Opinions on charter schools
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"Sumbuny" IGNORETHISsumb...@cox.net
First off, I am *not* asking people here to do research for me on this subject. :-) I have to give a 3-5 minute presentation on charter schools, with 5 handouts, at the end of the month. I am not having much difficulty finding material. However, I have wondered what the general opinion here was on that subject.
I have not had any experience with charter schools, other than the one that is run by my community college (no more than 300 kids, from 10-12 grade.
When they graduate high school, they will also receive an ***ociate of the Arts degree, transferrable to any 4-year institution in the state). I have had several teenagers in many of my college cl***es, but often forget who is a charter high student and who is not <g>.
I just wanted to hear thoughts from those who have "been there".
Thanks!
Buny
"M. Kilgore" m...@spudsmkilgore.com
Charter Schools were an issue in Louisiana for a number of years when we didn't have them. Now that we have them, charter schools are still an issue due to fiscal malfeasance *and* their faulure to perform better than the public schools.
mark ...
"Sumbuny" IGNORETHISsumb...@cox.net
Are there not mechanisms in place to revoke the charter with such problems?
Or is it more of a case of hard to fix something once it is entrenched?
Buny
"M. Kilgore" m...@spudsmkilgore.com
Yes, there are mechanisms in place to revoke charters. Charters have been revoked. Further, it's not likely that new charters will be granted in future because of the bad behavior of those schools that had their charters revoked. The real "killer" for charter schools is that Louisana law requires student body of a charter school resemble the student body of the public schools in the area that the charter school serves - in other words, it's very hard to "cherry pick" a student body for a charter school. Without the ability to cherry pick students, it's hard to show an improvement over the public system.
mark
Alan Lichtenstein alanarl...@erols.com
NYC has recently moved to revoke the charter one of these failures and the school will close at the end of the academic year.
Alan
"Sumbuny" IGNORETHISsumb...@cox.net
I see what you mean...from what I have been reading, one of the aspects of charter is choice for the parents/students. If the school has to have the same demographics of the community, then there are limits placed on choice.
I.e., if the total demographics of the ones who choose the charter school does not match that of the community, then what happens to their choice? Do some not get in? Or others forced/coerced into attending the charter? Hard questions for those who make the rules, no?
Buny
"Sumbuny" IGNORETHISsumb...@cox.net
Thanks for the info...so the mechanisms are in place, and are used. I wonder if another company will step up, or if the students will be put back into the neighborhood "traditional" public school.
One thing I have noticed is that volatility. I live in an area that has rezoned schools every 3-4 years, and have friends that live on the edges of zones. Their kids have been shifted between schools a couple of times in their scholastic careers. I am wondering now how charter schools will impact this.
Buny
Alan Lichtenstein alanarl...@erols.com
Public schools will accept all comers, as they have always. What the parents of these students choose to do is not yet known.
I have done an informal study of Charter Schools in my locale. They are constituted by boards of parents, primarily activist parents, who have found a "middle." By creating a charter school, they effectively obtain the benefits of a private school, which they could not afford on their own, or which their children could not gain acceptance to, at public expense.
Of course, the above ***ertion is merely my opinion, but I feel circumstances warrant it.
I suspect they will not have any impact at all, given their selective nature. However, I really cannot speak to your zoning regulations, or its politics, both of which I know nothing about.
Alan
kle ...@aol.com (Kleyle)
Good question. As a fifth grade teacher, I have recently been filling out forms for a nearby charter school for several of my students. The first two students are very intelligent, well-behaved students with good support from their families. I filled out the form and gave the right answers because they were true, but in doing so I realized that I was seriously hurting the local middle school that wasn't blessed with a charter that allowed them to exclude.
Those two students would have been leaders, both on campus and in scoring for testing purposes. They will most certainly go to the charter.
On the other hand, I recently got the same fom for another student who is probably the most poorly behaved student in my cl***. I believe he has problems that could be addressed through drug therapy, but that therapy has only recently begun. As a result of years of neglect, he is way behind where he ought to be. I know the child to be very intelligent, but I know him to be highly disruptive, poorly socialized, and far below grade level in cl*** and on standardized tests. I am guessing that he won't be accepted to the charter school.
