Academic Evidence that School "Choice" Doesn't Work: with actual links

Hannah Bell

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Wed Jun-02-10 05:39 PM
Original message

Academic Evidence that School "Choice" Doesn't Work: with actual links

Edited on Wed Jun-02-10 06:30 PM by Hannah Bell

Stanford PACE Study, 2003

-- 48% of charter teachers have no teaching certificate
-- average instructor teaches 20% more students than do traditional public school teachers
-- black students more segregated than in traditional public schools (80% v. 54%)
-- predominately black charters receive lower funding than comparable traditional schools

http://ed.stanford.edu/suse/news-bureau/displayRecord.php?tablename=press&id=15

Stanford Center for Research on Educational Outcomes 2009

-- covered 70% of nation's charter students
-- 37% worse outcomes in than comparable public schools, 17% better, rest the same
-- on average charter students showed drop in academic growth
-- 6 states had lower gains v. public schools, 5 higher gains, 4 same as public schools
-- elementary + middle school students had slightly higher gains, high school/mixed level significantly worse
-- minority students (black, latino) did worse than comparable public school students
-- first year charters' results ranged from "poor" to "very poor".

http://epicpolicy.org/files/TTR-MIRON-CREDO-FINAL.pdf

UCLA Civil Rights Project 2010

-- analysis of federal data from 40 states + DC
-- charter schools = more segregated than traditional public schools "by race, class, and possibly language in virtually every state and large metropolitan area in the country."

http://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/news/pressreleases/pressrelease20100204-report.html

Chicago Public Schools Renaissance 2010 (charter school) initiative, once touted as a miracle, now revealed to be a fraud:

A Tribune analysis shows that in Renaissance 2010 elementary schools, an average of 66.7 percent of students passed the 2009 Illinois Standards Achievement Test, identical to the district rate.

The Ren10 high school passing rate was slightly lower on state tests than the district as a whole -- 20.5 percent compared with 22.8 percent.

Only a quarter of Renaissance 2010 schools had test scores high enough to meet the federal goals set by No Child Left Behind, the signature education policy of the George W. Bush administration.

Chicago students as a whole still post some of the lowest test scores on national math and reading exams.

http://mobile.chicagotribune.com/inf/infomo?view=top_stories_item&feed:a=chi_trib_1min&feed:c=topstories&feed:i=51676200&nopaging=1

Plus which there's the little matter of mass layoffs of black (middle-class) teachers in chicago: 10% drop.

THE MAIN AVENUE FOR KIDS TO RAISE SCHOOL SCORES IS THEIR FAMILY'S CLASS STATUS. Laying off the black middle class = more black kids in trouble.

Same in New Orleans: BLACK TEACHERS HAVE BEEN THE PRIMARY CASUALTIES. 80% of the city's teachers were black, they fired them *all* & only rehired some. because 22-year-old white ivy leaguers know so much more about teaching black kids, doncha know.

University of Minnesota Law School Institute on Race & Poverty 2010: Much-touted New orleans "reform" also a failure, =

-- more segregation (race + class), no difference in results

http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8385336

Milwaukie voucher system: after two decades & two studies showing failure, even the wingers concede:

�The two most recent studies show that, since the implementation of the voucher program, reading scores across all Milwaukee schools are falling.� Howard Fuller, patron saint of the voucher program, has wryly acknowledged, �I think that any honest assessment would have to say that there hasn�t been the deep, wholesale improvement in MPS that we would have thought.�

http://www.american.com/archive/2008/september-october-magazine/after-milwaukee

chile's school vouchers: fail: Chang-Tai Hsieh and Miguel Urguiola find evidence that in Chile school vouchers caused schools to compete for the best students rather than compete to deliver better education.

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2003/10/adverse_results.html

compete for the best students v. educate all students is precisely the capitalist way. not cost effective to educate all people, since only a fraction are going to be working in anything that demands book-learning or higher-level skills -- in the new international neo-lib economy.