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February 10, 2009
Charter school principal: I don’t “cream” my students. Do you?
Among those who have commented on Elizabeth’s post about journalist Jay Mathews’ seven KIPP myths are one of the charter school chain’s most vocal critics; a graduate of a KIPP school in Philadelphia; and Mathews himself. It’s a vibrant discussion and one you should check out.
One topic of debate is whether KIPP schools “cream” students — that is, whether the students who enter their lotteries are better prepared academically or socially, thus priming the schools to outperform their local competitors. In the comments section of Elizabeth’s post, Seth Andrew, the head of Harlem’s Democracy Prep Charter School, argues that other public schools are far more guilty than charters of creaming. He writes:
Traditional Public Schools “cream” far more than charter schools throughout New York. I attended NYC Public schools from grade k-12, and I always took a test before being enrolled. The NYC middle school process evaluates students by their test scores, grades, attendance, and even has parent interviews for a number of traditional public schools. Whether it’s great traditional public schools like FDA, Bronx Science, or Anderson, that require specific entry requirements or G&T tests, or traditional schools that select based on other factors, traditional public schools are far more guilty of “creaming” (both in terms of agressiveness and quantity of students effected) than charters could ever be. We have a legal mandate to enroll by a random lottery.
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February 10th, 2009 4:49 pm
With all due respect, that’s nonsense. We don’t “cream” students. At 250% capacity, we take every neighborhood kid who walks through the door. I’ve got 4 new students this week, and they are ELLs. My students, in fact, are 100% ELLs.
To compare the small group of elite schools with the overwhelming majority–”regular” schools like the one in which I teach–is preposterous.
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February 10th, 2009 8:39 pm
It sounds like Seth is referring specifically to magnet and “gifted” programs. They are indeed all over the DOE, but the practice is illegal among charter schools. It sounds like Seth is saying, “Care to explain that?”
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February 10th, 2009 10:20 pm
NYC charter schools enroll far lower percentages of our highest need students — ELL and special ed students — than the average NYC public school. You can look it up. this is true of the new small schools as well; but even more so for charter schools.
The process by which charter schools and small schools do better than our regular public schools is rather simple: enroll higher-performing students, and offer them better learning conditions, including smaller classes, more tutoring, and other advantages.
There’s no mystery here; what the mystery is how they manage to propound grandiose myths to account for their relative success.
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February 10th, 2009 10:32 pm
Every charter school is different, and you really ought to visit more charter schools before you make these claims. Perhaps you could do some visiting and report on specific cases - I would bet that some charter school operators would take you up on an offer to informally review them.
Some charters actually seek out disadvantaged children (check out Opportunity CS, which has a 48% special education population) or Wildcat Academy CS (designed for dropouts) or Haven Academy CS (which works with NY Foundling for a huge - between 30 and 70% - foster care population).
For other charters, in my experience, the special education rates are low because they are so slow to refer kids to the CSE. Unlike every district public school in which I have worked, they have a fully functioning child study team that puts in all of the interventions that IDEA requires before deciding to refer. For many kids, that (and a strong school culture with high expectations) that’s enough, and they never have to get the point of being labeled “disabled.” Voila - same kids, lower special education rate.
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February 11th, 2009 12:23 am
I don’t most would argue that creaming is inherently bad. That the specialized high schools, for example, do this is not an indictment of them. The problem is when a school that creams is compared to one that doesn’t. We don’t ask why students who are in gifted programs outperform those who are not because the answer is self-evident.
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February 11th, 2009 1:19 am
Watch this space for a more extended discussion of creaming sometime soon.
