We've not only been wasting our time and money and resources in a fruitless argument, but we've been gambling with kids» lives in the name of this intellectual debate about the minuscule difference
between public charter schools and traditional public schools.
The only valid comparison, however, is that
between a public charter school and the traditional public school to which a student would otherwise have been assigned.
Competition in places like Dallas and Houston
between public charter schools and independent school districts (ISDs) continue to heat up, while jockeying for scarce resources, land, talent, and students is ever present between charters.
Julia Sass Rubin and Mark Weber of Rutgers University recently published a report (the first of a three part series, with two parts yet to come)[1] that examines enrollment differences
between public charter schools and traditional district schools in New Jersey.
We need everyone's help with the fight to close the funding gap
between public charter schools and traditional school districts, as well as maintain the important freedoms and flexibility that charter schools depend on to serve Texas students.
The Arizona Republic produced a video explaining the differences
between public charter schools and district schools.
Also, 8 schools have been closed by state, demonstrating a fundamental difference
between public charter schools and traditional district schools.
Is there a special education gap
between public charter schools and district schools?
Nor is the faceoff as simple as a battle
between public charters and teachers unions.
Not exact matches
Our numbers have expanded to 45 known schools and initiatives, and we've started to see the
Public Waldorf Education impulse move from its spiritual home in the West towards its historical roots in the East... with a few stops in
between: schools based on the principles of
Public Waldorf Educationwere granted
charters in Colorado, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Idaho and Florida this year and are set to open in the fall.
If
public schools are in crisis, it may well be because school reform lurches from cause to cause, from standardized testing to differentiated classrooms, from all - inclusive
public schools to
charter schools and everything in
between.
The invite to the May 12 event, which costs
between $ 1,000 and $ 3,800 to attend, features a photo of the mayor and a note from him lauding the Buffalo Democrat as a «champion for
charter schools in the Assembly,» (which is, for the record, a place where that sort of behavior is not widespread), and also an «outspoken advocate for
public school reform.»
Yes, the budget tosses a few bucks into the
charters» tin cup — ostensibly to close per - pupil funding disparities
between New York City's traditional
public schools and its 216
charters.
De Blasio also said Thursday night that greater equity
between «good» and «bad»
public schools would mean parents wouldn't have to choose privately run
charter schools over traditional schools.
De Blasio said the gap
between public - and
charter - school exam proficiency was due more to an ideological divide than educational effectiveness.
Cuomo played a face - to - face role in brokering the April deal
between the city and Eva Moskowitz, head of the Success Academy chain of
charter schools, according to a newly released round of his
public schedules.
Lines are already drawn
between public school teachers, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and the
charter school movement.
David Bloomfield, a professor of education at CUNY's Graduate Center and Brooklyn College, also said Success» likely expansion could create more of a wedge
between Success and the city's other
charters, since the network will serve by far the most students and require the most
public dollars, a sentiment echoed by some independent
charter leaders.
I want to participate in a campaign this year that will highlight for New York's voters the connections
between Governor Cuomo and the
charter school movement, which feeds like a vampire on
public money and resources.
In the current study, the researchers analyzed data from 1.7 million K - 12 students in Ohio who attended a traditional
public school,
charter school, or an online
charter school
between the 2009 - 10 and 2012 - 13 school years.
The authors concluded that successful
public charter high schools in low - income neighborhoods can have beneficial health effects, and could help to close the growing academic achievement gap
between wealthy and poor students.
«I had expectations of what the parents were supposed to do,» says Melissa Bryant, a math teacher and dean of students at D.C. Scholars Stanton Elementary, a novel partnership
between the Washington, D.C.,
public schools and Scholar Academies, a
charter operator.
Based on a wealth of existing evidence, however, we are unable to share in the team's optimism that more complete data might show narrower differences in segregation
between charter and traditional
public schools.
While the exact way forward may vary from one district to another, there should be no further delay in creating state laws and regulations that level the playing field
between charters and other
public schools.
