New Stanford Univ. Study. Questions Value of Charter Schools in Pennsylvania

[JPZenger]

http://articles.mcall.com/2011-06-12/news/mc-stanford-pennsylvania-charter-scho20110612_1_public-charter-schools-research-on-education-outcomes-school-choice-advocates

Pennsylvania's Republican controlled state government continues to divert hundreds of millions of dollars a year away from public schools to new charter schools. A new Stanford University study questions the effectiveness of many of these schools.

Excerpts:

"The study by Stanford's Center for Research on Education Outcomes concludes that "students in Pennsylvania charter schools on average make smaller learning gains" when compared with their traditional counterparts... they found that students at nearly half of the charter schools made significantly lower learning gains in both subjects than their traditional public school counterparts.

Researchers also reported what they described as "alarming" results among all cyber charter schools, which are online-only schools. The report said cyber students in Pennsylvania perform substantially lower than students at traditional public school in both subjects.

But school districts argue charter schools are costly and don't always deliver a better education.
Stanford's Center for Research on Education Outcomes has conducted about 20 assessments of charter school performance, including a national study in 2009. To compare charter with public schools in Pennsylvania, Stanford researchers matched each charter school student with a "virtual twin" at a traditional school based on a list of criteria. The center tracked students' academic growth on state academic achievement tests from 2007 to 2010.

When compared with national charter schools, Pennsylvania's pendulum appears to swing higher in both directions. Past Stanford research has shown that nationally 17 percent of charters perform above traditional public schools and 37 percent below."

[aquart]

1. I question the value of them anywhere.

[Recursion]

2. There are good and bad ways to do it -- Virginia is pretty good

They have a small number (six? seven?) and they actually are used as labs to try out new things (which originally was the whole point). Some of the better ones in DC give parents a way to participate that they never had with DCPS, but there are too many of them (something like 40% of public school kids are in charters) and too many sketchy ones.

[jimlup]

3. Don't worry

The republicon's will find some way to cook the books and then preach the charter school mantra. They don't want to consider facts so watch out!