We have had quite a lot of back and forth on this blog about Boston charter schools, in anticipation of the vote this November in Massachusetts about lifting the charter cap and adding another 12 charter schools every year forever. Pro-charter advocates argue that the Boston charters are not only outstanding in test scores but that their attrition rate is no different from that of the public schools, or possibly even less than the public schools.
Jersey Jazzman (aka Mark Weber) is a teacher and is studying for his doctorate at Rutgers, where he specializes in data analysis.
In this post, he demolishes the claim that Boston charters have a low attrition rate. As he shows, using state data,
In the last decade, Boston’s charter sector has had substantially greater cohort attrition than the Boston Public Schools. In fact, even though the data is noisy, you could make a pretty good case the difference in cohort attrition rates has grown over the last five years.
Is this proof that the independent charters are doing a bad job? I wouldn’t say so; I’m sure these schools are full of dedicated staff, working hard to serve their students. But there is little doubt that the public schools are doing a job that charters are not: they are educating the kids who don’t stay in the charters, or who arrive too late to feel like enrolling in them is a good choice.
This is a serious issue, and the voters of Massachusetts should be made aware of it before they cast their votes. We know that charter schools have had detrimental effects on the finances of their host school systems in other states. Massachusetts’ charter law has one of the more generous reimbursement policies for host schools, but these laws do little more than delay the inevitable: charter expansion, by definition, is inefficient because administrative functions are replicated. And that means less money in the classroom.
Is it really worth expanding charters and risking further injury to BPS when the charter sector appears, at least at the high school level, to rely so heavily on cohort attrition?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“I’m sure these schools are full of dedicated staff, working hard to serve their students.”
Working more hours for less pay is also been documented across the country but how are they working hard. I don’t think we could say these dedicated charter staffers are St. Nicholas, the patron saint of children. And nothign is more telling than the fact that Charter Schools are often exempt from bullying laws like the are allegedly exempt from committing fraud.
For instance, “Why Are Charter Schools Exempt from Bullying Laws?”
http://www.wnyc.org/story/302582-why-are-charter-schools-exempt-from-bullying-law/
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
And in other headline news:
Ranger Rick Nabs Yogi and BooBoo in yet another pie snatching.
It looks to me as if JJ has some misunderstandings, makes some mistakes that may be worth correcting. Though I would agree with Diane that my correcting such mistakes can become tiresome. Might it be preferable to everyone here if I just let ’em slide?
Without providing a link, JJ quotes the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association.
The full document is worth a read. It can be found at:
http://www.masscharterschools.org/media/news/just-facts-public-charter-schools-massachusetts
The segment JJ quotes from states:
“The attrition rate at Boston charters (9.3%) is significantly lower than in BPS (14.2%).
In Gateway Cities, charter attrition rates (6.2%) are lower than Gateway districts (11.4%).
“From 2012-2014, an average of just 82 students left charters and returned to Boston Public Schools, according to BPS numbers – one-tenth of one percent of BPS total enrollment of 57,000.”
And JJ responds to that:
“Yeah, uh… no. Not really.”
JJ claims, properly, that our department of education’s “attrition” rate is inadequate to provide a full perspective insofar as it addresses students leaving during the summer. What he doesn’t seem to understand is that the sentence he quotes that starts “From 2012-2014” is supplementing the summer attrition figures by citing the number of students who leave charter schools to return to BPS schools not during the summer but rather during the school year. I think the Association’s point there is that there’s not much such movement during the year relative to summer attrition which is when most of the mobility between sectors occurs.
Our state department of education makes very easily available both summer attrition rates and also measures that show the rates at which students leave during the year. For example, to view the summer attrition and the school year stability rates of one superb charter school and one superb traditional public school, see
MATCH attrition: http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/attrition/default.aspx?orgcode=04690000&fycode=2015&orgtypecode=5&
MATCH stability: http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/mobility/default.aspx?orgcode=04690000&fycode=2015&orgtypecode=5&
Nathan Hale attrition: http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/attrition/default.aspx?orgcode=00350243&fycode=2015&orgtypecode=6&
Nathan Hale stability: http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/mobility/default.aspx?orgcode=00350243&fycode=2015&orgtypecode=6&
Tangentially, a nice little piece here about the Hale’s transformation under a first-rate public school principal:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/07/29/principal-who-transformed-school-honored-retirement/L71FyYLo3akkoecrMLi2jN/story.html
JJ writes: “If charter schools shed kids year after year — especially if those kids are low-performing — then their vaunted performance advantages are in question, particularly when compared to public district schools that aren’t losing students.”
Yes, but in fact the evidence demonstrates that charter schools in this area shed considerably fewer kids than public district schools.
JJ seems to recognize that may well be the case so moves swiftly on to change the subject:
“What we really need to consider is whether the students moving out of charter schools are being replaced at rates equal to the replacement rates for students moving out of public district schools.”
His conclusion on that is correct: there’s far less backfill in the charter sector.
