Reader Chiara Duggan says that study after study shows that charters and vouchers demonstrate that data don’t change their minds. She is right. The charters that get high test scores systematically exclude the most challenging students. Some public schools get higher test scores because they serve affluent districts. The differences between charters, vouchers, and public schools tend to be small if they enroll the same students. But the Status a quo pays large numbers of people to argue that the Status Quo–the destruction of an essential institution of a democratic society–is “working” and has positive effects. When the test scores don’t support their argument, they shift the goal post and claim that the private schools–the charters and vouchers–have higher graduation rates. They take care not to mention attrition rates, which are very high. In the case of Milwaukee, the “independent” evaluators from the Walton-funded University of Arkansas quiet.y acknowledged that 56% of those who started in voucher schools left before graduation.
Chiara writes:
Oh, data doesn’t matter to ed reformers. It’s a belief system. Private is better than public. You can’t move someone off a belief with numbers.
How many times have you see a voucher study like this over the years? Once a year for two decades? Yet Democrats and Republicans and paid lobbyists and pundits still promote publicly-funded private schools over public schools. Vouchers have expanded every single year in this country under ed reformers. There isn’t a scintilla of evidence that they’re any better than the public schools they undermine and then replace, but it simply doesn’t matter.
“Students attending private schools receiving taxpayer-funded vouchers in a new statewide program did not score as high overall as public school students on state tests in reading and math, according to data released Tuesday by the Department of Public Instruction.”
It doesn’t matter what public schools do; improve, don’t improve, whatever. They are the designated punching bags for the punditry set. It’s knee-jerk at this point. Heck, a lot of people are PAID to bash them. It’s a smart career move.
I think this may inadvertently benefit public school students. As it becomes more and more clear that privately-run schools don’t outscore public schools in any meaningful way, the goalposts will move, and standardized test scores will no longer be the measure. I think it’s already happening. Ed reformers may actually do something that benefits public schools, and deemphasize the lunatic, obsessive fealty to test scores. They’ll do it it only to defend their own schools, but public schools may benefit collaterally.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
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If district schools enroll 94-95% of public school students, wouldn’t it make more sense to refer to them as the status quo?
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That is an interesting point. As I recall, Dr. Ravitch intentionally began using the term status quo in reference to reform because the practical aspects of reform have actually been in play since 2002 (NCLB) and are not working and so are therefore the status quo. Since it literally means “the existing state of affairs,” I don’t think numbers are the issue. Albeit, that does mean that 94-95% of students are under the reforms brought by NCLB and renewed by RttT, and therefore are very much experiencing the status quo. The charter and voucher aspect is just chapter two, perhaps and in my mind is really more about union busting with ALEC folks falling in line for economic reasons.
I’d love to read what others think on that.
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What the vast majority of schools are doing, NCLB, RTTP, testing and test prep, data-based evaluation and accountability, large classes, all that comprise today’s status quo. Many charters do much of the same. Much of CCSS is being implemented embedded in this status quo. Technology, computers and tablets are most often being used to enhance this status quo.
And this is supposed to be innovation?
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That seems like an accurate description of many schools.
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The answer to your question is an emphatic “no,” because the premises and policies of the so-called reformers – high stakes testing, reduction of students and teachers to data that can be manipulated and/or monetized, perpetual destabilization, disruption and privatization – have been whip-driving the actions of the public schools for years now.
Just as investors who own what appears to be a minority fraction of a company can control it, so too are the “ideas” of the so-called reformers the “ideas” that are taking over the public schools.
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It seems pretty tough to square the argument that it’s really the reformers who are the status quo because of what you wrote here and because they’ve been in charge for X years with the argument that there is no crisis and our traditional district schools are awesome: NAEP scores are the highest they’ve ever been, graduation rates are the highest they’ve ever been, etc.
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And precisely where did I say that?
Oh well, another straw man goes up in flames.
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I didn’t say that you made that argument. It is a defense of the traditional public schools frequently made by Diane and many “regulars,” who then also argue that it’s really the reformers who are in charge because we’ve had corporate test-based accountability for so long now.
I find these two positions difficult to reconcile.
