The New York Times article that pointed to the flaws in charter schools is generating more heat in the blogosphere. Dan has a link-fest on his post on the topic today. Check it out to read the blogosphere’s reaction.
William G. Howell, Paul E. Peterson, and Martin R. West dispute those finding in today’s Wall Street Journal. They write that charter schools take in far more minority students than public schools, and are usually only set up in areas that are rife with problems. In addition, most charter schools are just starting up and face a range of problems that plague any new start up. It is unfair to evaluate them and their students so early on.
I’m not going to get into a critique of the numbers here. Howell et al. are pros at that. Instead, I’ll respond to Wendy’s comment, which deals more with the politics of education. Why are bloggers so hot to defend charter schools? Doesn’t this study just indicate that it’s the student population, rather than the teachers, who determine the success of a school? Aren’t there lots examples of innovation happening at public school, too? Good questions.
Bloggers are hot to attack these numbers partially because of ideology. A good number of bloggers are libertarian, Friedman supporters. And bloggers just tend to like any idea that seems to challenge the status quo. Even non-libertarians, like Harry Brighouse of Crooked Timber and myself, like the idea of charter schools and even vouchers because they may hold some opportunities for urban populations who are not being served properly in city schools.
Yes, environmental factors have a huge impact on performance. Ethnicity, location, and poverty result in huge differences in test scores for a variety of reasons. First, let me just say that that is a travesty. Second, it doesn’t explain everything. Schools in poor areas that are administered well outperform other schools in the same area with the same students. Third, this kind of thinking can lead to a certain fatalism that is destructive. (I have been guilty of this sort of thinking from time to time.) Why make any changes or increase funding, if it makes no difference anyway.
And, yes, in some instances public schools do great things. Particularly, in white suburban school districts where the parents are involved, funding is not an issue, the administration is on the ball, and the population is homogeneous. There are also lots of instances where public schools could be doing a better job.
Let me throw out another question. Why are the unions, the New York Times, and others so happy to tear down charter schools. There are many examples of good charter schools. The KIPP Academy in the Bronx is doing a great job working with the toughest, urban population. There is no evidence that charter schools syphon money from public schools or detrimentally affect their performance. There is plenty of room to have two forms of schools happening side by side. The unions and the Times have their other reasons for tearing down charter schools.
Meanwhile, check out this proposal by Kerry for providing merit pay for teachers. The New Republic calls his proposal “quietly radical.”
The plan focuses almost single-mindedly (and wisely) on recruiting good teachers with a whole new pot of federal money. The catch is, most of the cash can only be used for standardized, merit-based salary increases, and only in concert with a streamlined process for firing bad teachers.
Sound interesting?
UPDATE: More links and thought on charter schools from Brayden King.
Apt. 11d 
Peter Levine also makes some interesting comments on this study and charter schools generally on his blog. I’m sympathetic to a lot of what he says. Charter schools aren’t (or at least shouldn’t be) about simply raising test scores by whatever means necessary, much less fulfilling some sort of libertarian educational principle; they’re about expanding access, opportunity and empowerment in a pluralistic and (tragically) class-divided society.
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Though I’m certainly no expert in why people don’t like charter schools, the impression I’ve gotten (being the child of a public school teacher and a public college teacher) is that charter schools (/ voucher programs) reduce the funding of the public schools due to reducing the enrollment at the schools (since funding is dictated by headcount), thus reducing the educational possibilities for all.
The other impression that I’ve gotten is that charter school curricula are not as regulated as public school curricula, even though they are partially funded by the public, thus allowing possibly ineffective pedagogies or “bad” ideologies to flourish.
Again, I’ve (regrettably) done very little research into this myself; I should do more. I’d be interested to hear more about the data showing that charter schools don’t reduce school funding and performance.
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“Second, it doesn’t explain everything. Schools in poor areas that are administered well outperform other schools in the same area with the same students. Third, this kind of thinking can lead to a certain fatalism that is destructive. (I have been guilty of this sort of thinking from time to time.) Why make any changes or increase funding, if it makes no difference anyway.”
1. Schools in poor areas that are administered well do not outperform schools in well-off areas, do they? Of course a good program can be poorly administered. The bad administrators need to be eliminated. I’d like to see, instead of children being moved around from school to school, the administrators being moved. Maybe it’s because I have a 2 year old and a 5 year old who need security and stability, but the idea of being told to move my children to different schools every year because theirs isn’t “performing” well scares the hell out of me.
2. I don’t think fatalism should drive education policy. I know we’re all weak enough to give into it, but that’s not a reason to make policy that way. It’s a little too close to Laura Bush’s comments (deserving of the mocking they received on TDS) that since we won’t have a cure for Alzheimer’s soon, we shouldn’t give people false hope by federally funding stem cell research. That’s the kind of sense that’s not.
Teachers distrust the charter school movement because it is seen as a trojan horse, a way to take funding away from schools, making teachers’ jobs much more difficult, and funding religious schools that privilege ideology over knowledge. Until the ties between charter school advocacy and right-wing attempts to destroy the public school system are cut, teachers, as a whole, will never fully support the charter school movement. (Of course there are a few here and there, and there are some who are trying to make it into what they believe it can be, independent of the politicization.)
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Charter schools
I’m trying to find it in me to care at all about the recent NYT article comparing charter schools and public schools. In honor of this post I have gone and read the article itself and I still find it hard to work myself up.
But for you I’ll d…
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For another perspective on what the study shows, see this entry
http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/002596.html?entry=2596
on the blog Gene Expression.
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Aren’t most charter schools technically public schools?
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>Why are bloggers so hot to defend charter schools?
Wrong question. It should be “why are ideologically rabid right wing bloggers so hot to defend charter schools.”
Put that way, of course, the question answers itself.
These folks are deeply invested in “government, unions, bad; anything non-government, good.” And they love to complain about the “government” schools run by “the greedy, all powerful unions” and what a terrible job they are doing.
But now that the charter schools return some questionable results in comparison with those “government” schools, they squeel “Wait a second. You have to look at environment. At socio-economic levels. At race. At background.” All of which can be relevant, of course, but all of which are ignored by the usual right wing rhetoric about “failing schools”.
Honest folk would say that teaching kids is not easy. That whether in a charter school or a “government” school, teachers work hard and aren’t compensated as well as they should be. That it is difficult to get results in poor neighborhoods that are as good as results common in rich neighborhoods, but that teachers throughout the country are trying hard to get better results. That new teachers, particularly, need substantial support and assistance, but that ‘education’ classes, as terrible as they might be, do teach skills and techniques that may be useful in a classroom, particularly for first timers.
Oh yes: That No Child Left Behind, without funding, is a negative to our school systems.
And, above all, be it a “government school” or a “charter school”, our schools need our support because, after all, they are populated with our children.
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