JJ writes: “Every independent charter school in Boston had a higher cohort attrition rate in 2014 than BPS as a whole.”
I’m genuinely curious whether this a specifically New Jersey use of the phrase “cohort attrition rate”? I find it difficult to locate a definition in the academic research literature that combines what is normally considered to be attrition (loss of students) with backfill (gain of students) and calls the merged product “attrition”. Though I do see it used that way by both Bruce Baker and JJ in New Jersey.
In respect to what constitutes a “cohort” it appears that JJ, in highly unpredictable and undisclosed, fashion blends members of multiple entering classes, and multiple cities. For example in his purported comparison between Boston charter and Boston traditional public schools, JJ writes:
“In the case of City on a Hill and Phoenix, their 2011 freshman class shrank by more than half by the time they were seniors.”
Well, to start with, Phoenix doesn’t have a school located in Boston. Perhaps JJ is thinking of the Phoenix charter school not too far away in the city of Chelsea. But given the nature of the school’s specialization it makes it doubly hard to justify comparing it with a traditional public school in Boston:
“The school she founded, Phoenix Charter Academy, was conceived as an alternative school for students who had given up on traditional high school, or who felt that their schools had given up on them. As it celebrates its 10-year anniversary this week, it remains a haven for students who thought they might never finish high school.”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/03/31/chelsea-charter-program-that-reached-struggling-kids-reaches-milestone/KYZKbHYHdsqCVD6XM8xxeI/story.html
As for City on a Hill, JJ is omitting the implications of this, from its annual report: “There is no social promotion at City on a Hill. 100% of students promoted to the next level in each subject demonstrated mastery of the school’s common-core aligned college prep curriculum by earning 70% or above on written and oral proficiencies.”
Click to access City-on-a-Hill-2014-15-Annual-Report-Final.pdf
A major consequence of that is that there is extremely front-loaded grade level retention. Any 9th grade class you look at merges students who are newly starting out and others who are repeating the grade. That distorts any attempt to compare 9th grade and 12th grade enrollment figures to measure attrition.
Massachusetts grade-level retention reports can be found here:
http://www.doe.mass.edu/infoservices/reports/retention/
Looking at Appendix B for 2015-2016, one finds for City on a hill the following grade-level retention rates:
9th 10th 11th 12th
27.8 3.3 3.2 7.4
In the past, in the several messages here, JJ and I discussed whether such a front-loaded pattern skews the results he is trying to portray:
I continue to believe it does.
The one clearly valid, useful point JJ makes is that there’s less backfill at charter schools here than at traditional public schools. I’d be interested to see him debate with Michael Petrilli on whether or not that’s helpful:
https://edexcellence.net/articles/backfilling-charter-seats-a-backhanded-way-to-kill-school-autonomy
JJ: “Is it really worth expanding charters and risking further injury to BPS when the charter sector appears, at least at the high school level, to rely so heavily on cohort attrition?”
Further injury? Wonder what JJ means by that. .This has what has been happening at BPS in parallel with the growth of charter schools:
http://www.bostonpublicschools.org/domain/238
Stephen,
I will ask JJ to respond to your statements. “Further injury” refers to the loss of funding that public schools experience when charters proliferate. So, 10% of the kids go to a charter, and 90% of the kids lose programs, have larger class sizes, and experience budget cuts. Does that seem fair? I don’t think so. It also creates a dual school system, with duplicate administrators who are usually paid more than their public school counterparts. What charter schools do best is to get rid of the teachers’ union and all job protections.
“Cohort attrition” is the only legitimate means to see how charters are working.
Students win a lottery for the primary grade in a charter school that their parents jump through hoops for them to attend.
How many of those SAME students are there 4 or 5 years later.
Too often, attrition has been hidden by replacing students — sometimes by pre-testing them before allowing them to join the cohort. Then hard numbers are used so the charter can say “look, we only have 20% fewer students 2 years later.” But it turns out that far more students are missing.
One reason I don’t trust charters is their unwillingness to examine this on its own terms instead of using an irrelevant comparison to public schools.
I believe that any hard look at charter schools will find that the highest performing ones often lose more students that mediocre ones. That’s a huge red flag. If you are so good you are high performing and yet far more students are leaving your school, there is absolutely no doubt they are being pushed out. Parents don’t choose a high performing charter and then leave it unless their kid is not being served. And if a high – performing charter is failing to serve more kids than a mediocre one, something is very wrong.
Let’s see charters doing a self-examination of the students that are staying and the ones that are leaving. That’s what would happen if charters were really doing the job they were supposed to do. Instead, charters are treating this like a market competition where PR reigns supreme and the students who help that PR are the ones they want to serve. That is NOT what they were supposed to be about.
Diane: “Further injury” refers to the loss of funding that public schools experience when charters proliferate.”
