This study was released this morning by Rutgers University researchers Julia Sass Rubin and Mark Weber:
New Jersey Charter and District Schools Educating Very Different Populations of Students, Finds Study by Rutgers Researchers
Charter schools across New Jersey educate a very different population of students by income, language proficiency, special needs, race and even gender than their sending district public schools, finds a report released Wednesday by two Rutgers University researchers.
The report documents that New Jersey charter schools educate significantly smaller percentages of economically disadvantaged students, English Language Learners, and special education students than do the public school districts from which the charter schools draw their students. The special education students who enroll in charter schools also tend to have less costly disabilities.
The report’s authors, Rutgers doctoral student Mark Weber and Associate Professor Julia Sass Rubin, point out that the lower rates of economically disadvantaged, Limited English Proficient, and special education students in charter schools result in those students being concentrated at higher rates within the host district schools. This increases segregation and impacts the quality of education that districts can provide and the financial resources available to pay for that education.
The severity of demographic differences between charter and district schools varies. Hoboken’s district schools, for example, educate almost five times the percentage of economically disadvantaged students as Hoboken’s charter schools (49% vs. 10%) while Paterson’s district schools educate approximately twice the percentage as Paterson’s charter schools (90% vs. 46%).
Demographic differences between district and charter school students also are evident in the suburbs. For example, 19% to 27% of the students who attend Teaneck’s seven district schools come from families with incomes at or below 130% of the poverty line, versus only 3% of the students at Teaneck Community Charter School.
Some of the most dramatic demographic differences between district and charter schools are in the percentage of English Language Learners, who make up approximately 2% of charter school students statewide but close to 10% of sending district student populations.
Weber and Rubin point out that the New Jersey Supreme Court has consistently held that the New Jersey Commissioner of Education, who authorizes charter schools, must consider the demographic and financial impact of any authorizing decision on the host district and must use the full powers of that office to avoid segregation. The report’s findings suggest the Commissioner is not sufficiently meeting this legal obligation.
Weber and Rubin make a number of recommendations for bringing the population of New Jersey charter schools in line with the demographic composition of their host districts.
These include:
Have the NJ Department of Education conduct the lottery process for all charter schools, with one application deadline, to increase lottery and waiting list transparency and to make it easier for economically disadvantaged and Limited English Proficient families to apply
Use weighted lotteries to make it feasible for charter schools to admit higher percentages of economically disadvantaged, Limited English Proficient, and special education students
Require charter schools to replace any students who leave and, whenever possible, to do so from comparable demographic categories in terms of economic disadvantage, Limited English Proficiency and special education.
Tie demographic parity in terms of economic disadvantage, Limited English Proficiency, and special education to a charter school’s funding, so that charter schools that fail to match at least 90% of their host district’s demographic composition on these variables would receive a lower reimbursement rate per student
The report, the first of three in-depth examinations of charter and host district public schools, was made possible by a grant from the Daniel Tanner Foundation. The two forthcoming reports will evaluate staffing and financial issues, and examine student outcomes. The authors base their analysis on publicly-available data, making it feasible for other researchers to validate the results.
The report was released in conjunction with the grassroots, pro-public education organization Save Our Schools NJ. The report and additional demographic information for individual charter schools and their host districts are available on the Save Our Schools NJ website
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you for posting and thank you to researcher authors Mark Weber and Julia Sass Rubin, as well as SOS NJ for this valuable information.
Refreshing to see a grant supporting real research to create transparancy on the often opaque issues of charter school operation and performance. So needed in the education discussion right now.
The truth always comes out eventually.
Rutgers. Yah! Doing me and Jersey proud.
Interesting read. As a follower of Diane’s blog for a while now, it also raised an issue that frequently pops up for me as I read the blog. The issue is how to evaluate evidence presented in education policy debates and discussions. Here’s my observation. Regarding reports that back policies that Diane opposes (e.g., choice, test-based accountability, etc.) she is quick to point out when those studies are not peer reviewed. The implied or sometimes explicit point she makes in those cases is that the credibility of those studies suffers when peer review is not part of the process. In the current paper here that she links to from Rubin and Weber, I could not find evidence in the study itself that it was peer reviewed. (And importantly, whether it was blind peer review rather than a friendly review by colleagues of Rubin and Weber.) It would be helpful in future posts, I think, for Diane to clarify how she determines whether non-peer-reviewed findings should be taken seriously or not. As a regular reader of the blog, it strikes me that she seems to lose her concerns about peer review when a particular study backs her arguments, but she raises the critique that a study is not peer reviewed for studies that contradict her own views.