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February 11th, 2009 8:04 am
A key to school success is parents with “human capital,” parents, regardless of income, who seek out the best school for their kids, are involved in the school, interact w/ the teachers and schools. By their very nature Charter Schools attract this segment of parents … Charter Schools vigorous “advertise” throughtout their communities, this process guarantees that “human capital” parents will be the applicants. Schools side by side in communities of poverty attract different parents … and … unfortunately … Charter Schools are not transparent on either budgets or student data … for example, per capita student costs (many Charter Schools “fund raise extensively to provide lower class size) and force out misbehaving students ,,, mybee the NYS Charter Law should correct this …
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February 11th, 2009 9:48 am
Actually the law was recently amended to require good faith efforts to attract and retain comparable percentages of ELL and SpEd students for charter schools, and as public schools their budget data is available. I would caution against the overall generalization of “charter schools” a charter is a vehicle and really holds little content itself but is given content by the planning team and then the staff. So, yes there are charters that underrepresent special needs populations, and there are those that seek them out and overrepresent them (Autism Charter, Opportunity, and John Lavelle Prep- anticipated in 2009). There are also schools that explicitly embrace a special ed co-teach model (DREAM) that have begun to become magnets for special needs students. But yes, there are also schools with ridiculously low populations. And also, yes, there is often a difference between charter parents and some subset of other parents (those that dont engage in any school choice activity), and so its not really an apple to apples comparison. (however those boring enough to read further should read caroline hoxby’s ongoing study results on progress of students who lottery in and lottery out of charters– which is apples to apples) And research on choice shows that people (even moreso among minority communities) make choices based on informal information networks (families, friends, faith based institutions) so to the extent that schools succesfully market in those communities they will attract those families, if they dont they are less likely to. On the other hand I was at one of the alternative population charters and the principal showed me a stack of files referred by a neighboring school, all with IEPs. And charters cannot give any ability based admissions preference. So its very complicated, but yes charters, in general need to do much better in serving at risk populations, but so does everyone else.
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February 11th, 2009 11:19 am
An interesting subset of this conversation would be:
* What are the dimensions on which one would define creaming? (ELL status, Special Education status, prior academic achievement, some nebulous measure of parent motivation or involvement)
* What data points are publicly available to suggest whether neighborhood district schools or charter schools are doing so?
I’m interested to hear how Hoxby addressed this question, if she did, but the Hoover Institute at Stanford University is also doing a national study of charter schools through their CREDO program. They collect data from the schools they are studying that include parent education level, job status, number of books in the home, computer/internet access at home, etc.
Without this kind of data, and given the variety of design and origins of charter schools, I question whether any of us, even those in the field every day, have the perspective to fully answer the question, “Do charter schools cream?”
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February 11th, 2009 12:25 pm
This is so self-evident that I can’t even believe anyone has the chutzpah to argue:
As Peter says: “A key to school success is parents with “human capital,” parents, regardless of income, who seek out the best school for their kids, are involved in the school, interact w/ the teachers and schools. By their very nature Charter Schools attract this segment of parents…”
It’s just not possible to debate that with sincerity unless one honestly lives in a bubble.
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February 11th, 2009 3:23 pm
Again, the notion that public schools are “creaming” is preposterous, as evidenced by the fact the person making the argument chooses to focus one only the elite schools, which are a very tiny percentage of schools.
I understand charters don’t take all applicants, as space is limited. Unfortunately, that makes no difference whatsoever in public schools filled to bursting and still taking walk-ins. Show me a charter school that takes new kids while it’s at 250% capacity and I’ll show you an administration that ought to be tossed out on its ear.
Actually, that’s a fair description of Tweed.
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February 11th, 2009 3:24 pm
Like I said to Leonie, you need to visit more charter schools. It’s not so self-evident based on your assumptions. In fact, as the DOE is siting charter schools in DOE buildings, it is talking about getting charters to change their target population to be the zone kids for that building. So a charter would be a “neighborhood school.”
Try talking to a charter school social worker, and see if you’ll agree that charters disproportionately attract motivated, savvy parents. It’s not necessarily true!
