Charter school kids are doing poorly
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| Tue, 08-17-2004 - 11:25am |
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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Here is the definition for the State of Washington. I'm assuming that they are all similar.
At my older daughter's Charter School, she had a problem with her Language Arts class. They put her in a special writing class to teach her what she had missed in the public schools. I didn't have to ask for the help for her when she was struggling, it was offered and they contacted me. The teachers also follow up a lot in her school.
My younger daughter in her public Junior High School had received a warning notice for one marking period and I had been following up with her on her assignments assuming she was doing much better. When she got her report card, she did worse instead of better. Although she was doing the assignments, she wasn't turning them in. I asked the school counselor why I wasn't contacted and they said I was; with the warning notice. I asked why I wasn't contacted when things weren't getting better. He said there are a lot of students and it's tough to follow up on all of them. I told her about my other daughter's Charter School and how they were and he said we don't have time to do things their way.
The Charter School my girls attend is also a college preparatory school. The way things work, if you don't do well on an assignment, you don't just get by with a lousy grade. You have to do the assignment until you have completed it properly. I wouldn't have them go back to the public school and I live in a decent town too; not in a city. We have fairly good school systems. The Charter School is about 45 minutes away by it's by far much better than what they were attending.
The Charter School my daughters attend does all the standardized testing the public school system does. We live in Massachusetts so they have to do the MCAS testing and pass in order to graduate.
I think it does depend on the area as well.
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