Charter school kids are doing poorly

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Charter school kids are doing poorly
18
Tue, 08-17-2004 - 11:25am
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/186593_charter17.html

Charter school kids are doing poorly

Scores are lower than for public schools, data show


Tuesday, August 17, 2004


By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
THE NEW YORK TIMES


WASHINGTON -- The first national comparison of test scores among children in charter schools and regular public schools shows charter school students often doing worse than comparable students in regular public schools.


The findings, buried in mountains of data the Education Department released without public announcement, deals a blow to supporters of the charter school movement, including the Bush administration.


The data show only 25 percent of the fourth-graders attending charters were proficient in reading and math, against 30 percent who were proficient in reading, and 32 percent in math, at traditional public schools.


Because charter schools are concentrated in cities, often in poor neighborhoods, the researchers also compared urban charters to traditional schools in cities. They looked at low-income children in both settings, and broke down the results by race and ethnicity as well. In virtually all instances, the charter students did worse than their counterparts in regular public schools.


"The scores are low, dismayingly low," said Chester Finn Jr., a supporter of charters and president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.


Finn and other backers of charter schools contended, however, that the findings should be considered as "baseline data," and could reflect the predominance of children in these schools who turned to charters after having had severe problems at their neighborhood schools.


The results, based on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly known as the nation's report card, were unearthed from online data by researchers at the American Federation of Teachers, which has historically supported charter schools but has produced research in recent years raising doubts about the expansion of charter schools. It provided them to The New York Times.


Amy Stuart Wells, a sociology professor at Columbia University Teachers College, called the new data "really, really important."


"It confirms what a lot of people who study charter schools have been worried about," she said. "There is a lack of accountability. They're really uneven in terms of quality."



IN WASHINGTON

The Legislature this spring authorized up to 45 new charter schools over the next six years that would be established under contracts between a school district or state education agency and a non-profit organization, as well as an unlimited number of conversions of existing public schools. A referendum challenging the law is on the Nov. 2 ballot, and the law is suspended pending the vote. Washington is one of 10 states with a charter school law in effect.


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iVillage Member
Registered: 08-01-2004
Tue, 08-17-2004 - 12:48pm
I have to wonder if the public school is scoring higher because they "teach the test" I know in my children's school they spend a great deal of time practicing for the Texas State-Developed Assessment Test. They go so far as to even have special times when they study for types of things that will be on this test. I do know that my childern's teachers hate this test, and feel that because they have to teach toward "it" that they leave out things that they would like to study.

'

Asha
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Tue, 08-17-2004 - 12:49pm
This flies directly in the face of everything else I have read about Charter Schools.

Interesting article.

The one thing that I did notice is that the article details the national level of the Charter Schools. The main items I had read before detailed the NYC schools, where they are vastly superior to the public schools with regards to children doing well.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Tue, 08-17-2004 - 2:08pm

"NYC schools, where they are vastly superior to the public schools with regards to children doing well."


You're correct. I read that too. The Gates Foundation was donating $$$. Though are these smaller schools considered charter schools?


All I could find was a reference in this article..........


"Much of the current movement to build small schools is financed by private donors. For example, last year {check} the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donated more than $51 million to build 67 small high schools in New York City."


Quote........


http://www.azcentral.com/families/education/articles/0720performance-ON.html

cl-Libraone~

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Tue, 08-17-2004 - 2:23pm

"teach the test"


60 Minutes did a segment on that before "No Child Left Behind" was introduced. They did it on the Tx. testing system. Some subjects

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Tue, 08-17-2004 - 3:01pm

I don't know...but I can say that my DD's public school did NOT teach to our WASL test.


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Tue, 08-17-2004 - 3:08pm

I think it depends on many things...one being what kind of state regulations are in place for Charter Schools.


iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Tue, 08-17-2004 - 3:22pm
Your guess is as good as mine.

In the articles I had read, I presume that these schools were counted in the Charter School program, but cannot be sure.

I guess we need Bill Gates to donate a few hundred million more to help out more schools. Maybe we can get Larry Ellison, Warren Buffet, George Soros and the like to donate $100 million or so each....that should be a big help.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-22-2003
Tue, 08-17-2004 - 3:27pm
What is a charter school? I tried to look for it but I am not getting an clear definition.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Tue, 08-17-2004 - 3:36pm

I guess they are charter schools. This article is from last year, informative.


City to Use Private Funds in Creating Charter Schools.


http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/29/nyregion/29CHAR.html?ex=1092888000&en=f5f3e262c2642dd7&ei=5070


New York City education officials plan to turn the charter school concept on its head by becoming the first school district in the nation to use private donations to open as many as 50 of the schools.