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February 11th, 2009 3:30 pm
Leonie, Caroline, Peter, and NYC Educator,
What do you all think of the recent randomized assignment study in Boston that controlled for all of the differences that you are concerned with? (I discuss it at http://curious2.typepad.com/curious2/2009/01/unreasonable-doubt.html.)
Ken
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February 11th, 2009 3:58 pm
Actually, Kitchen Sink, I don’t need to visit charter schools. Unlike you, apparently, I need to go to work every day.
Your response, as usual, had nothing whatsoever to do with my comment.
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February 11th, 2009 4:25 pm
(I was talking to Caroline…I didn’t see your post as I was posting mine…and I need a mental break from work too now and then…)
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February 11th, 2009 4:40 pm
OK, sorry for the mistake.
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February 11th, 2009 5:54 pm
Check out my post about this at my blog. It speaks to the same issue that KitchenSink was discussing a few days ago.
http://charterschoolindependent.blogspot.com/2009/02/too-many-ieps.html
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February 12th, 2009 9:33 am
I agree that of course, each charter school is different from one another as each traditional public school is different. Some enroll higher-needs students, some do better than others, and some have larger class sizes than others — just as regular public schools. Some regular public schools “cream” and some don’t. But we are talking averages here. And on average, charter schools tend to attract a more motivated population, fewer special ed and ELL students, and offer smaller classes. Proponents of charter schools will not admit these facts is rather strange. Even the Boston study that is referred to above clearly states:
i”Charter Schools … serve a smaller proportion of special education students, free- and reduced-price lunch students, and English learners than do the traditional BPS schools. In addition, high school Charter students tend to come in with substantially better math and ELA performance on the MCAS…”
Another question I have about charter schools in general, and the Boston randomized study is the question of peer effects. I wrote about this on our blog here:
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-study-on-charter-schools-in-boston.html
Though the study finds that the randomly selected students who “won” the lottery and attend charter schools do better than those who “lost” the lottery and thus remained in the BPS system, to the extent that the “winners” are surrounded by higher-performing students, how do you separate out the effect of the charter school itself from the effect of simply being surrounded by higher-performing students?
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February 12th, 2009 10:22 am
Thanks Leonie. Your comments are helpful. The peer effect issue is an interesting one. A couple of questions:
1. What is the best data source for your claim that “on average, charter schools tend to attract a more motivated population, fewer special ed and ELL students, and offer smaller classes”? Do you have data for NYC in particular? I would love to review the data.
2. Do you support parents ability to choose charter schools even if it might put their kids in a somewhat different student population? Does this apply to parents choosing private schools or magnet schools for their kids?
3. If it is true that charter schools have smaller class sizes and they achieve this through hiring teachers that get paid less than senior teachers at traditional public schools, is this an acceptable approach to reducing class sizes?
Ken
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February 12th, 2009 10:26 am
We shouldn’t be talking about averages, because the charter movement is about finding new ways to educate kids. So we should be talking about whether we get those ideas from what’s going on. If there’s even one charter that has a representative sample of district-like kids and is pushing them to outstanding results on a roughly equal per-pupil amount, we should study the heck out of that school and acknowledge that it can be done.
Saying that some charters cheat in their admissions process or that some charters have different kids or that some charters spend more money is beside the point, because as has been said, the term “charter” is empty. This is why charter brands (KIPP, Achievement First, etc.) are so important.
It’s great to see Caroline ring in with her typical ad hominem attacks that are based on zero actual information, except perhaps for some anecdotes about KIPP in SF. It’s clear that the automatic charter haters are so entrenched that no amount of counter-evidence will change their minds.
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February 12th, 2009 11:32 am
there is some data for charter school populations from State Ed showing much lower levels of special ed and ELL; there is little or no data (at least until recently) from DOE. But I just cited the Boston study which showed these disparities as well.
What I support for NYC public school students is what students in the rest of the state get: experienced, high quality teachers w/ smaller classes. This is what equity demands, esp. since NYC students on average are much higher needs than students elsewhere. Nevertheless, the DOE’s policies directly are aimed at NYC kids suffering w/ large classes and inexperienced teachers.
