As reported before, billionaire Eli Broad plans to bundle $490 million to open 260 new charter schools for half the public school students in Los Angeles.
But according to the usually pro-charter LA School Report, Broad’s current charter schools have a mixed record.
“The Broad plan points to three of LA Unified’s largest charter operators that have received Broad largess — Green Dot Public Schools, Alliance College-Ready Public Schools and KIPP Public Charter Schools — and says, “These organizations have turned our investments into significant academic gains for students.”
In some cases, the gains are clear, but in others they are not. One category shows a regression in test scores, and others that demonstrate only marginal gains….
“Over five years, proficiency rates for Green Dot students in English language arts actually decreased by 3 percent, while math rates at Alliance middle schools improved a total of 1 percent and English rates at the Alliance middle schools improved a total of 5 percent over five years.
Other areas are impressive — a 20 percent gain in English proficiency for KIPP schools over four years and a 13 percent increase in math for Green Dot schools, but the report does not discuss or examine the negative and minimal gains.
“The recent Smarter Balanced statewide tests, which this year replaced the STAR exams after two years without any statewide tests, also show impressive results for the three organizations, but they also raised questions. (The Broad report did not include any analysis of the Smarter Balanced tests.)
“Key in any analysis is the number of English learners and low-income students — two groups that have proven to be among the most challenging to educate — and these numbers never match up quite evenly between charters and traditional schools.
“An analysis by LA School Report shows Alliance schools had 45.4 percent of its students meeting or exceeding the English standards on the Smarter Balanced tests, compared with 33 percent at LA Unified’s schools.
However, Alliance has far fewer English learners. According to its website data, 18.83 percent of its students are English learners, compared with 26 percent for LA Unified. And Alliance students actually scored worse in math, with 23.5 percent meeting or exceeding standards compared with 25 percent for the district. In fairness to Alliance, its schools have 93 percent of its students qualifying for free or reduced price lunch, compared with 77 percent for the district.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There are also other factors that aren’t included in test scores. What about attrition? How many charter students leave just before testing or at the end of each school year, claims that have been made over and over? How many are suspended or are expelled?
You used to be able to find what kinds of special ed services were provided on a school to school basis, so that it was easier to tell whether or not a school includes all levels of disabilities, not just the least severe.
I also question the statistics on poverty. At the school I taught at, it was listed 2 years ago at 69% free and reduced lunch. However, the school was in a solid middle class area in the San Fernando Valley with no busing in of inner city students. So, I think you have to take those statistics with a grain of salt.
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I think Ohio pretty much puts paid to the notion that they expand charter schools because of “success”. We expand charter schools every year and also increase funding every year and charter schools have never “outperformed” public schools here, in any notable or consistent way. Yesterday legislators in Ohio said the “solution” to bad charter schools is…..more charter schools.
We already have every imaginable variety of “choice” a lobbyist could dream up. It simply doesn’t matter. They’re determined to replace public schools with a privately-owned and managed system and so that’s what they’ll do. They just took over Youngstown to privatize it completely and Youngstown already has charter schools and Ohio already has vouchers. That didn’t matter either. The goal is to eliminate public schools completely.
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Anyone who believes that comparing schools and the teaching and learning processes that go on inside with standardized test scores is well, let’s just say I’ve got some great sandy white beach ocean front property over at Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri that they can buy quite cheaply. Call now, operators are standing by. Or if you have any other unfulfilled needs:
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If I may add to the first sentence: “Anyone who believes that comparing schools and the teaching and learning processes that go on inside with standardized test scores is DIRT STUPID!” (and that’s being mean to dirt”
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BUT THESE SCHOOLS ARE NO DOUBT STILL BRINGING IN THE PROFITS AND BIG SALARIES.
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And this is from the charter-cheerleading L.A. SCHOOL REPORT !
The writer Craig Clough—and let’s give the guy credit for not parroting the LASR
pro-charter party line—did an in-depth data-driven analysis of the confidential memo that was leaked. He took on the claims in the Broad plan memo that Broad-backed charters routinely deliver high performance.
———————
L.A. SCHOOL REPORT —
CRAIG CLOUGH:
“But when all factors are considered, there is little conclusive evidence in the report outlining the expansion plans that shows big investments in charters always — or evenly routinely — achieve consistent academic improvements, raising an important question:
“Just what can Broad and other foundations promise for an investment of nearly half-a-billion dollars in an expansion effort that would dramatically change the nation’s second-largest school district.
———————
Clough crunches all the data and factors involved, and consider all that, Broad’s charters
come up wanting, and that the Broad memo paints an inaccurate picture of exactly
how well they are doing.
It’s a great read.
