Charter school scores down, study shows

[deadparrot]

WASHINGTON - Fourth graders in traditional public schools are doing better in both reading and math than students in charter schools, the government says in a report fueling fresh debate over school choice.

Tuesday's report said fourth graders in regular public schools scored an average of 5.2 points better in reading than students in charter schools on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress test. Students in traditional schools scored an average of 5.8 points better in math.

Charter school opponents said the findings show that the schools are a failing experiment that drains resources from traditional public schools. Charter school supporters called the report flawed and outdated and said charters improve public education by creating competition.

The Bush administration supports charter schools.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060822/ap_on_go_ot/charter_schools

[GeorgiaDem69]

1. Nothing conceptually wrong with Charter Schools

There will be good and bad charter schools, just like there are good and bad regular public schools. I'm starting to believe school choice is a good thing.

[zreosumgame]

3. uh, what?

did you read it at all?

[w4rma]

23. Charter schools are very bad. They are a slippery slope towards zero

education for folks not willing to spend the money on their children's education. They are a slippery slope towards higher "taxes" on lower income folks. They are a slippery slope towards schools keyed to brainwashing rather than giving a broad education.

And this article shows that charter schools (btw, they have less oversight than public schools, also) do a worse job of educating students.

[heliarc]

26. There is something inherently conceptually wrong ...

with charter schools. They force schools to adopt a business model and a for profit motive to succeed. The costs get passed on to the parents and taxpayers. I work at a charter school that suffers from this every day. The students have to pay a bussing fee of 1200 dollars yearly. And somehow this is supposed to be subsidized by my tax dollars??? I don't get it. Its a short term solution that is privatization in disguise of social activism. After the seed money is gone parents are paying taxes AND exorbitant fees and tuition that public education didn't require before. Charters suck.

[cornermouse]

2. When you consider the fact that they can pick and choose

who attends their school and public schools accept everyone, it makes the charter school results look even worse. :)

[Donnachaidh]

4. bad leadership in charter schools can be a horror

We suffered through a *clique* at our local charter school. I didn't think my kid would survive the emotional neglect and abuse. We transferred him out, rather than deal with that mess.

[MichiganVote]

Got that right.

[MichiganVote]

6. self - delete.

[MichiganVote]

5. So charter schools improve public education through competition?

That's the point of school of choice? Hmmmm.....

Is it possible that public schools improve their education b/c they are supposed to? Want to? How have public schools managed to improve themselves b/f charter schools? Before NCLB?

Just sayin'....

[trixie]

8. Another Michigander here

did you see the commercials for charter schools? They always say "as good as..." They don't even claim to be better. They straddle county lines to suck students from all sides and give them crappy education. I must say I do like the schools of choice. We do like that our kids can go to any public school we want. In Macomb County we have schools for exceptional, at-risk, vocational and now a new fine arts school. If your kid wants to go into radio you send him to Cousino, if they are highly advanced you send them to the Academy of Armada, want vocational training you send them to Industry, Warren for automotive, teaching and cosmotology etc. You can also choose to have them "at home" in your local high school with the last two hours going to a specialized high school. You can move and stay in the same school system. I don't see charter schools offering any of this.

[villager]

9. clearly Michigan and L.A. are planets apart, then!

I guess your public schools must have discernible "funding," too...! Lucky you!

[MichiganVote]

12. What people fail to grasp is that charter schools exist to make $$

This is not charity enterprise here. They hire very green teachers, pay them next to nothing and adios! You're in the classroom!

For those who choose charter and are happy--fine. But they are not now and never will be a substitute for public education. Nor are they a substitute for private education.

You could look at any educational institution and call for change or renewal. That's fine so long as you want to put the bucks behind it. Too bad people on fixed incomes or who are single w/o kids do not feel compelled to support education.

[AnneD]

13. Not only are they in business to make money....

they do not have the same accountability that public schools do. Have a handicapped child or one with special needs (like medical)? Good luck trying to find a charter school that will: 1)take you child in the first place and 2)provide the services they need (speech theraphy, nursing care, PT/OT). Public schools are required by federal law to do this, charter schools just exclude the kids.
They suck money out of the public school system, much like specialty hospitals take money from general hospitals.

I work in a public school as a Nurse. When they were first trying to pass vouchers in Texas-they had a provision in the law that stated that if a child in a private school required nursing care-they could call me to come over there. Like the hell I would. The public schools pay my salary and my first duty is to these folks-not the private school that is too cheap to hire a Nurse. I cannot leave the public student without care (many of whom have medical conditions that mandate my presence).

The business/profit model does not work in education. Children are not widgets, and folks that think that you can make money in education are fools (and I don't think I'd want them educating my kids). Education, like health care, are the mark of a civilized society. It insure a better standard of living for everyone.

[noonwitch]

22. Charter schools can permanently expell kids and don't provide SPED

I work with kids in Detroit, most of whom attend public schools. The Detroit Public Schools tend to lose kids in grades 8-10. The elementary schools are generally not the problem, it's the middle and high schools that are losing the kids.

But regardless of that, charter schools don't have to take kids that drag their overall scores down, and they can kick kids out who can't keep up their grades. The public schools can't do that, so they will always be at a disadvantage.

Also, charter and private schools generally don't provide special education. Special education is done very well by the Detroit Public Schools, something that rarely gets attention by the media. I've had severely limited kids in various programs, and they always get what they need.