I support parent choice as long as it doesn’t lead to worse conditions elsewhere. I think the system that we have in NYC is especially abominable — a zero sum game in which the new small schools and charter schools recruit and enroll higher-performing students, are provided with more space per student, and more resources, along with the ability to cap enrollment and reduce class size, while our neediest students are displaced or discharged elsewhere and/or end up in even more overcrowded conditions. This is unacceptable.
There is no excuse to give privileges and advantages to the charter schools or the new small schools that you deny our traditional public schools - -just because their founders and the Gates/Robertson/Broad foundations that support them have better connections w/ the Mayor and the Chancellor.
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February 12th, 2009 11:37 am
Privileges and advantages? How can you say that when the district schools get, by the best estimates I’ve seen, over $8,000/student MORE than the charters do?
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February 12th, 2009 11:46 am
Thanks again, Leonie. Some comments and questions:
1. If you can point us to the State Ed data, I would love to review it.
2. So you have no evidence that NYC charter schools have lower levels of special ed and ELL students?
3. So you are OK with achieving smaller classes with experienced, high-quality teachers in the manner that charter schools do so, i.e. hiring teachers that are further from the $100k end of the salary scale?
4. What is your evidence that charter schools in NYC recruit higher-performing students? Do you object to magnet schools that only allow higher-performing students? Are private schools “creaming” better students that could provide better student mixes in traditional public schools?
5. What is your evidence that charter schools in NYC are provided with more space per student and more resources than traditional public schools?
6. If “Class Size Matters” and charter schools are achieving smaller class sizes, why is this a bad thing?
Ken
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February 12th, 2009 11:52 am
Socrates: regular public schools get on average $8,278 in per capita tax levy funding for public schools exclusive of District 75 which serves children with developmental challenges and has dramatically higher funding per child.
In contrast, DOE documents show per child funding of $12,432 for next year for the city’s charter school students.
For more on this see here;http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2008/09/charter-school-funding-per-child-much.html
Ken: sorry I don’t have hours to be your research asst. The state data shows the disparity in school populations clearly. Why don’t you find the data to back up your own claims and then get back to me with it. I’ll be happy to go over it for you.
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February 12th, 2009 12:01 pm
The charter funding issue is tricky, because there is a great deal of private money funding charter schools that is not figured into publicly reported per-pupil expenditure rates.
Socrates, since you mentioned KIPP - last year I downloaded private foundation funding to KIPP from 2003-2006, which totaled ~$55 million. (You can see these donations here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pp3Ho_3PCkoO7AXg4zgsOOQ). As far as I can tell, these dollars don’t get counted anywhere in individual school budgets, but certainly kids are deriving some benefit from these dollars.
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February 12th, 2009 12:17 pm
Leonie,
Your mention of $8,278 is most likely only a piece of the funding. Here is a link to the Independent Budget Office’s analysis: http://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us/iboreports/Funding_Trends1990_20048.pdf. It shows a total of a bit over $18k per pupil for traditional public schools. I agree strongly with you that one important issue is breaking out the funds spent on the District 75 schools. I hope to do some work on this. (I wish the DOE made it easier!) Any help is appreciated…
Eduwonkette, I agree that philanthropic funding is an important factor that should be studied. I hope to do some work on this too!
Finally, Leonie, sorry to ask too many questions. It just sounded like you had some specific data to back up your claims about NYC charter schools. If you ever dig that data up, please let us know! Separately, as some of my non-data-based questions suggest, I am confused as to your logic in many of your arguments. Based on what I thought “Class Size Matters” was all about, I am not sure why you don’t support charter schools.
Ken
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February 12th, 2009 12:32 pm
Ken: read the link I provided to our blog on the charter school funding issue for back up on the funding issue. I simply am too busy to explain it all at this moment.