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And Tim, in response I would say that your argument defeats that of the reformers who say that public schools are failing. If those numbers are all true and public schools educate well over 90% of the kids in the nation, then why all the hand-wringing and demand for change?
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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx @Tim, a reading of the long-term NAEP scores actually does seem to support calling ed-reform policies the ‘status quo’– the steady rise in scores of poor/minority students over decades drops suddenly to zero rise once high-stakes [NCLB] testing has been in place. https://dianeravitch.net/2013/06/27/the-latest-naep-report-dont-believe-what-you-read-about-it/
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Yes, you and I agree that high stakes testing is happening in every state and has an impact on virtually every public school. Because it’s part of what’s happening in just about every school, I agree that it is part of the status quo.
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Joanna Best & Michael Fiorillo: what you said.
Let’s take a ‘for instance.’ The LAUSD [Los Angeles Unified School District] has for years now been run by by the agents of, and on behalf of, the charterite/privatization movement. *Thankfully, they aren’t always able to get absolutely everything they want.*
Those educrat enforcers and their edubully political enablers don’t represent the best interests of the overwhelming majority of the students attending LAUSD. It simply translates into a tiny minority running into the ground LAUSD schools, making any serious problems there much worse, in some cases to the point of total ruin.
So who’s running LAUSD? The defenders and advocates of public schools? Or the defenders and advocates of charters and privatization?
Let’s make this simple with numbers-driven hard data: the $1 billion iPad fiasco belongs—are you ready?—to the charterites/privatizers. This goes way beyond a 98% “satisfactory” [thank you, Bill Gates!] chance of certainty. This is responsibility and moral complicity—100% to the $tudent $ucce$$ crowd. How can I say that? Because before it began crashing down all around them, they took 100% of the credit for it.
So let’s use the china shop argument: you broke it, you own it, ‘fess up.
But I’m not holding my breath. When they fail, charteriters/privatizers always fall back on the pronouncements of their high priests of teflon accountability:
“I go in, fix the system, I move on to something else.” [English-to-English translation: I go in, put the fix in, when that fails I move on to other prey.”]
Link: http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Paul-Vallas–213999671.html
😎
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Your argument is simply just another “status quo” argument. Ravitch is giving one based on her view and you are giving one based on your view.
However, there is a problem with your argument (logically speaking, that is). The problem with your argument is that one does not necessarily contradict or nullify the other. One doesn’t “make more sense” over the other. They both make sense. They simply just are different ways of looking at the status quo of whatever you want to look at. Your argument hinges on an informal fallacy, Joe.
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As the recipient of funding from billionaire know-nothing’s, Joe has a lot of fallacies to defend.
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The Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary defines “status quo” as “the way things are now.”
One part of the way things are now is that 95% of public school students attend district public schools.
If 95% of the students attended charter public schools, then I’d call that the status quo.
I do agree that people might decide to call a situation in which 5% of student attend charters as the status quo. But the reality is that the vast majority of youngsters attend district public schools.
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I do not doubt that the vast majority of youngsters attend charters. I do not think anyone here would doubt that. Do you really think people would?
But the “way of things now” for how most charters operate and publicize themselves is also the status quo. If they serviced 1%, 5%, or 50% it would not change Chiara’s argument.
You should attack the real argument and not the sloppy manikin one you erected here.
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For the voucher, tax credit, and some charter crowd, it’s faith-based data analysis. In more ways than one.
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Exactly.
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Isn’t this kind of like having an excuse to get away from a marriage, and then not admitting it when the same issues come up in the next marriage??
They’ve bothered to set up the charter, so by golly they are going to use and likewise ignore whatever they need to to make it.
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In terms of data and public school privatization, we’re actually talking about a couple different types of data. One is the type bent, shaped and selected for for public consumption/opinion and makes it look great for kids The other data is for private investors and makes kids look like dollar signs.
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Good analysis, Dan. Staying on message is important, as mentioned by commenter, Akla. The compelling argument against corporate reformers is the money angle, which is well stated in your final sentence.
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I agree completely, but there is more than one fact-challenged belief system in place when it comes to education. Take, for instance, the belief that there is no educational problem in poor communities that cannot be fixed with more money, more resources, and more outreach. This belief cannot be validated with any actual meaningful data. In the places something similar has been tried (Kansas City, for instance), it has been a miserable failure.
