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DC Charters
DC CHARTERS....The Washington Post reports today that DC's charter schools are doing well:
According to a Washington Post analysis of recent national test results for economically disadvantaged students, D.C. middle-school charters scored 19 points higher than the regular public schools in reading and 20 points higher in math.
....The two public systems are, in general, educating students from similar backgrounds. About two-thirds of the students in both systems live in poverty, and more than 90 percent are minorities, according to school records.
I'm basically a fan of charter schools. I hope they are doing well in DC. But before we pat ourselves too hard on the back here, let's read a little more:
Charter schools must accept any student who applies, using a lottery if they have more applicants than spaces. That prevents the schools from cherry-picking applicants. But each school is free to set its own rules on expelling students.
....For each elementary student enrolled, a District charter school receives $11,879 in tax dollars, including $8,770 to match per-pupil academic spending in the regular public schools and a $3,109 facility allotment to help pay for buildings....Charter schools can use the facilities money for any purpose, and that funding stream can provide a crucial advantage over traditional public schools. For schools with 300 or more students, the funding often exceeds building costs, and the surplus has gone to hire additional staff and buy extra computers and books.
....Friendship Public Charter Schools — the city's largest charter network, with five schools and more than 4,000 students — has a surplus of $3.4 million that has funded cutting-edge equipment, including computerized interactive whiteboards that are found even in preschool classrooms.
The extra funding, it turns out, coincides with improved academic performance: The schools with the largest surpluses have ranked at the top on test scores.
....Some charter schools have been especially successful at supplementing taxpayer funding with charitable grants from donors as large as the Bill and Melinda Gates and Walton foundations and as small as their friends and neighbors. Thurgood Marshall charter school, founded by Georgetown University's Street Law Program, expects $1.7 million in contributions this year, accounting for 25 percent of overall spending, according to its budget.
Let's summarize. Charter schools can't "cherry pick," but their students all come from families that have chosen to apply for a place. This means their student bodies are automatically far different from those in standard public schools, since they include only students whose parents care about education in the first place. This is a very, very big difference.
And charters get to expel students who cause problems. "Our success is not from moving kids out," says Susan Schaeffler, who heads the KIPP program in DC, and that might be so in raw numbers. But the ability to get rid of even a small number of serious behavior problems can have a substantial impact.
Finally, it turns out that charters get more money than traditional schools — both from the city and from private sources. And they use that money to buy extra books, hire more staff, and create programs that attract good students. And the schools with the most money seem to perform the best. Amazing!
Look: even your most novice educational researcher knows that comparing test scores is useless unless you control pretty carefully for things like parental involvement and expenditure levels. And most of the studies I've seen suggest that once you do that, charters perform about the same as traditional schools. At most, they perform only slightly better.
Now, I don't know what such a study would show of DC's charters, but neither does the Post. And you can certainly make the case that offering DC parents a choice is a good thing regardless. I certainly think it is. But pretending that charters have improved test scores is journalistic malpractice. The Post simply hasn't presented any credible evidence that this is the case.
The Post simply hasn't presented any credible evidence that this is the case.
So why should this story be any different from the rest of the crap they publish?
According to an extended and ongoing analysis of the Washington Post, the vast majority of its education coverage is shaped by the Graham family's hatred of unions.
Charter schools are private schools funded by taxpayers. Charter schools are another way to transfer wealth from the lower classes to the wealthier classes. Charter schools weaken public education by taking limited public finance intended for the entire community and use them for the benefit of a few.
Well, if I were reading the Washington Post article as the parent of a DC schoolchild, I would want to know which schools had the best test scores and otherwise provided a good educational environment. I don't think I'd be thinking, well, this charter has better facilities, the students have better test scores, but that isn't fair because it has more money and can expel students more easily, so I'll send my kid to the public school down the street instead.
Of course they did focus on the top charter schools. A few months ago several were closed or whatever because they didn't perform any better than public schools.
Motherbear: I agree. Like I said, there's a good case to be made that charters are a good thing even if their improved test scores are largely the result of having a better student body and more money.