And I think I’ve sufficiently explained my position on charter schools and class size. I support smaller classes for all NYC students — not just those who are lucky enough to attend charter schools. And to the extent that the implementation of charter schools in NYC has caused more overcrowding , this has become increasingly difficult to achieve for the substantial majority of NYC public school students who continue to attend regular public schools.
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February 12th, 2009 1:11 pm
Thanks Leonie,
I know it can be very annoying when people expect you to answer (as if on demand), so I appreciate your time and patience. My final thoughts (for now!):
1. You write “… not just those who are lucky enough to attend charter schools.” I agree, so let’s create more charter schools so that we can have more lucky kids!
2. You write “And to the extent that implementation of charter schools in NYC has caused more overcrowding…”. I have seen no evidence that charter schools have caused overcrowding. Charters don’t just take space… they also take kids. Sometimes, they don’t even use DOE space and, therefore, should be relieving crowding. When they do take DOE space, I have seen no evidence that they are given more space per pupil than traditional public schools. Anecdotally, I have heard the opposite many times (from charter school operators, to be fair).
If you can be convinced that charter schools aren’t causing overcrowding in traditional public schools, I hope you can fully support the growth of the charter movement.
Ken
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February 12th, 2009 1:46 pm
I forgot to check the little box to advise me when there’s a response on this thread, and I’m missing so much! Just some responses
**Try talking to a charter school social worker, and see if you’ll agree that charters disproportionately attract motivated, savvy parents. It’s not necessarily true!**
Sure from the inside of a charter school it may look like that, but talk to someone with experience in BOTH a charter and a non-selective traditional public school serving a disadvantaged population.If just one extra step is required to enroll your child in a charter, as opposed to a traditional public school, obviously only the families who are motivated to take that one extra step will apply for the charter. That skims off a number right there. In the case of KIPP, which is the area I’m commenting on, there are numerous extra steps. By definition, the families unwilling and unable to take those extra steps won’t apply. That simply isn’t subject to debate. (One could argue that there ARE no families unwilling and unable to take those extra steps; I’d say they need to get out more, but basically I’d have to agree to disagree.)
Over and over and over again I’ve seen studies about charter schools, including commentaries from charter advocates acknowledging this issue. confirming that charter schools nationwide underserve special-education students and English language learners. Those findings are so consistent and so frequently referred to that I’m surprised that’s even a question.
Socrates — this discussion seems to be about numbers; what individuals have I attacked “ad hominem”? Goodness.
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In any case, my KIPP information is absolutely NOT anecdotal; the whole point is that it’s based on researching the enrollment figures for the San Francisco Bay Area KIPP schools, from the California Department of Education website. My research got attention because the resulting information was so striking — and the fact that paid academic researchers and the press had never looked at it before (or at least not mentioned it if they had) was similarly striking. Since I blogged those figures, a subsequent study by SRI International confirmed them (in fact, amplified them). No anecdotal information was involved at all.If you’re referring to my anecdote about taking my then-7th-grader to KIPP SF Bay Academy to try to enroll her, that’s in response to the irrelevant (but frequent) question of whether I’ve ever visited a KIPP school.
Here’s something that IS anecdotal: A fellow parent at my kids’ San Francisco public high school is a former KIPP executive. We were chatting about the quality (or not) of the school lunches. She sighed that she wished our kids’ school could afford the same lunch provider KIPP uses, which costs considerably more than SFUSD can afford. She said, “But they [KIPP] have all that private philanthropy…” Totally anecdotal; just reporting it anyway.
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February 12th, 2009 1:57 pm
Eduwonkette,
I agree that we should include private funding, so we know what it costs to provide a KIPP-level education, but I am also certain that you would find that even with the philanthropic dollars, KIPP schools spend less in most areas of the country than their local districts spend. I’ve heard KIPP administrators, in fact, say that running their schools at below the district level of funding is their goal. Have you asked KIPP spokespeople for these data? I’m sure they’re not that hard to get.