Everybody knows America is in decline. There can really be little argument about that, and everybody wants to turn things around and be (economically, at least) like “the good ol’ days” (the national holiday from history known as the 1950s). There is an irrational yet optimistic belief among certain segments of both the left and the right that the key is “fixing” our schools. If only every school were a good school, then it would go a long way to address our concerns about egalitarianism and social mobility (on the left), and meritocracy and free market principles (on the right).
But public schools cannot fix the culture, which is diseased. And they cannot fix the fact that the market value and social status gap between white-collar and blue-collar jobs has never been wider, and is continuing to grow. And they cannot fix the fact that, no matter what we pretend, we will never live in a world populated solely with educated Eloi who make a living with their minds.
The sooner we accept reality and deal with the world as it is, rather than living in fantasyland, the better.
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“Culture” is an epiphenomenon. The decline in average population IQ due to demographic changes is a genetic phenomenon.
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Yes, all those mongrel hordes flooding our borders are diluting the genetic vigor of the ubermenschen, aren’t they?
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Average world IQ is about 90. At that level sustaining a first world economy is probably not possible.
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I have an additional concern on vouchers. My fear is vouchers set a new race-to-the-bottom number on per pupil funding that doesn’t reflect what public schools have to cover for students.
The Ohio voucher number is about 4500. Per pupil funding for public schools is higher than that. In addition, ed reformers tried to concoct a voucher program in MI where kids would have been given 5000 to shop for a cheap online alternative to public schools:
http://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/detroit_news_noses_out_a_school_reform_skunk_works.php?page=all
Is the push for vouchers in ed reform going to end up in a race to the bottom for per pupil funding? It isn’t an accurate comparison re: religious schools, because we know religious schools subsidize the student funding out of church coffers and public schools have a duty to accept every student.
I feel as if the push for vouchers does not take into account the risk for the public school system as a whole. Public schools aren’t considered at all. There’s a sort of blind denial that when they create a system that includes private schools, public schools ARE affected.
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That might be a concern. My bigger concern, however, is that private schools accepting vouchers will, eventually if not immediately, have to dance to the government’s tune. Private and religious schools provide a great service to our country by offering alternatives, even if they are not economically feasible for many people. If the private schools are coopted — if they are forced to follow government dictates because they are receiving public funds — society loses its primary education alternative. Better to keep the private and the public separate, and that’s doubly true for the religious schools.
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Are private schools forced to accept vouchers?
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In Indiana they are not required to accept vouchers. They can test the child for admit to see if they are up to par for the school, they can charge more tuition and other fees than the voucher covers, and they can kick the student out for poor performance or attitudes. So the parent/child does not choose where to use the voucher, the school chooses the voucher student. And they get to keep the money.
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I would think that would be a concern, but it doesn’t seem to be. This is Toledo Catholic schools:
“Most vouchers go to Toledo’s Catholic schools. Christopher Knight, Catholic Diocese of Toledo schools superintendent, said they have become a major enrollment component for those in central Toledo, with the biggest recipients Central Catholic High School, Gesu Elementary, and two Central City Ministries of Toledo schools — Rosary Cathedral and Queen of Apostles. The program has largely kept Rosary Cathedral School afloat, with about 75 percent of its students on EdChoice scholarships.
The program redirects funds targeted for public school districts to private schools — up to $4,250 for elementary students and $5,000 for high schoolers. That meant more than $8 million shifted from TPS toward mostly Catholic schools. Mr. Knight said that although the program has helped stabilize some Catholic schools’ budgets, the diocese advocates for vouchers because of benefits to parents.
Central Catholic in recent years maintained student enrollment between 1,000 and 1,100 in significant part because of vouchers.
Admissions Director Paul Smith said he expected between 35 and 40 percent of the school will use the EdChoice program next year.”
The fact is vouchers are keeping some of these schools open. They’re wholly dependent on vouchers. Is that a good thing? I don’t think so.
http://www.toledoblade.com/Education/2012/06/18/Demand-for-vouchers-declines-in-TPS-district-reversing-trend.html
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So If a school isn’t force to accept vouchers and they don’t want the government to tell them what to do, the solution is simple. they don’t need to accept vouchers.