While I may not fully agree with all its conclusions, this document from the Boston Municipal Research Bureau provides helpful background:
“The True Cost of Boston’s Charter Schools: Charter expansion has not been a revenue issue for Boston Public Schools”
Click to access SR16-2Charter.pdf
NYC public school parent: “Let’s see charters doing a self-examination of the students that are staying and the ones that are leaving. That’s what would happen if charters were really doing the job they were supposed to do.”
As I previously suggested here:
Have you had a chance to do this yet?
“And please see the graphs on pp 32-33 that illustrate this: ‘Furthermore, even the small numbers of students who do leave Brooke each year are just as likely to be performing well academically as their peers who persist, as demonstrated in the graphs below.’” ?
http://www.doe.mass.edu/boe/docs/fy2016/2016-02/item3-tabA1-1.docx
If I understand correctly, it is doing precisely what you are asking for. And with results that may surprise you.
Thank you Stephen. I would like to see the data and hard numbers. How many of the entering class were there for graduation? I am not seeing that number anywhere in the link you provided.
All that is provided are bar graphs of percentiles, which seems a very odd way to present data since there is no link to actual numbers. I have no idea what % of students left since the graph doesn’t tell me. All it tells me is the breakdown of test scores of whatever that unknown number was. Why go through such lengths to NOT give real data? Here is a simple question: How many students began? How many left? What % of each group left? When I look at the link you showed me, it demonstrated 2 things:
Almost every student seemed to be Advanced or Proficient coming in. So the charter is starting with an extremely high level of student.
If there are barely any below proficient students to begin with, the fact that the ones who leave are more likely to be those students is odd.
Just provide me with hard numbers. If only 15 below proficient students began, and 50% or 75% of them left, while only 5 or 10% of the Advanced students left, then why is that so? And is using bar graphs that tell us very little an attempt to hide this?
This shouldn’t be so complicated. Just have the numbers. How big was the entering class (100 students?) How many of those graduated 4 years later? Was the % of below proficient students who left significantly higher than the % of above proficient? From this chart, it appears that it was. And that’s a red flag.
Diane, the argument that offering options hurts existing schools and students has been used to challenge offering new school options – whether district or charter – for decades.
Wise educators have demonstrated that they can improve their programs when families have options. It does not have to be win-lose – it can be “win-win.”
Here’s a link to the Star Tribune – Minnesota’s largest daily newspaper – describing a project involving mostly students from low income families. 4 district & 2 charters were involved. There was a huge increase in # of students participating in dual (high school-college credit) courses. More than 80% did well enough to earn college credit. http://www.startribune.com/dual-credit-courses-proving-popular-in-st-paul/286248171/
The success of this project and other research helped convince state legislators to increase funding to help create additional dual credit courses.
Joe, that’s nice. The win-lose happens when public schools that serve most kids lose funding to charters that serve few kids, because the money follows the child.
Stephen, you are correct about Phoenix, and I have no problem with being corrected. I have made new graphs and updated the post. I think everyone will agree it doesn’t change my findings much at all.
I’d like to respond to your comments here in a full blog post. May I reprint what is here, in its entirety, so I can do that?
Best,
Mark
JJ: “May I reprint what is here, in its entirety”
Yes, you may. And any of this:
To save us some back and forth, I would suggest that in your response you also consider the material referenced here in respect to attempts to ascribe high test scores at charter schools to attrition:
And both of these documents in respect to hypothetical financial injury to BPS schools:
Click to access SR16-2Charter.pdf
http://manhattan-institute.org/html/massachusetts-charter-school-cap-pro-con-9278.html
The latter, which is brand new, states: “In 2016, charter enrollment had the effect of increasing per-pupil spending in district schools by approximately $85 million statewide.”
It has both strengths and weaknesses and you may find it, more generally, worth addressing together with the Brookings study.
You may find this useful: http://www.doe.mass.edu/research/reports/2016/02CharterReport.pdf
Finally, if you have time and space, you may wish to consider how passage or failure of our Q2 may impact likelihood of passage by the voters in 2018 of our millionaire’s tax proposal: http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2016/05/17/what-is-millionaire-tax-massachusetts/
Best wishes.
Stephen has yet to provide any longitudinal study that shows the attrition levels of charter schools in Massachusetts.
The only study he pointed to demonstrated that the % of below proficient students who leave one high performing charter may be twice as high as the % of students who are advanced. It’s very possible from the limited data that 50% or more of the non-proficient entering cohort goes missing.
Why are charters so reluctant to do a real study of the obvious question? In any given entering cohort, who is staying, who is going, and why?
NYC, further above, you wrote: “Almost every student seemed to be Advanced or Proficient coming in. So the charter is starting with an extremely high level of student.”
Not sure what you’re referring to there. Keep in mind that all three of those schools serve K2-8, with entry by lottery and most enrollment slots each year are for kindergartners, who would not arrive with any prior advanced/proficient designation.
I think you may be able to get quite close to the type of precise understanding regarding attrition at each grade that you may be seeking if you directly examine our department of education’s data on enrollment, grade-level retention, attrition, and school year stability via links I’ve previously provided.
