The “Department of Education Reform” at the University of Arkansas published a study touting the stupendous results of “no excuses” charter schools, where students are subjected to strict discipline and intense test prep.
The National Education Policy Center engaged Professor Jeanette Powers of Arizona State University to review the study, and she criticized it strongly. Subsequently, the study was revised and then reviewed again.
Professor Powers still find the claims to be inflated.
“The primary (and repeated) claim of the report is that “No Excuses” charter schools can close the achievement gap. Powers explains that the underlying research that this report relies upon only supports the more limited and appropriate claim that the subset of No Excuses charter schools have done relatively well in raising the test scores of the students who participate in school lotteries and then attended the schools. The claim that these schools can close the achievement gap is supported by nothing other than an arithmetic extrapolation of evidence that comes with clear limitations.
“A common and well-recognized problem in charter school research is “selection effects.” That is, parents who choose “No Excuses” schools may be more educated, more engaged in the school-selection process, and differ in other significant ways from those parents who did not choose such a school. This would logically be a major concern for oversubscribed “No Excuses” schools, but the findings cannot be generalized to all parents.
“Over-subscribed schools that conduct lotteries for student admission are, one would assume, different from less popular schools. Nevertheless, Cheng et al. imply that the findings can be generalized to all No Excuses charter schools.
“The prominent and oversubscribed “No Excuses” schools are often supported by extensive outside resources. Offering an extended school day, for example, may not be financially feasible for other schools, and the scaling-up costs of doing so are not addressed. A charter that takes the No-Excuses approach yet lacks the additional resources should not be assumed to show the same results.
“The sample of schools included in the studies Cheng et al. analyzed is largely drawn from major urban areas in the Northeast and is small, particularly at the high school level.”
Find Powers’ original review and follow-up review of the “No Excuses” charter report here.
The original Arkansas report is currently available at the following url:
http://www.uaedreform.org/no-excuses-charter-schools-a-meta-analysis-of-the-experimental-evidence-on-student-achievement
The republished version of the Arkansas report is currently available at the following url:
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Its exactly the “NO excuses” and “ZERO tolerance” polices, combined with high-stakes testing that creates the school to prison pipeline. Minority advocates can’t be for one and against the other because the no excuses approach is a zero-sum game.
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**** SPECIAL BULLETIN ***
**** WE INTERRUPT YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING to bring you the latest on the pedophilia scandal swirling around Kevin Johnson, the current Mayor of Sacramento and prominent proponent of school privatization and union-busting … oh yeah, and the husband of Michelle Rhee.***
BELOW is the recently-released police interview video — conducted during the 1996 investigation — with the alleged victim Mandi Koba herself. Here she recounts the horror of being molested by Michelle Rhee’s husband Kevin Johnson, the current mayor of Sacramento and a prominent proponent of busting teacher unions, and replacing public schools with privately-run charter schools.
Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson is the same man who has no court-mandated limits on his access to the two daughters of his current wife Michelle Rhee (who are also, of course, the daughters of her ex-husband and former Tennessee Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman.) Conceivably, these two daughters, when visiting their mother Michelle Rhee and their step-father Kevin Johnson in Sacramento, could be left alone with this perv, without any supervision whatsoever.
Scary stuff. (Mr. Huffman, if you’re reading this, what are you going to do about this?)
Watch the video and judge for yourself.
Keep in mind, folks, that this is a sixteen-year-old girl, recounting events of a few months prior when she was just fifteen. The video is even dated July 19, 1996 ( “7-19-1996” )
———————————————————————-
( 00:37 – 01:35 )
( 00:37 – 01:35 )
PHOENIX P.D. DETECTIVE: “What … what specific areas (of your body did Kevin Johnson fondle)?”
MANDI KOBA: “My stomach. My breasts. My butt… ”
PHOENIX P.D. DETECTIVE: (almost whispering) “Anywhere else?”
MANDI KOBA: “As it progressed.”
PHOENIX P.D. DETECTIVE: “Where ELSE did it progress?”
MANDI KOBA: “Between my legs.”
PHOENIX P.D. DETECTIVE: “Okay, and what do we call that area?”
MANDI KOBA: “My vagina.”
PHOENIX P.D. DETECTIVE: “And – and I know some of the questions sound stupid. Okay? And I apologize for it, but there are certain things I’m looking for. Unless I know these things, then…
MANDI KOBA: “I understand.”
PHOENIX P.D. DETECTIVE: ” … then I don’t know what’s going on.”
— (PAUSE)
“He (Kevin Johnson) had HIS clothes off?”
MANDI KOBA: “Yes.”