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In theory, you are correct that no one is forced to accept vouchers. However, a widespread, anybody-can-get-one voucher system would put tremendous pressure on private schools to accept them since not doing so would put them at a distinct price disavantage compared to their competition. If a school faces the choice of either accepting vouchers (and the associated government mandates) or going out of business, there is no good choice.
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As I have argued before, we lose the argument because we make a fact based argument to rebutt their non factual statements or facts twisted beyond recognition. They speak in hyperbole and jargon, factoids are thrown around or ignored if not supportive. We respond with citations from scholarly journals, data and more data. We lose. Boring. And we, as indicated by the responses to this and other posts on ravitch’s blog, cannot stay focused on one issue. We reply, then go far afield. They stay on message. As much as I abhore republicants and their business ilk, they manage to stay on message. Democratic party members cannot stay on message.
In evidence of what works, your program of screaming about too much testing seems to be gaining traction. This is a good, emotionally based program that does not depend on data, just pictures of little kids crying or putting their heads down on their desks after giving up. While this may accomplish the goal of stopping common core and testing, in the end it runs the risk of ending all tests.
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“As much as I abhore republicants and their business ilk, they manage to stay on message. Democratic party members cannot stay on message.”
This isn’t really a GOP-Dem thing. Some of the most ardent supporters of charters are Democrats like Obama, Rahm, and Michelle Rhee’s hubby.
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True. You could add Bill Clinton, Paul Wellstone, former Cal State Senator Gary Hart, former Mn State Senator Ember Reichgott Junge who was chief author of the first state charter law. and a long list of others
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Thank you for making my point of not being able to focus on the issue. I did not say democratic party members were not supporting the common core, privatization charterchoicevoucher movement. I said that we who would refute, rebutt and put to the lie the research by the so-called ed reformers cannot stay on message. Put up a solid front. Instead you two respond with a list of democratic members. Misses the point, that was an illustration of why we have a difficult time rebutting these people and they float around the ring untouched by our data.
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Paul Wellstone died in 2002, the year NCLB was authorized: trying to forcibly yoke him to what the so-called reformers have been doing since is quite a stretch.
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Paul Wellstone and a number of other progressives questioned (and a number of other progressives continue to question since his very sad death) reliance for judging schools on standardized tests and graduation rates.
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Akla — Your’re the one who “went there” with the partisan comment. If you want the conversation to stay focused, keep the conversation focused. You can’t throw out a tangent and expect people to just ignore it.
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“While this may accomplish the goal of stopping common core and testing, in the end it runs the risk of ending all tests.”
Were we to be so lucky as to “ending all tests”.
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You say: “As much as I abhore republicants and their business ilk, ” but where does the money for public schools come from if not from Republicans (and Democrats) running small and large businesses?
Isn’t that a bit of biting the hand that feeds one? I fail to see why defenders of public education require themselves to be so fundamentally ‘anti-business.’ The only alternative to capitalism is the theft by government of labor through socialism, i.e. tyranny. We were supposed to have abolished slavery with the Civil War. Now defenders of public education are advocating renewed slavery, i.e. legal appropriation of people’s work. It won’t wash with almost half of the population who know better.
It’s the triumph of ideology over pragmatism, I figure, much like climate change is the triumph of ideology over fact, to the end that cheap energy from coal and gas is suppressed in favor of unstable, inadequate high cost energy sources like wind and solar.
The FIRST thing defenders of public education need to do, in my view, is cease all this anti-Republican, anti-business rhetoric and ideology. We all breathe the same air, but which I mean we all depend on the same (capitalist) economy for our prosperity and funding of our schools.
It’s like saying “I hate farms” but still wanting to eat.
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In Indiana, local proerty taxes pay for our schools. Corporations are mostly exempt from these property taxes and they pass them along to consumers, so no, businesses do not pay taxes–we consumers pay the taxes. I am not against farms, nor large farms to enhance efficient use of resources-land, people, machinery. But I am against corporate farms, as that is not about quality of product, the workers, or efficiency unless involved in extracting value.