Peer review is most effective for these observational studies that attempt to show causation as with many of the reform-based and VAM inclined published papers. Like Chetty suggesting teacher effectiveness causes teen pregnancy. Granted, peer review can correct errors in basic data collection and data models and that is fair to ask for in this study. But this post says only that there is a difference in student populations based on important student characteristics. It would be easy to show the students being excluded from those charters cost more to educate.
Or should I say “ineffectiveness”. Funny!
This is not peer reviewed. It is, however, based on publicly available data, so it can be replicated. Methodologies are spelled out, particularly for the special education eligibility data, which was the trickiest part.
Peer review is fine for what it is, but it is no guarantee of quality. Nor is non peer reviewed work always inferior. Caveat lector.
Is this a problem? I believe that is the point of charter schools – they educate, not the best of the best, but definitely the higher end students. And if my kid is one of those better students and I am one of those better parents who will be actively involved in my child’s education, then I don’t want my kid going to school with a bunch of ne’er-do-wells.
My opinion, great schools don’t make great kids. But bad schools can destroy great kids. So charter schools should be reserved for those students that are more motivated or more academically advanced, or who have parents are willing to work harder towards the child’s education. No disrespect to the poor and downtrodden, but too many of them are looking for a school to educate their child. Great teachers do not educate. They present knowledge, resources, and motivation to students so that students may educate themselves. It is up to the students to do the work, not the teachers.
Thanks EJBelton! I will continue to teach those you term the poor and downtrodden. They will not have to mix with you and your ilk in the charter schools.
Most public schools offer a comprehensive program so that each child can receive an appropriate education. It is undemocratic to predetermine what students are worthy, and what students should be offered something less. Very often these type of decisions made by middle class whites are determined by race, and that results in black and Latino students being tracked in a lower level of instruction. Besides, students change. Some students with lots of potential get involved in drugs, gangs or have mental problems. Other students are slow to start. It does not mean they are slow learners. Boys tend to develop more slowly than girls so we should always try to challenge all students. If anything, we need to offer students flexible grouping to meet diverse needs. That is what a comprehensive school must offer while a limited numbers of students need a more restrictive setting.
I am fully for a parent’s right to choose, but if you CHOOSE charter/virtual/home/private/etc, then you need to be the one who is financially responsible for the consequences of your choice. Public tax dollars need to go to PUBLIC schools. You can take your arrogant self & privileged kids elsewhere and privately pay for their education.
Brooke,
It seems to me that you are perfectly OK with a relatively wealthy parent’s right to choose a school, but object to enabling a relatively poor parent the same choice. That is certainly a common view on this blog.
In Oklahoma, the “vouchers” given are UP TO around $7500 for the lowest income groups. For the next class up, it’s around $5500 and the third level is about $4000. No families making over around $50K qualify for these vouchers. These amounts are not nearly enough to actually enroll a student into private schools in our state (maybe a few, but very few). Then, when you factor in the additional cost of transporting the child to & from school, the “poor” parents cannot afford private school anyway. Oklahoma is very rural, so the commute may be 30 miles (or much more) to the nearest private school.
As for rich people, yes, I absolutely respect their right to choose whatever they want. I am not so fortunate to come from a wealthy family, so our children will be utilizing the public education system. Therefore, I want all of the public dollars (tax dollars) that I pay for public education to stay in public education. Starving public schools to support charters & private schools only hurts public schools. In Oklahoma, that is approximately 95% of our school-age children. Sorry, but I am not content to cater to the rich 5%. I’d rather support the 95%.
EJ, it is a problem when they claim the are better at educating everyone! Their reason for existence was to outperform the “failing” public school with the same students in order to prove that they knew the secret to education. They were to prove that experienced teachers were not needed, just a good script to follow and young enthusiastic teachers with no life outside of school. They claimed they could move the heavens to gain achievement of the lowest performing students because they were better in every way. Reality intruded on that boast, they do no better, and, for the most part, get worse results demographically than the public schools they seek to replace. They are, as many courts are showing, fraudulent!
It’s really funny to see charters who claim they can do better than public schools by having high-end students cannot make a difference–without manipulating numbers/statistics, even though they receive tons of money from billionaires and the state. Bigger problem? Many charters can’t make any promise about teaching, production of knowledge, and learning. They can’t make any promise that students will be able to complete education throughout school years without a hitch.
Ken,
I think the main advantage that choice schools have over traditional zoned schools is that schools can become more specialized and better fit the needs of individual students. If students on the 500 block of Maple are assigned to school A and students on the 600 block of Maple are assigned to school B the school board can only defend it decision on catchment boundaries by ensuring that school A and B are as identical as possible.
