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Study says...
September 22, 2009
City charter students narrow gap between Harlem and Scarsdale
Hoxby's study examined 43 charter schools throughout the city. The schools she researched are noted on this map with red stars.
New York City charter school students are performing so well on state tests that they may soon catch up to students in Scarsdale, the upscale suburb north of the city, according to an extensive update of a multi-year charter study released today.
The optimistic projection stems from researchers’ finding that the boost charter schools give does not taper off, but is steady throughout elementary school and middle school and even into high school.
“It seems to be really stable as an effect,” said Stanford University economist Caroline Hoxby, who directed the study.
Hoxby and her team studied 43 charter schools in New York City serving elementary, middle and high school students. They compared students who applied and were accepted into charter schools in 2000 by random lottery to those who applied but did not receive a seat.
By the time charter school students reached the eighth grade, in 2008, they scored on average 30 points higher on state math tests than students who remained in traditional public schools, the researchers found.
That’s almost the equivalent of closing the average achievement gap between students in traditional public schools in Harlem and students in Scarsdale, the affluent New York suburb north of the city where students take the same standardized tests. The average Harlem-Scarsdale math score gap is between 35 and 40 points, so the charter school students close that gap by about 86 percent.
Researchers found that charter schools had closed the Harlem-Scarsdale gap by a smaller but still substantial 66 percent on the state English test. They also scored nearly 3 points higher on average on their high school Regents exams for each year they attended a charter school.
Students who were not accepted into charters by lottery and continued in the traditional public school system continued to score at grade level but did not raise their scores enough to narrow the gap significantly, the study found.
The study also concluded that charter school students were demographically no different than students at surrounding traditional public schools and that the lottery process truly selected students at random. (See demographic details below.)
The study reports aggregated data for New York charters and did not track the performance of students at individual schools.
Researchers have not come to a solid conclusion about whether charter schools are more effective than public schools. Hoxby has published several other studies about charter schools. Her research regularly finds positive effects of school choice.
In an interview, Hoxby addressed many of the criticisms leveled against charter schools in recent years. Her analysis found that lottery admissions were truly random and that in general, students who applied for charter school lotteries shared much in common with traditional public school students who did not seek out charters.
Hoxby did note that parents of students rejected from charter school lotteries are more likely to transfer out of traditional public schools, whether to parochial schools or to schools outside of the five boroughs. “It’s possible their parents may be more motivated or committed to the idea of school choice,” she said.
But Hoxby downplayed criticisms that charters cater to a savvier population of students than the surrounding traditional public schools.
For example, some analysts have concluded that charter schools under-serve higher need populations such as special education students and English-language learners. Hoxby said she does not trust those studies. She thinks the differences might reflect different ways charter schools track special programs like English-language learner services and special education.
Hoxby pointed to figures estimating that charter school students are more likely to be African-American, and far more likely to be poor, than the average New York City public school student, but she noted that these are not final figures and do not include students enrolling in charter schools in kindergarten.
As in 2007, Hoxby estimated that charters schools enrolled just slightly fewer special education students. She also noted that significantly fewer English-language learners enrolled in charters, a figure that Hoxby linked to the proportionately fewer Hispanic students in charter school populations. (Search through special education data comparing charter school students and district students.)
When the first iteration of the study was released two years ago, one of the biggest lingering questions was why charter schools spurred these gains. Hoxby said that her findings could not show any causal relationship between various charter school policies and practices, but a number of school characteristics seemed to be strongly associated with high achievement.
Longer school days and school years, some form of teacher merit pay and mission statements emphasizing academic achievement were all statistically linked to high student achievement.
Hoxby emphasized that there was no guarantee that those factors caused student achievement, or that they were replicable. But that doesn’t mean that other schools cannot take lessons from the charter schools’ success, she said.
“I don’t know if I took a traditional public school in Harlem, and I said to them, ‘you’re going to have a long school year and a long school day,–I don’t know that it would have the same effect,” Hoxby said. “But there’s no reason they shouldn’t try.”
The study presents quite detailed information on charter school demographics and programs; I’ve pulled out some of the more interesting sets of data and presented them below.