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February 12th, 2009 2:13 pm
Caroline,
I see it is “Carnival of Unfounded Falsehoods” day. How exciting.
Unfounded Falsehood #1:
Getting into a KIPP school is so hard that the scores of lazy low-income parents whose kids wreck the district schools would never apply for admission: It is simply untrue that there are “many extra steps” to get into a KIPP school. In some KIPP schools, getting in is no harder than getting registered in the district. Once again, your anecdotes are insufficient to explain an organization that affords its leaders great flexibility. If you’re going to make the claim that it’s harder to get into a KIPP school than a district school, please provide evidence that this is true beyond a couple schools in SF.Secondly, it is untrue that urban areas have parents who are so lazy, uneducated, or unconcerned about their child’s educational well-being that they wouldn’t even take the very minor step/s they need to take to enroll their children in a good school. I’ve taught in a very low-income, urban district for over a decade, and there are very few kids whose parents would not jump at the chance to get them into a KIPP school.
It’s equally plausible that KIPP schools are populated by the most dissatisfied parents (as Jay Mathews mentions) - that is, parents whose kids are doing the worst in district schools - or that the thousands of lazy urban parents in America are so excited to get their ornery kids out of their hair for 10 hours a day that they can’t wait to send them to KIPP for the free extended day/year of babysitting.
Unfounded Falsehood #2:
Charter Social Workers are out of touch with how hard district social workers have it: It is also not true that social workers in charter schools are biased by the fact that they don’t know how rough it is in the district. I know a number of charter school social workers, and every single one of them has district experience. So do most of the charter school teachers and administrators.Unfounded Falsehood #3:
KIPP SF is representative of all of KIPP: Just because KIPP SF does it (and whether they do is up for debate) doesn’t mean all of KIPP does it. You have avoided reading the articles and books that talk about KIPP’s attrition numbers across the country, because focusing on SF makes your case a lot more strongly than focusing on the national KIPP averages. I’m sorry if I don’t buy the argument that you don’t have time, given the amount of time you spend online defending your unfounded positions.Unfounded Falsehood #4:
Parents of students all know where their school’s budget comes from. -
February 12th, 2009 2:46 pm
Hold the hemlock, Batman, Socrates is back!
And for the record, I’m a charter schools guy and I spent more years teaching in (poor, inner city in NYC) district public schools than I have spent, so far, working in charter schools.
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February 12th, 2009 2:47 pm
OK, Socrates, agree to disagree. So you have experience teaching in low-income schools and you’ve never seen parents who were too messed up to pay attention to their kids’ education? I’m not a teacher, just a parent, but in my kids’ time in diverse urban public schools I’ve definitely seen parents like that. Maybe they all left your school and came to my kids’ schools? They’re unique to San Francisco, just like the KIPP attrition?
In San Francisco, KIPP does require parents and student to sign numerous commitments to this and that — homework, behavior, dress code etc. In addition, all students do have to take a test, and the parents do have to ensure that the kid gets to the test site at the appointed time. (I know this, having applied for my own daughter, you recall). Parents also need to be willing and able to get the student to school for the longer hours, meaning more days and generally earlier starts. In our district, that is definitely more effort than going to the middle school down the street.
Again, perhaps San Francisco KIPP schools are unique in these areas.
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February 12th, 2009 2:49 pm
Oh, and San Francisco’s KIPP schools don’t have waiting lists, so presumably not THAT many parents are jumping at the chance.
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February 12th, 2009 3:07 pm
Sure, I’ve seen a few such parents, but not so many that would make a dent in the overall performance of a 1000-student school. Or even a 250-student school.
I’ve also come to understand that KIPP recruits students from the lowest-performing areas of town.
On the internet, Caroline, it is very easy to find out whether SF KIPP schools are representative of the rest of the KIPP world. I’ve poked around on this internet thing and found that, in fact, the SF KIPP schools are among the highest in attrition. You’re ignoring Jay’s evidence of both that fact and the fact that KIPP SF attrition has declined recently in order to hold onto your position.