PHOENIX P.D. DETECTIVE: “What happened after the fondling?”
MANDI KOBA: “That’s … we didn’t have intercourse… It was… just a lot of THAT. I don’t know how long it lasted, and then… ummm ”
CLIP ENDS
———————————–
(ONE SIDE NOTE: what’s up with choosing a male detective to conduct this incredibly sensitive and delicated interview? Wouldn’t this be better handled by a female detective? Just askin’.)
There’s so much to be asked here.
If this video were about the predations of a prominent teacher—especially one in the anti-corporate reform movement, or perhaps a prominent teacher union leader…
—what do think Campbell Brown would be doing in response to this video?
What would Ben Austin would be doing in response to this video?
What would Michelle Rhee be doing in response to this video?
The same question goes for Eli Broad, Mike Petrilli, Wendy Kopp, Richard Barth and the rest.
Before she went on her campaign to take away all teachers’ rights and job protections, Campbell Brown first came to prominence with her accusations that among the unionized teachers of New York City were hundreds of pedophiles on the loose, thanks to their being protected by their union. When all of that was proven to be nonsense, she simply moved on to her current crusade.
Now that Ms. Brown and the rest of the corporate reform world have video proof that one of their pro-charter, union-hating allies Kevin Johnson (and also the husband of one of their most prominent allies) is a pedophile, the question must be asked:
What is Campbell Brown doing now? SILENCE
Where is Kevin Huffman doing now? SILENCE
From this shameful silence, they communicate to the world that they apparently view this girl in the video above — and Johnson’s other victims — as collateral damage in the movement to bust unions and privatize the public school system. Now that Kevin Johnson has successfully pulled off a hostile takeover of that Black Mayors’ association, he will be instrumental in privatizing hundreds of schools in those cities run by black mayors in the organization. Since the ends justify the means, someone like Johnson who is that key in the anti-union movement to privatize public schools must be given a pass for his fondness of teenage female flesh.
To watch the entirety of this video in context, watch here:
There’s more about Johnson rubbing his … against her leg. I’m not doing any more transcribing, as this is seriously creeping me out.
ONE MORE THING: the reason for “SPECIAL BULLETIN” parody at the top of this post is that this in actually four-days old, having been released by DEADSPIN four days ago… and there has been ASBOLUTELY NO COVERAGE OF THIS WHATSOEVER FROM THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA.
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OMG … WOW crazy, crazy … disgusting.
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“The “Department of Education Reform” at the University of Arkansas ”
What next ? The Department of Intelligent Design at the University of ? At least that one would be non political.
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The Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas is funded by Walton money and it is, by plan, intended to give credibility to privatized education via the charter school model.
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The only way to get unbiased information on charter schools is to bring in third party evaluators. We have seen lots of biased and unscientific “research” presented as fact before.
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Perhaps worse than the overinflated claims of achievement (which look far less impressive when weighted for legitimate comparisons of populations and when you consider all that is lost in a curriculum based on test prep) is the fundamental lie the “no excuses” brands sell: the key disadvantage is the test score. While it is true that institutions use test scores as gate keepers and that students with low test scores face huge institutional barriers, the employers and universities do not admit privileged children on the basis of test scores alone or even test scores primarily. The high test scores are assumed indicative of social capital and opportunities within school that are systematically denied to students in the no excuses schools.
The students who can post good scores from these schools may indeed have some more advantage in the “competition” for credentials and employment over their peers without them — but since the test scores have become goals in and of themselves, they do not reflect the opportunities given to privileged students, opportunities that could be provided far more equitably in our society if we would stop kidding ourselves that we can make up for systemic inequality without spending vastly more money on behalf of those children.
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The Department of Education Reform at Walton University has a history of publishing dubious research. No surprise as money talks. Mostly it lies.
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I would like to see just ONE study that looks at which children leave these so-called high-performing no excuses charter school or choose not to attend once they win the lottery. And that looks at where those children go and what the charter school has in their records about that child’s academic ability (i.e., are those kids high-performing or struggling).