Demographics of charter school applicants, enrolled students and traditional public school students: The study found no statistically significant differences between students who received spots through the lotteries and those who did not, confirming that the lotteries are truly a random selection process, Hoxby said.
| All applicants to charter schools | Applicants who were lotteried-in | Applicants who enrolled in charter schools | New York City's traditional public schools | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| % black, non-Hispanic | 63 | 64 | 61 | 34 |
| % white, non-Hispanic | 4 | 4 | 4 | 15 |
| % Hispanic | 29 | 28 | 29 | 38 |
| % Asian | 3 | 3 | 4 | 12 |
| % other race | <1 | <1 | <1 | <1 |
| % female | 50 | 50 | 52 | 50 |
Prior special program participation of charter school applicants and traditional public school students: Because charters and traditional public schools track special education, English-language learners and free- and reduced-lunch students differently, Hoxby examined students who were already enrolled in these programs when they applied for admission to a charter. Hoxby acknowledged that her sample cannot be truly representative of the charter school population, but said that given its limitations, her data still shed some light on students served by charter schools.
| All applicants to charter schools | Applicants who were lotteried-in | Applicants who enrolled in charter schools | New York City traditional public school students | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| % who participated in the Free or Reduced-Price lunch program (at the time they applied if applicants) | 92 | 91 | 91 | 72 |
| % who participated in special education (at the time they applied if applicants) | 11 | 11 | 11 | 13 |
| % who used services for English-language learners (at the time they applied if applicants) | 4 | 4 | 4 | 14 |
Policies and characteristics of New York charter schools: Hoxby and her researchers found that certain elements of charter schools’ educational programs were statistically linked to gains in student achievement. Programs with longer school days and years, academic school missions and some form of teacher merit pay were found to have the strongest correlation to student achievement. Many elements, including types of math and reading curriculum, were not found to be linked statistically. Programs that reserved seats for parents on charter school boards were found to have a slightly negative correlation, though Hoxby cautioned that association may be more indicative of other management problems.
| Average for New York City charter school students | |
|---|---|
| Years that school has been operating | 6 |
| Operated by a Charter Management Organization (CMO) | 29% |
| Operated by an Education Management Organization (EMO) | 21% |
| Operated by a Community Grown Organization (CGO) | 49% |
| Number of days in the school year | 192 |
| Number of hours in the school day | 8 |
| Saturday school (mandatory for all or certain students) | 57% |
| Optional after-school program available | 80% |
| Number of minutes of English language arts per day | 112 |
| Long mathematics period (90 minutes or more) | 50% |
| Saxon math curriculum | 39% |
| Scott Foresman math curriculum | 8% |
| Everyday Math curriculum | 30% |
| SRA reading curriculum | 15% |
| Scott Foresman reading curriculum | 10% |
| Open Court reading curriculum | 25% |
| Core Knowledge curriculum | 17% |
| School's/operating agency's own math and language arts curriculum | 28% |
| Direct instruction style of teaching | 66% |
| Class size | 23 |
| Internal evaluations regularly administered | 92% |
| Number of internal evaluations per year | 2 |
| Student-faculty advisory (middle and high schools) | 82% |
| School uniforms or strict dress code | 89% |
| Small rewards/small punishments disciplinary policy | 22% |
| Parent contract | 52% |
| Seat on the Board of Trustees reserved for a parent | 58% |
| Teacher pay based on performance/duties (not just seniority and credentials) | 59% |
| Number of school leaders | 2 |
The full report is below, and can be downloaded alongside the original 2007 report here.
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September 22nd, 2009 12:46 am
Excellent news for parents and kids! Hoxby’s study is the best out there and shows once and for all, that in NYC, public charters are better serving kids than traditional public schools. They serve MORE black and low-income students than the city and yet perform at levels similar to wealthy white suburbs. Even if these charters did take the most motivated students, which is still a debate, among those, the study shows that charter students still perform much better.
Plus, shouldn’t we be encouraging (if not forcing) parent motivation and engagement and choice for all families in new york?
Kids, parents, and teachers will all benefit if we can put the skeptics in check, and keep moving forward to create more great schools that serve the students who most need it in the south Bronx, Harlem, and Central Brooklyn.
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September 22nd, 2009 1:26 am
Caroline Hoxby is a longtime advocate of privatization and charter schools and opponent of public education — not a dispassionate academic researcher. It’s shoddy and unethical journalism not to mention that prominently, and this blast applies both to Gotham School and the New York Times. Implying that this is an impartial study is out-and-out dishonest.