For me, in respect to the particular issue of whether Brooke’s academic successes could properly be ascribed to loss of low-performing students, it’s enough, for now, to know that, while their loss of students is amongst the lowest and their test scores among the highest of both charter and district schools, the students who do depart seem roughly the same in measured skill level as their peers who stay.
NYC: “The only study he pointed to demonstrated that the % of below proficient students who leave one high performing charter may be twice as high as the % of students who are advanced.”
I don’t read any one of the 16 columns in those two graphs as showing more students who are below proficient than who are advanced, let alone twice as many.
In respect to those graphs, in case it’s helpful, these are the descriptions fitting the A,P,NI,W designations:
Advanced
Students at this level demonstrate a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of rigorous subject matter, and provide sophisticated solutions to complex problems.
Proficient
Students at this level demonstrate a solid understanding of challenging subject matter and solve a wide variety of problems.
Needs Improvement
Students at this level demonstrate a partial understanding of subject matter and solve some simple problems.
Warning (Grades 3–8)/Failing (High School)
Students at this level demonstrate a minimal understanding of subject matter and do not solve simple problems.
If the labels “Stayed” and “Left” had been obscured, I am not at all confident that I could have properly guessed which columns reflected those who stayed and which were those who left. What proportion of people with some interest and expertise in these issues do you think could guess that correctly?
Stephen,
You miss the point with all your studies and data.
The problem with charters is not their test scores, although as Finn and Manno said recently, the scores are over the place. But if they were high, there would still be a problem.
Public education is a civic responsibility, not a consumer good.
Charters are a form of privatization.
Privatization creates inequity and segregation. That’s the experience all over the world with choice.
Charters divide communities. Citizens will pay for public schools for the children of the community because they have a responsibility to do so. But who will vote for a bond issue to pay for private choices?
There are two problems with JJ’s analysis. First, and has Stephen has pointed out, the cohort data JJ cites includes students who are held back (i.e. leave their cohort but not the charter); we know Boston’s charters hold more students back since they have lower 4 yr grad rates than the BPS but higher 6-yr grad rates. The bigger problem is the research showing stronger student outcomes in MA and Boston charters; these studies applied methodologies that are immune to any influence from backfills (or lack thereof). More on this here: https://natmortonblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/24/charters-attrition-and-miles-davis/
Nat,
I oppose dual school systems. Period.
I realize you oppose charters, Diane, but the facts are what they are. Jeff’s reasoning is flawed and is refuted by several well researched studies.
As for opposing a “dual school systems” if you’d like to try and make the case that the traditional public systems in poorer, urban communities and those in leafy suburbs aren’t segregated, dual systems then please do. It sure looks like zip code segregation to me.
Nat,
The issue is not whether I like charters. The issue is whether I like privatization of public responsibilities. The answer is no. There is a reason that Wall Street is heavily investing in passing Question 2. It’s not about equity for kids, it’s about equity for hedge fund managers.
There is also a reason the teachers’ unions are throwing the kitchen sink at Question 2 here in MA. There are monied interests on both sides of the debate. What should matter most is not the politics but the student outcomes.
With all due respect, I think you’re letting ideology get in the way of a better public education for many of our neediest students. The results are there. Demand is high. We should let parents choose the public schools they think are best for their kids.
Baloney. Question 2 will determine whether the people of Massachusetts are wise enough to repel the corporate raiders who want to monetize their schools.
natmorton63. There are two publicly funded school systems competing for children and only one of those systems is the public schools. The other publicly funded system is in the private sector.
It has already been determined in court and elsewhere that publicly funded private sector schools are not public schools.
First, the National Labor Relations Board decided charter schools are private corporations, not public schools.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2016/08/30/national-labor-relations-board-decides-charter-schools-are-private-corporations-not-public-schools/
Second, the Colorado and Washington State Supreme courts ruled charter schools are unconstitutional
http://www.politicususa.com/2015/09/09/victory-education-state-supreme-court-rules-charter-schools-unconstitutional.html
The evidence is overwhelming that there is little or no choice for parents and children between these two systems. Any choice that exists between public schools and publicly funded private schools is that the corporate charters are allowed to hide fraud and have no restrictions on how they segregate students and how they spend the public’s money and what children they accept and keep.
Lloyd, there are many examples of public education that are not controlled by locally elected school boards.
For example, the New York City and Chicago “public school” systems are not operated by locally elected school boards.
A number of states (including Washington and Minnesota) allow high school students to attend college and universities, with state funds following them from district public schools, to pay tuition. These colleges and universities are not controlled by locally elected school boards.
Several states have free statewide schools supported by tax funds that are not controlled by locally elected school boards.
A key question is whether it is good for low/moderate income families to have options paid for by the public. When Phi Delta Kappa and Gallup has asked this question, the majority of the public has repeatedly supported this idea. I agree.