If scientists test a drug, they don’t gather a control group by 1. discouraging willing participants who seem to be more ill not to enroll in the study during the first meeting and 2. weeding out the most ill participants. It’s like a chemotherapy company announcing its drug had a 100% cure rate for breast cancer in their “studies” done by the researchers paid by the drug company. And those researchers don’t care that the study only included women with stage 1 breast cancer who were extremely healthy and any woman whose cancer progressed mysteriously disappeared from the cohort! As many as 50% of the women disappeared from the study, but the chemotherapy company and the researchers it pays refuses to examine what happened to the 50% of the women who leave the study as if that doesn’t matter, because they “choose” to leave! And the notion that 100% of all women with breast cancer are cured with this drug is allowed to stand by reporters far too lazy or ignorant to actually look at the results. Imagine if the health reporters said “well people are always leaving studies so we don’t have to look at why these people leave studies because it is irrelevant — the drug cures 100% of the patients in the study and that’s what we will report”. But that is exactly what almost every education reporter I have seen does. While I haven’t read Dale Russakoff’s book, I am not even sure she bothers to look at whether any children are leaving the KIPP Charter school she praises and who they are. Does she? And she is one of the better education reporters around.
Instead of having good oversight, as science still does (perhaps not for long) so that studies like that would be attacked and their researchers fired, we have oversight committees like the SUNY Charter Institute, who has absolutely no concern about attrition rates, suspension rates, or anything else. All they care about is the results of the kids who remain at the school and if 50% of them disappear, or if 50% of the children who win the lottery mysteriously choose not to enroll after a little talk about the charter school folks about what they are expected to commit to, or how their child will have to repeat a year, well that just doesn’t matter. Talk about the worst junk science.
If the reformers really cared about education, instead of promoting their own “brand” so they can pay themselves high salaries, they would be using their money for good studies of the kids who leave their schools instead of marketing, promotion, and self-serving advertising. It’s appalling the press lets them get away with it. And when I see a reformer demanding this kind of study, I will believe they care about the kids. Instead, the reformers on here go to great lengths to justify why it doesn’t need to be done (lots of terrible failing schools with crumbling classrooms lose children, so no need to see why the best school in the city with all the bells and whistles that money can buy does as we already know it’s because all those students move out of the city). Shameful.
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Self selection is just one ingredient in their “secret sauce for success”.
One very devious way in which this is engineered is by advertising excessive rigor in the form of long hours, extra days, and lots and lots of extra school work. We used to have an in-school program years ago called “The School of Choice”. It was advertised in just such a way, and to no one’s surprise, the school of choice kids were the best students with the most engaged parents. The non-school of choicers were, mostly, the apathetic, disinterested, and non-academic types. Great way to produce de-fact segregation.
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I agree about self-selection, but — that is why looking at attrition rates is so very, very important.
Given the self-selection, if those charter schools getting good results are STILL losing lots of children, then something is terribly, terribly wrong, and the promoters don’t want to address it.
If anything, given this selection bias, the best charter schools should have the very LOWEST attrition rates. This study cited above mentions that they ONLY looked a charter schools with huge wait lists! But given that, the notion that kids would leave a charter school with long wait lists just as frequently – or often more frequently – as kids would leave a failing public school is nonsense.
Or perhaps I am wrong and all those families legitimately moved away. But given the desperation NOT to look at where all the missing kids from “successful” charter schools end up, I believe their operators know very well what happened to those students. And their oversight organizations don’t give one darn about those kids except to hide where they went. It’s why I find them so corrupt — I used to believe in charter schools until I realized how desperate the ones I thought were good are fighting to hide their attrition rates and how desperately the oversight organizations are to ignore them. Funny how this “study” does exactly the same thing!
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Forced attrition is the second ingredient in their secret sauce for success. Accomplished by harassing the non-compliant and weakest test takers and their parents; No-excuses discipline policies that suspend problem student right back to their public school.
Third ingredient is relentless test prep that starts in November and runs through the end of March. Even during blizzards.
Ingredient #4 requires cheating in various forms:
Extra special test prep materials. Coaching test takers during test sessions. Maybe even a little Rhee-racing? They do get to score in-house, unlike the public schools they pretend to be.
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NYC public school parent and NY Teacher: very well put!
Let me flesh out just a little of what y’all said re rheephorm charters. Let’s say a student “misbehaves” and is constantly being put to shame in the class by being sat for public viewing in the punishment zone, or marched out of the class over and over again to be put in a room apart from the other students, and/or their parents are being constantly required to come down and “discuss” their children’s unacceptable behavior. [I leave out such tactics are attaching actual monetary fines that are required or it’s buy-bye from the Centre of Educational Excellence.]
The classic Chinese water torture. Just wear parents and students down to the point where the parent[s] finally agree[s] that “this school isn’t a good fit for your child and s/he might find a more suitable place in the local public school.” [With it already being established that the local public school is, in the eyes of the charter and its “customers” a much maligned object of rheephorm derision.]
Leaving aside the pedagogical malpractice, it’s a glaring example of excuses from the “no excuses” crowd: well, we just don’t want to have to go to the trouble and expense and effort to deal with actual students with real problems/challenges so for our ease and comfort you need to leave us tout de suite.
