Nowthat Cory Booker is running for the Democratic nomination for president, expect to hear a Big Liesabout the transformation of the Newark’s hoops when Booker was Mayor.
This study by Bruce Baker and Mark Weber of Rutgers University is a useful antidote.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It just seems very cynical for ed reform Democrats to go full-on anti public schools for years and then do abrupt turn-arounds in time for the next election, like Booker voting against Devos or Emanual having his phony second thoughts about the agenda while still completely endorsing the agenda.
DeVos is actually correct to call them out on it. She’s right. There isn’t a dime’s worth of practical difference between her position and theirs.
They all touted that they had bipartisan lockstep agreement, and they did that for years. That was supposedly one of the benefits of backing ed reformers- Republicans and Democrats, they all agreed, Chris Christie or Cory Booker- no difference. That was proof of how completely and utterly RIGHT they are- there was no dissent. Now it’s politically savvy to invent some distance there?
LikeLike
I thought this was amazing:
“At the same time, nearly 60,000 students across Florida were removed from the graduation-rate calculations that year. That amounts to about 22 percent of the original group of students statewide –268,579 kids — who started out in 9th grade four years earlier and were on the road to graduation, according to data provided by the Florida Department of Education.
What happened to those 60,000 kids? For the most part, they were categorized simply as withdrawing from their high school.
Some transferred to other Florida districts or out of state; others enrolled in private schools or left their public school to be home-schooled. Some students died, according to the state data.
What the public doesn’t know is whether those kids ever graduated, particularly those students still living in Florida.”
Florida may be counting high school drop outs as “homeschooling”. They have no idea where they went or if they ever graduated.
Obviously it calls all the “huge rise in homeschooling” stats into question too.
https://www.floridaphoenix.com/2019/01/25/are-impressive-graduation-rates-in-fl-for-real-state-calculations-eliminate-thousands-of-kids-boosting-results/
LikeLike
There was and is no miracle in Newark. Transferring a number of schools to private ownership caused far more disruption than academic or personal growth. Newark continues to struggle with many poor students, but some neighborhoods are experiencing gentrification. The small improvement in math and no improvement in reading in the study are hardly miraculous. Any improvement in scores is likely due to gentrification which attracts families with higher incomes. When demographics shift, scores may rise or fall depending on who moves into an area.
LikeLike
Florida’s graduation rates could be off by any amount up to 22%. They could have not risen at all or declined. No one knows. The 22% of the original cohort who withdrew were simply not tracked.
This is Arne Duncan math. It’s the “100% graduate” when he means “100% of the remaining 75% – just ignore that 25% who disappeared”
LikeLike
Cory Booker is a corporate neoliberal. Neoliberals believe in telling “noble” lies if it helps them win and achieve their greedy goals.
Neoliberals even lied when they said they would not lie anymore to the public.
Corporate neoliberals have a lot in common with Donald Trump.
LikeLike
Corporate neoliberals DO INDEED have a LOT IN COMMON with Donny.
So SAD.
LikeLike
Diane, if you encounter some lies about Booker’s achievements, perhaps some of the NEPC material will indeed prove helpful in dispelling those.
But it does little if anything to counter assertions that Booker’s struggles to improve education for Newark’s kids achieved some success, that it’d be difficult to find comparable locales that demonstrated greater improvement since 2006.
The NEPC analysis makes some points that I’d agree with:
“As such, we can state one thing for certain: the story of Newark education reform is highly complex.”
True enough. And continues with material like this:
“Even if we accept the validity of the estimates, the effect sizes found are practically non-significant”
You’re good at unraveling language, Diane. A concise way of phrasing that would be that the effects are significant?
As the NEPC study recognizes, the 2015 CREDO study had shown Newark charter schools having greatly positive effects on measures of student academic achievement growth. See esp. pp. 9-10: here
Click to access Urban%20Charter%20School%20Study%20Report%20on%2041%20Regions.pdf
Weber and Baker attempt to undercut those results by stating:
“As we have noted in the past, the CREDO reports employ a virtual matching methodology that is only as good as the variables used to create matches to counterfactual students. This places a significant limitation on the interpretation of the effect sizes found, as the variables used to match students are crude, binary measures of student characteristics such as socio-economic status, special education status, and limited English proficient (LEP) status.
“This is highly problematic when studying a school district like Newark, which enrolls a high percentage of economically disadvantaged students, LEP students, and special education students.”
Their implication seems to be that while the charter school student and VCR control may both be limited in English proficiency (LEP) and economically disadvantaged, the control records may represent students in the district schools who are more severely LEP and who are more dramatically economically disadvantaged.
One might find that persuasive… if one didn’t know (as they conveniently omit to mention) that the charter students and controls in the CREDO research were actually also matched on a crucial non-binary characteristic: test scores.
p.s. I continue mystified as to why the New Jersey Department of Education doesn’t provide accurate attrition data… I presume they don’t or the poor souls at Rutgers wouldn’t need to keep relying on their own “cohort attrition” methodology, which proves more consistently useful in politics than scholarship.
LikeLike
Stephen, you have established that you are a charter zealot. Around here, your zealotry is unwelcome. You are like a Bosox fan coming in to the Yankee locker room to lecturethem on the superiority of the Bosox. Why waste your time?
LikeLike
Back in the day, when I, and my father before me, were New Yorkers, the Yankees were considerably more successful than the Bosox. I recall celebrating Yankees’ success in Yankee Stadium.
Of late, as it happens, the Red Sox have done rather well… In 2018, “Under first year manager Alex Cora, the team finished with a 108–54 record, winning the American League East division title for the third consecutive season, and finished eight games ahead of the second-place New York Yankees.” Before beating the Yankees in the playoffs. And winning the World Series.
No zealotry here, Diane. Just calling ’em like I see ’em.
And view CREDO’s methodology as being well within the strike zone.
LikeLike
Stephan,
You are a charter zealot. You refuse to recognize that you are carrying water for the far-right who have always wanted to bust unions and blow up public schools.
DeVos. Waltons. Koch brothers. ALEC. Jeb Bush.
LikeLike
It’s perhaps time for some organization to–pardon the analogy–“grade” the Democratic candidates according to their education records. Booker will probably be D-.
LikeLike
NPE is developing a report card on education for all Democratic presidential candidates.
LikeLike
Booker is talking the talk, unfortunately he didn’t walk the walk.
LikeLike