Charter schools do the impossible . . .

[BaliBabyDoc]

NYT

Aug. 16 - 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.
---
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.
---
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.
---
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.

 

[conjur]

Hmm...nothing here:

http://www.uscharterschools.org/pub/uscs_docs/index.htm

 

[Todd33]

They lied about the "Houston miracle" in Texas, why would they be any more honest now?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/06/60II/main591676.shtml

Sharpstown High wasn?t the only ?outstanding? school. The Houston school district reported a citywide dropout rate of 1.5 percent. But educators and experts 60 Minutes II checked with put Houston?s true dropout rate somewhere between 25 and 50 percent.

?But the teachers didn?t believe it. They knew it was cooking the books. They told me that. Parents told me that,? says Kimball. ?The superintendent of schools would make the public believe it was one school. But it is in the system, it is in all of Houston.?

Those low dropout rates ? in Houston and all of Texas - were one of the accomplishments then-Texas Gov. George Bush cited when he campaigned to become the ?Education President.?

 

[sandorski]

There was a news report(don't recall source, either CNN or CNBC) within the last few weeks about a chain of private schools catering to Immigrants that was shocking. They were teaching completely false facts, such as the US having 53 States along with the reason there were only 50 stars on the flag was that the flag had yet to be Updated. There were other glaring errors, but I don't recall them anymore.

Those calling for a completely Privatized system using Vouchers for funding really need to realize that it is not without some serious risks.

 

[dannybin1742]

have any of you gone to a charter school? the reason parents ent theri kids there is because they are not run with the current philosophy "the kids should have a good time in school, we can't flunk somone, or punish them for not wanting to learn"

charter school provide a an environment for students who's parents want them get an education, who realise the value of an education. most of you who critisize them have never been to one. my mom is a curriculum coordinator at one, and the problem is not the schools, its the fact that they are under funded by the state, thanks to "every child left behind", and on top of this they have to take 5 test per year 2 for the state and 3 for every child left behind, so instead of the teachers teaching what the kids should be learning, specifically math and science and english as well as some fine arts, they have to constantly teach what is going to be tested and NOT what the kids should be learning.

another fact that is totally left from any article on this is also teh fact that most charter schools are largely minority from very bad sections of citys (but their parents want them to succeed so they switch schools) and are ill-equipted with skills to learn at their supposed grade level, so many teachers much teach the children stuff they should already know and then teach them what they should be learning. many charter schools become populated with kids that public schools can't handle because of class size, many of the students at my mom's charter school have adhd or some type of disyfunctional family.

before you critisize, go to one and see how wonderful the people are and then realise they must fight an uphill battle from the start with most students that end up there. another theng that stands out is that the teachers generally teach there because they love to teach and don't care so much about the money, which is lower than public school pay

 

[NumbersGuy]

Not exactly this topic, but just heard on NPR about public schools in St. Louis.

$12,000/yr per kid, only 5% of HS Jrs. can read at the 11th grade level

Seems like they could have class for 20 kids in a nice building with a teacher and cop in each classroom, plus free lunch.

 

[LordMagnusKain]

I think it's pretty dammed ignorant to lump them all together.

I went to a charter school in Texas that was ranked 8th of all public schools in the nation, all in the poorest most ignorant and unemployed part of Texas.

the reason parents enter their kids there is because they are not run with the current philosophy "the kids should have a good time in school, we can't flunk someone, or punish them for not wanting to learn"

pure ignorance.

The reason many charter schools do worse than the average school is 3 fold:
1.) They try to attract students from the poorest and most poorly-parented districts
2.) Parents often force their kids into schools that target one direction while the kids are entirely not interested in that charter.
3.) The pay for teachers and over all money available is generally much less for charter school.

BUT:

when you combine lower pay, lower quality students, and students that are focusing on a vocation they aren?t interested in and still have higher scores than the schools around them. then you know their is something being done right. Even if the average scores across the board are lower than when averaged in with suburban and rich schools.

Don?t think I don?t understand why you liberals want to spin it this way: you don?t want to fix the public education system, you don?t want to bring focus drive and better meant to the poor. Both would hurt your constituencies: lazy teachers who give out busy work and collect a pay-check, and poor ignorant people that have no choice but to rely on the government for ?help?.