However, on a broader basis, there's also a case to be made that charters are simply sucking all the good students into one system, leaving the traditional schools with the dregs. This is, obviously, a very bad thing for students who, though no fault of their own, are stuck in the traditional system.
Kevin, your points are very salient and well stated. Char. schools are not either very good or very bad (as a concept) but should be considered as part of a mix of tools to attack a problem.
Self selection of participants is an extremely important issue indicating a substantial "buy in" on the part of the parents of these kids. Further, knowing that a student can be "booted out" may solve problems in advance as already concerned parents realize that there are dire consequence if behavioral issues are not immediately and successfully dealt with.
Remember, short of aggravated violence, it can be extremely difficult to remove a student from a public school.
KD: You just committed blogging malpractice by not referring to yesterday's WP A1 story on the same subject. The amount of graft, payola, conflict of interest involved in the program is absolutely unbelievable- the articles took two years to prepare and may well win a Pulitzer. Read yesterday's article and then try to formilize a thought because I am out words (waht I am trying to say: I see the good and the bad- and you only talked about the good- and I want to know how you feel after reading yesterday's expose).
Good work, Kevin. You nail it regarding the difficulties involved in comparing charters to Public schools.
... there's also a case to be made that charters are simply sucking all the good students into one system, leaving the traditional schools with the dregs. ...
Posted by: Kevin Drum on 12/15/08
What exactly is a "better student"? How are these procedures selecting them?
It would seem that to a school the kids from wealthier homes who behave themselves and want to go to 'better' schools are 'better students'.
Why not just get the kids together in a gym (or something) and ask the ones who don't want to be there to simply go away? Then the remaining students will be the "better students".
Of course, pushing some out is a way of inflicting them with a life-long penchant for criminal behavior and attachment to government welfare programs.
It appears clear we know how to sort out the kids. The only question is what to do with the ones who don't want to learn or can't learn or can't learn fast enough who will mostly have lives of poverty and problems.
Today the Republicans offer a life of jail time or an early death from HIV AIDS or 'drug-related' problems. I guess they hope to swell those ranks with new union members any day now.
Life-long learning opportunities might help.
Individualized learning systems might help.
A health care system which is affordable and more available and a more equitable economy would help.
These are not new observations actually. It's just that our government isn't encouraged to pay attention to the problems. At least they haven't been before the Internet system of financing campaigns. Who knows what will happen now?
You got keep the kick out ability though, some kids are just not suited either through biology or upbringing to the classroom environment in this country.
What can you do with those kids? Fuck if I know! I grew up in a town that designated a school for problem children and students from all 4 high schools in the city mocked it.
Yet again, no one explains the magical mechanism by which charter schools supposedly do "better" than regular public school. These kinds of Post stories would be much more credible if they pointed to actual pedagogical differences between the charter and regular schools. As far as I can tell, though, what goes on in these classrooms is pretty much exactly the same as what goes on in a DCPS school.
Which brings me to another point: if the idea of charters is to be laboratories where new innovative methods can thrive, then logically it would seem as though they would have to be temporary. That is to say, once the good methods were discovered, the school system should itself adopt those methods, thus rendering the charters themselves superfluous. But with many of these "reform" types, of course, "innovation" means little beyond union-bashing.
As far as I can tell, though, what goes on in these classrooms is pretty much exactly the same as what goes on in a DCPS school.
I would think that is part of the point made by Kevin and others. There is not a magic pill to take. Charter schools may actually be doing the same things done by good public school teachers in tens of thousands of classrooms across the country.
The difference may largely be environmental. Such as parents who are more knowledgeable and energetically concerned, students who have been made aware of the opportunity they are being given, and other issues such as class size and smaller school populations which allow for far better monitoring and timely intervention.
Until such factors can be accounted for (can they?), I think it would be hard to say that successful charters just have better pedagogy.
Lordy, Anonymous at 1:53 was me.
tpx: Charter schools are private schools funded by taxpayers.
And yet charter schools charge parents the same tuition as "public" schools: $0.00
Charter schools are another way to transfer wealth from the lower classes to the wealthier classes.