So if we agree to disagree, does that mean I’m agreeing with facts and you’re agreeing with outdated anecdotes?
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February 12th, 2009 3:20 pm
It’s not that easy for me, Socrates. I happen to know how to look up data for California schools easily, but as noted I’m an amateur volunteer layperson. And I’m a working mom (I’m working at my computer, which does make it easy for me to respond to this discussion), so I don’t have endless hours to do this. Even the normally courteous Jay Mathews browbeat me a bit for not doing MORE research, which I have to say is a bit rich since he’s the one who’s paid to do it, and I did it, not him.
The SRI study confirming that Bay Area KIPP schools lose 60% of their students was dated September 2008. That’s pretty recent — where is your info that attrition has dropped since coming from, Socrates?
I’d be interested to see figures about other KIPP schools elsewhere — please post.
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February 12th, 2009 6:39 pm
I more thoroughly reviewed the document that Leonie refers to with respect to per pupil spending at traditional public schools. (See her post at http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2008/09/charter-school-funding-per-child-much.html.) I believe that the number $8,278 refers only to the portion of funding paid for by NYC income taxes. Total funding includes significant state and federal components. Also, this number probably doesn’t include a variety of expenses that are not allocated to individual schools. This report was probably presented to the city council to approve the city component of the school funding formula, although I am not sure. Meanwhile, the $12,400 number Leonie quotes is the total amount that charter schools receive per pupil. (As noted, this number doesn’t include philanthropic support.) Leonie, unless you think I have this wrong, you should probably stop quoting $8,278 as comparable to the charter school funding number. I intend to do more work on this subject.
Ken
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February 12th, 2009 6:46 pm
I think when I wrote “NYC income taxes” I really should have written “NYC tax revenues”. And, as is probably clear from my comments, I am not 100% sure of this, so any assistance would be appreciated.
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February 13th, 2009 7:05 am
Here’s an interesting indicator of “with-it-ness” of a parent body: findings of neglect or educational neglect by ACS. Does anyone reading this have access to ACS statistics? Are they public?
It stands to reason that if charter school parents are the bastion of goodwill toward schools, proactiveness with education, and involvement in the daily school lives of their children, there should be a significant difference in the rate of neglect and educational neglect in the home from their counterparts in the district public schools.
(We already know that charters, on average, serve a much higher proportion of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, so that metric is out the window and hasn’t convinced any ideologues reading this.)
In fact, based on some of the arguments above, one would think that no single charter school parent could possibly be found to be neglectful or educationally neglectful. Lord’s sakes, they CHOSE their child’s school! They actually signed the application form at the bottom!
For anyone wondering what educational neglect is, it is a subset of neglect involving failing to provide sufficient support for a child’s education, as indicated by failing to show up for meetings at school, especially if a child is consistently in academic or behavioral trouble, or having an extremely low attendance or high tardiness rate without a medical excuse. And yes, ACS studies the facts and makes an independent determination of whether they constitute neglect (in case you think that some charters, damn them, have unreasonably high expectations for parents).
So I would think that digging up these statistics would enhance this conversation quite a bit. And I would predict that, through a combination of the truly at-risk nature of charter schools’ populations served and, sadly, low expectations from many district public schools for parent involvement (independent of parent predisposition), we would see a higher rate of ACS findings of neglect among charter schools than among the general population.
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February 13th, 2009 7:06 am
Did I say higher in that last sentence? I meant much higher.
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February 13th, 2009 10:27 am
Again, you’re sticking some straw men in there, Kitchen Sink.
“… no single charter school parent could possibly be found to be neglectful or educationally neglectful…”
“…. you think that some charters, damn them, have unreasonably high expectations for parents)…”
I have not expressed either of those viewpoints. However, by definition, if a charter school imposes requirements for admission — whether they are as simple as choosing and signing the form or involve signed commitments to various forms of behavior and logistical support — it filters out the families who cannot and will not do those things. That’s just logic. The only possible argument is to claim that there ARE no families who cannot and will not do those things, which is a dishonest argument.
