Word of mouth says that charter schools kick students out before the testing begins.
The charters make a big show of holding a lottery, but they choose the students they want and kick out the ones they don’t want.
They cherry pick the students that will get the highest scores and shed the ones who don’t.
What is the end game?
A dual publicly-funded school system.
One sector gets to choose its students.
The other takes everyone.
Brown vs. Board of Education has been repealed by hedge fund managers and the craven politicians they own.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Kicking kids out before testing is just one strategy. In many states any kid on the rolls at about the 135 day point draws a year of funding, even if they “leave” after that. So schools can “ditch” kids on day 136 with no penalty.
A few days ago, “Democracy Now” featured a thoughtful debate on charters vs public schools: http://www.democracynow.org/2014/3/13/new_york_citys_charter_school_showdown
The dual school system: Charters; take students who want to learn, parents who can afford their program and participate. Public; take students who don’t make it into charters, students who for various reasons don’t want to go to school, parents who do not participate.
The law says we must provide a free education for all students till they turn 18. No one syas they have to take advantage of it. That’s the philosophy of charters. If you want an education they will give it to you, others can go elsewhere.
We have to seriouly look at the public school set up. Federal and State regulations, rules of districts, public schools being a job bank for friend and family, teacher contracts, unions, building requirements, testing. We have built a huge model that is not flexible. Charters are free of most of the regulations of public schools. Why is that? Lets fix the public school system, it may already be too late.
“Charters are free of most of the regulations of public schools. Why is that?”
Your preaching to the choir on this one…The original charter concept (led by Al Shanker) was to give freedom and flexibility to promote innovation that could be shared with other district schools. If charter schools are more “successful” due to their additional freedom and flexibility, why not eliminate those same barriers for traditional public schools? Because charters have devolved into profit-making machines by hedgefunders thanks primarily to the New Markets Tax Credit. Arne Duncan and the DOE are in bed with those same hedgefunders who will fight to protect a system that benefits them and creates a dual school system.
One reason you might want to have greater regulation of traditional public school systems is to limit the power of the politicians who run what is typically the largest single employer in the town.
And don’t forget to add: They throw the students out before testing time, AND keep all of the state aid that followed the student, sending back the student with academic and/or behavioral issues and no money to support them. But the REAL public schools willingly take them anyway.
Diane, here’s the “business communities” new ad for Common Core.
Running on FOX, because the only parents who matter to the wholly political ed reform “movement” are the GOP base:
[video src="https://www.dropbox.com/s/te7jr7yk8hfq18o/2014HSSP101%20New%20Standards-youtube.mp4" /]
Apparently it doesn’t matter that the vast majority of public school parents have no earthly idea what the CC is, and will only find out when their kids fail the battery of tests that are coming. The important thing for ed reformers is to unite the GOP base before the midterms!
Remember who DID NOT gain access to the too few lifeboats on the Titanic. The children down in steerage are waiting on the Plutocrats and we all know how that ends. It is up to us.
http://tamaractalk.com/public-schools-outperform-charter-schools-in-broward-county-12731
This is a good piece on Broward County (FL) public schools and how they are dealing with the fact that they are surrounded by charters who take the higher-income students, leaving them as the “safety net” schools.
The most interesting part is that the charters don’t do any better. No one knows why the parents are creating what are essentially “higher income” zip codes around the charters. They speculate that it could be “uniforms” or “discipline” but it could just as easily be that they want their children to go to school with other higher income children.
Anyway, I think the public school deserves recognition for doing such a great job although they are undermined at every turn by the elected officials who are supposed to be working on their behalf. They won’t get a national media spot because what’s happening in real life conflicts with the romantic narrative.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The data shows public schools do ‘as well’ (actually better, since the score w/n 0.1-0.2 despite twice the # of poor kids)… so we look to other possible reasons for enrolling kids in charters, like uniforms, discipline style, SES… could race [not mentioned] be a factor?
Broward country also seems to have an extensive magnet school program. Here is a link to the website http://www.browardschoolsinnovativeprograms.com/magnet-programs
The most famous sentence in Brown v. Board is “[s]eparate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” But remember that Brown was about race, not separateness. It dealt not with segregation by academic achievement or disability status or income, but with racial segregation.
Diane writes:
I don’t follow this at all. What kind of students is the charter sector choosing? Are you saying that the charter sector is choosing *white* students, thereby creating a dual school system that’s segregated by race, with whites in charter schools and minorities in public schools? Is the charter sector choosing *minority* students, thereby creating a dual school system with whites in public schools and minorities in charter schools? I’ve seen both accusations leveled at charters on this blog.
Perhaps they are “choosing” the children of motivated parents who are compliant students who speak english, have only mild disabilities (if any at all) and are good test takers.
Maybe the notion of separate and unequal can be extended beyond race.
A standard based on academic potential would certainly kill the qualified admission magnet schools.
Do you think it might be applied within a school? That is allow all courses to be open to all students, independent of learning abilities?
As an academic matter, possibly, but that’s a long discussion, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to reference Brown v. Board when you aren’t talking about racial segregation. We have a lot of ways to talk about inequality that don’t require us to re-imagine Brown v. Board as a case that stands for broad principles beyond race.