Lloyd, you might want to expand your news sources to include some that are not so biased; the one you cited is off the rails and, more importantly, is giving you bad information. Those two cases did not find charters unconstitutional according to the US Constitution (which the word “unconstitutional” unqualified is meant to imply). Both of those cases found issues with their state school laws against state constitutional law.
Massachusetts has a different constitution and different charter school law; that law could not be more clear as it declares MA charters are public schools.
Second, and as has been said several times in these comments, the implied assertion that the traditional public school system in one system and is not segregated is a cruel hoax. No one can seriously claim that the average inner city public school system is on par with those in the ‘burbs. In MA charters are leveling that playing for all kinds of students, especially the neediest. The data proves it. If you really want to understand what’s happening in MA charters, here’s what the research is telling us: https://natmortonblog.wordpress.com/2016/08/21/research-on-ma-charters/
natmorton63
Calling a source liberal and then dismissing the information reported by that source because the media source has been labeled liberal is the most often used flawed defense by far right extremists. That is total BS.
Last year, The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) replaced NCLB and handed mostly education back to the states.
http://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2015/12/09/new-federal-education-law-shifts-power-to-states
That means, unless Donald Trump is elected president and subverts the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law as he has clearly said repetitively with his unconstitutional claims , the U.S. Supreme Court will probably not overrule the decisions of state courts.
“The new Every Student Succeeds Act, signed into law Dec. 10, 2015, rolls back much of the federal government’s big footprint in education policy, on everything from testing and teacher quality to low-performing schools. And it gives new leeway to states in calling the shots.”
http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/every-student-succeeds-act/
Donald Trump and the ignorant fools that support him want to trample the U.S. Constitutions.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2015/08/donald-trump-has-some-thoughts-about-the-constitution
http://time.com/4320105/donald-trump-u-s-constitution/
http://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-vs-the-constitution-a-guide-amendments-us-politics/
Conservative Legal Experts: Trump Is “A Menace,” A “Lunatic,” “A Fascist Thug,” A “‘Useful Idiot’ For Putin,” And A Danger To “Our National Security”
http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/07/28/conservative-legal-experts-trump-menace-lunatic-fascist-thug-useful-idiot-putin-and-danger-our/211990
Agreed, Nat.
Does a dual school system include one system for inner city students who can not pass standardized tests – so they are not able to enter elite magnet schools that use admissions tests? I oppose all public schools that use admissions tests.
Does a dual school system include one system for low income families and other system that is open only to those who can afford to pay for expensive homes and high real estate taxes? The largest school choice system in the country – and one of the most inequitable – is the suburban – urban system that gives far more “public” options to more affluent families.
A dual school system means both publicly funded, but one is regulated, the other is not. One takes all children, the deregulated one does not. One gets the most expensive to educate kids, the deregulated one pushes them out. A dual school system enables greater segregation, and in the South, funds racially segregated schools for blacks and whites.
Diane, re your 1:26pm comment, you are simply not describing charter public schools in Massachusetts. They do educate all kinds of kids; the data from the DESE proves it. They educate all kinds of kids well; the data from over a dozen university studies proves it. Replying to my points with nothing but words like “baloney” and “corporate raiders” is simply not the stuff of a serious argument. An honest look at the data and a concern for student outcomes lead to one conclusion: at least in Massachusetts charter public schools are successful and represent and improvement in public education.
Nat,
Repeating a lie over and over again, as you do, doesn’t make it true. Charter schools are not public schools. N more than Boeing is a public aircraft company, funded by government.
Trump loves charters too.
Why hoax the public?
No need to get nasty or personal, Diane. You have your opinions, and I have mine. We both believe they are true.
But what separates us is that you often make your arguments in a rather dogmatic manner. You make assertions as if they are self-evident and offer little rationale or supporting data. Just read your replies to me in this page for examples. Where I, on the other hand, generally back up what I claim.
Let’s’ take MA charter schools being public schools as an example. You may not think they are, but I cite the Massachusetts legislature which clear states they are public. Here’s the MA charter law actually says, emphasis added:
“(c) A commonwealth charter school shall be a public school, operated under a charter granted by the board, which operates independently of a school committee and is managed by a board of trustees. The board of trustees of a commonwealth charter school, upon receiving a charter from the board, shall be deemed to be public agents authorized by the commonwealth to supervise and control the charter school.”
https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXII/Chapter71/Section89
So is Beacon Hill lying, too?
Nat, many legislatures call privately managed charter “public,” but federal courts and the NLRB don’t recognize them as “state actors.” The charters defend themselves in court as NOT public. The charters insist they are NOT public when teachers try to organize a union because of working conditions.
These are facts, not opinions.
The primary purpose of charter funders is to bust the unions. That’s why the afar-right Waltons claim credit on their website for launching one of every four charters in the nation and has pledged to spend another $1 billion on charter in the next five years. Walton/Walmart hates unions.