A.A.L.A.—the administrators’ union representing LAUSD principals, asst. principals, etc.—
also chimed in with similar conclusions about the claims in the confidential “charterinze-50%-of-LAUSD” memo:
———————
CRAIG CLOUGH:
“Jumping into the mix is the Associated Administrators of the Los Angeles (AALA), which in its recent newsletter criticized the CCSA analysis, saying the ‘wins’ of charters on the tests are diminished ‘when one considers that the enrollment of traditional schools includes 6% more English learners, who presumably would be at a disadvantage on the SBAC English language arts assessment (though they were apparently not at the same disadvantage on the SBAC math assessment). In addition, the traditional schools have a slightly higher percentage of students who qualify for the federal free or reduced-price lunch program.’ ”
“AALA also said that ‘the analysis presented in the CCSA press release is sophomoric advocacy at the expense of rigor. Serious comparisons may only be made between schools with similar socio-economic status.’ ”
———————
So why would you replace LAUSD traditional public schools with Broad charter schools that have a mediocre performance record. According to the article, when socio-economic demographics and ethnicity are factored in, the Broad charter schools are either worse than the the existing traditional schoosl, or at best, perform the same?
And again, this is from the usually pro-charter L.A. SCHOOL REPORT:
http://laschoolreport.com/charters-with-broad-support-show-only-a-mixed-return-on-investment/
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Successful schools don’t model unethical and immoral behavior.
Public schools serve all students, from all circumstances, at all times (even when charter schools kick those very students out right after “census day,” the day districts use to calculate enrollment for budget purposes).
The material in parentheses describe the mid-year dump.
From a comment of mine a couple years ago:
[start quote]
Case-in-point: AUDUBON MIDDLE SCHOOL, out here in the inner-city of LAUSD, in Los Angeles, California.
Dr. DeWayne Davis, the principal at LAUSD’s Audubon Middle school, wrote Dr. Diane Ravitch a letter which Diane posted on her site. In this letter, Dr. Davis condemned the “midyear dump” of students from the nearby charter schools. Every year, just after winter break, there are about 168 or so kids that have left those charter schools—either kicked out or “counseled out”. I can’t recall the exact figures, but he said about 162 of those are FBB (Far Below Basic)—kids who score low because of being innately “slower”, non-cooperative, “Special Ed”, newcomers to the country who are brand new to English, those students just plain not willing to work hard, from distressed home lives, foster care, homeless, etc.
Davis tells about the great difficulties that teachers have in their efforts to absorb these charter cast-off’s into their classes. For the next month or two—or for even the remainder of the school year—teachers and the pre-existing students report varying states of chaos as a result of the nearby charter schools engaging in this despicable “midyear dump”.
Of course, think of the effect this has on Audubon’s scores—they go DOWN—and on the nearby charter schools—they go UP.
DR. DEWAYNE DAVIS: “It is ridiculous that they (charter operators) can pick and choose kids and pretend that they are raising scores when, in fact, they are just purging nonperforming students at an alarming rate. That is how they are raising their scores, not by improving the performance of students.
“Such a large number of FBB students will handicap the growth that the Audubon staff initiated this year, and further, will negatively impact the school’s overall scores as we continue to receive a recurring tide of low-performing students.”
[end quote]
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/02/15/reader-offers-a-dose-of-common-sense-about-high-test-scores/
In a follow-up question, Jack confirmed my worst suspicions:
[start quote]
Yes, when a charter dumps a child, the money does NOT follow that child. They have to keep the students for a week—or a month—and they get to keep the entire year’s money allocated for that child.
Put another way, there is no pro rata amount of money that goes along with the child. If the charter kicks the kid out after a month, a nine-month allocation does not go along with that child.
Whenever public school advocates try to change this, the charter folks throw up every roadblock and obstacle that they can.
[end quote]
Not just in Los Angeles. Louisiana Purchase also confirms:
[start quote]
In Utah, anyway, once the “October 1st Count” has occurred, the charter school keeps ALL of the money for those students for the entire year. Thus, any students sent back to public schools after that date come with no money. My colleagues are getting tired of me complaining about this. I have a student this year who left two days before the count to the “better opportunity” of a charter school. He was back within 6 weeks, now credit deficient. His public school now has to pick up the slack of his missing credits, and we have no extra money to do it. Happens every year, although not at the staggering numbers of Audubon Middle.
[end quote]
Charters are the keystone of the “new civil rights movement of our time”? I suppose so, if by “civil rights” one means the right of a shameless few to monetize OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN in mad dog pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$.
The owner of this blog has very carefully stated—and I much appreciate the honesty—that “I have no personal grudge against Eva Moskowitz. On the few occasions when we have appeared together, we have had very cordial conversation.”
However, when it comes to Eva Moskowitz the edupreneur who never found a child she couldn’t convert into a data point that made ₵ent¢:
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