Why do the Disrupters continue to insist that charter schools will “save poor kids from failing schools,” when the evidence continues to accumulate that this is simply not true.
According to the latest state data for Indiana, the graduation rate is about 87%, with variations among different groups of students.
For charter schools, the graduation rate is 40%.
Indiana’s high school graduation rate dipped slightly in 2019, with the rate of students needing waivers from the state to earn a diploma, noticeably higher than previous years.
The state graduation rate has hovered around 87 percent since 2016, but a higher rate of students needed a waiver to get a diploma in 2019 – students get one if they don’t pass their final state exams..
Schools graduated black, English Language Learner (ELL) and special education students at the lowest rates among student groups, at 78, 77 and 71 percent, respectively.
State data also shows non-public and traditional public school graduation rates landed at or above 90 percent for all students. Meanwhile, charter schools graduated students at a rate of 40.2 percent.
This is an astonishing graduation rate gap between public schools and charter schools.
Who will save poor kids from failing charter schools?
.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Many of these low graduation rate charters are “dropout recovery” schools. Also, state graduation data for these schools is very different than federal. My guess is that it is measured differently (such as graduation by a certain age).
Certainly must be a very large number of dropout recovery charters in Indiana!
One wonders whether charter school graduation rates are still dragged down by schools like this:
“About 2 percent of Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy’s 1,009 seniors graduated”
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/in/2019/01/02/this-indiana-virtual-charter-school-graduated-just-2-percent-of-its-students-in-2018/
Though, tugging in the opposite direction there’s also these remarkable results? “The adult high school graduation rate for The Excel Center – Noblesville is exceptionally high (163% for SY 2018-19). In addition to being high for the 2018-19 school year, it is also worth noting that The Excel Center – Noblesville has achieved an adult high school graduation rate of more than 125% in all but its first year of operation.
Click to access EC%20Noblesville%20Renewal%20App%202019.pdf
Have no idea how they’re calculating that… Doesn’t seem easy to get an understanding of what the relative graduation rates may be in Indiana of TPS and charter schools serving similar populations…
You do have to wonder about a school
Where 125% of students graduate.
And you have to wonder why the state hasn’t closed down the charter school with a 2% graduation rate
That is, indeed, what the application for renewal of the charter says, that the adult high-school graduate rate was 163%. Hmmm. I guess that the folks running this charter need a little remedial instruction on what “percent” means. LOL.
Maybe they are graduating some of them twice. Hee hee.
Re: Why do the Disrupters continue to insist that charter schools will “save poor kids from failing schools,” when the evidence continues to accumulate that this is simply not true.
Because it’s a corporate commercial concern — not a democratic educational mission, and lying lying lying is just what American Business Culture does.
Charter schools: Deformers can’t believe they’re not better.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
Why are publicly funded, private sector charter schools allowed to exist when they only graduate 40.2 percent of their students vs the almost 90 percent that graduate from real public schools? Charters are also allowed to be opaque (secretive) and do not have to answer to voters as public schools do.
Complications in School Funding Claims Amid Indiana Protest
Nov. 23, 2019
Top Indiana Republicans left out some information in touted increased school spending and some big teacher pay raises in defending themselves as thousands of teachers turned out for a Statehouse rally calling for a bigger boost in education funding.
…The GOP-written spending plan increases base funding for traditional schools funding by about 2% each year, according to an analysis from the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency. Charter schools received 10% more money and private school voucher funding jumped 9% for this year…
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/indiana/articles/2019-11-23/complications-in-school-funding-claims-amid-indiana-protest
When will charters be held accountable for abysmal results?
Ravitch: “When will charters be held accountable for abysmal results?”