Again, sorry to have used such big words and seemingly too far afield example to make a point to an audience of teachers and academics. My point, the republicants are better and are winning on message because they stay on message. Democrats cannot stay focused on a message. This does not speak to whether ed reform is a republicant or democratic party idea or policy. This does not speak to who is behind the ed reformer policies from corporate America. Can democratic members be involved in ed reform and still not be focused? Yes. Rmember–stay focused.
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You are correct to critique the precision of my language in my comment. Local property taxes do pay for schools. But where does the money that the individual consumers pay in property taxes come from? It must come from wages or return on investment. My point still holds, that ALL the money for schools comes from private sector economic activity. For you and others to continue to bash Republicans from a sanctimonious non-business point of view simply is counter productive. Until the defenders of public schools get over their hostility to private property who will listen to them? Or at least be ready to act on what they hear? Not many.
Defenders of public schools won’t debate an even more fundamental question, and that is whether the guarantee in each state constitution of a free public education must necessarily produce a government-run system. It might be arguable that the free public education could be satisfied by a state managed redistribution of taxes so that every parent had equal buying power in an educational marketplace of privately run schools.
A network of charter and voucher schools could theoretically fulfill the state constitution’s guarantees of a free and public education. The education service providers need not necessarily be government employees.
This issue should be debated.
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Harlan, you’re right that business and GOP bashing is counterproductive.
But I don’t see that redirecting public funds to private entities with no public accountability for quality or constitutional protections is even debatable.
A guarantee of free public education is just that. Public.
So bashing of the voucher/tax credit movements should continue as a necessary thing.
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It appears that supporters of charter schools as an education reform strategy are ignoring the data about equity. But maybe equity does not matter to them because they have different goals. Maybe their real goal is to carve out privileged space for those deemed “most likely to succeed.” Since this goal is obviously elitist and anti-democratic, it cannot be uttered out load. Instead, it is disingenuously framed as opportunity for the “unfortunate” to have the same shot as the wealthy. I expand on this in a Huffington Post article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arthur-camins/why-god-bless-the-child-t_b_5118915.html
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Arthur Camins: a crucial point.
As someone else framed it a little while ago in a thread on this blog: the current debates make a lot more sense if you view the charterite/voucher/privatizer crowd as arguing for a “business plan” and the advocates for and defenders of public education arguing for an “education model.”
In practical terms, the former give a nod to the “education model” with catchy slogans but it’s all about customers and $tudent $ucce$$ and capturing ed market share by beating the competition, while the latter occupy themselves with—can you believe it?—stuff like pedagogy and the integrity of the individual and joy of learning and a “better education for all.” Oh, and the latter also point out the non₵ent¢ of the former—which is routinely dismissed by the defenders of the education status quo as “ad hominem attacks.”
Thank you for your comments and the link.
😎
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You are of course completely correct. Parents are motivated to invest in the success of their own children not other people’s children. Talk of “equity” is a form of status-jockeying not something to be taken seriously.
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Arthur, I refer you to the Bill Wilson testimony, posted elsewhere in this discussion. There are a lot of people in both district & charter public schools deeply concerned about equity. Some of them have spent much of their lives working with and for low income families and their youngsters.
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Mr. Camins: you are probably right about the triage involved, but you do not identify the actual causal connection between poverty and poor school performance which would enable us to save everyone. Diane’s answer, too, is wrap around social services. It seems to me, however, that the ONLY way to save every kid is to take kids away from ignorant, improvident, and unintelligent parents. Are you willing to go that far?
Otherwise ‘equity’ is just a word, a bit like ‘salvation,’ undefinable in this life, pace Dr. M. L. King.
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Here is a CREDO virtual twin study which shows children attending New York City charters are significantly better off there than attending their local zoned school: https://credo.stanford.edu/documents/NYC_report_2013_FINAL_20130219_000.pdf
Lest anyone attack its methodology or conclusions, I’ll remind everyone that CREDO’s national charter school study is the source for the oft-cited claim that charter schools are no better than district schools. Not every state has the same charter school laws or the same caliber of authorization process. I’ll also remind everyone that there is no evidence I’m aware of that shows charter schools or choice have any measurable negative effect on students who attend traditional district schools.