Now they are targeting Massachusetts. If Question 2 passes, “public schools” will be run by out of state non-union corporations.
I’m trying to understand why you, and so many charter opponents, believe lifting the cap can only lead to a mass exodus from the traditional public school system. Do you really believe the MA traditional system is so far behind the state’s charters that absent a cap parents would choose to leave in such numbers that the trads would cease to be viable? I don’t.
Which I suppose leaves me with the higher opinion of the traditional system than many charter opponents.
Nat,
I don’t believe there will be a mass exodus.
I believe that more charters means that 10% will leave, maybe less, which will cause budget cuts to public schools, larger class sizes, fewer electives, degradation of public schools. At the same time, corporate chains will take the kids they want and exclude those who might lower their scores. As public schools worsen in quality, charter lobbyists will demand more schools, more funding. Public education will suffer grievously to satisfy the whims and greed of hedge fund managers and billionaires. It’s madness.
Sorry, I just don’t believe that we must chain students to a particular public school in order for that public school to thrive. MA charters are proving that school that must earn its enrollment can, and often does, deliver a better public education. Accountability matters, and for too many traditional public schools there are no meaningful consequences for average or merely sub-par performance. I’ve got kids in both systems, and I see the difference nearly every week. And the overwhelming body of research backs up our first hand experience. If you insist on calling the results from MA charters “madness,” then I say we need more of it.
Nat,
Obviously you love privatization. You love disruption. You love the idea of turning community institutions over to national corporations. I don’t. A Walmart for kids? No. It is madness. I hope your own children enroll I schools that open and close regularly, employing temp teachers
Giving parents and educators at the local level the opportunity to create new public options – open to all is “grass roots” democracy.
It’s quite a contrast with some suburban district that have walls around them that they have detectives to enforce – keeping out all students whose families can not afford to purchase extremely expensive homes and pay high real estate taxes.
It’s quite a contrast to some urban magnet high schools that have erected high walls for admission based on standardized tests.
By law in most states, charters must be open to all. That’s one of the democratic ideas that charters and other district public schools of choice without admissions tests uphold.
As Elizabeth Warren pointed out, charters divide communities and leave many children behind. Fix the system we have. Don’t create a dual system of haves and have nots.
We had a system of haves and have nots well before chartering. The system of haves and have nots start with wealthy suburban districts, some of which hire detectives to keep students out who don’t live there.
Natmorton63,
You use your own children as a comparison. Not good enough.
Let’s use the CREDO data from its 2015 41-urgban region comparison. Note: The US had almost 500 urban regions, so the 2013 CREDO national comparison would be more accurate.
Boston:
Autocratic, opaque, often child abusing, fraudulent and inferior, corporate charter schools serve a ratio of 17 percent special education students while the local public school serve a ratio of 21 percent; and the Boston Public Schools serve an English Language Learner population of 30 percent vs 8 percent in the publicly funded, private sector, cherry picking, corporate charter schools that pay administration much more and teachers a lot less while demanding teachers work longer hours every day.
The only area where Boston’s corporate charter school industry serves a higher ratio of students is students that live in poverty and then that gap is 79 percent vs 75 percent.
If we then scroll to page 28, we discover how horrible most of these publicly funded, private sector, often fraudulent and inferior, corporate charter schools are failing across the country even with the advantage of cherry picking the easiest students to teach/indoctrinate to become mindless workers and consumers with little or no critical thinking and problem solving skills but great test taking skills.
In the 2013 national study, in math, 71 percent of those autocratic, opaque, cherry picking corporate charter schools supported by hedge funds and billionaire autocrats that despise democracy, like Bill Gates and the Walton family, were worse or the same as the public schools they are competing with.
In reading 75 percent were the same or worse.
Click to access Urban%20Charter%20School%20Study%20Report%20on%2041%20Regions.pdf
You must be voting for Trump. I’m not sorry to say that a few successful charters, while the vast majority are failing miserably to beat the community based, locally controlled, democratic, transparent, non-profit, traditional public schools is not enough to keep experimenting with our children unless we as voters have a say with matching funds in the campaign to influenced those voters. No outspending teachers unions and parents in this vote. In fact, all money coming from outside of a state should be banned and illegal in all state elections.
Llyod, it must be said, your pack more nonsensical misinformation into a single run on sentence than any anti-charter zealot I have yet seen. Well done.
As best I can I’ll try to pick apart the many flaws in your last reply and provide you the evidence refuting what you say.