I am not saying that genuine teaching and learning is easy in any situation. But the rheephormistas are, by and large, quick to go for the easy fix and loath to display the “rigor” and “grit” they demand from students and parents and others.
Riffing off that old saying, “when the going gets tough, the rheephormsters get going as far far away from difficulties as fast as their feet will take them.”
😎
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Or even better: drive them to the local public school. I swear I am not making that up. Last year, a teacher at a charter school literally drove a kid to our public school, told us that this student was expelled from the charter school, and left him (with no files or paperwork of any kind) at our school. Literally dumped a kid on our doorstep. How is that even legal?
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Threatened Out West: a different question immediately came to me—
How is that anything but immoral? The charter school made sure that the student understood that s/he was just the trash they were throwing out. If the student did something terrible, I do not defend him/her, but I would expect better from adults that constantly strut and preen themselves as being superior because they run and defend charters that are “just like public schools—only lots better!”
They not only don’t walk their own talk, e.g., “the new civil rights movement of our time,” they go out of their way so many times to earn the label of—
Edubullies.
Shame on them.
😡
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I agree, KrazyTA. And Edubullies is a good name. Those charter schools don’t care about those kids.
And I believe that while there are some charter schools that don’t use these “best practices” (and don’t have good test scores as a result), the people that lead them are cowed by the far more powerful “no excuses” charter leaders who speak for ALL of them. Seeing the cowards in the charter school movement afraid to rock the boat to protect the meager offerings their own charter gets is truly sad. Those people are like the teachers and other students who enable the bullies and give them power because not a single one will dare speak out in fear that they may be the next target.
There ARE leaders of charter schools that don’t practice these horrific “get rid of the unworthy students by making them feel misery”. But they should be widely condemned too because their tacit approval is dangerous. They allow their schools’ low attrition rate to be averaged into the “no excuses” attrition rates to hide the fact that lots of struggling children are leaving, and being replaced by children who are tested to make sure they are at grade level. In NYC, there was a recent IBO report of 53 charter schools where 49.5% — that is pretty much HALF of every child who started in Kindergarten is missing by 5th grade. But some of those schools were “no excuses” and some were not, and most disgustingly (and seemingly corruptly) the IBO hid that information of each school’s attrition rate by using only the “average” of 53 schools — and that was bad enough. The reason I say that the IBO was corrupt here is that when it came to each of those school’s performance on state tests, the IBO then made sure to offer the performance of individual schools. And that is because the powerful “no excuses” charter chains would never want their “results” to be averaged with the low-performing charter schools but they DEMAND that their attrition rates are averaged. And that is the kind of “research” that no legitimate organization would ever do.
Can you imagine if drug companies said “we know this one chemotherapy drug works because 100% of the people who take it are healthy” and when asked about how many people left the study they said “well in 55 chemotherapy drugs tested, 49% of the people left the study” so that’s all the information you need to know if the one chemotherapy drug that worked on 100% of the patients is good! Yes, that is basically what the IBO in New York City says about charter schools! This one charter school gets fantastic results, but if you want to know the attrition rate, well here is the attrition rate of 53 schools averaged together. Yep, good “research” and “studies” paid for by our tax dollars and private organizations that are a model of promoting a brand instead of real research.
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Powers says of the Cheng paper:
“Over-subscribed schools that conduct lotteries for student admission are, one would assume, different from less popular schools. Nevertheless, Cheng et al. imply that the findings can be generalized to all No Excuses charter schools.”
Powers is lying here. I don’t know why NEPC finds it useful to publish liars.
Cheng et al., in the very paper linked in the post above, say on page 5: “We must, however, offer a caveat in our use of lottery-based studies. Random assignment studies cannot be performed at schools without lotteries. In the case of charter schools, it is possible that schools without waiting lists or well-maintained lottery records may produce systematically different achievement results. Thus, the achievement impacts of charter schools with lotteries may not be representative of charter schools more generally.”
In other words, Cheng et al. already admit right up front that oversubscribed schools are different from less popular schools. It is lying on Powers’ part to imply otherwise.
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Since you read it so carefully, was there anything about attrition rates and how the “no excuses” attrition rates compared to other charter schools or other schools? I didn’t see any hard numbers of how many of the lottery winners chose to go to that school and how many of the kids who began was included in the cohort whose test scores were so remarkably high.
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WT, this is not “lying.” A study in Boston by a reformer reviewed only charters that were oversubscribed and had lotteries. That is the only way to compare a group that enrolled and a group that did not enroll.
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