Charter schools traditionally operate outside of local school district control. The city's plan would establish a nonprofit corporation to create the schools, using more than $50 million in private donations, according to private foundation officials familiar with the plan.


Charter school operators, who typically create their schools as bureaucracy-free alternatives to local public schools, said they had many questions about the city's plan — mostly focused on whether the new schools would enjoy enough autonomy, particularly in staffing and curriculum decisions.


Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein and his aides declined to discuss the plan yesterday, saying an announcement about it was scheduled for Thursday.


In recent months, however, Mr. Klein and Michele Cahill, his senior counsel for educational policy, have talked about the need to use many different models, including charter schools, to raise performance and accountability and to provide city students and their parents with more choices.


The direct involvement of the city's Education Department in creating charter schools presents extraordinary possibilities. Often the greatest obstacle facing charter schools is finding classroom space. Education officials have suggested that any number of failing public schools in the city could be turned into charter schools.


Charter schools, often run by parent groups or nonprofit agencies, are free to negotiate their own contracts with teachers and to choose their own curriculums. But they receive public financing, on a per-pupil basis. There are now 25 charter schools in the city.


"Fundamentally it comes down to a question of the three F's: facilities, funding and freedom," said David Levin, the superintendent and a co-founder of KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) Academy, a charter school in the Bronx. "If the city is in a position of making that easier, that would be amazing. I think everyone would embrace that."


Early in the summer, Mr. Klein and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg attended the opening of KIPP Star College Prep Charter School, which is now in Public School 125 in Harlem, in what had been offices of Community School District 5. The district office was closed as part of the mayor's reorganization of the schools.


The idea of building groups of charter schools is not new. One such effort is under way in northern California by the NewSchools Venture Fund, a nonprofit group that is working to create systems of charter schools — essentially privately run charter school districts.


The group operates seven charter schools under the name Aspire Public Schools. NewSchools Venture Fund is heavily supported by the Broad Foundation. And in June it received a $22 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to create charter schools in California, New York and other districts with great needs.


Among the organizations involved in discussions about donating money to the city's new nonprofit corporation are the Robin Hood Foundation and the Beginning With Children Foundation. The creation of the city's nonprofit corporation was reported in The New York Sun this month, and some elements of the plan were reported yesterday in The New York Post.


But while NewSchools Venture Fund and its Aspire Public Schools are both private entities, what New York City plans is a nonprofit corporation controlled by the school system. In that sense, charter school operators and other education experts said the city's effort was unprecedented.


The city's plan has generated cautious excitement among charter school operators.


"Edison Schools supports any effort to bring charter schools in greater numbers to New York City," said Adam Tucker, a spokesman for Edison, a commercial school management company that operates six charter schools in New York State, one of which is in the city.


The plan also drew some skepticism about the chancellor's motives.


Randi Weingarten, the president of the city teachers' union, said that simply by closing failing schools and reopening them as charter schools, Mr. Klein could reduce the number of schools designated as failing under the federal No Child Left Behind law. "This may be the Chancellor's attempt to end-run around No Child Left Behind," she said.


Ms. Weingarten also asked why Mr. Klein was not giving his own reform efforts more time to take hold before introducing competition.


"I am a little surprised that they would start a school district that is competitive with themselves after they spent this past year saying the new pedagogy will solve all the ills that have never been solved by Western civilization," she said.


Mr. Klein's communications director, Peter Kerr, said that the chancellor did not intend the charter school plan as any kind of attack on the union.


"Joel absolutely does not intend the charter initiative as an anti-union initiative," Mr. Kerr said. "He feels very strongly the opposite. This is not an anti-union initiative."


Mr. Kerr then reiterated that the department would not discuss the plan. "We're making our announcement on Thursday," he said, "and we'll be talking about it then."

cl-Libraone~

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 08-01-2004
Tue, 08-17-2004 - 4:06pm
I agree with you that every school regardless of it being private, charter, public and even homeschool should be heald to the same standard. I am just not sure that a generalized test is the way to go. I am not sure how else one would measure a childs progress.

In Texas if you homeschool you are on the "honor system" when it comes to testing. In other words you don't even need to prove that you are actuality educating your child.

We did homeschooling for a while when we were in a school district that was very lacking. So I know from experience how easy it is to let some things slide.(my fault not my children)

If the charter schools are not being heald accountable any more than homeschools they could be letting things slide as well. My children attend public school now, I know it has been better for them.Thats where I plan to leave them.

I know that there are great homeschool parents out there I just wasn't one.

Asha

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