Beyond the hyperbole, the biggest flaw is our post is that you’re relying on national studies to draw inferences on MA charters. We’re far better off looking at MA studies for that. When one does, the evidence that MA charters are outperforming MA trads is overwhelming. I’ve yet to find a single study of the MA systems that shows students in trads doing even as well (do let me know if you’re aware of one). Conversely, I’ve come across over a dozen studies showing superior outcomes — for all kinds of students — in MA charters. You may find the list of theses studies here (and it includes the work CREDO has done on MA, so thank you for confirming your faith in their methodology): https://natmortonblog.wordpress.com/2016/08/21/research-on-ma-charters/
For commentary and cites showing the great work MA charters do with ELLs, here you go: https://natmortonblog.wordpress.com/category/english-lanage-learners/
For similarly wonderful results for SPEDs, here: https://natmortonblog.wordpress.com/category/special-education-sped/
To dispel the assertion that charters cherry pick students, a series of arguments may be found here: https://natmortonblog.wordpress.com/category/attrition/
To refute the notion that MA charters only “teach to the test,” there’s this study: https://natmortonblog.wordpress.com/2016/08/20/data-shows-charter-results-not-the-result-of-test-prep/
For an argument on why MA charters are actually more democratic, here you go: https://natmortonblog.wordpress.com/2016/07/30/why-charters-are-more-democratic/
And lastly, I’m not a Donald Trump voter, but thank you for demonstrating how little information is required for you to form a strong opinion.
Please do let me know if I missed any of the points you tried to make. And finally, as you can see, I’m relying on far more than just our firsthand experience in MA charters public and MA traditional public schools. Something else you’ve gotten wrong.
Warmest regards..
I’m surprised that you aren’t voting for Donald Trump, because you are just as full of it as he is. Nat, every link you provided is to your own Blog. Nate is great. Read his Blog to discover how great he is.
That isn’t providing links to sources of reliable and valid evidence that what you think is correct.
First, there is no valid evidence (other than test scores) that corporate charters in Massachusetts are superior to the traditional public schools.
http://www.epi.org/publication/bp278/
The same problems with the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers applies to using test scores to rank and rate schools.
The best thing these high stakes tests do is measure poverty.
“There is an achievement gap between more and less disadvantaged students in EVERY COUNTRY, surprising that gap is smaller in the United States than in simliar post-industrial countries, and not much larger than in the very highest scoring couturiers.”
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/january/test-scores-ranking-011513.html
In fact, Forbes reported: “If Massachusetts Were A Country, It’s Students Would Rank 9th in The World.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2014/09/29/if-massachusetts-were-a-country-its-students-would-rank-9th-in-the-world/#330eae5921b1
In addition, what does the PISA say about using its test scores to judge a countries public schools?
Does PISA tell participants how to run their schools?
“No. The data collected by PISA shows the successes of some participants’ schools and the challenges being faced in other countries/economies. It allows countries and economies to compare best practices and to further develop their own improvements, ones appropriate for their school systems.”
https://www.oecd.org/pisa/aboutpisa/pisafaq.htm
Why Standardized Tests Don’t Measure Educational Quality.
“The third reason that students’ performances on these tests should not be used to evaluate educational quality is the most compelling. Because student performances on standardized achievement tests are heavily influenced by three causative factors, only one of which is linked to instructional quality, asserting that low or high test scores are caused by the quality of instruction is illogical.”
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar99/vol56/num06/Why-Standardized-Tests-Don't-Measure-Educational-Quality.aspx
The reason why I thought you might vote for Trump is because he is illogical and so are you.
Sorry, Lloyd. If you’re not going to make even a token effort to look at what I sent you then I won’t bother addressing your points. If you had looked at any of it you would have realized that each of those blog pages I provided contains quotes and cites from peer-reviewed research with findings that refute the misinformation you’re attempting to spread here. Either speak to those studies and why you feel they are wrong or don’t bother.
More importantly, when you do speak to them please speak to them on my blog or via Twitter (@natmorton3) not here. For reasons I cited in a blog post yesterday I’ll not be commenting here further. I’m only posting this to wrap up our conversation.
Nat,
Nat, I reject your lone opinion. Every comment you leave only represents the opinion of one person, you, no matter how judgmental and absolute your words sound.
You are only one person out of 318.9 million in the third most populated country in the world! To refine that further, there are almost 219 million eligible voters in the United States, and you are only one of them if you are an adult old enough to vote and a citizen of the U.S.
You are not the judge or the jury or the majority of the electorate. Even the U.S. Electoral College is controlled by the majority vote in each state. Not your one opinion.
Nat, you have the same right as the rest of us: “Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
You have the freedom to express yourself thanks to the 1st Amendment, but you do not have the power to judge everyone else as wrong or right except as it pertains to your own thinking.
The odds of you being right are 1 of 219 million or 319 million depending on what number you prefer.
The wonderful thing about a republic with an element of a participatory democracy is when the majority gets it wrong, that mistake can be corrected in another election cycle.
Like Lincoln said, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” You have spoken. How many think you are a fool is up to them, not me. I’ve already made up my one (1) mind about you.
Your argument is not with me, Lloyd. It’s with the research teams whose studies I am citing. It’s their work that demonstrates MA charters are doing such a great job, not mine. I’m just the messenger here, no matter how much you want to make this about me.