Even if in the aggregate charter schools are not outperforming traditional district schools, there are other reasons they can be a benefit to society: if they are cheaper to operate and thus use fewer taxpayer dollars, e.g., or if they extend agency and self-determination to a segment of our population that has suffered immensely from government-sponsored hyper-segregation. And while I’m sure many followers of dianeravitch.net assume that the average American is blinkered, misinformed, or a dupe, public opinion matters, and most Americans either support or don’t object to charter schools.
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yes, credo, that bastion of not heavily funded pro charter/choice/voucher researchers, found in their virtual twin studies a few instances where charters outperform public school students in a subject or grade level here and there. Of course, they had to concoct a statistical model to do this, instead of comparing charter students to non-charter students who tried to win the lotto but failed to do so, or who won but did not go to the charter, or even use actual students from the actual public school that fed the charter school. One of them gold standard thingys they always touted. Using a similar twin virtualization study in Indiana, they found a small handful of charters that outperformed public school students. They ignored that the majority are performing far worse, or at best, only the same, and the claims that they operate at less expense and the rest are put to the lie upon examination. CREDO is trying to make the argument put forth by the indy based mindtrusters that we need to regulate and control the proliferation of charter/choice/voucher school operators, as some are not as rigourous as others. The bad ones make the few good ones look bad. We were promised accountability would close these schools down for failure to perform (improve student achievement), but the goal posts were moved, and moved again when such achievement failed to materialize. Now they beg for more money and less accountability. And none close. Except when finances are involved.
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And a number of people involved with district & charter public schools think research that seeks to compare performance on standardized tests between district & charter schools is bogus. That’s because district schools vary widely, as do charters. There are, for example, both district & charters that serve youngsters who have not succeed in traditional schools. There are district & charters in affluent suburbs. There are district & charters in low income rural communities. There are specialized district & charter schools focusing on, for example, the arts, or health careers or Chinese, Spanish, German, French immersion.
Saying a school is a charter or district tells you nothing about is curriculum or the teaching strategies or educational philsophy.
For some of us, comparing test scores of district or charter schools is like trying to compare gas mileage of rented and leased cars. Not a meaningful comparison.
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Yes, which is why the best research compares the students in a charter school to the students in the public school from which they came. Given your long history with the charter school movement up there I can see how you would not really want to compare apples to apples as that is not working out too well for the students.
Anyway, in Indiana CREDO had no excuse not to compare students to students in their home schools. The data are available easily. And they are clear, the Indy area charters with one or two exceptions (they are the ones that heavily filter or kick out students) do much worse than IPS does. In Gary area, charters are a major failure. Funny how you are moving away from using test scores as an indicator of charter success—when the promoters of charters/choice/vouchers sold us this stuff it was all about soaring test scores, innovative models, less cost–and yet none of that has come to pass. A failed model with a few exceptions. Perhaps we can get back to our public schools and work on improving them instead of continuing to siphon public tax dollars into private hands while making false promises to those trapped in the pro-choice political movement.
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Comparing charter students to students in the sending schools is also problematic if you’re trying to measure school effects. That would require the assumption that students who leave the sending school comprise a random sample from the sending school. They’re most likely not.
Besides, test scores are a proxy for a lot of other things than school effectiveness. It would be interesting to compare student populations, the goers and stayers, on some of those other variables.
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yes, reserach basics 101, but that is not under discussion here. What is being discussed is why the moving goal posts? procharterites made the promises of soaring test scores, less cost, innovative new methods/ideas. Research not funded by the procharterites has not found this to have happened. Much of the stuff that has found these impacts was done by jp greene, peterson of harvard, and now some of their people who have been implanted at credo. jp and peterson long had problems with random samples and attempted to construct their gold standard based on comparison of those who entered the lotteries and were selected or not selected. But their studies were negated because they never verified that the samples were alike, just assumed, and then they were never able to track and account for all students in their samples. At best, in Dayton and other places they only found a modest gain in some subjects at some grades. jp is infamous for making up novel analytic methods when statistical methods accepted by most do not produce the outcomes he knows should be found. As hoosier mindtrusters shout–we know this is a good school, the rubric must be flawed, but we will apply it to all of those public schools becuase we know they are failed schools. CREDO could have used real data, developed samples that were comparable and that controlled for all of the appropriate ses variables, but they did not–instead, from a brief perusal of their model, they constructed virtual students based on averages and medians and other stuff from across the state. Such manipulations do not control for ses and stuff. Like VAM models they attempt to nullify the need to have random samples and to make sure that the samples are the same on various characteristics.