Given their tuition rates, I'd be interested to hear your explanation of how they do this.
Keith G,
Exactly! As you say, the question itself is stupid: comparing apples to oranges. For christ's sake, I'm sure on average that home-schooled kids would do 'better' than public OR charter school kids. Does that fact tell anyone anything useful? Does it suggest that this is the way forward for DC education--home schooling for all? Nothing but kick-the-can nonsense.
Boondog,
I don't believe there are that many good comparisons of home-schooled v. public schooled, but the ones I am aware of do not show home schooling as better. Think of it, there are a lot of really stupid people home-schooling.
Yet again, no one explains the magical mechanism by which charter schools supposedly do "better" than regular public school. These kinds of Post stories would be much more credible if they pointed to actual pedagogical differences between the charter and regular schools. As far as I can tell, though, what goes on in these classrooms is pretty much exactly the same as what goes on in a DCPS school.
I don't know much about charter schools in DC. In my own school district some of the charter schools have managed to find a niche where they offer a choice that is different from what the public schools offer and truly valuable for some students. This could be anything from a focus on the arts across the curriculum to just being smaller and more personal than, say, the 1200 student public middle schools. One middle school charter has integrated Capoeira into the curriculum. It is also the case that some of our public schools have innovative magnet programs, and some of the charters have turned out to be truly awful. Overall, I think the charters are a good thing, even if there is room for improvement in the oversight process. The bottom line is that each school is different and making sweeping claims about charters in the aggregate doesn't make a lot of sense.
Rather than asking whether charters in the aggregate are better or worse than public schools in the aggregate, I'd rather see them ask what makes a good school better than others. If charters with more money do better than public schools or other charters with less money--don't whine that the study is unfair to the less rich schools--use the data as evidence to get more money for the public schools.
The real problem with educational reform is this: what do we do about the 2-10% of kids who are real behavioral problems and the 10-40% of kids whose parents are simply disengaged from their education. If you try to force the well-behaved kids with involved parents to go to school with those kids, they nolens volens refuse, either moving to the 'burbs, sending their kids to private school, or what not. On the other hand, if you don't try to bring 'em together, you get rightly accused of more or less leaving the underprivileged and difficult kids behind.
For my money, the best solution involves some sort of hard tracking. I came up in the LAUSD magnet program which wans't perfect, but which compared to the education served up by most big city school systems was really excellent. Tracking keeps the hope alive that the smart middle class kids will stay in the system (it also has the effect of turning the private school system into something that only is interesting to the rich parents of dumb kids--which is sure what it looked like in LA in the 1980s). Yes, some people will howl that it creates a two-tier (or multi-tier) system, but the alternative is to have the middle class opt out almost entirely, as has largely happened in the city I live in now, San Francisco.
The wealthy already have ed choices, it's the lower income people who have the fewest choices. Yet so many people want to take those choices away to make some kind of point against the rich.
We shouldn't burden lower-income families with the responsibility for leveling societal inequalities before they can find good schools for their children. We can allow them choices while working on societal programs at the same time.
explanation
The public finance for public education is a limited resource, but intended to supply a standard of education to all students. When funds are taken from the general budget to finance charter schools, which are not intended for all students, a reduction of the amount of funds availablle for the average public school student is reduced.
Public education taxpayers should be paying to supply the same quality education for all students, not just the ones whose parents are the most concerned about their children. When more public education monies are spent on charter school students than the public school students, on average, or when public school students are denied the same benefits as charter school students, that is a misallocation of public finance. Taxpayers should not have, and shold not want, their tax monies used to discriminate against an equally good education for all students. Not all charter school students' parents are wealthy, but many are. They choose charter schools to separate their children from the general population in the hopes they will receive a better education. When public finance is used to discriminate who receives a better education, then, by the earning power of that better education, that is a wealth transfer to the better off.
