Why Don’t We Have Real Data on Charter Schools?

[xchrom]

http://www.thenation.com/article/181753/why-dont-we-have-real-data-charter-schools



In several cities throughout the country, there is a fierce conflict raging over the direction of education reform. At the center of this increasingly acrimonious debate is the question of whether or not charter schools—publicly funded schools that operate outside the rules (and often the control) of traditional public-school systems—should be allowed to proliferate. Given their steady growth (from no more than a handful twenty years ago to over 6,000 today), charter schools and their advocates appear to have the upper hand. A new bipartisan bill—the Expanding Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools Act, sponsored by Republican senators Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Mark Kirk of Illinois, and Democratic senators Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana and Michael Bennet of Colorado—would provide new funds to launch, replicate and expand charter schools nationwide.

The concept of the charter school was originally developed in 1974 by Ray Budde, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, who envisioned it as a way to bring innovation to schools by freeing them from the regulations that frequently limit and constrain traditional public schools. The idea was later embraced by American Federation of Teachers president Albert Shanker, who felt, like Budde, that there was a need for schools that could operate with greater flexibility and could serve as a laboratory for innovations that would then be applied to public schools. In 1991, Minnesota became the first state to adopt a charter-school law. Today, forty-two states and the District of Columbia have laws providing for the operation of charter schools. The vast majority of charter schools are located in large cities, and their numbers are growing rapidly. However, instead of collaborating with public schools as envisioned by Shanker, charter schools have become the centerpiece of a market-based reform strategy that places greater emphasis on competition.

Advocates of charter schools frequently make the argument that by providing parents with “choice,” the educational system—public schools and charter schools alike—will be forced to improve through greater accountability. As the New York City Department of Education has insisted, charter schools “offer an important opportunity to promote educational innovation and excellence [and] bring new leaders, resources, and ideas into public education.” Michelle Rhee, the former Washington, DC, schools chancellor (and ex-CEO of StudentsFirst, a market-based school-reform organization), seemingly agrees, stating that “accountability has to sit everywhere in the system. The children have to be held accountable for what they’re doing every day; the parents, teachers, school administrators, all the way up.” Education Secretary Arne Duncan, supportive of many charter-school initiatives, has spoken on how we “need to be willing to hold low-performing charters accountable.”

The problem here is that charter schools are frequently not accountable. Indeed, they are stunningly opaque, more black boxes than transparent laboratories for education. According to a 2013 study by the Center for Research on Educational Outcomes at Stanford University, only 29 percent of charter schools outperformed public schools with similar students in math, while 31 percent performed worse. Most charter schools, in fact, obtained results that were no better than traditional public schools. So what was that 29 percent doing right? And what went so wrong with the failing 31 percent? There are a few reasons why it’s nearly impossible to find out.

[Starry Messenger]

1. Well we know they are doing a bang-up job

of increasing racial segregation and diverting tax money. So there's that.

[ctsnowman]

4. Nailed it.

[Brainstormy]

6. Absolutely

Charter schools are ushering in a new are era of school segregation, one just as pernicious as pre-1954.

[mountain grammy]

12. Yes, there is that, the one thing that's undeniably true about charters.

I've always favored magnet schools, especially at the high school level. I know several young adults in Denver who got a good start on careers in Denver's magnet high schools. These were marginal students who, once they landed in a magnet school that focused on their particular strengths and interests, excelled in high school. The magnet schools are not charters.

[tecelote]

15. Yes, that's the problem.

Instead of national standards, we need individualized focus on each students strengths.

Mountain Grammy: "These were marginal students who, once they landed in a magnet school that focused on their particular strengths and interests, excelled in high school".

Kids want to learn and they will excel at the things they like.

If charter schools could offer alternative education, that could be great. Instead they seem to be popular for political and social reasons.

Plus, pulling resources from current public schools certainly seems problematic.

[Sancho]

2. There may be more data than the current version of charter schools want to reveal....

Even with the version of "charter schools" being considered now, "alternative schools", "laboratory schools", and "demonstration schools" have been created and died off over the history of modern education - likely dating back over a hundred years.

The current movement has specifically been an effort by the political right to get their hands on public school money.

Researchers have lots of research reports and experience that are pretty compelling. Simply changing standards, curriculums, and homework has an effect on achievement, but not as much as you'd think. One-to-one tutoring (small class size), prescribed teaching (no one size fits all), and well-prepared teachers (not TFA recruits) are well documented positives.