CREDO could also have tracked students who entered public school for a grade or two, went to a charter school for a grade or two, and then perhaps went back to the public school and also identified why they went back. Who stayed in the charter and how did they differ from those who went back to public school? Who kept the money? Which voucher kids are being chosen by private schools? Which are being refused or kicked out?
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Akla, it is clear that evidence doesn’t matter to ideologues. If the research doesn’t produce the answer they want, they fudge the data, change the question, or ignore it and move on.
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Sorry, Akla. I didn’t know you were the discussion police.
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so now that you know I am the discussion police, try to stay on message–that is what this post was about–staying on message and why the edreformers are winning the battle and war. They do not spout data, no need for it. When they do, they use bad research or made up stuff from places similar to faux ed news media (finn’s education next or whatever they call it that jp greene edits). I pointed out that we are losing because people respond with facts, data, analyis etc. But we cannot stay on message. Focus. If you want to discuss research methods and sampling etc, start a different comment line. Discuss why we cannot stay on message. I will let you off with a warning this time. Repeat offense will be dealt with harshly–two weeks in an education conference listening to statistical regressions on why Jill cannot read.
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Actually, Akla, I have a 40+ year history with district public schools (including being a teacher, administrator, PTA parent & president), 39 year husband of an urban public school teacher, parent of 3 youngsters who attended urban public schools, k-12, one of whom is now teaching in the district.
Comparing how students did who entered and did not enter a school, whether district or charter, is a possible approach to looking at the impact of a particular school.
But as mentioned before, there is a vast array of district as well as charter schools. So comparing how students did at a charter serving high school youngsters with whom traditional schools did not succeed, or comparing youngsters who were admitted to a district middle school using the Pre-IB approach, would tell you about that school.
But it would not be accurate to generalize from either of those schools to all district or all charter schools.
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yes Joe, not accurate to compare. got it. Charter schools in Indy draw from IPS–for the most part. Compare IPS to those charter schools. Match the students. From the data, we know that charters are failing. We have one or two that seem to be doing better, but they choose carefully who gets in and they have high turnover. They boast 100 percent graduation, but their class size falls drastically from 9 to 12th grade. I am not trying to compare all charters to all public schools. That is the CREDO virtual student, a composite of students from across Indiana, in our case, that meet certain ses and other characteristics. In other words, not really meaningful. Anyway, keep up that charterchoice work. Watch superman a few more times, follow more money and help the superrich celebs gain attention through their philanthropy amongst us poor. Provide the information on the graduates of those programs you touted. Where are all of those ed reform degree holders and how many schools have they turned around?
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One valid criticism made of “reformers” is that they generalize and stereotype. “Schools are failing”, “we have bad teachers.”
But that doesn’t mean we who question reforms can do the same.
There are good, bad, and indifferent charter schools, state be state, district by district, school by school.
Nor can we who oppose judging schools by test scores (and oppose the testing) turn around and use test data in arguments for or against any schools.
There is a valid question data could help with: on what characteristics do charter and traditional public school students differ,if any? I thinks that’s essential in districts where charters are a hot issue. I hunk they do differ, but I’d like some evidence.
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But the same is true of public schools. Some schools are better than others. Have public supporters ever said any different?
Charter schools are promoted as superior to public schools in every state, and that simply isn’t true.
I would be fine if charter school supporters said “some charter schools are superior to some public schools, just as some public schools are superior to some charter schools”
They never say that.
If I wanted to, in Ohio, I could go to a lousy charter school and say “charter schools are inferior to public schools”. That’s what’s been done with public schools, and that isn’t fair and it isn’t accurate.
What was “Waiting for Superman”? It was an attempt to push a theme that all public suck, and all charter schools are superior. It was propaganda.
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Actually, some of us do say that. I posted a column about that earlier today. The movie Waiting for Superman also made the point, just using standardized tests, than many charters don’t have as high a proficiency level as many district schools. The movie used CREDO data.