[villager]

7. surprising to see DUers rushing to defend Bush's testing regimen

Here in L.A., there are a lot of good -- and needed -- charter schools that provide alternatives for families without the means to go to private schools, but for whom the local LAUSD school isn't a viable "educational" option in any deep sense of the word.

Of course, there are some lousy charters ,too, but I'm all for the continued diversity in school choices...

[zreosumgame]

10. personally I am for a supported public school system

And consider the mantra of 'school choice' a code phrase meaning some kind of bible school subsidized by public money but not required to take everyone as public schools do. At least that is always my first impression. How you equate that with me supporting dumbaya's and the repukes constant effort to destroy or at the very least dumb-down public schools, I just don't see it...

[villager]

11. I guess the first question would be whether you're a parent

The second would be whether you're in L.A. -- out here, charter schools are not run by fundies, but provide necessary alternatives to public schools that are under-funded and in most cases, poorly run.

My oldest son, btw, goes to a public school.

But I've seen the necessary role played by charters.

And yes, by relying on testing as a sole means of evaluating "education" in the broadest sense, that does play in Republican hands. Are there other parameters to judge how happy/interested/enthusiastic American students are?

[trixie]

14. Are they like Michigan's charter schools

Where they accept your child and cash the check then tell you your child must go elsewhere so you are back in the public school without the funding? They have every right to dismiss your child and keep the public funding.

Making public education a state-wide program and not a program by property tax or residents was the goal in Michigan. All children get the same allotment of money in every residential area.

[villager]

16. apparently not -- at least not the ones I know

again, I know of successful, thriving charter schools here in Los Angeles.

And, yes, I know of some that have had to shutter their doors.

Here, L.A. has gone full circle, due to the vagaries of state funding: The most thriving public schools are the ones in thriving, or at least better, neighborhoods. There, parents can augment the insane budget cuts out of pocket, often one parent is able to find the time to volunteer, etc...

[AnneD]

15. When we received the kids from La.

I was shocked (parents were not too suprised). So many were way behind acedemically (1 to 2 grade levels on average). It was not because of intelligence, though we had a few kids that we did have to test and provide services. It was because the school system WAS SO POOR. Even the good private school kids were behind. We did much to tutor them up to grade level. I am interested to see how those kids faired upon their return. Bet those teachers won't know what to do with them. We educated the parents on their rights too.

[villager]

17. you mean Louisiana?

just to be clear, the "L.A." in my thread is Los Angeles...

but yes, there are numerous examples of public schools failing their students as readily as examples of charters that have.

Yes, I want to transfer the Pentagon budget over to public education, too.

And yes, we shouldn't imagine "testing" as the only of figuring out whether schools are serving our kids....

[AnneD]

21. Sorry

in this part of the country La or LA (NOLA) means Louisianna, not to be confused with AL which means something totally different. I don't know about the schools in CA, but the ones in LA were bad. The parish schools are so bad that parents send their kids to private school-but we had problems with those children's levels too. The good news is that there was measurable improvement, but it takes a lot of hard work.

[w4rma]

24. If they are underfunded its because folks like you are underfunding them.

Maybe you aren't talking folks into paying for the schools (it does sound like you are more interested in funding the private ones). Maybe you have an agenda against schooling the poor? Because these particular private schools won't be publically funded for long since their agenda is to get the vouchers in the door then defund them or raise the price of the private schools to be higher than the vouchers.

[villager]

27. is this addressed to me?

Do I stand accused of underfunding the public schools?

Gosh, I didn't realize I had that much power!

[w4rma]

28. Potentially, yes. (nt)

[villager]

29. then the comments make even less sense than I thought!

how do you accuse me of ruining public education?

[w4rma]

30. It doesn't appear you are trying to help it. (nt)

[villager]

31. it doesn't appear you are interested in dialogue

what the hell do you mean?

I have one son in public school. I friends whose children are in charter schools. here in L.A., publicly-funded charter schools have a valuable role to play.

Either engage in dialogue or stop sniping.

[rodeodance]

18. Charter schools fail to top their public peers

Charter schools fail to top their public peers
Updated 8/22/2006 8:59 PM ET


By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
Independently run, publicly financed charter schools perform no better than comparable public schools, long-awaited federal data suggested Tuesday.

Long considered a ticket out for students in poor public schools, charter schools have proliferated nationwide and are among reforms favored by the Bush administration. In Washington, D.C., one in four students attends one.

But Tuesday's report, which for the first time compares the performance of students in charters with that of public school peers in similar neighborhoods, finds that charter school students lag slightly.

The data show, for instance, that charter school students in 2003 were several points behind their counterparts in both reading and math in fourth and eighth grades. Standardized math scores in urban charters also lagged, but reading scores were comparable.......

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-08-22-charter-schools_x.htm?csp=1

The results prompted Mark Schneider, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, to comment that the charter school movement is "not doing harm."

[villager]

19. see this DU thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2469595

[Igel]

20. As the article says,

you can't read anything into it. It sounds like the kind of study that you look at and wonder how or why it was funded. But it may just be the innumerate reporter, who has no idea how to actually look at data and results and present them in a meaningful way, or critique them and show what the results can and cannot demonstrate.

As with any other set of data, you have to look at far more than just the mean. The mean, by itself, sometimes says far less than silence would.

[Jimbo S]

25. Was there a control group?

I find the data as presented indeterminate.

Did the charter school students themselves achieve better scores after switching from public schools? the same or worse?

[Anakin Skywalker]

32. I Guess Segregation Isn't Working

afterall. *hee hee*