In Arizona, a laboratory for charter schools yields mixed results

[tonysam]

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. -- Here, where suburb meets desert, students are clambering amid the cacti to dig soil samples and take notes on flora and fauna. In an old movie complex in nearby Chandler, others are dissecting a Renaissance tract on human nature. On a South Phoenix campus with a National Football League connection, still others are learning how to pass a basket of bread and help a lady into her chair.

These are just three charter schools among a multitude in the most wide-open public education market in America.

Arizona's flourishing charter school movement underscores the popular appeal of unfettered school choice and the creativity of some educational entrepreneurs. But the state also offers a cautionary lesson as President Obama pushes to dismantle barriers to charter schools elsewhere: It is difficult to promote quantity and quality at the same time.



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I'd put this in the "no shit, Sherlock" folder if there was one.

[alp227]

1. Ditto with Stanford's study

You can read it at credo.stanford.edu. I wonder if any of Secretary Duncan's aides are reading this forum. There's a whole pile of evidence undermining Duncan's charter agenda.

[JDPriestly]

2. Charters do not perform as well as regular public schools. At least in Arizona.

Through test scores, Arizona rates about 24 percent of charter schools as "excelling" or "highly performing." About 37 percent of regular public schools win those marks.

"There's nothing to learn from these charter schools," Glass said. "There's so much mythology about this."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/15/AR2009111502585_2.html?hpid=moreheadlines

But a Stanford University research institute reported in June that Arizona charter students did not show as much academic progress as their peers in traditional public schools. Charter backers dispute the study's methods and findings but agree that schools vary widely in quality.

"There are some excellent, excellent charter schools in Arizona," said Margaret Raymond, director of the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford. "There's a good, strong cluster of really high-performing schools. There are a whole bunch that are mucking around , and a big cluster that are not doing well."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/15/AR2009111502585.html?hpid=moreheadlines

[donco6]

3. My only problem with charters -

- is when they passively or intentionally accept the mantle of "savior" for everything that ails education.

Well, that and the fact that they're allowed to be selective about their kids. I have a problem with that, too.

And the way they truncate their salary schedules to max out at about $48,000, forcing their more expensive teachers to leave after 5 or 6 years so they can keep their salary costs low. That's not OK.

And the way they "counsel out" kids who aren't performing, which artificially inflates their test scores and dumps lower performing kids on "default" public schools that end up as the charter school's "wastebasket".

And the way some developers are pushing charters to their new housing developments, maintaining the essential "white flight" nature of the development. That's really bad.

Gosh, I guess charters really suck after all.