 

[BDawg]

You lie, BBD. Conservatives tell me that private industry is always better than government.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: NumbersGuy
Not exactly this topic, but just heard on NPR about public schools in St. Louis.

$12,000/yr per kid, only 5% of HS Jrs. can read at the 11th grade level

Seems like they could have class for 20 kids in a nice building with a teacher and cop in each classroom, plus free lunch.

HS Jrs reading at a 11th grade level is actually very good(seeing as how that's 2-4 grade levels above where they're at).

 

[chess9]

dannybinn:

We are all certain the teachers are wonderful. That is a non-issue. And no one is surprised, or should be, at the low scores. We have no miracle cure for children who come to school unprepared, improperly fed, beaten, worn out and worn down, on drugs, possibly raped, depressed or worse, etc. But, the public schools have a long history of helping many such kids. Thus, the rationale for Charter Schools is bogus and yet another bit of Republican stupidity.

If we truly want to help kids we will do it from the time they are born until age 8 at least. Those are the critical years and those are they years kids are most likely to be given no chance to compete in the 21st Century. I would go so far as to say that if we poured most of our educational and health resources into kids age .1-8, that we would see a phenomenal increase in literacy and graduation rates. The current system is barbaric at best....

-Robert

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Originally posted by: BDawg
You lie, BBD. Conservatives tell me that private industry is always better than government.

Actually I believe the line goes that . . . private industry, with no regulations, and no sense of moral responsibility . . . is always better than government.

 

[chess9]

Sandorski:

HUH?

They ARE 11th graders. You are confusing junior h.s. with high school juniors.

Take the green pill.

-Rober

 

[Isla]

Just for the sake of contrast...

I teach at a public school in a very high income area where our PTA pretty much gives us everything we need and spoils us rotten. It's nice to get $100 gift certificates for Christmas. It's nice to have gourmet lunches catered to us on special days. It's nice to teach the children of famous athletes and CEOs.

Anyway, we've been an "A" school for 5 years in a row and have won all kinds of awards. We are meeting all the criteria the state has for improvement, even though we some of the most poorly paid teachers in the nation (we start at 30K). I guarantee you that what makes the difference at our school is the parental involvement and additional financial support. It's easy to love teaching when you are shown respect and appreciation for your efforts.

I ought to know... I was a parent volunteer there before I decided to teach there.

 

[BDawg]

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc

Originally posted by: BDawg
You lie, BBD. Conservatives tell me that private industry is always better than government.

Actually I believe the line goes that . . . private industry, with no regulations, and no sense of moral responsibility . . . is always better than government.

No morality in business; forced morality in personal lives.

 

[Isla]

Originally posted by: chess9
dannybinn:

We are all certain the teachers are wonderful. That is a non-issue. And no one is surprised, or should be, at the low scores. We have no miracle cure for children who come to school unprepared, improperly fed, beaten, worn out and worn down, on drugs, possibly raped, depressed or worse, etc. But, the public schools have a long history of helping many such kids. Thus, the rationale for Charter Schools is bogus and yet another bit of Republican stupidity.

If we truly want to help kids we will do it from the time they are born until age 8 at least. Those are the critical years and those are they years kids are most likely to be given no chance to compete in the 21st Century. I would go so far as to say that if we poured most of our educational and health resources into kids age .1-8, that we would see a phenomenal increase in literacy and graduation rates. The current system is barbaric at best....

-Robert

Excellently put, and very much agreed.

 

[imported_tss4]

Originally posted by: LordMagnusKain
I think it's pretty dammed ignorant to lump them all together.

I went to a charter school in Texas that was ranked 8th of all public schools in the nation, all in the poorest most ignorant and unemployed part of Texas.

the reason parents enter their kids there is because they are not run with the current philosophy "the kids should have a good time in school, we can't flunk someone, or punish them for not wanting to learn"

pure ignorance.

The reason many charter schools do worse than the average school is 3 fold:
1.) They try to attract students from the poorest and most poorly-parented districts
2.) Parents often force their kids into schools that target one direction while the kids are entirely not interested in that charter.
3.) The pay for teachers and over all money available is generally much less for charter school.