You're missing the point on Charter Schools-They can and do set standards of behavior, dress codes, and standards of work competence. It isn't a case of cherry pickimng (strange term), it is a case of enforcing rules of behavior. This isn't done in Public Schools as it might hurt the feelings of the parents and peers=but then, not getting an education should hurt their feelings even more!
Of course they did better. The get to select their students.
Kevin:
I love you. As a teacher at a "regular" school I appreciate how you clearly show how charter schools operate and the dishonesty of those who run them.
Can I just speak up about one of your criticisms here. Actually two. You rightfully point out that the kids that attend these charter schools probably have parents that care about their education. What is wrong with that? I can't tell you how frustrating it was to sit in public school with kids that didn't care about class--and by extension--didn't have parents that cared about education. It diminishes your ability to learn. Instead of teaching, teachers are focused on discipline. Instead of forming study groups, those kinds of kids were bullying the so-called "nerds" and making them feel inferior. I realize that these are kids, but I just wish that people would recognize that kids with problem behavior have a negative impact on the other children in class.
Also, I don't get the critique on the expel requirement either. After I switched from public to private school--I had to live with a no fighting policy--if you fought, you were kicked out. There was also an implied no pregnancy policy (Catholic school)--I don't think it takes a genius to figure out the change in tone of coming from a school that had a fight a day, to a school that didn't have any. Or coming from a school that had pregnant girls in the seventh grade, to a school where teenage pregnancy was severely frowned upon.
These things matter. I have lived the difference. More people who value educational standards need to recognize the difference.
tpx: When funds are taken from the general budget to finance charter schools, which are not intended for all students, a reduction of the amount of funds availablle for the average public school student is reduced.
First, it's not at all clear that charter schools reduce the average funds available per non-charter student. The per-pupil academic funding is the same, and the accounting for the facilities allotment is left completely unexplained. Does that represent the average facility spending for non-charter students? Inquiring minds want to know.
Second, your phrase "not intended for all students" is horribly misleading. Charter schools are intended for any students whose parents choose to send them there. Since they're as tuition free as the regular public schools, it's hardly financial discrimination. To the extent that there aren't enough slots for all students whose parents wish to send them, presumably the charter school proponents would like to see the number of slots increased. That's hardly a discriminatory attitude.
Public education taxpayers should be paying to supply the same quality education for all students
Even if that means a poor education for all students, instead of just some?
not just the ones whose parents are the most concerned about their children
Unfortunately there is a limit to how much schools can compensate for poor parenting. However, to the extent that schools can compensate, those are often the exact sort of things that charter schools focus on.
When more public education monies are spent on charter school students than the public school students, on average
Again, it's completely unclear if that's the case.
Not all charter school students' parents are wealthy, but many are.
Even a quick search suggests that charter schools are most frequently used in an attempt to help financially poor students. 54% of charter school students qualify for free or reduced price lunches - a standard proxy for the number of financially poor students.
David Triche: Kevin: I love you. As a teacher at a "regular" school I appreciate how you clearly show how ... the dishonesty of those who run them.
Kevin neither did any such thing, nor claimed to have. He simply pointed out how an article made an apples-to-oranges comparison, and hence no legitimate conclusion can be drawn from the article about the effectiveness of charter vs. "regular" schools, after making the appropriate compensation for differences in funding and quality of parents.
As I pointed out, the article not only made no attempt to compensate for possible differences in funding, it didn't even explain what differences in funding exist!
Toilet paper doesn't make a good argument for charter schools, but it doesn't make an argument against them either.
P.S. As a teacher in a "regular" school, why are you hostile to charter schools? Why shouldn't the two co-exist?
i live in a charter friendly state and i can say that you're not even comparing apples and oranges in the public v. charter debate. it's more like comparing apples and fruit salad. the charter schools here offer a little of everything and many lack the some of the basic offerings of public schools (cafeterias, libraries, school sports, band, computer labs). students can pick charter schools that offer computer-based learning, self-paced learning; students can attend magnet charter schools (math, science, arts); students who have been tossed out of every other public school in the system will often find a charter school to take them in; students can leave a gang-infested school for a charter with a more strict (and enforceable, if the school is small) gang policy. i could go on. the point is, charter schools can be and are (at least here) all over the map. some are better than others at what they do. we have one school in my city that is one of the top in the country, but we also have more than one school that is underperforming (by NCLB standards).
