History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Themes in the news for the week of November 30 - December 4, 2009
- 09-23-2009
-
A weekly summary of themes in education news provided by UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education and Access.
Charter School "Magic Bullet" Falls Short
Contradictory reports from former pro-charter allies.
By UCLA IDEA staff
Notably, two Stanford University researchers are at odds with their reports on the efficacy of charters. In the past, pro-charter advocates have relied heavily on both of their work. However, political scientist Margaret Raymond from Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes, has found that “most charter schools deliver academic results that are worse or no better than student accomplishments in regular public schools” (The Washington Post).
On the other hand, Carolyn Hoxby, principal investigator for The New York City Charter Schools Evaluation Project criticizes the Stanford study and counters it with her own study using New York data. Hoxby finds that “charter school students are making much more progress than peers who sought entry to those schools by lottery but were turned down.” (The Washington Post).
A summary of some of the major findings from each study, from The Washington Post:
Stanford study:
* Thirty-seven percent of charter schools had smaller gains in math than regular public schools, while 17 percent of charter schools had superior gains. Forty-six percent had no significant difference.
* Charter schools show some positive effects in elementary and middle schools and negative effects in high schools and schools with mixed grade levels. Charter schools tend to do better the longer students are enrolled. They beat the norm in some states and lag in others. (D.C. charter schools, she found, had no significant difference compared with regular schools.)
New York study:
* Students who attend a New York charter school from kindergarten through grade 8 would close 86 percent of the achievement gap between affluent Scarsdale and high-poverty Harlem in math and 66 percent of the gap in reading.
* A student who stayed in a charter high school for three years would score higher on certain state tests
What do the studies mean? Not much, according to Kevin Welner, director of the Education and Public Interest Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Welner told The Washington Post that the two studies used different methods to examine different schools. “Neither report is definitive or without notable weaknesses”.
Both of the charter school studies presumed to measure the ‘quality’ of charter schools by using test scores alone. Although one important indicator, test scores should be combined with other factors such as students’ ability to produce creative work, engage in problem solving, and civic engagement.
Charter schools exhibit widely different governance structures; they are publically funded, but operate free of many state and school district regulations. Some charters do a very fine job of educating children. Some charters are simply terrible. What is missing in the charter school debate is transparency that lets the public know what their children and schools need to succeed and if those needs are met—regardless of whether the school is traditional or charter.
“Providing what children and schools need is more important than focusing on a pro-charter or anti-charter position,” says John Rogers, director of UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access. Rogers authored a research brief which laid out principles for equitable and democratic school choice. One principle to keep in the forefront of the charter debate is that “all public schools should provide the conditions necessary for a high quality education and they should draw upon roughly equivalent resources.”
Readers can find useful analyses of these reports prepared by EPIC and Arizona State University’s Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU): Report’s Hype Overstates Results andHeadline-Grabbing Charter School Study Doesn’t Hold Up To Scrutiny.
Print this