TE, I thought you started working on your blog to talk about the field of privatization dream? Thanks for the tips. They didn’t make sense.
So long.
Ken,
I am a bit surprised that you think the local school board could order the children living on the 500 block of Maple street to attend a Waldorf school and the children living on the 600 block of Maple to attend a Chinese language immerson school.
How does that sort of assignment make sense?
TE, you keep asking the same question that clearly veers off from the point. How much do you think I am dumb for being a speaker of other language(Indeed I am)? You’re really into “the field of dream fantasy in la la land (or whatever).”
Ken,
I just disagree that charters are better. The advantage of charters is that they can be different from each other, something that traditional zoned schools can not really do in a district.
Like Ponderosa said yesterday,
“schools that manage to segregate the motivated and manageable from the chronically disruptive and extremely damaged”
“Beefed up “alternative schools” could house/teach these kids. Triage might be the best thing we can do. I might support such a plan.”
” But instead of giving an honest account of the situation, Cuomo perpetuates the lie that these public schools are failing because the teachers there are inept and that unions are stifling necessary personnel and policy changes.”
Segregating students by behavior? I’m sure there are pros and cons to this idea. Charters should be honest and have the integrity to stand behind their ideas. Why the farcicle comparison to public schools that take most everyone? Maybe their idea has merit. What would the alternative school system look like for the chronically disruptive, that the question the charter school proponents have to answer, if they are ever to gain credibility.
Segregation by behavior is alive and well making a teacher’s job very challenging.
Reading the whole study is informative. Looking at appendix A, for example, we can see that in Newark “Ten of the 19 charter schools in this analysis have fewer Free or Reduced Price Lunch students than the median.” About half of the schools being below the median and about half of the schools being above the median would suggest that at least by that measure, the distribution of relatively poor students in charter schools is not all that different than the distribution of relatively poor students across traditional public schools.
median=middle
Yup, you would expect about half of any subsample of the schools to be below the median and half to be above.
The point Appendix A is making is that Reduced is a measure of relative affluence in a city with such high Free and Reduced Lunch rates. Look at the Free Lunch distribution and the related NJASK scores in Appendix A. Individual school demographic rates by variable are available for Newark here: http://www.saveourschoolsnj.org/Newark-Charter-School-Data.pdf
Julia,
I think there are many interesting things in the report. One concern I have is that everything is reported as a percentage of enrollment while the schools differ greatly in size. A small change in the number of students might be a large change in the percentage of students in a small school.
I would expect that large schools are clustered around the median for a district and small schools are the outliers (high or low) on all your measures. The Boylen Early Childhood Center, for example, had a total of 78 students in 2011-12 according the the NCES and the Discovery Charter School has 75 students. Those are the two schools that enroll the highest percentage of free and reduced price lunch eligible students.
TE– I fail to see the merit of your comment in a city where 75% of students are on free or reduced lunch.
S&F,
The issue at hand is if a school is above or below the median in whatever metric you want to talk about. Because the students are aggregated into schools, the size of the aggregation is important.
Teachingeconomist,
Some of the larger schools are among the most segregated – in Newark, see Robert Treat, for example. Uncommon is also quite different from the district and is one of the largest networks in Newark.
Julia,
I have no doubt that some of the larger schools are outliers, but did you find that larger schools tend to cluster around the median and smaller schools at each extreme? After all, the school with the highest percentage of students eligible for a free lunch would be below the median if about 10 students became ineligible for a free lunch in the school.
These conclusions are to be expected. Any non-democratic system generally results in a climate that is rife with abuses. I guarantee that a more comprehensive study would reveal even more abuses, especially in the south Many of the southern Christian academies were established to continue segregation after the Civil Rights Movement. Now with vouchers and charters they can get the taxpayers to pay for their “choice.” I know for a fact that some districts in the south have set up their own charters for special education so they can pay less to provide a token service to these students without scrutiny. I noted that the civil rights groups that petitioned President Obama for change in education wanted “qualified, certified, competent, racially and culturally diverse and committed teachers, principals, counselors, nurses, librarians, and other school support staff, with appropriate professional development .” It sounds like they see through the cheap, sub-standard offerings of urban charters with the TFA staff clinging to their scripts. Public education can do better!
I’d like to see a study run the other way, where public schools are the focus. What happens to public schools in one of these ed reformer- managed areas?
If New Jersey is anything like Ohio, the effect on public schools wasn’t even considered in the push to open charters. Are the public schools enrolling a larger percentage of lower income students? If so, how are the students in the public schools affected by that change?
