A new study seems to confirm what many traditional public school officials have been saying for years about student performance in charter schools: when all things are equal, traditional public schools and charters perform about the same.
Forward Institute, a Wisconsin public policy organization, compared the Milwaukee school district’s state accountability report cards to those of the Milwaukee district charters and 2R privately managed charters.
A combination of lower truancy and poverty rates, as well as fewer students with disabilities, gave the charters an advantage over the Milwaukee Public Schools. Both charters also hired more experienced and qualified teachers.
The report card scores of the charters appeared higher until they were adjusted to account for truancy, poverty, and teacher experience. Once adjusted, students in the charter schools didn’t perform any better than those in traditional public schools.
Chronic truancy is the most adverse factor impacting student performance in Milwaukee Public Schools, according to the study.
The Wisconsin education system is often cited as an important one to watch, especially after the contentious election of Republican Governor Scott Walker. The governor ran a campaign that was hostile to teachers in traditional public schools and supportive of charter schools.
The Wisconsin study probably won’t surprise many teachers and administrators working in urban public schools. But it does underscore the relationship between truancy and poverty in urban school districts, and how the two issues impact student performance.
As more parents opt out of the Milwaukee Public School system in favor of charters, MPS will see higher concentrations of poor students whose educational needs are costlier, according to the study.
This article appears in Feb 12-18, 2014.
No doubt, depending on your perspective on charters, you can find a study that ‘adjusts’ the data to suit your hypothesis.
On the point about the status quo’s excuse du jour: student truancy… Is student attendance a cause or effect of good schools? Common sense (and a ton of research) says that truancy goes down when student engagement goes up. And charters–unlike traditional schools–have a strong incentive to engage students. Without happy students, they go out of business.
Charter schools began as laboratory schools. Why should we be so quick to discount their success? Shouldn’t we instead try to understand–and god forbid, replicate in traditional schools–the conditions that have resulted in some charter’s higher student attendance and achievement? And note I said “some charters”, not “all”.
And while we’re at it, how about some investigative reporting on the RCSD’s so-called ‘truancy campaign’ that has given the district a steady stream of publicity for the last 2 years. Reducing truancy in a sustained way requires more than the superintendent visiting truants’ homes ( with the TV crews in tow). Has the district done any evaluation of this signature program? Have schools met their attendance goals? Do they even have goals in their School Improvement Plans?
For all the fanfare, we should be seeing results by now, or at least asking for them.
The relevency of this politically motivated “study” seems strained at best. If there is no damning news about charter schools here, must we now seek it out in Milwaukee?
1) Charter schools live and die by the state laws governing them. Across the country, there is great variety in the effectiveness of charter authorizing laws. Not all state charter laws (and by extension, not all charter schools) are created equal. Therefore, there is flawed logic in drawing conclusions about NY charters based on national studies, or those focused on a different state. Charter schools in NYS and Rochester consistently outperform their host districts…the margin of outperformance only grows when factoring for poverty. This has been the case for years.
2) Why on earth would a study adjust for “teacher experience”? If a charter school does a better job at recruiting and retaining quality teachers, then that is clearly a determining factor in their outcomes. Punishing a school for putting a premium on teacher quality is absurd.
3) Controlling for truancy is also fraught with problems when comparing schools. Milwaukee charter schools may have lower truancy rates simply because they are better at controlling the problem, so why punish them for a potentially more effective approach?
Sure, those of us who have an interest or work in urban education are not surprised that poverty and truancy adversely impact student learning. Examples of urban schools that defy the trend dramatically include many of Rochester’s own charter schools.
I question how one can believe that charters have the capacity to hire “more experienced” teachers when they traditionally offer lower salaries than unionized districts. NYS sets the requirements for all certified teachers, we all tend to graduate from the same teaching programs, take the same certification test and attend the same professional developments whether we are suburban, urban. or rural.
Many charters have teaching staffs with 0-5 years of teaching experience, teachers who are newly certified teachers or are not certified at all because they have the flexibility to allow teachers to teach out of their certification areas; a luxury that non-charters do not have.
In the case of our local region, young, inexperienced teachers cut from public districts because of seniority rights tend to end up in local charter schools if they choose to continue teaching at all. Even still, charters tend to have higher rates of teacher turnover. Partly, based on what I have heard from charter school teachers is that they are forced to work longer hours which negatively impacts the lives of their own children & families and they have to constantly reapply for their jobs. I would encourage reporters to find some of those teachers who have left charters after one or two years and ask them why they leave.
The only true comparison would be for a charter school to take over a “failing” public school and to keep the exact same students at the school. Unless the charter school could expel students, there would be zero difference in results. Charter schools have a huge advantage of receiving higher achieving students bc parents have to take the initiative to apply. When parents apply, it generally means they are invested in their child’s education which is a key factor in a child’s success.
A Google search (try it!) yields some interesting (but unsurprising) insights about the ideological agenda of this outfit and its “chair”. It’s all about left-wing “messaging” to indoctrinate the public to favor “critical progressive policies” — especially fighting against Gov. Walker’s bold and successful reforms. [There’s even an appearance by George Lakoff — you can’t make up this stuff!]