around the country doing the same thing.
http://hometownsource.com/2013/05/08/joe-nathan-column-national-coalition-honors-outstanding-district-and-charter-public-schools/
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Joe, I see your point but I would like to add one caveat. Why do we need to learn from the best public school districts and charters, when we originally could have learned from just the best public school districts.
While I applaud ideas you have mentioned during earlier posts regarding testing and transient students, I’d like your take on the budgeting nightmares that creating a parallel set of schools (charters) has had on public school districts. It’s especially nightmarish because, on the whole, charters are not demonstrably better. If they were better then we could say “We’ve found a more improved way of doing education.” But to have this volume of disruption for nothing only serves to create the crisis that reformers claim is occurring.
And we know choice isn’t a real reform. First, nations with choice systems have plummeted in PISA (Sweden especially) which means RttT might be the most misnamed policy ever. Second, Milwaukee has had voucher schools forever with little improvement when free market competition would include all ills. Third, Michigan has had charters for over 20 years yet Detroit (heavily charterized) is still the worst educated city in America.
Detroit has everything. Charter schools. Public schools. Magnet schools. State-controlled schools. And every person I speak with who works for any school in Detroit refers to it as a “hot mess.” Only those running the schools (in particular the charter sector leadership) claim it’s making a difference. Though the evidence outweighs the rhetoric.
Wouldn’t it just be better to have a single public school system (rather than two) and scale up the successful ones? Better for kids, but not entrepreneurs.
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“Wouldn’t it just be better to have a single public school system (rather than two) and scale up the successful ones? Better for kids, but not entrepreneurs.”
Agree!
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Actually, all over the country there are examples of alternative district schools that have done well, but districts have declined to expand or replicate.
As Al Shanker wrote about 25 years ago (well before any charter law was passed), (district) educators who try to create new options within districts often “are treated like traitors or outlaws for daring to move outside the lockstep.” If they somehow succeed in starting a new program, “they can look forward to insecurity, obscurity and outright hostility.”
Educators all over the country tell a similar story. Sometimes central office administrators and school boards are very responsive. Sometimes not.
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“But the board refused to set up a second option.”
Don’t the people elect the board?
Shouldn’t an unresponsive board simply be voted out?
No need to set up a second system to solve that problem.
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Ang – you raise a key point. Traditionalists have ruled the board for years and despite numerous efforts, innovative educators and families who want a 2nd innovative school (because of the waiting list and success of the school) have been frustrated. More than a generation of students lost the opportunity to attend.
I respect the innovative educators in the district, as well as the more traditional district educators.
But the charter movement provides an opportunity for educational innovators to have a 2nd place to go to present their plans. Not all of those innovations are worth trying, not all of the people who want to open a new school have the skills or integrity to do so. Some people who have set up new schools lack integrity (as is sometimes pointed out here)
But some of the most successful charters are run who encountered years of frustration in traditional districts.
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“Traditionalists have ruled the board for years and despite numerous efforts,….”
But the point is they were elected by the people of the district.
If the people do not like what they are doing
vote them out!
There is no need to run a parallel system that drains money off the first system.
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Fortunately we have separation of powers in the United States. Locally elected school boards are not the only groups with power. Legislatures, the federal government and courts also have power.
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Joe… You mentioned the word “innovate” (or a form of it) several times. Charter advocates such as Duncan love to use this term to validate the need for charter expansion. Despite this, Arne has never given an example of how charters are “innovative.” Does innovative mean a no excuses KIPP-like model or a suburban charter with an arts or STEM emphasis? Maybe flipped instruction?
I worked in an urban system that had a viable magnet program. Wouldn’t that satisfy the need for an innovative currculum different from a TPS? Furthermore, these magnets were under local control by an elected school board. It seems to me magnets would offer choice and innovation, but would not be operated by a CMO. Wouldn’t charter advocates consider this a compromise?
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Mike thanks for your note. There are some great and awful magnets. Same is true for traditional and charter public schools. I’m fine with strong magnets as long as they don’t use admissions tests based on standardized tests or auditions. Many do.
However there are additional reasons for allowing people to create new options outside the district structure.
* no one in Minnesota had establish a Montessori junior-senior high until a group of parents and teachers who had been asking districts to do this for a decade, finally established one as a charter. Several years later St. Paul established a Montessori junior high.
* parents in Forest Lake, Minnesota asked repeatedly for a Montessori public school elementary school. The district kept saying “no” until frustrated parents said since the district turned them down repeatedly, they would set up a Montessori option. Finally the district said yes (based on lots of data about the value of Montessori education for many youngsters). The parents were fine with this and decided to work with the district, rather than set up a charter.
* Parents in Rochester Minnesota had the same experience as those in Forest Lake, except they wanted a Core Knowledge option. Again, the district said “no” until the parents said they would set up a charter. Same thing as in Forest Lake happened.
*Boston Teachers Union said they wanted to create within district options that they called Pilots, similar to what NYC teachers had been allowed to do. Boston School Committee (what we in midwest would call school board) said “no.” Then some of the teachers said they would set up charters instead. School committee decided to go with the teachers proposal. Some decided to set up Pilots (one of which is Mission Hill, in which Deborah Meier helped to start). Some, frustrated with the district, set up charters.
Hope this helps. Reactions welcome.
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Forty percent of an electorate will lose every time, yet might organize themselves into viable schools if given the opportunity and the resources to do it.
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“Fortunately we have separation of powers in the United States. Locally elected school boards are not the only groups with power. ”
Yes, I suppose it is fortunate for you and your big money backers that they can continue to siphon tax money away from public schools to run a parallel system that does no better.
Great work!
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Just received a student two weeks ago in one of my class periods. Heavy behavior issues, kicked out of two different charters. I feel sorry for the student, and frustrated with the lack of resources available to this student and family.
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“Charters are a parallel district that do nothing better”
Yep
So why siphon money away from public schools?
Hum, can’t quite put my finger on it.
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