BUT:

when you combine lower pay, lower quality students, and students that are focusing on a vocation they aren?t interested in and still have higher scores than the schools around them. then you know their is something being done right. Even if the average scores across the board are lower than when averaged in with suburban and rich schools.

Don?t think I don?t understand why you liberals want to spin it this way: you don?t want to fix the public education system, you don?t want to bring focus drive and better meant to the poor. Both would hurt your constituencies: lazy teachers who give out busy work and collect a pay-check, and poor ignorant people that have no choice but to rely on the government for ?help?.

That is ridiculous. You just said they all liberals want to destroy the country. Why do you bother posting if your primary concern to insult most of the people here. How can you possibly expect to have a constructive debate here if you use such an aggressive and arrogant tone? Liberals no more want to promote a lower class dependent upon the government than conservatives want to create a new aristocratic class.

You really should reread that post you quoted from. That person was defending the conservative view that charter schools are a good idea.

You know if you want to argue that liberal philosiphies will result in a lazy and government dependent lower class than fine, but don't tell me that you believe that almost half the country under the leadership of Kerry would like to oppress the lower class like that. If you want to argue we're miguided fine, but you hurt your cause more than you help whn you post obvoiusly inflamatory remarks.

You also make statements of fact that you seriously need to back up. With your 3 points in the middle there:

1) not supported at ALL. How can you make this statement?
2) possibly, but how is that any different from a regular school? The problem is the kids don't want to learn at all, not that they don't like the "charter" of the school.
3) You're probably right on this point, but again I like to see evidence of this.


"Don?t think I don?t understand why you liberals want to spin it this way: you don?t want to fix the public education system, you don?t want to bring focus drive and better meant to the poor. Both would hurt your constituencies: lazy teachers who give out busy work and collect a pay-check, and poor ignorant people that have no choice but to rely on the government for ?help?. "

You just got done apoligizing on a differnt thread for a ridiculous comment like this. How can anyone take you serious when you clearly have no respect for anyone here?

Sometimes you post useful information worthy of debate, but this was pretty poor.

 

[chess9]

Isla:

Good to see you are alive and well after Charley's visit! My daughter doesn't go back to school until NEXT Tuesday. Are you on a similar vacation? You'd think it would be enough to suffer through a hurricane and have a 65 foot tree deposited on my roof!

-Robert

 

[LordMagnusKain]

They also have a long history of high dropout rates, lower test scores, and under funding.

Give me a charter school with kids that, despite their situation, want to learn, and I?ll give you 100 students succeeding in life ware before you only had 10.

I see, destroy the family unit, make the state the parent and controller of the minds of our children. It?s obvious that the school, orphanage and foster care systems are doing such a good job of razing children, let?s get it started earlier for everyone!

Trying to have the state take over the individual is a common tactic among you who seek totalitarianism, no matter the label you put on it. Attacking your federal strangle-hold over the minds of the children with competition that will help them achieve in life, I understand, is truly worrisome.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: LordMagnusKain

They also have a long history of high dropout rates, lower test scores, and under funding.

Give me a charter school with kids that, despite their situation, want to learn, and I?ll give you 100 students succeeding in life ware before you only had 10.

I see, destroy the family unit, make the state the parent and controller of the minds of our children. It?s obvious that the school, orphanage and foster care systems are doing such a good job of razing children, let?s get it started earlier for everyone!

Trying to have the state take over the individual is a common tactic among you who seek totalitarianism, no matter the label you put on it. Attacking your federal strangle-hold over the minds of the children with competition that will help them achieve in life, I understand, is truly worrisome.

What are you quoting, LMK?

 

[LordMagnusKain]

You just said they all liberals want to destroy the country.

most unwittingly perpetuate keeping an underclass of welfare dependent people, but the overall intent is their as is the end result: many poor people say poor because they are paid to and kepped down by the very programs that are their to ?help? them.

How can you possibly expect to have a constructive debate here if you use such an aggressive and arrogant tone?

Because pointing out the facts of the situation goes completely ignored, so better to be quoted with a bold faced truth. I also expect that someone can honestly say ?I don?t want to keep the poor poor? and take a look at what they are voting for and what the actual results are. Liberal thought is the wrong side of how to run a functional country and the only faith that defends that thought is the faith that both sides have ?good points? and thus siding with the most ?caring? side is what you?re doing. You are not.