This whole debate seems to center around this idea that the public schools just remain static when the new charter system is run alongside the public system, but that obviously isn’t true. While it’s fascinating to discuss charter schools endlessly, I would like to see some focus on the effects on PUBLIC schools in these systems. The public schools are obviously not staying the same if the charters are taking fewer low income and ELL children. What happens to the children in those public schools? Do they benefit, are they harmed, what?
I agree. Someone needs to expose the impact of charters on public schools after the charters cherry pick their students and siphon off much needed funding. I think the public would be shocked to know that there are public school classes with over forty-five needy students in them.
I would think it would be huge in some schools. One can’t change the distribution in one section of a system without changing the other section. It’s 100% of students in a given geographical area, and if one set of schools has fewer low income, etc. that means the other set must have more,, right?
What does that mean to the children in the school that has more?
Chiara,
You need to think about the size of the schools as well. A small school high school might pull enough relatively wealthy students from a large high school to decrease the small high schools enrollment of relatively poor students by 10% while having an insignificant impact on the large high school’s percentages.
TE– there are no ‘relatively wealthy’ students in Newark.
S&F,
The coauthor of the work cited in this post argues otherwise in this thread.
Chiara,
The effects on surrounding public schools are purposeful, not unintended consequences.
Right, but the question then becomes what happens if you remove the public schools completely? Would you have a privatized system that performs just about the same as the public system, once the “safety net” schools are gone and the students are distributed more equally?
It doesn’t really apply in Ohio-the charters don’t do any better than the publics even with the cherry-picking, but it might matter! 🙂
My guess, Chiara, is the charters will continue to warehouse students they do not find useful for their purposes.
I think this can be done on an observational basis. We live about ten block north of Upper West Success Academy. I have been looking at the demographics of the two zoned schools in our neighborhood over the past several years, both of which are good, but not great schools, but definitely not failing schools. Despite an influx of white middle and upper-middle income families into our neighborhood over that time, the demographics of our two zoned schools have barely changed. One school’s free lunch rate dropped about 10 percentage points. This period coincides with the forced opening of Upper West Success Academy. I can’t say that the lack of change in the zoned school’s demographic can be directly attributed to the opening of Success Academy, but it hasn’t helped. Despite the organization’s alleged mission to help poor children of color trapped in failing schools, Upper West Success Academy attracts families whose children didn’t get into private schools, scored well on the G&T test but didn’t get the seat they wanted, and/or did not score well enough on the G&T test. Also, since as we all know, demand for Success Academy schools is overstated, the school does draw citywide, so some of the families who attend don’t live in the immediate area. Upper West Success Academy’s free lunch rate is about 29%, which is similar to the two zoned schools located about 10 blocks south of us. The area in which Upper West Success Academy and those two zoned schools are located has a significantly lower concentration of housing projects and supportive housing than where we live.
“Upper West Success Academy’s free lunch rate is about 29%, which is similar to the two zoned schools located about 10 blocks south of us.”
Are you saying that it should have a higher free lunch rate than the neighboring zoned schools?
Also, what do you mean by this:
“One school’s free lunch rate dropped about 10 percentage points. This period coincides with the forced opening of Upper West Success Academy.”
I read this as suggesting that the Success school may have drawn 10 percentage points worth of low-income students away from the zoned school. What’s the problem with that?
Chiara, the report does discuss the impact on the district schools, in the policy and recommendations section and the executive summary.
Thanks. It’s not a real criticism of the work, it’s more a criticism of what I see as the general focus in a lot that I read, where there’s extensive analysis of charter v public but no mention of what happens TO existing public schools with the introduction of charters. I’m not an expert but it seems the public school population wouldn’t remain static with the introduction of a bunch of new “choice” schools, and that should be considered; good, bad, whatever.
I’m glad you included them.