The current version of charters don't want scrutiny, because they are really no better than a typical public school, but they siphon off dollars, cater to the white flight, and avoid any real examination. Public schools have been examined carefully for decades.

[Thespian2]

8. Excellent observations

I would simply add that these "schools" provide another avenue for corporations to rake in public money without producing anything akin to positive results. We produced an excellent public school system in Wake County North Carolina; when the Republicans took control of the school system, they destroyed it.

[daleanime]

3. K&R....

[Wounded Bear]

5. Same reason it so hard to get real data on gun violence...

...or why climate denial is a growth industry: the people making money off of them won't let us do the studies or publicize the outcomes. And even when the data gets out, it is met with howling, irrational screaming fits posing as "debate."

The Gish Gallup seems to be our favorite sporting event.

[Enthusiast]

7. Kicked and recommended. This is enough to make you sick.

Selective accountability across the board.

[yeoman6987]

9. Only 2 changes I would make with public schools

A uniform for all. It can be as simple as jeans and plain tee shirt to full uniform. And have the teacher control what they teach. No more tests or beuracracy.

[tooeyeten]

11. You're on to something

The over reliance on testing only creates test takers, not thinkers.

[liberal_at_heart]

21. actually there are a lot of changes that need to be made, but they need to be made

inside the public schools themselves, not by creating for profit charters. Proper funding would solve a lot of problems. So would giving teachers more say in how the curriculum is made, getting rid of Common Core, and putting less emphasis on state standardized tests. My son who is in special education and mainstreamed into general education classes doesn't have any teacher assistants in those general education classes. They tried to force him to learn grade level Common Core math in middle school which failed miserably, and he is expected to pass state standardized tests. There are changes that need to be made, but they need to be made inside the public school system.

[tooeyeten]

10. In 40 years

The charter concept in 1974 is not what we have in 2014. The right found a means to dismantle defund failing schools instead of addressing the #1 issue on them is poverty of the students they serve. The charter concept had been the godsend beyond their wildest dreams with a failing public school. The losers are the children, and their futures. Segregation is in the works, and at risk kids on the edge without a future will probably find another institution likely a prison.

[mountain grammy]

13. Well said, you've nailed it!

[tooeyeten]

17. Thank you with

Hesitation since we are set to lose this generation of poor children, and the next to uncertainty and worse, when you consider who controls education and money.

[mountain grammy]

19. The new American workforce, don't ask questions, lucky to have a job..

and all the rest. Just enough education to function and vote how they're told to vote, not enough to question.

[mopinko]

14. could it be that they just dont "teach to the test"?

they do the kinds of teaching that everyone loves but the test makers?
education advocates seem to all decry the crush of testing on education, but then want charter schools to exceed the norms of the very same tests, just to justify their existence.

when they develop a testing scheme that can test the behavioral improvement of the kids who go to schools that deal with that, and they judge the output and performances of the kids in the art and music schools, and judge the downward facing dog of the kids at namaste charter,
then you can start talking about charters and tests.

till that happens, this is rank hypocrisy.

[sulphurdunn]

16. The charter school movement is

essentially an investment strategy to re-segregate K-12 public education for private profit, using public money through legislation fostered by crooked politicians bought and paid for with tax-exempt foundation and hedge fund money. None of it has a goddamn thing to do with anything other than improving their bottom lines at public expense. This shocking degree of corruption would not be possible without media and academic whores who perpetrate the big lie that socioeconomic reality is not an indicator of educational outcomes despite all evidence to the contrary.

[Orsino]

18. Because they're not real schools.

We gave in and let Big Money steal education dollars, and then act surprised that the same philosophy makes publuc schools fail. Meanwhile the pretty, pretty charter schools also evolve into faster-better-cheaper daycare with pretensions to scholarship.

We were short-sighted enough to let them buy our future, and still can't agree that we need to buy it back.

[liberal_at_heart]

20. Those of us who could benefit from both a working public school system and an alternative,

those of us stuck in the middle, have been abandoned. No one and I mean no one cares about properly funding public schools anymore, and the 1% are the ones building all the charters. None of these schools be it public or charter are really for the children anymore. All the government wants are test numbers and all the 1% want is profit. Our children have been abandoned.