Liberals no more want to promote a lower class dependent upon the government than conservatives want to create a new aristocratic class.

wealth passed down from one generation to the next so that your children do better than you and build on what you?ve done is part of the American dream.

Being paid to be poor and spooked by democrat lies about you starving in the street, and thus voting for them is, on the other hand, antithetical to what it is to work hard to carve out a place for yourself.

That person was defending the conservative view that charter schools are a good idea.

he was also summarizing a liberal argument against charter schools, one that I?ve yet to hear disagreement with.

but don't tell me that you believe that almost half the country under the leadership of Kerry would like to oppress the lower class like that.

no, you?ve been sold a bill of goods about helping your fellow man, while at the same time you refuse to accept ideas that will give your fellow man a hand up instead of a handout. You play the partisan because you don?t know any better than to play the partisan, you vote democrat because your brainwashed into thinking republicans would never want to help people reach their potential. Quite to the contrary, if even by open market standards is? beneficial to have the best education you can, the best divisions of labor you can, so that you can increase production. So even if we?re corporate whores only looking out for the big-guy, we still have a vested interest in helping people make more of themselves and provide more to the economy overall.

1) not supported at ALL. How can you make this statement?

I?ll admit, I only know about Texas, but here we have charter schools for specific reasons: mental retardation, becoming a teacher, becoming an engineer, becoming a doctor. And we allow those schools to form in the poorest and most under educated of locations. Here in Texas it?s working, quite well, to help those who are worst off in these locations do better.

possibly, but how is that any different from a regular school? The problem is the kids don't want to learn at all, not that they don't like the "charter" of the school.

disliking the particular charter, with a focused school, tends to lead to poorer grades for those that aren?t good at math, in an engineering chartered school, or don?t like biology in a medical school, and particularly the mentally handicapped schools test poorly, almost all of which are charter.

You just got done apoligizing on a differnt thread for a ridiculous comment like this. How can anyone take you serious when you clearly have no respect for anyone here?

tell me you don?t cater to the teachers unions who?s primary interest isn?t the students but more pay and more teachers.

Sometimes you post useful information worthy of debate, but this was pretty poor.

nah, I was out of line on this:

don?t want to bring focus drive and better meant to the poor.

but it?s quite true that the end-result are those effects, and if a higher up in the planning of your platform didn?t have this as an intended consequence, then it?s surely a very beneficial unintended consequence.

Does anyone, personally, want to hurt children here? Not on either side.

But the question of what?s more important: family or state
Ware do we get our social values: family or state
Who do we blame when things go wrong: family or state

Are essential to our various differences, I?m for individual liberty and responsibility, you believe ?society? and thus the state is to blame and can fix most of our problems.

 

[Gaard]

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.

Any significance to this?

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: chess9
Sandorski:

HUH?

They ARE 11th graders. You are confusing junior h.s. with high school juniors.

Take the green pill.

-Rober

My bad then. In these parts we have Juniors(Grade 7,8) and Seniors(Grade 11,12) High Schoolers. So what we have here is, failure to communicate.

 

[LordMagnusKain]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: LordMagnusKain

They also have a long history of high dropout rates, lower test scores, and under funding.

Give me a charter school with kids that, despite their situation, want to learn, and I?ll give you 100 students succeeding in life ware before you only had 10.

I see, destroy the family unit, make the state the parent and controller of the minds of our children. It?s obvious that the school, orphanage and foster care systems are doing such a good job of razing children, let?s get it started earlier for everyone!

Trying to have the state take over the individual is a common tactic among you who seek totalitarianism, no matter the label you put on it. Attacking your federal strangle-hold over the minds of the children with competition that will help them achieve in life, I understand, is truly worrisome.

What are you quoting, LMK?

Lol! You caught me :-D

I was seeing if quotes from ?see I told you so? the 1993 book by Rush Limbaugh would fly.

though the fact that charter schools tend to be in lower-income lower-parental involvement locations is a valid reason that they would have lower than average scores. Even so, they are usually much better than the other community schools.

I honestly don?t expect anyone to think about it, you?ll be against school choice because you have to pander to the teachers unions, and we?ll be for school choice because we believe competition helps the government become more efficient.