Looks like in Indiana (like the scam in California) some of the most egregious practices occurred under the oversight of a public school district that acted as authorizer… including in Indiana in respect to that virtual school cited above with the 2% graduation rate…
“Daleville Community Schools was the authorizer of two virtual charter schools: Indiana Virtual School (2011) and Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy (2017). In February of 2019, DCS began the process to revoke the charters for both schools because clear and egregious violations of the charters had been uncovered.”
http://daleville.ss10.sharpschool.com/about_us/charter_school_authorization
Too many authorizers (particularly those with little experience and conflicts of interest) spoil the broth…
And yet the far-right Center for Education Reform recommends multiple authorizers, the more the better, and the least oversight or regulation. A sure recipe for grifters, chicanery, and incompetence. How’s that working out in Indiana, Ohio, California, Arizona, and Michigan?
I repeat: when will failing charters be held accountable for their abysmal performance?
Ravitch: “I repeat: when will failing charters be held accountable for their abysmal performance.”
Well looks like the Daleville School District did finally vote to revoke the virtual schools’ charters that it had previously authorized.
Here in Boston, due to the cap, even a moderately decent charter school is subject to being involuntarily closed so some more exceedingly successful ones can expand… I recall being at a meeting where parents of one scheduled for closure were pleading with state officials to permit it to continue… rather than praising its students’ generally pretty average academic scores they mainly were praising a school culture that effectively encouraged kind relationships, one that lacked the bullying their children had experienced in prior environments.
How about all The other failing charters in Michigan, Ohio, Nevada, abd California? How about the failing cybercharters in Pennsylvania? How about the entire K12 Inc chain? K12 reported a huge profit this year.
What about ECOT in Ohio, which closed down after collecting $1 billion?
Why rely on a few outliers when big bucks are being scooped up entrepreneurs like Lager of ECOT, McManus of A3 ($50 million plus).
Ravitch: “How about all The other failing charters in Michigan, Ohio, Nevada…”
If recruiting some exorcists proves inadequate, implementing greatly improved assessment systems would seem a crucial element in attempting to hold schools accountable… I, for example, remain a fan of Jack Schneider’s work:
Perhaps you could recruit him to do a guest blog post or otherwise bring increased attention to the work he and colleagues are doing?
Will that cause bought legislators in those states to shut down failing charters? Will a new accountability system in Florida cause the legislators who have investments and family members in charters to regulate them? Will the state commissioner in Florida, whose wife runs a charter, get tough on them?
Florida’s state commissioner Richard Corcoran was previously Speaker of the House. His wife runs a charter. He recently said that every school and student in the state should be “voucherized.” Can we count on him to close failing charters and vouchers schools (which are exempt from accountability)? Why don’t you send him Schneider’s book?
Ravitch: “How about all The other failing charters in Michigan, Ohio, Nevada, abd California? How about the failing cybercharters in Pennsylvania?”
In Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania perhaps start by joining forces with DFER, Bloomberg et al and flip the legislatures blue?
I don’t have a good sense of how charter schools in Nevada have compared to the available alternatives… Is this a sign that the Dem legislature in Nevada is enhancing accountability?
https://www.qualitycharters.org/2019/07/nevada-is-betting-on-not-blaming-its-charter-school-sector/
I see that the Washoe County School District in 2019 closed one of the 8 charter schools it had authorized: the “I Can Do Anything Charter High School.” (Presumably not “no excuses”?).
As for California, I’d love to be a fly on the wall for a long convo between Bob Shepherd and Ann O’Leary about ELA common core beyond K-2, etc., etc.
DFER as you know, consists of Wall Street financiers. The hedge funders poured millions into the NY legislative races to keep the State Senate in Republican hands. Bloomberg was the single biggest funder of the NY Republican Party. Neither DFER nor Bloomberg has ever lobbied for charter accountability. Surely you jest.
Ravitch: “DFER as you know, consists of Wall Street financiers.”