Therefore, the local middle school that lacks the charter to exclude will have a very big problem on its hands and the new charter school will have two delightful students. I imagine that in years to come we will see "studies" extolling their superior scores and, by implication, castigating the local school for its inferior scores. After all, the study will tell us, the students from the same demographic base; it's just that the non-charter middle school just just can't deliver.
Public education should not be funding magnets, charters, or any other exclusionary operations. If parents do not want their children attending truly public public schools, let them pay the price. Otherwise, we can make public schools work if we would stop skimming off the top.
When the middle school in question loses those students, they also lose two very active and involved families.
As ever,
"Sumbuny" IGNORETHISsumb...@cox.net
I was considering the charters of these schools (which tend to run 4-5 years). If a school is not producing, and its charter not renewed, then the students will end up back at the neighborhood schools. It would be similar to the zone changes in my area (after about 5 years, students are moved from one elementary school to another...in another 5 years, that neighborhood might be zoned back to the previous school). If a charter school fails to renew charter, and a year or so p***es before another company gains a charter....wouldn't students be constantly (OK, every few years at most) be shifting schools? Continuity is important to kids (and adults! <G>) since it contributes to a feeling of safety, of belonging--this would be negative.
Not to mention the havoc of budgets and planning....
This has been an interesting thread...thanks for all who have been participating. It is giving me more areas to research and to think about.
Buny
sf nob...@pipeline.com
On Tue, 9 Mar 2004 16:43:19 -0600, "M. Kilgore" Yahoooo! One district has backbone.
Practice safe eating - always use condiments
sf nob...@pipeline.com
Just guessing? Or is your opinion based on experience?
Practice safe eating - always use condiments
"M. Kilgore" m...@spudsmkilgore.com
Charter Schools in Louisiana are not about choice and were never presented as being about choice. In my state, charter school supporters argued that they could take the same students along with the same money and produce results that surp***ed public schools if only charter schools were released from being required to follow all the rules that the public schools had to follow. No one, at least to my knowledge, is forced to attend a charter school even if their not attending the charter school would cause the charter school not to meet the demographic requirement. In other words, charter schools must make every effort to meet the demographic requirements and must favor demographics over other indicators.
The requirement that charter school demographics match the public school demographics is a reasonable requirement as it allows reasonable comparisons to be made between the two forms of schools. Maybe an example will help.
Consider, for instance, Orleans Parish. As I recall, somewhere around 93-94% of the public school students in Orleans Parish are Black. Orleans Parish schools are also in some pretty deep doo-doo acountability-wise. Most White students in the parish apparently go to private schools. So... lets start a charter school. Where do we get our students? Without the requirement that the demographics match, we can draw students from the private schools and effectively create a voucher-school equivalent. Now, we're not only cherry picking, but we're cherry picking from a group that's already been cherry picked from a larger group. Chances are that our charter school will succeed even if we do nothing different from the public schools, except for the cherry picking, of course.
I suppose one could argue that the private schools do a better job. Maybe.
We don't know one way or another in Louisiana since private schools aren't publicly accountable. One can look at the subgroup scores for Orleans Parish Schools, however, and see that non-Black students do much better than the Black ones under exactly the same conditions at school (same schools and teachers, after all.) If we are allowed to set entry requirements that favor the white students, then we still get to cherry pick such that our charter school is pretty much guaranteed success even if we do nothing else that's different from the public schools. Meanwhile, the public school(s) we cherry picked from will do worse because we've taken the "cream" ("cream" is relative, of course!) of their crop away.
On another hand, though, the subgroup scores tell us that if we match the demographics of the public schools in the area, then our charter school is pretty much doomed to failure before we even get it started, so what's the point? And that is the point - charter schools should be about improving education for all and not just a select few.
I probably don't have to point this out to you, but if we allow charter schools to cherry pick, then we increase the chances that spec ed kids won't get a seat in a charter school.