I don’t know this, though I’m not saying it’s NOT true; can you provide the statistics?
(We already know that charters, on average, serve a much higher proportion of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch,
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February 13th, 2009 11:29 am
Some interesting figures showed up in my inbox, demonstrating that in San Francisco, it’s not at all true that the KIPP schools are serving “the poorest of the poor,” as is so often claimed.
The figures show the number of students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals by what’s called “direct certification.” Those are the students who automatically qualify because they’re receiving some other type of government aid — food stamps, TANF (temporary assistance to needy families), public housing etc.
Here are the numbers of those students at San Francisco’s two KIPP schools.
KIPP San Francisco Bay Academy
Total 316 students
“Direct certification” number: 8 (2.5%)KIPP Bayview Academy
Total 245 students
“Direct certification” number: 12 (4.9%) -
February 13th, 2009 4:01 pm
Check out this spreadsheet on the NYSED website:
http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/funding/2009eligiblecs.xls
The combined average of all the NYS charter schools is 73.2% eligible for free and reduced price lunch. I can’t speak for San Francisco, but I think that’s a pretty high number.
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February 13th, 2009 5:04 pm
I did do a quick calculation for SFUSD, which has far fewer low-income children based on federal thresholds (which are cruelly low) than NYC. (Housing costs here are so high that they shock even New Yorkers, driving the poor out to outlying low-income suburbs.)
The average free/reduced lunch percentage in SFUSD’s charters is 48.45, compared to 54.0 for SFUSD. Not significantly lower, but obviously not higher.
Charters overall are often divided into two groups — the elite ones that are largely about cloistering the privileged away from the unwashed masses, and the “mission” charters serving low-income kids. I would agree that the latter group will probably serve at least as many low-income kids, but the existence of the former group changes the overall statistics.
Pacific Collegiate Charter in Santa Cruz, Calif. (about 70 miles from my home and in an area I’m fairly familiar with) routinely shows up as No. 1 or 2 on lists of “best schools in the U.S.,” and it’s resoundingly the former type. Its school district has 37.6% free/reduced lunch students; the charter school has zero. Its district is 32.8% Latino; the charter school is 5.8%. Its district is 55% white; the charter school is 73.1% white. So that’s just to give you an example.
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February 13th, 2009 5:27 pm
Sounds like you should move to egalitarian New York, Caroline! As far as I know there are few NYS charters that serve privileged populations, and that could be a function of a high per pupil state allocation for wealthy public school districts. Come on east - even though we spar, I’d welcome you with open arms.
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April 9th, 2009 10:16 am
I just want to say how much I appreciate conversations like this about public schools. Having said that, I, of course, want to add my two cents. I was a public school teacher in extremely underprivileged areas of New York City and in a migrant school school in Beaverton, Oregon. I moved down to Little Rock to attend a Master’s program and decided to become part of the burgeoning charter school movement in the South. And I have to say this - if you want to see charter schools stop “creaming” - which in my experiences in New York was certainly NOT the case - then charter school law will have to change. My charter was written to specifically address the needs of the low income population of Little Rock, but we must enroll all students and demonstrate marketing that appeals to all sectors. We would love nothing more than to have every kid in our school be eligible for Free Lunch - but that’s not the way it works. Beyond any of this, I have to thank Socrates for the comment regarding using charter schools as models - I became a MUCH better public school teacher by observing the same KIPP and Achievement First schools that people are complaining about. I saw MY kids in those classrooms being successful, loving school, and treating each other with respect. By taking some of their operations back to my school - and my leadership team - we were able to implement their ideas and create a much better traditional public school. With that in mind, I hope our charter will become a model for Little Rock Public Schools - which are truly failing the community.
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