But keep in mind, this is one of the many issues that may well lose you the black vote.

 

[imported_tss4]

Originally posted by: LordMagnusKain

You just said they all liberals want to destroy the country.

most unwittingly perpetuate keeping an underclass of welfare dependent people, but the overall intent is their as is the end result: many poor people say poor because they are paid to and kepped down by the very programs that are their to ?help? them.

How can you possibly expect to have a constructive debate here if you use such an aggressive and arrogant tone?

Because pointing out the facts of the situation goes completely ignored, so better to be quoted with a bold faced truth. I also expect that someone can honestly say ?I don?t want to keep the poor poor? and take a look at what they are voting for and what the actual results are. Liberal thought is the wrong side of how to run a functional country and the only faith that defends that thought is the faith that both sides have ?good points? and thus siding with the most ?caring? side is what you?re doing. You are not.

Liberals no more want to promote a lower class dependent upon the government than conservatives want to create a new aristocratic class.

wealth passed down from one generation to the next so that your children do better than you and build on what you?ve done is part of the American dream.

Being paid to be poor and spooked by democrat lies about you starving in the street, and thus voting for them is, on the other hand, antithetical to what it is to work hard to carve out a place for yourself.

That person was defending the conservative view that charter schools are a good idea.

he was also summarizing a liberal argument against charter schools, one that I?ve yet to hear disagreement with.

but don't tell me that you believe that almost half the country under the leadership of Kerry would like to oppress the lower class like that.

no, you?ve been sold a bill of goods about helping your fellow man, while at the same time you refuse to accept ideas that will give your fellow man a hand up instead of a handout. You play the partisan because you don?t know any better than to play the partisan, you vote democrat because your brainwashed into thinking republicans would never want to help people reach their potential. Quite to the contrary, if even by open market standards is? beneficial to have the best education you can, the best divisions of labor you can, so that you can increase production. So even if we?re corporate whores only looking out for the big-guy, we still have a vested interest in helping people make more of themselves and provide more to the economy overall.

1) not supported at ALL. How can you make this statement?

I?ll admit, I only know about Texas, but here we have charter schools for specific reasons: mental retardation, becoming a teacher, becoming an engineer, becoming a doctor. And we allow those schools to form in the poorest and most under educated of locations. Here in Texas it?s working, quite well, to help those who are worst off in these locations do better.

possibly, but how is that any different from a regular school? The problem is the kids don't want to learn at all, not that they don't like the "charter" of the school.

disliking the particular charter, with a focused school, tends to lead to poorer grades for those that aren?t good at math, in an engineering chartered school, or don?t like biology in a medical school, and particularly the mentally handicapped schools test poorly, almost all of which are charter.

You just got done apoligizing on a differnt thread for a ridiculous comment like this. How can anyone take you serious when you clearly have no respect for anyone here?

tell me you don?t cater to the teachers unions who?s primary interest isn?t the students but more pay and more teachers.

Sometimes you post useful information worthy of debate, but this was pretty poor.

nah, I was out of line on this:

don?t want to bring focus drive and better meant to the poor.

but it?s quite true that the end-result are those effects, and if a higher up in the planning of your platform didn?t have this as an intended consequence, then it?s surely a very beneficial unintended consequence.

Does anyone, personally, want to hurt children here? Not on either side.

But the question of what?s more important: family or state
Ware do we get our social values: family or state
Who do we blame when things go wrong: family or state

Are essential to our various differences, I?m for individual liberty and responsibility, you believe ?society? and thus the state is to blame and can fix most of our problems.

How can you know my views without ever even asking me? You've made these neat little categories and clearly feel that you are correct on everything and could not possibly be wrong AND that anyone that does not agree with you on what topic must not agree with you on anything. Its really kind of sad.

What I find most amazing about you is that you are clearly above average intelligence yet you can't see something as abovoius as using such flaming rhetoric will only put off the potential moderate supporters. You take the time to write in a forum where you could influence people, yet you deliberately sabotage yourself over and over again. You could be so much more effective if you'd act a little humble and repsond in a matter that promotes a positive exchange of ideas.

 

[alchemize]

Homeschooling Co-ops pwn private, public, and charter schools. Nuff said