I should also mention that not all charter schools meet the demographic requirements due to their mission statements. That is to say, a charter school with a mission statement of "We will take kids that have an arrest record and educate them" is not likely to get very many arrest free students. The demographic requirements do require such a school to accept arrest-free students if doing so makes the charter school's student body more consistent with area public school bodies Interestingly, a number of charter schools were started with the mission of taking "failed" students and making them successful. That's a noble idea, but accountability requirements mean that the charter school has to start up fully engaged and there's not much time for fine tuning before the charter gets pulled for failure to perform. In other words, in Louisiana charter schools are not a place for experiments in education. If you say you can do it better than public schools given the same resources then Louisiana requires you to do better.
mark
"M. Kilgore" m...@spudsmkilgore.com
Well, it's the whole state and likely represents nothing more than serendipity. Charter schools are allowed to "reverse cherry pick," i.e., "give me all your failures and keep your good students," but such schools are still required to meet the accountability requirements all public schools must meet, so theres not much sense in starting a charter school that's all but guaranteed to lose is charter when its initial term is up.
mark
Bob LeChevalier loj...@lojban.org
lojbab
--
lojbab loj...@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, Founder, The Logical Language Group (Opinions are my own; I do not speak for the organization.) Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org
Alan Lichtenstein alanarl...@erols.com
If your school district has adequate space in its schools to accommodate all students, than all charter schools would do is reduce cl*** size.
Obviously, they would cause budgetary problems, and that's quite a different matter.
But as far as student mobility is concerned, your ***ertions are correct. But then again, that is a choice which the parents who send their children to charter schools make, the inherent risk supposedly considered. If those parents are not concerned with the possibility of loss of continuity, then the public at large should not be either.
If those students return to the public schools, they will have little impact, since the schools would have been able to accommodate them anyway.
Alan
con ...@aol.com.mado (Conase)
Charter schools are coming up way short Saturday, March 06, 2004 By Ken Thorbourne Jersey Journal staff writer Judging by the state's just-issued school report cards, charter schools - there are 11 in Hudson County - have a long way to go before they can considered models for the regular public schools they were intended to outperform.
Statewide, students in these publicly funded institutions did worse than their counterparts in regular public schools on six of the seven standardized exams that form the basis of the report card's test data analysis - in many instances, alarmingly worse.
For example, just 17 percent of charter school eighth-graders p***ed last year's math and language arts proficiency exams, compared to the 74 percent and 57 percent, respectively, of students in regular public schools who p***ed the math and English tests.
Charter high school students also made a poor showing, with just 53 percent p***ing the language arts tests and 42 percent p***ing the math.
On the same two exams, high school students enrolled in regular public schools notched an 80 percent p***ing rate on the language arts test and a 66 percent on the math exam.
In Hudson County, where there are nine charter schools in Jersey City and two in Hoboken, the pattern persists.
On three eighth-grade tests last year in English, math, and science, just one of the four charter schools with eighth-grade students - Soaring Heights Charter School in Jersey City - met the state average.
On only one of these tests - the eighth-grade English exam - did any of the other three schools exceed the Jersey City public school district's average of 56 percent p***ing.
Eighth-graders at the Golden Door Charter School in Jersey City p***ed this test at a 66 percent clip, an improvement of 16 percentage points over the previous year.
When it came to math, however, the Golden Door eighth-graders collapsed to a 14 percent p***ing rate, which still outdid eighth-graders at Liberty Charter School in Jersey City, where just 9 percent of students hurdled the exam.
Ken Carlson, a professor in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University who has studied charter schools in New Jersey and elsewhere, said he's found they're a mixed bag.
"Some are really good, some are really bad, and that's true nationally," said Carlson. "Results are all over the place. Some were shut down by the state."
"Sumbuny" IGNORETHISsumb...@cox.net
Reducing cl*** size is a big issue in Florida right now--seems that the voters approved an amendment to the state consistution limiting cl*** sizes (without also voting a way to pay for it)---IMHO, something that does *not* belong in the constitution, but that would be a whole 'nother post! <G> Shifting boundaries, and taking advantage of charter schools seems to be becoming far too common...and my part of the state does not have the severity of overcrowding as other parts (such as Miami and Tampa) have. A real concern is the students in a closing charter school coming back into the "regular" school system, which has been depending on the charters to help keep the numbers down.
Buny
"Sumbuny" IGNORETHISsumb...@cox.net
You have been sharing some great stuff, and I have been printing it for reference (ideas to research). Would you mind if I quote some of your stuff as a "John Doe" if I need the references? I would not do so without permission (even though using a pseudonym).
