Politics > Politics-USA > Nation's Charter Schools Lagging Behind. Bush's Plan Proves to be Garbage.
| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
17 Aug 2004 06:17:57 AM |
| Object: |
Nation's Charter Schools Lagging Behind. Bush's Plan Proves to be Garbage. |
The findings, buried in mountains of data the Education Department
released without public announcement, dealt a blow to supporters of
the charter school movement, including the Bush administration.
In virtually all instances, the charter students did worse than their
counterparts in regular public schools.
Charters are expected to grow exponentially under the new federal
education law, No Child Left Behind, which holds out conversion to
charter schools as one solution for chronically failing traditional
schools.
"The scores are low, dismayingly low," said Chester E. Finn Jr., a
supporter of charters and president of the Thomas B. Fordham
Foundation, who was among those who asked the administration to do the
comparison.
From The New York Times, 7/17/04:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/17/education/17charter.html?pagewanted=2&hp
Nation's Charter Schools Lagging Behind, U.S. Test Scores Reveal
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
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, dealt a blow to supporters of
the charter school movement, including the Bush administration.
The data shows fourth graders attending charter schools performing
about half a year behind students in other public schools in both
reading and math.
Put another way, 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.
Charters are expected to grow exponentially under the new federal
education law, No Child Left Behind, which holds out conversion to
charter schools as one solution for chronically failing traditional
schools.
"The scores are low, dismayingly low," said Chester E. Finn Jr., a
supporter of charters and president of the Thomas B. Fordham
Foundation, who was among those who asked the administration to do the
comparison.
Mr. Finn, an assistant secretary of education in the Reagan
administration, said the quality of charter schools across the country
varied widely, and he predicted that the results would make those
overseeing charters demand more in the way of performance.
"A little more tough love is needed for these schools," Mr. Finn said.
"Somebody needs to be watching over their shoulders."
Mr. 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 provided them to The New York Times.
The organization has historically supported charter schools but has
produced research in recent years raising doubts about the expansion
of charter schools.
Charters are self-governing public schools, often run by private
companies, which operate outside the authority of local school boards,
and have greater flexibility than traditional public schools in areas
of policy, hiring and teaching techniques.
Federal officials said they did not intend to hide the performance of
charter schools, and denied any political motivation for failing to
publicly disclose that the data were available.
"I guess that was poor publicity on our part," said Robert Lerner, the
federal commissioner for education statistics.
Mr. Lerner said further analysis was needed to put the data in its
proper context.
But others were skeptical, saying the results proved that such schools
were not a cure-all.
"There's just a huge distance between the sunny claims of the charter
school advocates and the reality," said Bella Rosenberg, an special
assistant to the president of the American Federation of Teachers.
"There's a very strong accountability issue here."
Of the nation's 88,000 public schools, 3,000 are charters, educating
more than 600,000 students.
But their ranks are expected to grow as No Child Left Behind
identifies thousands of schools for possible closing because of poor
test scores.
Once hailed as a kind of free-market solution offering parents an
escape from moribund public schools, elements of the charter school
movement have prompted growing concern in recent years.
Around the country, more than 80 charter schools were forced to close,
largely because of questionable financial dealings and poor
performance, said Luis Huerta, a professor at Columbia University
Teachers College.
In California, the state's largest charter school operator has just
announced the closing of at least 60 campuses, The Los Angeles Times
reported on Monday, stranding 10,000 children just weeks before the
start of the school year.
Layoffs occurred at the second fastest rate on record during 2001 to
2003 according to a new survey published by the Labor Department’s
Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The math and reading tests were given to a nationally representative
sample of about 6,000 fourth graders at 167 charter schools in
February 2003.
Some 3,200 eighth graders at charter schools also took the exams, an
insufficient number to make national comparisons.
The results are not out of line with earlier local and state studies
of charter school performance, which generally have shown charters
doing no better than traditional public schools.
But they offered the first nationally representative comparison of
children attending both types of schools, and are expected influence
public debate.
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."
Detractors have historically accused charters of skimming the best
students, those whose parents are most committed, from the poorest
schools.
But supporters of charter schools said the data confirmed earlier
research suggesting that charters take on children who were already
performing below average.
"We're doing so much to help kids that are so much farther behind, and
who typically weren't even continuing in school," said Jeanne Allen,
president of the Center for Education Reform, in Washington, which
represents charter schools.
She said the results reflect only "a point in time," and said nothing
about the progress of students in charter schools.
That, she said, could be measured only by tracking the performance of
charters in future tests.
For the moment, however, the National Assessment Governing Board has
no plans to survey charters again.
One previous study, however, suggests that tracking students over time
might present findings more favorable to the charter movement.
Tom Loveless, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the
Brookings Institution, who conducted a two-year study of 569 charter
schools in 10 states found that while charter school students
typically score lower on state tests, over time they progress at
faster rates than students in traditional public schools.
The new test scores on charter schools went online last November,
along with state-by-state results from the national assessment.
Though other results were announced at a news conference, with a
report highlighting the findings, federal officials never mentioned
that the charter school data were publicly available.
Researchers at the American Federation of Teachers were able to gain
access to the scores from the national assessment's Web site only
indirectly: by gathering results based on how schools identified
themselves in response to a question.
In a significant departure from earlier releases of test scores, Mr.
Lerner said the charter school findings would be formally shown only
as part of a larger analysis that would adjust results for the
characteristics of charter schools and their students.
In the 1990's, the National Assessment Governing Board had rejected
requests from states for such analyses, with Mr. Finn, then a member
of the board, contending that explanatory reports would compromise the
credibility of the assessment results by trying to blame demographic
and other outside factors for poor performance.
But Mr. Lerner said he thought such an analysis was necessary to put
the charter school test scores in context.
He called the raw comparison of test scores "the beginning of
something important," and said, "What one has to do is adjust for many
different variables to get a sense of what the effects of charter
schools are."
__________________________________________________________
No Child Left Behind, eh? It's time to leave child Bush behind.
Harry
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| User: "Courageous" |
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| Title: Re: Nation's Charter Schools Lagging Behind. Bush's Plan Proves to be Garbage. |
17 Aug 2004 09:00:07 AM |
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Mr. 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.
Sure. To look at it any other way would be _selection bias_.
C//
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