I realize (sigh) that I’m a bit uptight about this by many people’s standards. But I think it’s a pretty huge deal to not be cavalier about what may be the most important constitutional case (and therefore one of the most important historical events) in the history of the US.
FLERP, it is impossible to talk about the resegregation of public education without referring to the Brown decision. Nor will I permit you to tell me what I can or cannot say. Go ahead and argue that the Brown doctrine is dead, or that segregation doesn’t matter to you, but don’t claim that the Brown decision is off the table. When journalists and our Secretary of Education hail the “success” of segregated schools, I can’t help but think of the Brown decision, and you can’t tell me not to.
What I believe FLERP was saying is that Brown v Board of Education pertains to racial segregation, not other kinds of segregation like those based on academic potential.
Diane, I truly have no idea how you interpreted my comment as saying that “the Brown doctrine is dead,” or that “segregation doesn’t matter,” or that “the Brown decision is off the table.” I was essentially saying the exact opposite, although I was saying it to Ang in response to a separate comment, rather than to you.
(Also, I would be bothered less by this if people didn’t keep doing it over and over, which suggests either that they don’t care or, perhaps worse, that I am so tiny and insignificant that I could shout this from the mountaintop for the rest of my life and it would make no difference.)
FLERP,
Isn’t it the point litigation sometimes to expand a ruling to cover more groups and situations?
Like expanding the right to privacy to include a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy?
(I fully accept that I may be all wet here, not being a lawyer and all )
Ang, I was going to try a thoughtful response to your question, but I don’t have it in me. But the short answer is basically, yes, that’s part of how case law plays out, although it happens at a glacial pace.
FLERP,
Thank you for your response.
I am reasonably sure having 2 different funding formulas for 2 types of school systems that claim to be the same is segregation. Demanding one type of facility for charters and supplying them new equipment while denying public schools similar upkeep. On the flip side, giving some students certified teachers and other students uncertified temps is also segregation. Highly qualified used to mean something in NCLB until it got watered down to the point of being a joke. How do you say TFA qualifies as highly qualified teachers?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx This would all be clearer, had the article given us white v. black/brown data on the Broward County charters v. public schools.
I think the One Newark Plan is an admission that this is happening. They’re setting up regulations to ensure that charters take the same share of high need students that public schools do. Anderson finesses it in the One Newark plan, turns it around to an argument that public schools can’t “compete” with charters because of all those nasty rules and regulations, but she’s re-regulating charters.
Of course, it remains to be seen if ed reformers can regulate their way out of this corner they’re in, and set this up as “fair”, but I do think the debate over whether this is happening is over.
They know it’s happening. That’s why they’re getting ready to re-regulate the school systems they de-regulated. In states with more conservative state legislatures (like Florida) it won’t be re-regulated, and so the creation of “zip codes” around charters will continue.
They know it, because they’re regulating around it. They just don’t admit or discuss this publicly.
Click to access StrategicApproach.pdf
Of course, the lottery itself is a selection screen for the charters.
Parents differ significantly in how concerned they are regarding their children’s education and in how functional they are generally.
Virtually all charters enroll via application — that is, the parent must learn about the charter and complete an application (often requiring computer access and computer literacy). Most charters are located beyond walking distance from the students’ homes; therefore, charter parents must provide daily transportation to the charter.
So — which parents will be sufficiently concerned/functional to learn about the charter, complete the application, and provide the daily transportation? Obviously, parents who are more concerned/functional will be more likely to apply for the charters than parents who are less concerned/functional.
Some concerned/functional parents will decide to apply for the charters and some concerned/functional parents will decide not to apply for the charters.
In the inner-cities (where virtually all the charters are located), there are many parents who are so unconcerned/dysfunctional that they will not apply for the charters. None of the children of these parents will go to the charters.
Bottom line: The charters will enroll only the children of concerned/functional parents. The neighborhood schools will enroll some of the children of concerned/functional parents and all of the children of the unconcerned/dysfunctional parents. In other words, the charters’ enroll-via-application approach — when applied to the inner-cities where there are many unconcerned/dysfunctional parents — ensures that the charters’ student populations will be much easier to educate than the neighborhood schools’ student populations. And, that is before the charters start weeding out enrolled students who are LD, ESL, behavior problems, unmotivated, or otherwise likely to be “problem” students.
Do you think that the students of involved parents are better off because they are surrounded by students with involved parents? If so, how much should we value the gains for those students?
“how much should we value the gains for those students?”
Perhaps we should have solid evidence of those gains before we go down that alley?
Dr. Ravitch has cited positive peer effects as an explanation for some of the research into differences between charter and traditional school scores. As a practical matter, many here have talked about the problems with teaching a class when there are even a couple of disruptive students.
The charter students definitely benefit from attending a charter school where all/virtually all of the other students are children of concerned/functional parents rather than a neighborhood school where many of the other students are children of unconcerned/dysfunctional parents. This fact is why charters are so popular in inner-cities — they allow the concerned/functional parents to escape from chaotic neighborhood schools where classes are constantly disrupted by the minor but endemic misbehavior of the frustrated children of the unconcerned/dysfunctional parents.