And that is a rational decision for a parent. However, as Kevin points out, it is further evidence that Charters have a select group of students.
Alex,
Kevin did show their dishonesty. To take credit for improving education at not admit the financial and student selection advantages you have is dishonet. Kevin even quoted the KIPP principal to illustrate this. Absolutely every charter school I am aware of in some way shape or form select students. I am hostile towards them because they take the cream of the top and leave more difficult students for non charter schools and never admit that this is what they are doing. Finally is did explain additional funding $3109 per student to be used in any way they want and that does not include grants and donations.
Here is what happens every year in my district. In the beginning of second semester, the local charter school begins expelling students. They do this because they know the state test is in a few months. These students are always those with low test scores. One of our teachers used to work at this charter and she told us that each year they were told to submit a list of students who they thought would do poorly on the test.
Sometime in the future, educating our children will look quite different than it does today. This will happen despite all the Luddites who can't get their narrow minds around the idea of change.
Innovations are often blamed for the inherent failings of the soon-to-be-defunct system they're replacing. Charters won't be going away. Public schools should work to improve themselves and worry less about parents and children who leave for something better.
Educating children is the State's mandate, not keeping an anachronistic entity in business. "Public" means educating children at public expense. How that happens should be open to debate. Do some people really think our current model of educating students is the final form?
Maybe it's the idea of parents and students thinking for themselves that scare most of ya. Can't let those students bail on those bad schools, who'll be left to leverage the public for funds and support?
MTheads--
But your statement is meaningless. What *specific* features of the public school are anachronistic? That they can't kick kids out easily? That they can't pre-screen applicants? That enrollment is based on geographic district? That they have school lunch programs, social workers, athletic teams? That they are housed in a building of a certain size? That they have teachers who organize over wages and working conditions? That they have teachers who must meet certain professional qualifying exams? That they are under a district-wide or county-wide organizational entity? That they institute tracking? That they *don't* institute tracking? That they focus too much on college prep or too much on vocational education? Too much testing? Too little testing? Are reading materials too easy? Are they too hard?
Few of these questions are inherently any easier for a charter school administrator to answer than for a public school administrator to answer.
This vague stuff is what really causes the problems in these debates. And I'm sorry but it is the "reformers" who most routinely over-simplify and erect meaningless shibboleths like "choice" and "innovation". Heard the same crap regarding social security, retirement funds, and health care. How did you like those apples?
A taxpayer without children still expects and desires the money allocated for education to be spent efficiently and effectively. Taking money from the pool of educational funds to finance privately managed charter schools creates opportunity costs. The opportunity cost of most charter schools are borne by those least able to bear it, whereas the opportunity cost of not having charter schools is borne by those much more able. That is how the transfer of wealth takes place. Taxpayers should not want more of their limited public finances allocated to those who are already better off than those who are more disadvantaged.
Any alternative method of education gets sympathetic treatment from the press because Power wants the teacher unions broken.
The current public school system is anachronistic because many people want out of it. Parents and students want choices and charters. It's failing to keep up with what its users desire.
It's anachronistic because the old way of doing things is to be protected from competing against even other forms of itself, like charters.
It's anachronistic because its proponents charge that any change to the current way of assigning students to schools would lead to widespread social injustice. Hard to reform a system that thinks so highly of itself.
Believe it or not, charter supporters are not out to topple the government, overthrow unions, stomp down the poor, enslave teachers, bring back the confederacy, clone Hitler, rewrite history, or annihilate all good.
Today's charter and change opponent is tomorrow's pissed off parent sick of dealing with a monopolistic public school system that is failing their child.
Public school proponents can try their best to set themselves up as the little guy against the Power, but it's actually the other way around. Students in bad schools have no power. Charters and choices are an attempt to give them and their families some power over their lives.
Thanks for the arguments though. It's always good to think through one's thoughts.