public schools are becoming special needs minus IEP services, Thank our local faluting charter
I’m glad to see studies on the impact of charter schools because here in Las Vegas, charters and magnets both have impacted comprehensive high schools which now are ranked lower on our “star” scale because of specialty schools siphoning off the most motivated students and parents. I have only my own observations and anecdotal evidence, however, so this helps. But I’m surprised at some of the attitudes expressed here about segregating students. Sure, a parent may want their child educated among other students with high motivation and innate ability, or with high parental involvement. Frankly, I felt some relief when my own children’s middle school separated the honors students from the “regular” as my children often basically tutored other more low-level students while not being challenged with advanced material when they were in elementary school. I didn’t mind enough to complain, though, because I want my children to grow up as generous people, and teaching others, as we know, helps us retain material better ourselves. Plus as an English teacher, I supplemented at home. But political leaders, school districts and teachers should be concerned with the larger picture. We can’t have that attitude of “I just want the best for MY kid” or for politicians, “I just want whatever my campaign donors want for their kids.” (Or worse, what their business interests want!) How can we possibly condone not even a separate but equal, but a separate and distinctly UNequal school system? Our charters and magnets do not struggle with the large populations of ELL, SPED and other high needs students that fill our neighborhood schools. Here, magnets often have better resources and smaller classes. But our taxes and resources need to be utilized in a way that benefits ALL students, not just those with politically savvy parents or innate academic ability. I find it appalling that common sense is totally ignored by my local newspaper, which aggressively supports charters, vouchers and magnets. I purposely did NOT enroll my children in a magnet high school because I believe in neighborhood schools. My children would like a variety of extracurricular activities, and one has a health issue that makes me want to avoid a two-hour bus ride twice a day. I also purposely do not teach in a magnet high school because I truly enjoy the diversity of students at my campus. We have some awesome vocational and tech schools here with programs a comprehensive high school would find difficult to provide, but we also have a lot of charters and magnets which are simply for those top students whose parents can drive them to more “elite” campuses. Charters were not created for this purpose. And for those “ne’er do wells”? I thought the origin of charters were actually created for THEM, for students who found it difficult to thrive in a regular campus, for students who were at-risk.
I can not add a thing to your comment, Regina. As a teacher in Clark County, people should be aware that anarchy and turmoil in the form of gang violence may prove to be more expensive. If all they are concerned about is what is best for them…..They will be like the old Fram oil filter adds. We can pay now, or pay later.
Regina, check out the school system in Chile, which was designed by neoliberal [= ‘the private sector can deliver public goods more efficiently than gov’t] Milton Friedman for dictator Pinochet– a combo of vouchers, charters, private schools & public schools just as recommended today by US ed reformers. After 45 yrs of this system, Chile has found that, though it provides more access to ed [unlike us, they had a large peasant population w/ no access to ed 45 yrs ago], Today, poor children get a substandard ed & rich children as ever pay a high price for quality ed, while middle-class families’ budgets are stressed to the max to augment gov vouchers & obtain a middling ed. Meanwhile, the already-significant gap between rich & poor widened to a gross extreme. Eventually, middle-class & poor students rioted in the streets, demanding free public ed. After 2 yrs of riots, the gov has been forced to re-assess its ed policy & is in the process of change.
Looks like from your post, Las Vegas is headed down the exact same path.
The situation you describe is the result of taking democratic values out of the system and replacing them with special interests in the name of “choice.” Under the current system with little oversight, charters can spring up for a variety of special interests: academic talent, religion, segregation, union busting, and special needs to keep costs down. What are the public schools supposed to do with the remaining high cost students, classified, ELLs, and conduct disorder students, especially after most of the money follows the more capable students to the charters? This twisted system flies in the face of democracy.
Retired,
It seems to me that it is the qualified admission G&T programs that do the most thorough job of creaming students from traditional neighborhood schools.
teachingeconomist
October 29, 2014 at 5:27 pm
Chiara,
You need to think about the size of the schools as well. A small school high school might pull enough relatively wealthy students from a large high school to decrease the small high schools enrollment of relatively poor students by 10% while having an insignificant impact on the large high school’s percentages.
Sure. I agree with that. Systems involving people are complicated, though. Small changes can have big ripple effects and it’s not all upside. There can be winners and losers.
I’m kind of amazed all these very smart people gave no thought to a potential downside, or even any kind of cost-benefit analysis. Do they even know there will be a net gain for students system-wide?
Chiara,
It is no really about systems involving humans, but rather how we aggregate the individuals. In this study the two “schools” with the highest percentage of students on free and reduced price lunch have less than 80 total students in each school.
as I said above, TE, this comment has little to do with the reality on the ground in Newark, NJ, where there are no ‘relatively wealthy’ students– unless you mean by ‘relatively wealthy’ they can, with some difficulty, pay to send their kids in w/PB&J sandwiches.
S&F,
If you do not think that there is any significant distinction between eligibility for free lunch and eligibility for reduced price lunch, there is no significant difference between charter schools and traditional public schools when it comes to enrolling students from poor households in New Jersey. I certainly think that is a defendable position, but it is not the orthodox one on this blog.
Reblogged this on Exceptional Delaware and commented:
Sounds exactly like Delaware!
Turkish Politics and trouble:This is something I found and thought it was interesting, since we have so many charter schools operating in the US. Thanks for all you do. http://www.aa.com.tr/en/afrika-2014/424230–turkey-to-financially-aid-fight-against-ebola Karen Van Zant