On the other hand, the charter students would benefit even more if they were able to attend a neighborhood school where their classes were not constantly disrupted by minor but endemic misbehavior.
The charters’ instructional programs (teachers, what they teach) and the physical facilities are almost always inferior to those of the neighborhood schools. The charters usually hire less experienced/less credentialed teachers, offer a narrower curriculum, and use whatever space is available — makeshift classrooms with no auditorium, gym, or cafeteria.
Common sense dictates that inner-city political and school leaders should shut down the charters and focus school reform on alleviating the chaos in the neighborhood schools that is driving the concerned/functional parents to the charters. Track students in the neighborhood schools based on academic ability, achievement, motivation, and/or behavior; fund much smaller classes/teacher aides in the low-tracked classes; allow students to move between tracks as performance dictates. (And, dramatically expand pre-K down to 2-year-olds for low-SES families with an emphasis in the pre-K on providing the low-SES children high-SES-type verbal interactions so these students will find elementary school rewarding rather than frustrating.)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx I am tired of hearing that charter kids ‘do better’ because their parents are more involved in their kids’ education by virtue of having to research schools & fill out applications. For one thing, those parents would be a positive activist force in agitating for improved nbhd p.s.– & their kids would continue to provide beneficial peer influence– if they were not being lured elsewhere. But more importantly, the argument is moot in the context of actual charter kids’ comparative performance, by all accounts middling, & in the case of Broward County on this thread, not as well.
Noooooo:
“I am reasonably sure having 2 different funding formulas for 2 types of school systems that claim to be the same is segregation.”
Only if by “segregation” you mean “the act of separating things.” Brown v. Board and its progeny which deal with *racial segregation.*
Also, Brown v. Board did not stand for the proposition that an unequal division of funding, or building space, or anything else that can be counted — even if inequitably allocated on the basis of race — is unconstitutional. “Separate but unequal” was already unconstitutional under Plessy. The whole point of Brown v. Board was that racial segregation is improper and unconstitutional *even if* there is a completely equitable division of resources between segregated classes, because *racial* segregation is so psychologically destructive that it amounts to an evil from which all children should be protected — no matter what.
Sorry, rage-typo correction: delete “which” from third paragraph, to read “progeny deal with.”
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Thank you for making the point: in every study I’ve seem so far, a 2-tier public/charter system exacerbates segregation. Which means so far, on the ground, the privatization experiment runs counter to Brown v Board.
In places like New York City, at least, the qualified admission magnet schools also qualfy as a tier, not to mention the private schools.
That may be right. I don’t recall seeing studies that show that charter schools significantly increase segregation (it’s not something I follow closely) but I accept what you’re saying for purposes of this discussion, and I agree it runs counter to the sprit of Brown. Of course, a lot of other things run counter to the spirit of Brown, too, including all the exclusionary systems that rely on private property, like school catchment rules, gifted & talented programs, country clubs, and expensive private schools.
Dianne, I appreciate many of your posts. However, when you write about charter schools (as you did above), there are consistently statements that imply all charter schools are the same. Please remember in your passionate dialogue that NOT ALL CHARTERS ARE CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS – many are also grassroots organizations with students at the heart of their programs. Charter school teachers are also fighting many of the same battles as traditional school teachers (and with less resources as you have pointed out before). The anti charter rhetoric only divides educators from one another. Please consider changing some of your rhetoric.
Unfortunately, Becky, the Eva Moskowitzes get all the attention and become the stereotype of the charter. And then there are the corrupt for-profits in Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Louisiana. Deregulation gives opportunity for greed and corruption.
Just wait a a bit, Becky: once the public schools have been permanently “disrupted,” you’ll see the independent, mom-and-pop charters targeted.
Their existence is temporarily encouraged and indulged because they are a useful wedge to undermine the public schools and teachers unions. Once they’ve been disposed of, the charter chains and the funders will seek to increase economies of scale, making small charters expendable.
That’s when you’ll find suddenly yourselves rated as “failing,” too.
By the way, while I understand that everyone has got to eat, and that many charter school teachers would prefer the superior pay, benefits and due process of the public schools but are frozen out by tight budgets – worsened by the political lobbying of Wall Street firms that support charters – to say that teachers who are being used to undermine a public education and workers rights are “fighting many of the same battles” as public school teachers is preposterous and delusional.
watch when the private schools close down and all the rich kids go to charter schools paid for by taxpayer money
In our town it’s the charters that have closed down after receiving a grade of D or F. They reappeared the following year as private, parochial schools, and now get their public funding from vouchers.
Richard Cohen editorializes in today’s Washington Post that the poor plutocrats who support charter schools are being vilified for just trying to help the kids. He says the rich are the “underdogs” in this fight, while minimizing the idea that, “As always with the rich, they want things done their way,” as if that were just a peccadillo and not a real threat. He says that “New York is witnessing progressivism run amok,” as if supporting genuinely public schools were some sort of radical exercise. Read the whole sorry thing here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/richard-cohen-illogical-hostility-toward-charter-schools/2014/03/17/b3f1ae4e-adf2-11e3-a49e-76adc9210f19_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions