Charter Schools: Transforming Education and Shattering Expectations
Education, the cornerstone of society, stands at a crucial crossroads as the movement towards school choice gains traction across the nation. Among the proponents of this movement, charter schools emerge as beacons of innovation, ushering in a new era of student success. A groundbreaking study conducted by Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (Credo) provides compelling evidence that charter schools are redefining the educational landscape.
Spanning a period of 15 years and encompassing over two million charter students across 29 states, New York City, and Washington, D.C., Credo’s extensive research is a testament to the significant gains achieved by charter schools. The study unequivocally asserts that charter schools outshine their traditional public school counterparts in terms of student performance. Margaret Macke Raymond, the esteemed director of Stanford’s Center for Research on Educational Outcomes, emphatically states, “The charter-school sector has improved across the country.”
One of the key findings of the study reveals that charter schools excel in providing their students with superior learning outcomes, even when compared to traditional public schools. In both reading and math, charter schools demonstrate their ability to equip students with stronger educational foundations. The gains made by charter students on a national scale amount to an additional six days of learning in math and an impressive 16 days in reading.
Notably, the disparities in performance become even more pronounced when examining specific states. In New York, for instance, charter students forge ahead, surpassing their traditional public school peers by an astonishing 75 days in reading and 73 days in math. Illinois and Washington state also witness charter students enjoying significant advantages of 40 days and 48 days in reading and math, respectively. These disparities accumulate to an entire additional year of learning throughout the elementary education journey.
Credo’s study debunks the longstanding opposition claims that charter schools cherry-pick students and fail to cater to the needs of those in greatest need. The research reveals that black and Hispanic students, as well as those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, make substantial strides in charter schools. These students not only outperform their traditional public school peers but also narrow the achievement gap. Credo emphasizes the presence of “gap-busting schools,” where black and Hispanic students match or even exceed the academic success of their white peers. This serves as undeniable proof that learning disparities are not inherent or insurmountable, but rather products of a flawed system.
While acknowledging that not all charters are created equal, the study highlights a growing advantage in results for charter schools managed by charter management organizations. This advantage stems from a learning curve that can be applied across various locations. Though a small percentage of charters underperform when compared to local public schools, the closure of lackluster charters sets charter schools apart from their failing traditional counterparts.
It is worth noting that Credo’s report covers the years 2015-2019, preceding the COVID-19 pandemic. As Raymond aptly points out, the substantial progress made by charter schools in recent years emphasizes the need for a post-pandemic conversation on expanding charters and replicating their success. The evidence presented by the study demands careful consideration from policymakers and education leaders.
Despite the undeniable success of charter schools, obstacles obstruct their widespread adoption. Unions and lawmakers, often influenced by anti-charter sentiments, resist lifting the cap on the number of charter schools allowed in certain regions. However, the efficacy of charter schools in fostering student growth should be the driving force behind educational policies. In states like New York, where charter school successes have been proven time and again, the cap on charter schools hampers further progress.
As we grapple with the challenges facing education in a rapidly evolving world, the triumphs of charter schools cannot be ignored. The resounding evidence presented by Credo’s study demands a shift in our approach to education. It is time to embrace the potential of charter schools and expand their reach, providing more students with the opportunity to thrive in an environment that fosters innovation, flexibility, and academic excellence.
In a better world, the remarkable achievements of charter schools would inspire a movement to increase their funding and support, allowing them to flourish and serve a broader spectrum of students. However, the reality is that unions and entrenched interests will continue to fight to maintain their near-monopoly on education. Nevertheless, the undeniable success of charter schools has shattered the notion that failing children is inevitable, paving the way for a transformative future in education.
Charter schools have quickly become the go-to option for wealthy and upper middle class families that want to escape public school woke ideology and violence in general. So do not expect too many poor minority people to go there. Also, charter schools only have to answer to two groups: 1) parents who pay the tuition; 2) State education authorities responsible for end of grade testing. Charter schools can set their own disciplinary standards, dress codes, moral codes, and in the case of religious charter schools they can impose religious requirements. When I charter school student misbehaves, that child is dis enrolled into the public school option. So the comparisons are not as fair and equivalent as this article tries to make it sound. Public schools could be the same way, but that would take a school administration and local/state government support with giant testicles. Unfortunately, the laws these days “neuter” the public school system. I am saying this as a ten year mathematics teacher in the K-12 public school system.
And by the way, I have never heard of a case where a student misbehaving in a public school was dis enrolled into a charter school. Most extreme forms of public school misbehaving students end up at a special public school for misbehaved students, or, home school option. These kids count in the public school numbers and scores. These kids never get dis enrolled into charter schools.
So the only value of the comparison in the article is 1) a rejection in the way public schools are being run and the laws governing them; 2) a view of what K-12 public schools could be like if they could operate like charter school and dis enroll into some other education venue – maybe striped suits and splitting rock piles.
The point is that competition in education makes both systems better.
That’s the theory; got proof? Probably not in that you probably just believe this based on your capitalistic upbringing :>) Chances are that Charter Schools still skim better students and don’t take on that many disadvantaged, special needs, even jocks, as students because they can’t afford to.
One of the articles I sent you stated that jocks tend to stay in public schools because the sports programs are better funded, and get more looks for college scholarships.
Not necessarily true. I would like to see your actual statistics on this. It was not true in the system that I was a teacher in for ten years.
When the playing field is not level one of the teams will have an advantage. And that is what I was saying! Frank is right, skimming does occur but not so much by the school as by the system itself. To go to Charter School in NC you must pay monthly. If a parent cannot afford the monthly fee and is ineligible for financial help by the state, they end up staying in public school while someone who can afford the monthly fee either because of a great job or qualifying for state funding, they get in. Also, charter schools have the right to look at what is called the “cumulative file” and that file indicates significant disciplinary actions taken by the school upon the teacher. Specifically what is being looked for is suspensions, school days missed, and any other sides that the student will not add to the reputation of the school. Public schools cannot do this.
Charter schools do better at educating our children because the teachers are not unionized, they do not dwell on social issues that should not be a factor in schools and they are not regulated as much by government agencies. Being independently operated, charter schools are a good start to getting Socialist indoctrination out of the school system.
Tom, except…. “Charter schools historically serve proportionately more students of color and more students from low-income communities than district schools.”
https://data.publiccharters.org/digest/charter-school-data-digest/who-attends-charter-schools/
Well just because they are students of color does not mean that they do not have money to afford a charter school. I am happy to see the number of supposedly poor folks being able to attend charter schools. Do not count too much on those FRPL numbers as being poor. I had kids on free and reduced lunch programs who’s parent picked them up at the end of the day driving a Hummer! Many of them had expensive cars, best cell phones, etc. I would expect the numbers to change a bit as more middle class get tired of public schools and send their kids to charter schools. I can tell you that the numbers in my son’s school were not like the numbers shown in the article. Most of our parents were middle class types who prioritized education and Christian values.
But my main point was about the unfairness of the comparison. The comparison involves a tilted playing field. I do not think Robin is correct. In NC, teacher unions are illegal. We have NEA but they are just a worthless sounding board. I also know of many great teachers that are in unions. One of the reasons I left teaching is because without a union, administrations and parents both crap all over teachers. We spent much time making sure we had good documentation defending why the student got low grades, how many times we contacted the parent, etc. so that we could defend ourselves from parent attacks. Parents always think their little Johnny is the sweetest kid yet we teachers know the better side of Johnny ran down mom’s leg pre-conception.
Robin is incorrect in that charter school teachers deal with social issues as well, but the parents are much more likely to take care of the issue because of the threat of dis enrollment which does not exist in public schools. In public school, often times the parents are hard to get in touch with and actively avoid teacher phone calls because they know their kid is a shit. They are just as frustrated as the teacher. Many of them would vote for retro-active abortions if they could.
Here is an interesting article that supports much of what I am seeing in NC *https://www.educationnext.org/middle-class-families-choose-charters/*
Tom, I can not explain the data, it just is what it is I guess. I would think it a middle class white phenomena but apparently not. Might be Larry food-for-fodder for his Democrats-make-city-blacks-return-to-slavery rap. Who knows, but there tis it.
FYI: maybe you just drive cheap cars so poor-parent cars look good….. my sister worked in social services, hippie, and is in your rowboat having seen the food stamps and the damage done…..but trust me, no one getting rich on this unless they are making up extra kids or some other higher-level cheat.
It’s hard to fathom, but without each occurrence, hard to know. Stats don’t support wide-spread cheating; new cars can be had easily, keeping them is another issue, and expensive cell phones — it depends, I “rented” my first cell phone a year or so ago —— never paid for them before that, so I would have had a nice one for no $$$$$. Also, if I was poor, yeah, I might splurge on a cell for my kid, might be the only good thing I could afford… Just never know until you really look. And when you do, you will find some, but widespread? doubtful. And all over NC, still doubtful.
Wow Frank, is there anything you can’t explain away! :>)
Here Frank, explain away this article: It says, “Many families in North Carolina lie about their income when applying for the free and reduced-lunch program in public schools, and a lack of oversight by government officials allows the fraud to go unchecked, an investigation by Carolina Journal shows. See full article at *https://www.carolinajournal.com/there-is-a-free-lunch-in-schools/*
Now if a conservative state like NC behaves this way, I wonder how the liberal states behave?
Is NJ above cheating on this program? Hmmm, lets see! The answer is YES! They cheat too!!!
See article at *https://www.publicschoolreview.com/blog/new-jersey-schools-free-school-lunch-scandal*
Uh oh!! They cheat too! Seems like liberals and conservatives both agree to cheat on federal programs!
Here is why you cannot trust those figures in the Charter School document you referenced. This is what I saw as the guy who had to collect those free and reduced lunch forms. In 2018, U.S. taxpayers spent $17 billion on these two federal school lunch programs combined. Yet for decades, these programs have been plagued by misspending and improper payments (services provided to ineligible children), as the Government Accountability Office’s report explains.
Over the last four years, these programs have had improper payment rates of 16 percent and 23 percent, respectively. See full article at *https://fee.org/articles/the-governments-free-lunch-program-is-horribly-dysfunctional/*
What this article is saying is that the FRPL figure in your referenced article is at least inaccurate by 16-23% If you take those cheaters out of the figures, you will easily see how there are more students in Charter Schools that do not receive free breakfast and lunch which occurs when the majority of students are from middle class and wealthy households.
“Tom, I can not explain the data, it just is what it is I guess.”
“Wow Frank, is there anything you can’t explain away! :>)”
Hmmmmm.
1. NC says 66% cheat, two different reports (meaning they didn’t try to fix)
2. Another county study said 33% cheat
3. The fed sees under 10% and that includes supplier and other fraud types too.
4. NC says fed does not check incomes. I just don’t know why the differences UNLSS NC is a bunch of thieves operating way above the State average, which I doubt.
“Now if a conservative state like NC behaves this way, I wonder how the liberal states behave?” Whatever you are attempting to say here, shove it. Hopefully you were kidding and not the prejudiced, stereotyping POS this sounds like. Conservative states CHEAT more for the mere reason they take more of our tax dollars to begin with. We work, we pay, they stay home, eat bon bons and watch tv.
“Is NJ above cheating on this program?” Does NJ cheat? Not as good as NYC, but….As to your story, yes, this happened over a decade ago, the loophole has been plugged, and this was a case of a school board gone bad, most of these “fine citizens” learned from each other. And come on Tom, this was clearly not welfare moms, the ones YOU targeted, cheating, These were school board members…..
If you are trying to get my concurrence there is no cheating, you won’t. But the government tells us it’s minimal. NC says it’s intolerable —- the problem is NC either being wrong or not being able to talk to Federal Officials as good team members trying to improve all for all citizens.
Your next article is 2019, talks double-digit cheating, but it’s 6% when you used the budget amounts from the story, so they are counting differently (like number of lunches maybe), but 6% is more a Fed number and remember, a good chunk of that is suppliers, etc, and not individual participants. Still too high, but not the horror mentioned. At least according to their numbers of 18B budget against 1.1B in cheating.
Like I said, yes there is cheating, it appears to be minimal, often not individuals and the stories of fancy cars, smart phones, etc. tend to be exaggerations, not the average.
I have no problem listening. But if your NC article is right, you have a HUGE problem. PLUS, an opportunity to help the nation by showing them what you discovered in NC that might be elsewhere too. Go to it, good luck.
There is no proof to anything Robin has stated. There teachers could be union, or ex-union, who knows about social issues, but I can guess there are some in some places, probably with local “flavor,” like anarchy in Oregon or homophobia in Florida or nationalism in Texas, or ….whatever. We just don’t know, it’s not necessarily a regulation not to, CS are regulated almost, if not exactly, the same as public schools; that’s one reason they are relatively safe for learning. CS have absolutely nothing to do with saving us for socialist indoctrination which does not exist in public schools to begin with. Except in the mind of a Robin.
I think what Robin is calling “socialist indoctrination” is the woke stuff, LGBTQ stuff, and other types of information that children must endure whether the parents want their child being exposed to this kind of information or not. You are correct in that as far as I know, I was never asked to teach any form of structured socialist/communist party information as in China where you must take a structured text book and civic apprenticeship, and then stages of reviews and testing along the way, and final review for admission, in order to join what is referred to as the CCP but properly referred to as the CPC in China.
However, there is an exception to what Robin is saying, and that exception is Confucian Institutes. Most of these kinds of institutes are funded by the United Front Workers organization which is directly paid for by the CCP/CPC. In these private institutes there is indoctrination into basically what is a mix of Confucianism and Communism the Chinese way. This is why the US is starting to shut down these institutions, many of which are programs on college campuses, not K-12 public school programs as far as I know. BUT!!! This article says differently, “In addition to the Institutes at universities, Hanban also operates hundreds of so-called Confucius Classrooms in primary and secondary schools. The public school system of Chicago, for example, has outsourced its Chinese program to Confucius Classrooms.” Interesting!!! See full article at *https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/16/how-china-infiltrated-us-classrooms-216327/*
Robin, I think that is a good point. The distractions are not there and the teachers are focused on skills not indoctrination.
ALL THREE OF MY GRANDCHILDREN WENT TO CHARTER SCHOOLS FROM GRADE ONE TO HIGH SCHOOL. COULD NOT BE MORE IMPRESSED WITH THE SCHOOLING. WOULD RECOMMEND IT TO EVERY PARENT. THESE KIDS LEARN TO STUDY.
Are those short buses in that picture? Do authors review story titles and artwork? Seems disconnected at times.
Daniel Olivier, is he DO or AI, you be the judge. Hard to tell if this spin master general is a real boy or a mere PC Pinocchio. While he is correct on most of the facts here, his descriptions and conclusions seem to be pure spin. He’s got a great story so I cannot fathom why he would feel the need to gin it up. Plus, once again, the writing style is so nice, no typo’s, no funky grammar, seemingly machine-like in style and meaning, or lack thereof and total lack of passion or emotion while tossing emotive words with great abandon and emotion, but misplaced emotion, machine-like. I will divide my response into two parts, the first, shown here, will just deal with the facts of the report where, IMO, DO falls short on his conclusions. The second will be, frankly, how stupid DO is, in general, spewing stupidity, strewing strange ideas together, things that just do not make common sense beyond sounding marvelous as if a PR flack hawking Charter Schools with over-the-top spin, connotation, hyperbole, and false logic.
Yes, DO, I agree with that Credo is the gold standard for Charter School testing. And I commend your wokeness to readily accept the data that comes from Liberal Communist Stanford University from California, just next to San Francisco… Yes, for the first time in its long testing history, it’s pretty clear the Charter Schools statistically, on average, are doing better than Traditional Public Schools or TPS in reading and math results based on the statistics from a scientific assessment. In the past it’s been more of a level playing field, now the CS seem better than the TPS, on average. However — the “scale” is 180 days, a school year, the math score is 6 days better so under 3% better and the reading is 16 days so under 10% better. That is statistically better, no doubt, no spin, no skew. However, as I have pointed out in the past, and DO pays short shrift to here, there is no national CS regulation system, it is state based, potential 50 different sets of school regulations. Also, there is no national CS versus TPS rating system so results are based on 50 different applications, at minimum, in 50 different states with even more diversity in the results on a local level. National averages may be a weak analysis conclusion given 50 experiments without national regulation standards.
Indeed, DO touches on the fact that there are large differences amongst the State CS systems at the State levels with NY having 75/73 days reading/math improvement versus the reported average of 16/6. IL and WA had 40/48 which also bucks the trend of reading faring better than math too. DO’s piece reads like a CS PR puff piece, an ad for CS, and leaves out the compelling truth that these three States are Democratic and most important —- if these States are that far above average, there must be a flip side of States below the average, and therefore worse than TPS. Oooops. Worse yet, the study covers 29 states meaning there are 21 States not included which, statistically, may be OK, but given the outcome of differentiation between the studied states, not optimum. The study authors are pretty open about this, DO, not so much so…….
DO adds: “One of the key findings of the study reveals that charter schools excel in providing their students with superior learning outcomes, even when compared to traditional public schools,” topped off by: “Margaret Macke Raymond, the esteemed director of Stanford’s Center for Research on Educational Outcomes, emphatically states, “The charter-school sector has improved across the country.” Emphatically no less, like DO was sitting there when she said it…. “superior” is I guess 10% to DO. “Esteemed director,” come on folks, who here thinks DO really believes a director of a left-wing California University that even has an entire school dedicated to SUSTAINABILITY, is esteemed? Show of hands and do you know anyone with a BS in Sustainability? :>)
Beyond the flowery world of the DO CS PR puff piece advocacy, the report says: “the typical charter school student in our national sample had reading and math gains that outpaced their peers in the TPS they would have otherwise attended.”
Typical means most, and I, based on the report, don’t agree. According to the report: 36% has stronger growth, 54% has similar growth or weaker growth relative to their local TPS. CMO’s are group-managed CS, SCS’s are single operations. CMO-affiliated charter schools overall display greater performance, with 43% having stronger growth, 57% having similar or weaker growth. SCS’s have slightly more moderate results.
“There is considerable variation around these averages, and this variation forms the foundation for the analyses and findings in our two papers.”
“Each student and each school is a proof point that shows it is possible to change the trajectory of learning for students at scale, as well as dramatically accelerate growth for students who have traditionally been underserved by traditional school systems.
• Black and Hispanic students in charter schools advance more than their TPS peers by large margins in math and reading.
• Multiracial, Native American and White students in charter schools show equivalent progress to their TPS peers in reading but have weaker growth than their TPS peers in math.
• Asian students in charter schools showed similar growth to their TPS peers.
When we examine academic growth for special populations of students, we found that, compared with their TPS peers:
• Charter school students in poverty had stronger growth.
• English-language learner students attending charter schools had stronger growth.
• Students receiving special education services had significantly weaker growth in both math and reading.
The bottom line: parents, check your student, vet your school. There are most certainly excellent CS out there. However, even if excellent, that does not mean it’s great for YOUR STUDENT, sometimes based on demographics, other times based on motivation (not that TPS is better, just that CS may not give you extra motivation, according to the statistics. Obviously motivation is important anywhere). Sounds to me that motivated students (poor, minority) fare better. Not that being rich or in the majority lowers motivation, just that being poor can certainly make you try everything you can to not be. Status quo students (white, Asian,) more often do the same. And Special Ed students fail. Not sure jocks will find value here either unless there are teams which is a 50% chance or less.
For some reason DO misses most of this disparity between schools, states, demographics, and types of school management which leads the study to conclude the following trends:
“In both reading and math, charter schools provide students with stronger learning compared with the learning in the TPS that are otherwise available to them.”
“Some charter schools provide less student learning than their local district schools, although a larger proportion delivers better learning outcomes. The latter group includes more than 1,000 charter schools managing staffing and resources to deliver superior academic results, eliminating the learning gap across student groups.”
“The larger scale of CMOs does not guarantee high performance — but on balance, it helps.”
“Charter schools and networks, as do the systems that oversee them, improve over time.”
Point is, as I said, CS have a place, they can be great, and now have been proven to be better than TPS, on average. However, there is still a great disparity of results by school, region, demographics, and type of management. Parents need to vet the school they are attending and NOT rely on the national averages or the PR pelf that DO spews. The CS’s can be better but it’s not an odds-on chance they ARE better. It is a “diverse” field of results.