Hedge fund billionaires seem to keep a low profile in DFER MA, but presumably help keep the lights lit:
https://www.dfermass.org/leadership
As for Bloomberg, yes he spent about 6 of his 77 years as a Republican… and has financially supported some Republicans (particularly folks who support gun control) but has expended far more in support of Democrats, e.g., asserts that he spent $100 million to help flip Congress to the Dems in 2018 and Virginia to the Dems in 2019… That he might attempt the same for Florida, Michigan, Ohio is no jest.
Bloomberg is purely transactional. Party means nothing to him. He was elected as mayor of NYC as a Republican because he could buy the Republican party and avoid a primary in a Democratic city.
He singlehandedly protected the Republican party in the State Senate. Without his money, they would have been a minority.
DFER is hedge fund managers; no matter who is staff, the entire board is hedge funders. It exists solely for the purpose of pushing charters and undermining public schools and their teachers (DFER loves high-stakes testing, VAM, and merit pay, none of which have any research to support them).
N case you been readin up on Dianes blog n have douts about charters, let me remind you that hear in Florida, you kin send yore kids to Bob’s Real Good Florida School, which has been authorized both by Weeki Watchee Bait and Tackle AND the Plant City Living Word Ministry and Alligator Sanktuary. An you kin use yore Florida skool voucher to pay for it, so its ABSOBLOOMINLUTELY free. Private n free! How you gonna beet that? Further more, by younanimous consent of the school bored (Bob and his girlfriend Darlene and severul other prominant citezens), Satan has been offshully baned from the school premisees.
Bob Shepherd:”Satan has been offshully baned from the school premisees.”
This is the only school that I would want. Satan is trying to rule the world through a one world order. It is time that he is stopped and to have him outside on the playground is NOT acceptable.
So, send me your application form and I will gladly enroll my 25 youngsters who are now all eligible for the first grade classes.
Thank you for putting up the information that will save us all from the desires of Satan and Trump.
25! Well, that’s enough to form a choir, Sister Carol! Might pleazed.
Inglis, Florida. “The mayor and town clerk had attended a Halloween weenie roast at their church, the Yankeetown Church of God. At the party, Pastor Rick Moore brought up the idea of banning Satan from town. ‘The mayor felt impelled by God,’ said McCranie, to participate in the ban; the next day, she drafted a proclamation on city letterhead.
The proclamation began, ‘Be it known from this day forward that Satan, ruler of darkness, giver of evil, destroyer of what is good and just, is not now, nor ever again will be, a part of this town of Inglis. Satan is hereby declared powerless, no longer ruling over, nor influencing, our citizens.'” https://clclt.com/charlotte/the-town-that-banned-satan/Content?oid=2348326
Was Satan a big presence in that town?
Did he co sent to the ban? Is he going underground? No more adultery or cussing or drunkenness?
Nope. No more Satin in Inglis. Mind you, I’m not talking about Massachusetts, New York, or California.
Really makes one proud to be a Hoosier.
Many of us worked so VERY hard to build a quality education system.
Politicians? Tear it all down.
Grad rates are used to make public schools look bad. Just like other test scores, public schools with low grad rates are cited as part of the failing schools litany. Students who are killed in traffic accidents count against schools in Tennessee. Thus students who are more likely to have problems are more likely to harm grad rates. It is just another metric that makes poor folks look bad, as if they do not already have enough reason to look bad. How is that fundamentally different from standardized testing? It’s just another brick in the wall.
Of course, grad rates are part of the Disrupter mythology of “failed public schools.”
What, a grad rate of “only” 87%? !!
Why not 100%?
Meanwhile “successfully charters kick out those unlikely to graduate and them falsely claim that 100% “graduated,” not counting the 50-75% who were pushed out before senior year.
One infamous charter school in Chicago boasts a 100% graduation rate, never mentioning the kids who never made it to 12th grade.
Who will these kids. I haven’t answer. It’s sad. My skilled trade. There’s no young men or women. Entering into this trade sad testing in school how can these kids concentrate with all the repreason in society, genetic imperfections kids that need a certain skill something that do a
Painting job and thay need to that before thay leave school. That’s me.