Buny
"Sumbuny" IGNORETHISsumb...@cox.net
Do you by any chance have a website cite for this, so I can use it directly?
If I do not have the actual cite, I cannot use it in my presentation.
Buny ...
"Sumbuny" IGNORETHISsumb...@cox.net
<G> Thanks...that is one of the sources I have, and it has now been "validated" by one of the regulars, that I am on the right track!
Buny ...
toto scarec...@wicked.witch
For BUNY, here's the URL and the full article.
http://www.nj.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-1/107856784862740.xml?j... Charter schools come up short Test scores lag state averages; yet some show great success Saturday, March 06, 2004 By Ken Thorbourne Journal staff writer Judging by the state's just-issued school report cards, charter schools - there are 11 in Hudson County - have a long way to go before they can considered models for the regular public schools they were intended to outperform.
Statewide, students in these publicly funded institutions did worse than their counterparts in regular public schools on six of the seven standardized exams that form the basis of the report card's test data analysis - in many instances, alarmingly worse.
For example, just 17 percent of charter school eighth-graders p***ed last year's math and language arts proficiency exams, compared to the 74 percent and 57 percent, respectively, of students in regular public schools who p***ed the math and English tests.
Charter high school students also made a poor showing, with just 53 percent p***ing the language arts tests and 42 percent p***ing the math.
On the same two exams, high school students enrolled in regular public schools notched an 80 percent p***ing rate on the language arts test and a 66 percent on the math exam.
In Hudson County, where there are nine charter schools in Jersey City and two in Hoboken, the pattern persists.
On three eighth-grade tests last year in English, math, and science, just one of the four charter schools with eighth-grade students - Soaring Heights Charter School in Jersey City - met the state average.
On only one of these tests - the eighth-grade English exam -
did any of the other three schools exceed the Jersey City public school district's average of 56 percent p***ing.
Eighth-graders at the Golden Door Charter School in Jersey City p***ed this test at a 66 percent clip, an improvement of 16 percentage points over the previous year.
When it came to math, however, the Golden Door eighth-
graders collapsed to a 14 percent p***ing rate, which still outdid eighth-graders at Liberty Charter School in Jersey City, where just 9 percent of students hurdled the exam.
Ken Carlson, a professor in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University who has studied charter schools in New Jersey and elsewhere, said he's found they're a mixed bag.
"Some are really good, some are really bad, and that's true nationally," said Carlson. "Results are all over the place. Some were shut down by the state." In New Jersey, the law permitting creation of charter schools p***ed in 1995 and the original 13 - including two in Hudson County - came on line in 1997.
Having mushroomed to 48 statewide - a growth-rate Carlson characterized as slow compared to other states - it remains undisputed that they have saved the state millions of dollars.
Unlike regular public school districts, which have either all or up to 40 percent of new construction paid for by the state, the charter schools must fend for themselves when it comes to finding facilities, using the per-pupil state allotments to lease or purchase space.
And their per-pupil state aid is 10 percent lower than that given the regular public schools.
In fact, the immense state funding the state's 30 poorest school districts - called Abbot districts - are receiving is skewing the state funding formula against them, charter school officials say. Hudson County has five Abbot districts.
Because the Abbotts receive so much "parity" money - state aid that brings them on par with the state's wealthiest districts -
school officials in these districts can pare their "program" budgets, from which the charter schools' 90 percent per pupil funding is calculated.
Some charter school officials attributed their students' test score difficulties to outside management companies they turned to for help to start their school. In many cases, these companies turned out to be better real estate agents than curriculum providers, officials said.
Karen Jones, the chief academic officer at Schomburg Charter School in Jersey City, said that come June, all ties with the New York City-based company responsible for building the school's Grand Street facility will be severed.
Jones, who took charge of the school in February 2003, said that as part of the agreement with the company her school has had to pay $54,000 a month rent. But the curriculum the company was supposed to provide to the school didn't keep pace with state standards.
Frank McCree, principal of Liberty Charter School in Jersey City, said much the same thing about a California-based company that ran the kindergarten-through-eighth-grade institution from September 1999 to April 2002.
"They just never complied with the state's curriculum," said McCree, by way of explaining the school's low test scores a year ago. "We have been operating on new revised curriculum.
