According to a New York Times article today
(2004 August 17), charter schools performed significantly worse
than traditional schools in a nationwide intense study. The data
was sliced and diced many ways -- by ethnicity, socioeconomic
status, region, etc. -- and "[i]n virtually all instances,
the charter students did worse than their counterparts in regular
public schools." The report was released with uncharacteristically
little fanfare and no emphasis, "buried in mountains of
data the Education Department released without public announcement". |
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What's goinig on here? Well, charter schools have been the
darlings of the right (including the current Administration)
for some time, the panacea to correct for the "institutionalized
failure" of
the public school. Inspired in part by free market dogma and
in part
by instinctive
revulsion
against public school teachers (often seen as noticeably
liberal), charter schools were supposed to offer havens of sanity
where local control and market principles would combine to ensure
high quality. Supporters have contended for years, without evidence,
that students in charter schools would perform better, faster,
than those "trapped" in traditional public schools. |
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It was a wonderful vision that provided fiery inspiration to
many a screed. Sadly, then the data came in. The take-no-prisoners
standardized testing
movement
used
to insist
that scores be simply compared, not explained. Now all of a sudden,
it's important that we "adjust for many different
variables
to
get
a sense of
what
the
effects
of charter schools are" (Robert Lerner, federal commissioner
for education statistics). Scores must be placed in context,
with consideration for the economic and academic
background
of
the
students surveyed. If these excuses sound familiar, it's because
they are the ones that charter supporters have always claimed
public school backers invoke without justification. |
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But at least charter schools are models of private oversight
of education, right? Well, not so much. From the same Times article,
"Around the country, more than 80 charter schools were forced
to close, largely because of questionable financial dealings
and poor performance". It seems it isn't quite so simple to run
a school for advancement and profit at the same time. |
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I don't deny that American education faces a lot of problems,
and no one could contend that the public school system is perfect
or that it meets the needs of all its students fully. There are
legitimate issues of centralized incompetence, poor oversight,
unethusiastic educators, and simple mismanagement. But now we
see that these same concerns afflict the silver bullet of charter
schools. Maybe it's time to re-examine public schols rather than
-- as No Child Left Behind encourages -- give up on them. There's
a hard lesson in this first comprehensive comparision, and it's
worth learning: |
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Education is hard and expensive. |
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Until we come to grips with that reality, all of our
schools -- private, public, charter -- will continue to underperform. |
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-=- Bernard HP Gilroy |
2004 August 17 |
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