Charter Schools: The NEA position and a few links to reports and data

[lutefisk]

With all the fast and loose references to "research", it might be good to look at a few reports on charter schools. Just looking at the NAEP 2003 Pilot Study, for example, shows the claims made by some regarding student performance in charter schools made by some need to be looked at in context and qualified.

And I agree with the NEA position that, "Private schools should not be allowed to convert to public charter schools, and private for-profit entities should not be eligible to receive a charter". Charter schools should be 100% public schools with at least the same percentage of licensed teachers (employed directly by local school districts) with no more non-public entity involvement than public schools in general. I am well aware of the political right's ongoing campaign to open up public education to the "free market" and that if they succeed it's the end of public education and more. The fact that there is too much private involvement means that there needs to be much stronger regulation and careful, thoughtful discussion, not that we need to throw out the idea of public charter schools.


First, The NEA Position:

Charter schools are publicly funded elementary or secondary schools that have been freed from some of the rules, regulations, and statutes that apply to other public schools, in exchange for some type of accountability for producing certain results, which are set forth in each charter school's charter.

NEA believes that charter schools and other nontraditional public school options have the potential to facilitate education reforms and develop new and creative teaching methods that can be replicated in traditional public schools for the benefit of all children. Whether charter schools will fulfill this potential depends on how charter schools are designed and implemented, including the oversight and assistance provided by charter authorizers.

NEA's Policy on Charter Schools

State laws and regulations governing charter schools vary widely. NEA's state affiliates have positions on charter schools that are appropriate to the situation in their states. NEA's policy statement sets forth broad parameters, and minimum criteria by which to evaluate state charter laws. For example:

* A charter should be granted only if the proposed school intends to offer an educational experience that is qualitatively different from what is available in traditional public schools.
* Local school boards should have the authority to grant or deny charter applications; the process should be open to the public, and applicants should have the right to appeal to a state agency decisions to deny or revoke a charter.
* Charter school funding should not disproportionately divert resources from traditional public schools.
* Charter schools should be monitored on a continuing basis and should be subject to modification or closure if children or the public interest is at risk.
* Private schools should not be allowed to convert to public charter schools, and private for-profit entities should not be eligible to receive a charter.
* Charter schools should be subject to the same public sector labor relations statutes as traditional public schools, and charter school employees should have the same collective bargaining rights as their counterparts in traditional public schools.

http://www.nea.org/home/16332.htm

Results From the NAEP 2003 Pilot Study

While charter schools are similar to other public schools in many respects, they differ in several important ways, including the makeup of the student population and their location. For example, in comparison to other public schools, higher percentages of charter school fourth-grade students are Black and attend schools in central cities.

Thus, when comparing the performance of charter and other public school students, it is important to compare students who share a common characteristic. For example, in mathematics, fourth-grade charter school students as a whole did not perform as well as their public school counterparts. However, the mathematics performance of White, Black, and Hispanic fourth-graders in charter schools was not measurably different from the performance of fourth-graders with similar racial/ethnic backgrounds in other public schools.

In reading, there was no measurable difference in performance between charter school students in the fourth grade and their public school counterparts as a whole. This was true, even though, on average, charter schools have higher proportions of students from groups that typically perform lower on NAEP than other public schools have. In reading, as in mathematics, the performance of fourth-grade students with similar racial/ethnic backgrounds in charter schools and other public schools was not measurably different.

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/studies/charter/2005456.asp


Two more worthwhile links:

http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/choice/pcsp-final/execsum.html

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d055.pdf

[NYC_SKP]

1. Charter Schools tend to be smaller and nurture stronger relationships.

One element often missed by hysterical critics of public charter schools is the matter of school size.
Smaller schools tend to foster stronger relationships among parents, teachers and administrators.
As a student, I always preferred smaller schools to larger schools with hundreds of teachers and thousands of students.

I wonder how parents feel generally about this feature. :shrug:

As in past years, charter schools continued to be small schools. In fact, a high percentage of charter schools enrolled fewer than 200 students. Newly created charter schools especially continued to enroll, on average, fewer students than other public schools. This tendency towards small school size may reflect a desire on the part of charter school founders and parents for structuring their schools in a way that enables them to provide intimate, nurturing school communities.

* Charter schools tend to enroll, on average, fewer students than all public schools. During the 1998-99 school year, the median number of students in charter schools was 137, compared to a median of 475 in all public schools.

* Similar to data reported in previous years, in 1998-99 more than 3 times as many charter schools as compared to other public schools enrolled fewer than 200 students (65 percent and 17 percent respectively). Nearly 4 times as many charter schools as compared to other public schools enrolled fewer than 100 students (35 percent and 9 percent respectively).

* Newly created charter schools were especially likely to be smaller schools than other public schools, with a median enrollment of 128. Charter schools that were pre-existing public schools had a median enrollment of 368, much closer to the median enrollment of all public schools.

* Only 8 percent of charter schools enrolled more than 600 students, as opposed to 35 percent of all public schools. And only 1 percent of charter schools enrolled more than 1,000 students, as compared to 11 percent of all public schools.

* Few newly created schools enrolled large numbers of students, with only 10 schools, slightly more than 1 percent, enrolling more than 1,000. Pre-existing public and all public schools each had approximately 10 percent of their schools enrolling more than 1,000 students. Since the Study's last report, the median size of newly created charter schools increased from 111 to 128.

http://www.ed.gov/pubs/charter4thyear/b1.html

[kwassa]

2. Smaller schools can only offer less diversity in class course offerings.

that is the downside of smallness. Less diversity of teachers and students in the total number of voices heard.

Many large public schools are also subdividing into various separate acadamies inside their own buildings. And class size is probably more important than school size.

[NYC_SKP]

3. True, and that's why they tend to specialize.

There is room in the world for different types of schools- large with separate academies and small independents.

Too often, the large ones are like factories, and students lost in the works.

Some kids like this, I never did. I chose a small college with a graduating class of 20 because I was not interested in large campuses.

The charter schools I work with all have a specialty, agriculture, technology, performing arts.

Many large schools are simply unable to provide the level of service that specialty schools provide.

But, there is room for both models, it doesn't need to be all of one or all of another.

:patriot:

[kwassa]

5. I went to a smaller college and regretted it.

I went to a prestigious art school, which is full of individual specialties of all kinds, but didn't nurture the non-art part of me. In retrospect, I wish that I had attended a large university with a good art department, as my interests were much broader than the school I attended could meet.

and a small school with large class sizes won't help anyone get better service. I think class size is more of a determinant on that.

[tonysam]

4. There is NO Evidence at All These Schools are Better.

There are a lot of bad charter schools, schools with quite a fraud and little oversight.

"Charter schools" are just the right's attempt to destroy public education altogether by peddling a false "competitive" model which doesn't apply any kind of governmental agency because they are NOT in it for profit.