Our test scores have gone up for two years, and this year we expect big gains." There were also examples of charter school success in Hudson County.
Every single fourth-grader at the Learning Community Charter School in Jersey City p***ed last year's literacy arts exam and 73 percent p***ed the math test, beating the state average by five percentage points.
Soaring Heights students in Jersey City posted impressive statistics. Ninety-five percent of its students p***ed the eighth-grade language and science exams, with 84 percent of its fourth-graders p***ing the English exam.
Elysian Charter School in Hoboken stood out with 83 percent of its fourth-graders conquering the language arts test and 80 percent p***ing in math.
"Our philosophy is to build on children's strengths," said Elysian principal Lydia Becker. "One of the best qualities here is every teacher here knows every child and we work together with the families to build a strong caring community." Test scores for C.R.E.A.T.E and University Academy charter high schools in Jersey City do not exist since this will be the first year their students will be tested.
Ken Thorbourne covers education and can be reached at kthor...@jjournal.com
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Dorothy There is no sound, no cry in all the world that can be heard unless someone listens ..
The Outer Limits
sf nob...@pipeline.com
On Tue, 9 Mar 2004 23:56:42 -0600, "M. Kilgore" Hmmm. Interesting concept, weird - but interesting.
Actually, I guess they probably mimic our continuation schools. Not sure why they would fail if they show improvement of new cl***es... <slapping forehead> Silly me!
NCLB doesn't take individual students into consideration.
Next year's 8th grade has to do better than last years 8th grade, no matter how low they begin the year.
+++++ Here's and aside....
Now that it's almost "testing time" - suddenly every SPED cl*** (we have 5) in my school is getting a #14 student.
Can you say "DUMPED so they won't bring scores down at their sending school"? Never mind my school has the largest "special day" SPED population in the district.... 5 cl***rooms worth, an overworked RSP (we could do better with an added .5), TWO speech therapists (who work mainly on language, not articulation), OT and PT, plus other truly itinerate services it.
AYP.... pffft. Practice safe eating - always use condiments
"M. Kilgore" m...@spudsmkilgore.com
I suppose it depends on how cynical you can be. One reason to build a school around non-performers is that "everyone will understand" if you take those non-performers and don't turn them into performers. We had a charter school in my neck of the woods shut down in 2002-3. According to the state board of education, the school, Right Step Academy, had a focus of "Serves 9th grade students who have evidenced academic and discipline problems." Serving only 9th graders is an interesting choice since high-stakes accountability testing takes place at grades 4,8, and 10+ - that is to say, the school wouldn't have to give any accountability tests. Normally a school that does not give one of the high-stakes tests is "paired" with another school (usually the one that gets the students from the original school) in the district. Right Step, however, wasn't able to get their charter approved by the local school district, so Right Step was chartered by the State Board and, therefore, effectively was in a one-school district of its own. Neat, huh? So why close the school? The state did manage to close it for academic reasons, but that wasn't the end of it. This from one of the local papers ("School audit finds financial misdealings,"Shreveport Times, 10/14/2003): "A legislative audit of a failed Shreveport charter school shows that the school organizer paid himself and his family more than $300,000.
Legislative auditors began looking into Right Step Academy of Excellence earlier this year after a Times investigation of school financial records uncovered evidence of questionable transactions. The audit, released Monday, found that Ronnie K. Banks Sr. paid himself $230,505 in salary, bonuses and contract payments during the 34 months Right Step operated. His wife and two sons were paid $82,315 in the same period. " That's the gist of our accountability program, as well. I'm not predisposed to give charter school too many breaks, though, since the politcal argument was that charter schools would do better than the "normal" public schools.
'Course, we don't allow no dumping in Louisiana.<G> mark
Alan Lichtenstein alichtenst...@erols.com
In consideration of what you post, then it does appear that you have a problem. Apparently, the State was using the Charter Schools as a means to fulfill the Constitutional Requirement of lowered cl*** size, without additional expenditures for capital expense. A very bad business. If you vote something, you have to pay for it. Apparently the State of Florida is attempting to tell its citizens that there is indeed something called a 'free lunch.' As far as your other statement regarding the insertion in your state's constitution regarding cl*** size, I agree with you. I believe that to be a proper subject for collective bargaining, not for legislation.
Alan
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