Nat, there are hundreds of charter studies. Not just those you pick. The research consensus is that charters on average do not produce higher test scores than public schools. Research also agrees that they increase racial segregation and disrupt communities. International research shows that choice increases inequity
Pls cite for me even one study showing MA students performing better in MA trads than in it’s charters.
Nat,
Charters on average get the same scores as democratically controlled public schools. Many get much lower scores. Those that get high scores choose their students carefully.
And to tell the truth,mNat, schools are not defined or should not be fined by crappy standardized tests. There is far more to a real education than the ability to pick the right answer. Charters transfer public funds to private corporations. Privatization is bad for democracy. It never produces equity. It produces segregation and inequity.
Diane, I asked you to cite a study showing MA trad students doing as well or better than their peers in MA charters. Merely claiming such studies exist is not the same thing, as you must know.
Either you can cite such a study or you cannot. Which is it?
Nat,
I told you I don’t give a damn about crappy standardized test scores. I care about the healthy development of children, families, –
and communities. What’s your metric? I know more about the tests than you and they measure family income best
The metrics I value are performance on standardized tests (quantitative) combined with parental demand (qualitative).
Interesting that just one comment ago you claimed charter students score no better, but when pressed to provide proof suddenly you “don’t give a dame about crappy standardized test scores.” Fickle, to say the least.
The reality here, Diane, is that you claim MA charters are worse or no better, but you lack any proof whatsoever to back up that claim. More importantly, there are volumes of research which refute your claim, as we both well know.
Your opposition to charters, at least in MA, gives every outward appearance of being dogmatic. That’s now how we’re meant to decide things.
Nat,
You don’t listen. I wrote a book about the hoax of the privatization movement. I write about the privatization fraud daily. Privatization satisfies the demands of a few and harms the many. Privatization by its nature generates inequity and segregation. Privatization of public services that should be available to all undermines democracy. Privatization was tried and failed in Sweden and Chile.
Why do you want to encourage the erosion of democracy? Why do you support inequity and segregation?
Diane,
It’s worth noting that the position that you dismiss in respect to classification of charter schools as public subdivisions is the one that has been espoused by the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, Local 1 American Federation of School Administrators, AFL–CIO (CSSA), the American Federation of Teachers, AFL–CIO, and the National Education Association (NEA). Not to mention the PERB.
And in keeping with what Nat states, the 2-1 majority in the NLRB’s Hyde decision did not dispute the dissent in respect to these assertions:
“Second, the existence of Section 2(2) jurisdiction over Hyde Leadership does not mean that the Board has Section 2(2) jurisdiction over other charter schools. Rather, under the Hawkins County test, the question of Section 2(2) jurisdiction over any charter school depends on the particular facts of each case, which vary significantly because many different state and local laws govern the creation, structure and operation of charter schools.
“Even if Section 2(2) jurisdiction existed here, there is little question that Section 2(2) jurisdiction will not exist in various other charter school cases.
“…the most that could result from Board efforts to exercise jurisdiction over charter schools will be a jurisdictional patchwork—where federal jurisdiction exists here and state jurisdiction exists there, depending on how the “political subdivision” question is resolved…”
“…nor can there be any hope that a ‘single, uniform, national rule’ will displace the ‘variegated laws of the several States.'”
Stephen,
The most recent NLRB decision was not the only one to rule that charters are not state actors. The charters themselves argued that they are private corporations. In the West, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that charters are not state actors. The charter school insisted it was private. All to deny teachers’ the right to organize or the right to due process.
Nat, I prefer to answer your critiques on my blog where I can write at length. I will be addressing many of your arguments shortly, but for now:
There is significant heterogeneity in the student population of the Boston charter sector with regards to ELL and special education classification:
http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-charter-expansion
Most Boston charters have a smaller proportion of ELL and high-need special ed students compared to BPS.
Click to access 20151013_MASC_Charter-Schools_Who-Is-Being-Served_opt.pdf
The MA charter lottery studies are not truly gold-standard, and have significant limitations, especially regarding their external validity:
https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/thoughts-on-randomized-vs-randomized-charter-school-studies/
Charter schools are not state actors and, therefore, not subject to the same rules and standards of transparency as public district schools:
Click to access green-baker-oluwole.pdf
More to come…
Nat, I prefer to answer your critiques on my blog where I can write at length. I will be addressing many of your arguments shortly, but for now:
There is significant heterogeneity in the student population of the Boston charter sector with regards to ELL and special education classification:
http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-charter-expansion
Most Boston charters have a smaller proportion of ELL and high-need special ed students compared to BPS.
Click to access 20151013_MASC_Charter-Schools_Who-Is-Being-Served_opt.pdf
The MA charter lottery studies are not truly gold-standard, and have significant limitations, especially regarding their external validity:
https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/thoughts-on-randomized-vs-randomized-charter-school-studies/
Charter schools are not state actors and, therefore, not subject to the same rules and standards of transparency as public district schools:
Click to access green-baker-oluwole.pdf
More to come…