Competition
between charter schools and traditional
public schools for students may induce a constructive reaction, an obstructive reaction, or no response.
Fifty - two percent of city
charter school students were in 90 - 100 % minority schools, compared to only 34 % of traditional
public school students — a difference of eighteen percentage points, very similar to the overall difference of twenty percentage points
between the two sectors of schools (Table 22 on p. 63 of our report).
Charter schools are important intermediaries
between individuals (parents who select schools on behalf of their children) and the government (which funds education for the
public good).
A reanalysis of the data used in the UCLA report found much smaller differences
between charter and traditional
public schools once more appropriate comparisons were made
between the two groups of schools.
However, a RAND study found that, in most states, students tend to transfer
between traditional
public and
charter schools with similar racial compositions.
The result is entrenched competition
between entire school sectors, such as
charter versus district,
public versus private.
Thus, while it appears that
charter students are, on average, more likely to attend hypersegregated minority schools, the difference
between the
charter and traditional
public sector is far less stark than the CRP authors suggest.
While proposing a number of possible strategies, Smith says «there should be no further delay in creating state laws and regulations that level the playing field
between charters and other
public schools.
For example, dissatisfaction with performance in a
charter middle school that is not captured by test scores (such as discipline issues or a poor fit
between the student's interests or ability and the curriculum being offered) could lead parents to choose to send their child to a traditional
public high school.
Results using an alternative method designed to address concerns about unmeasured differences
between students attending
charter and traditional
public high schools suggest even larger positive effects.
◦ Trend:
Public support for
charters has remained stable since 2013, as has the gap
between Republicans and Democrats.
A 2013 quasi-experimental analysis found that, «on average, extended learning time (ELT) tutorials at Match
Charter Public High School raised student achievement on the 10th grade English language arts examination
between.15 and.25 standard deviations per year.»
Those same rules punish any teacher or principal who may wish to transfer
between a traditional
public school and a
charter school.
We address this question here by examining the link
between the establishment of
charter schools in North Carolina and average student proficiency rates at the traditional
public schools most affected by the new source of competition.
• There were some turnover differences
between principals at traditional
public schools and
charter schools, but the discrepancy is not as large as some may think.
For 90 percent of the 6,576 transfers in our database, the distance
between the
charter school where the student enrolled and the traditional
public school the student attended the previous year is less than ten miles.
It is therefore important to consider how the 5,746 «switchers» included in our final analysis, those who attended both a
charter school and a traditional
public school in North Carolina
between grades 4 and 8, differ from the state's full population of 8,745
charter school students in these grades.
The difference in the rate of achievement growth
between students enrolled in
charter schools and students in traditional
public schools is substantial.
According to data from the National Alliance for
Public Charter Schools, 12 of Detroit's charter schools closed between 2010 an
Charter Schools, 12 of Detroit's
charter schools closed between 2010 an
charter schools closed
between 2010 and 2013.
The difference
between the
charter and
public school teachers is highly statistically significant.
This is reassuring, in that it justifies the decision of many parents to keep their children in
charter schools once they are there; the disruptive effects of moving
between schools would make the return to a traditional
public school counterproductive.
If so, what accounts for the quality differences
between charter schools and traditional
public schools?
This pattern provides strong evidence that the smaller gains made by these
charter school students are indeed due to the quality of the schools they attend rather than to any unobserved differences
between charter school students and students in traditional
public schools.
Why are there large gaps
between the percentages of students classified as disabled in
charter and traditional
public schools?
When one segment of respondents was asked to choose
between «support,» «oppose,» and «don't know,» a similar proportion selected» don't know» as had selected «neither support nor oppose,» again suggesting that Americans either do not understand what
charter schools are or have not made up their minds about them (see «Educating the
Public,» features, Summer 2009).
Almost half of the teachers in Ohio's
charter schools quit their schools in the four - year period
between 2000 and 2004, in comparison with about 8 percent in conventional
public schools and 12 percent in high - poverty, urban
public schools, suggesting that new organizations are not a magic formula for school stability.