Grazed, but not BUSTED for PR-level spin
How ’bout we ELIMINATE any kind of teaching that states that the USA is a country “FILLED” with racist, homophobic, right-wing, conspiracy fomenting, gun-toting ultra-conservatives. That is an utter lie from the pit of HELL, and smells like smoke being blown up people’s rear ends. There should be absolutely ZERO reasons a public school would need to focus on such an evil misrepresentation of U.S. History and our society as a whole, and not focus on preparing children (1) HOW to think critically, (2) HOW to gain skills that will help them be productive members of society, and (3) how to avoid paying for the negative consequences of rejecting priorities (1) & (2). When I was a kid in the 60’s in East Harlem in NYC, we had poor children, gang-bangers, organized crime, and gay people from every ethnic group, and yet we didn’t attack each other because of our RACE. And we certainly didn’t target cops because they busted our friends. Yes, we were highly suspicious of each other’s motives, which was oftentimes a life-saving thing if you had to engage with each other in a public setting or a school. We also had Catholic, parochial, and other specialized skill schools. Charter schools would have been an enormously good and effective thing to have back then. I’m about 99% certain that the growth of corruption in government agencies lead to a movement to keep useful tools out of the hands of the poor. It’s always about the Benjamins and who gets to have them – ALWAYS. Elites have kept poor families poor ON PURPOSE, and we stupidly let them do it thinking they would eventually come around to creating better school systems in the future. But they grew even more corrupt in the past 60 years. The results say so, loudly. Don’t tell me public schools are equally able to service poor inner city kids as well, if not better, than charter schools. It’s utter baloney as evidenced by the current state,, of most of the public school systems in this nation. We rank a horrible 49th on the list of civilized nations. We should be #1. It’s the vile criminal indoctrination being done that has destroyed nearly two generations of children over the past 60 years, and will destroy a third if we don’t undo the damage soon. We most assuredly WILL NOT survive as a nation if we allow corrupt globalist elites to run the nation and create a more ignorant public that accepts financial bondage by these globalists. Let’s teach the current generation how to fearlessly confront corruption in Government, and not how to be overly concerned about which bathroom we’re supposed to go into, or what pronoun we HAVE TO call a total stranger. For heaven’s sake, wake up people, or 2025 will be the end of everything and everyone YOU hold dear. Just ask a Ukrainian what that looks like, and shudder.
Funny how you spend a lot more time critiquing an article than the author does writing it – and yet you still come up with a jumble of words that make no sense. Must be a vodka day…
Certainly you ain’t readin no stinkin report when you can believe a talking head. Must be a head-up-your-ass day, again, as usual.
I spent no time at all, it was mostly in the summary that DO forgot to read, comprehend, or report on.
But you sucked it up faster than DeSantis sucks balls down.
Let me know IF you ever want to discuss issues instead of dismissal because it’s too many words…..must have been a pretty piss poor engineer.
A big difference is that one doesn’t go to a charter school by default, the parents must have made some effort to make that happen, and the child probably is cooperative.
Some of the agendas in public education have nothing to do with education (it should be quite sufficient to consistently make and enforce the point that NO difference excuses assault, bullying, etc, without having to enumerate and praise or seek to mainstream various differences). And the unions are no help, insofar as they resist raising standards for teachers. But the big problem is discipline and uninvolved parents.
My point is that while Charter Schools, on average, are statistically better that public schools, that the range means that most Charter Schools still underperform Public Schools according to the report covered in this piece. Means parents must be very careful in their choice of school especially since the change can mean your student may take a hit for a bit just because of change in general.
It’s just the stats from the report as I have noted above.
Congrats to the Charter Schools for making the grade, now, if they can just gain consistency across all, or most, Charter Schools, it will be a no-brainer choice. Until then, parents should vet very carefully. Larger Charter School organizations versus single-owner/single-site, Urban and suburban versus rural, are better with rural single-owner, single-site the worst results.
Look Joe, fewer words. Bet you still can’t understand :>)
Frank, I think it is good advice for parents to always exercise caution in the schools they choose for their children
Here is a big reason why those free and reduced lunch statistics are so error prone. In this article, it says, “School districts often use free and reduced-price lunch percentages for student assignment and resource allocation as well. North Carolina’s largest school district, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, gives schools 30 percent more funds for every student enrolled in the entitlement. Wake County Public School System, in central North Carolina, employs a costly busing strategy to foster socioeconomic diversity in the classroom, measured in part by NSLP participation. These districts and others could be basing policy on faulty numbers if the lunch program data are not a valid indicator of socioeconomic status. Bottom line: No incentive to check the data parents are giving at the local level.