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What would make you think that charters “extend agency and self-determination to a segment of our population that has suffered immensely from government-sponsored hyper-segregation”? The charters typically found in hyper-segregated areas tend to be of the “no excuses” variety in which abominations like “agency” and “self-determination” are anathema, both for students and teachers.
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The great thing about charters is that they are strictly voluntary–no one who shares your opinion has to send their kids to one! And as I’ve said before, “no excuses” is probably a selling point to families whose zoned schools have had decades-long problems with maintaining a safe and orderly learning environment.
The “agency” comes in by giving parents an option that before the advent of charter schools was not widely available to families who didn’t have the money or proper skin color to move to a better district, or the money or insider knowledge to attend a Catholic, private, or selective school.
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Good point, Tim, about “no excuses” being a selling point. One of the bigger problems motivated students in poor communities face is that their schools are horribly disciplined. No teacher can teach when kids refuse to even stay in their seats.
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Student body selection is probably way more than half the battle in education. Of course even though the only thing a charter school may actually do better than a “traditional” school is to exclude undesirable students that alone is likely to make many parents prefer them.
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This comment won’t fit in a fortune cookie. I suggest deleting the second sentence.
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Jim — Yep. Ask concerned parents in poor communities what they most need to help their kids educationally, and they’ll likely tell you it is to get their kids away from the troublemakers.
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And of course “their kids” aren’t the trouble makers, eh!
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Duane — Maybe not! Not all kids are, you know.
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The differences in the average classroom behavior of say typical black children and typical East Asian children is pretty extreme.
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Jim, can you fill us in on those differences in behavior?
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the bigger point, Jim, is that it only takes a few bad kids to make a classroom unmanageable. Take, say, the top 10 kids out of every classroom in a poorly-performing school and give them their own school, and you will have a much healthier environment for learning.
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I agree completely.
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“Take, say, the top 10 kids out of every classroom in a poorly-performing school and give them their own school, and you will have a much healthier environment for learning.”
Chances are that school is in a community dealing with high poverty. So we take the top students and put them in their own charter school. We send their state aid to the new school and deduct it from the school they are leaving that now has fewer resources to deal with a more difficult to educate population. The question then becomes who is responsible for the remaining 15-25 students?
Rahm Emmanuel’s solution appears to be to is try to drive the “undesirables” out of the city. Let other communities deal with them while Chicago gentrifies itself to success. Not only does he solve his school problem but he reduces his social service costs. He is trying to create the world’s first city sized, gated community.
Perhaps we need to recognize that schooling can only do so much, and that we cannot expect the schools to assume responsibility for curing poverty and the problems that tend to come with poverty. As hard as we try, we cannot teach a child to health; we cannot teach a child to be able to afford enough food; we cannot teach a child to afford a home; and while we can teach job skills, we cannot teach their families to a living wage.
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Actually some districts have been taking the most troubled students for decades, and assigning them to “alternative schools.” It’s a sad history and one that has happened throughout the country.
Some of these places are staff by terrific people who do great things with these youngsters. Some of these schools are holding tanks. But let’s be clear – pushing out some youngsters into alternative schools happened long before the charter public school movement started. Pushing out youngsters continues today around the country.
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As a special ed teacher, I had some experience with students returning to public schools after being placed in alternative settings. None of these students were placed there capriciously. It was a significant expense for the school districts to have to send students to alternative schools. Not one of those students questioned their time in these programs; they recognized the help they received.
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Glad to hear it worked that way in your community. You refer to “alternative settings… that were a signifiant expense”. This may have involved private programs. Or you may be referring to a district run alternative school.
I’m referring to alternative schools that are part of a school district, or set up (as is the case in some states) by groups of school districts. Having attended national alternative schools for more than 20 years, I’ve heard quite different stories from all over the country. All over the country district educators describe how administrators in traditional schools have placed students in the alternative schools they run, while giving them inferior facilities and sometimes less per pupil that more traditional district schools.
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I’m talking about alternative programs set up by groups of districts, in general. Only in a few cases did the district go with a private program that provided even more extensive services. My districts were both high and low SES. Banding together in a consortium allowed districts to fund facilities that it would have been difficult if not impossible for anyone to fund on their own.
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Understood. Thanks for sharing.
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+1
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