The article is at *https://www.educationnext.org/fraud-in-the-lunchroom/* for a full read. Very interesting!
Hey, you guys suck, what can I say. We referred all our cheats for prosecution. Chris was mad.
As to parents vetting the schools. My point was the range of results are so wide that the averages are pretty useless as a determination of a school returning those results. If I were interested in this, for example, I would skip the sing;e-shop rural locations, and go big —- a school with multiple locations in a suburban or urban setting as my first screen. As to how you determine it from there, I dunno. Probably different tools in each state. Just glad I didn’t have to do it. NJ is number one to begin with, our state tracking is pretty good, and even though I suffer from being rural, at least that’s what THEY call it, our lower grades are top, and our HS is above average but not kicking ass like the schools closer to NYC. But I knew my kids chance of college, which schools would likely accept, even before they went through the door.
And yes, they went to freakin liberal schools, but their choice, not mine. Well, one started liberal, I mean so liberal he crashed n burned, I have never tossed more cash down the shitter before, but he’s more —- let’s call it a center of the country guy now.
Did you try that air quality site I posted for you —- so cool. has your forest fires on it to.
As I noted, this second chapter deals with “how stupid DO is, in general, spewing stupidity, strewing strange ideas together, things that just do not make common sense beyond sounding marvelous as if a PR flack hawking Charter Schools with over-the-top spin, connotation, hyperbole, and false logic.” My comments are in the ()’s.
DO says: “Education, the cornerstone of society, (not to nitpick the first five words but, “the cornerstone,” not “a cornerstone?” Guess the 1A and 2A are chump change) stands at a crucial crossroads (cross roads for less than a 10% improvement?) as the movement towards school choice gains traction across the nation. Among the proponents of this movement, charter schools emerge as beacons of innovation, (<10% again) ushering in a new era of student success. (< 10%) A groundbreaking study conducted by Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (Credo) provides compelling evidence that charter schools are redefining the educational landscape. (this paragraph SOUNDS great but does not seem to make sense. Education is not THE cornerstone of society, we are not at a crucial crossroads and school choice has been growing for years, not just now gaining traction because it’s a new ERA in success. This is the third report by credo, the first was in 2009, so not sure how 14 years later, it’s not groundbreaking much less redefining….
“a testament to the significant gains achieved by charter schools (less than 10% better). The study unequivocally asserts that charter schools outshine their traditional public school counterparts in terms of student performance.” (no it doesn’t it says on average CS are less than 10% better and MOST CS are equivalent or deliver less that TPS; however only 17% deliver less but over 50% are equal to or less than TPS. IOW, if you walk in blind, you could flip a coin as to getting a better or worse education at a TPS versus a CS. That's not outshining, beacon on innovation and all the other DO superlatives. Further, larger multi-site CS deliver better that single-owner operations. It’s like DO is a blind, deaf, and dumb cheerleader which I don’t understand. It was a good report, positive, why does DO gild the Lilly?
Enough. It continues with its over-the-top positive impression of a positive report. My conclusions, based on the report are that CS are:
– On average, better performers than TPS BUT CS locations have a very wide disparity in results
x Larger, multi-site, schools do better than single-operator schools
x Most of the gains come from CMO’s, not SCS’s
x Minorities have better results than majority students
x Democratic States have better results (this is probably not true, but those are the anecdote States)
x Rural CS schools learn less than their TPS counterparts
Point is, as I said, CS have a place, on average they are better, some can be great, and now have been proven to be better than TPS, on average. However, there is still a wide disparity of results by school, region, demographics, and type of management. Parents need to vet the school they are attending and NOT rely on the national averages or the PR pelf that DO spews. The CS’s can be better but it’s not an odds-on chance they ARE better. It is a “diverse” field of results.
This does not equate to DO’s effusively glowing assessment seemingly indicating a life-altering, sea-change performance level available universally from every, or even most, CS facilities. Just not true. Truth is a bit more nuanced and, as I keep saying, requiring parents to really vet these organizations vigorously. Because on other point the report notes: expect a drop in your child’s progress just for changing schools. This is certainly not something to do at the drop of DO’s hat. Or false praise.