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September 22nd, 2009 2:24 am
[...] City charter students narrow gap between Harlem and Scarsdale … [...]
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September 22nd, 2009 5:15 am
Hip-hip hooray! Creaming is working!
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September 22nd, 2009 7:25 am
[...] City charter students narrow gap between Harlem and Scarsdale … [...]
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September 22nd, 2009 8:22 am
The charter school debate in NYC would be more honest if it were not also a huge real estate grab. Tremendous conflicts of interest lead the DOE to manipulate admissions systems and otherwise attempt to unfairly clear space in public schools while space is handed out to charters with no transparent process. Charter schools need to find their own real estate.
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September 22nd, 2009 9:53 am
What about the Times and the Wall St. Journal? Are they also unethical journalists?
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September 22nd, 2009 9:59 am
Hip Hip Hooray. (Mildly sarcastic.)
“Proof” that class size DOES matter, and that if you kiss off the impacts of purging underperforming kids — this after not taking their “fair share” of IEP and ELL kids — you too can declare that charter schools rule.
This despite up-front disclaimers such as: “Researchers have not come to a solid conclusion about whehter (sic) charter schools are more effective than public schools.” (Can we sidestep a definitive statement better than that? e.g., “It’s a COIN TOSS.”)
Re: “I don’t know if I took a traditional public school in Harlem, and I said to them, ‘you’re going to have a long school year and a long school day,–I don’t know that it would have the same effect,” Hoxby said. “But there’s no reason they shouldn’t try.” Indeed, there’s no reason not to try all sorts of UN-PROVEN notions. Or creaming there too. Or reducing class sizes there too.
As to class sizes, per data table above, the average charter class size is 23. Nothing to write home about, and certainly not the rarified atmosphere of private school class size. However, the public school (i.e. non-charter) class size in NYC last year was 25.3 for grades 4-8. And this is an AVERAGE, not a MAXIMUM. This against a state court-ordered target of…. the same 23 that charters are ALREADY at.
Can we pair and spin-balance “traditional” with “un-proven experimental with a rabid following?”
P.S. to Greg: Sincerely, I didn’t see in the article (haven’t read all the links yet) ANY statements that would substantiate the ones you made. And I’ll even give you that by “more” you mean a higher percentage relative to their total enrolllment rather than “more” as a quantity. But the fact is, NYC public schools (again, aka non-charters) still educate the vast “more” of New York City public school kids from those demographics. But thanks for the operating budget cut and the space thefts, both of which drive up class sizes further.
P.S. to Pogue: Please enroll me in Brevity 101.
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September 22nd, 2009 10:10 am
Could simply having been selected for a sought after seat, even if just by lottery, be having a positive impact on the students’ sense of self worth, motivating them to work harder? Conversely, could having been denied entry, be construed in some way as a failure by a child, dropping his or her motivation level? The research does not address these important questions.
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September 22nd, 2009 10:11 am
Yes, Chris, as I said, the NY Times is also engaging in dishonest and unethical journalism by misrepresenting this report as impartial academic research. And I haven’t seen the WSJ, but if it’s doing the same thing, it’s also engaging in dishonest and unethical journalism.
With the news industry struggling for survival, what you (in the press) have left are your ethics and standards. Don’t discard them so casually.
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September 22nd, 2009 10:21 am
EFM makes a good point. Whatever these schools are doing, its working. The study proves that these kids do better in charters then they would have done in trad. publics. Much better. Why are we against these schools again?
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September 22nd, 2009 10:27 am
Jacob,
I’d like to think of myself as FOR comparable class sizes, and comparable non-creaming, and comparable IEP and ELL representation… let alone fair studies. The only factor I’m vehemently against is the space-stealing, let alone space-sharing.When one lifeboat floats AT THE EXPENSE OF the others, it’s time to take a step back.
A *Stanford* research team biased toward for-profit privatization of a government function? Color this Cal grad surprised.
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September 22nd, 2009 10:32 am
I’m not an NYC parent, and there are more specific reasons in NYC to oppose charter schools. But here is a general view, from the book “Keeping the Promise?” by the organization Rethinking Schools:
“The elixir of an individualized bailout from a struggling system has serious side effects … It can create a painful wedge in many communities, especially among African-Americans. It can weaken the political will for a collective solution to the problems in public education; and it can promote the deterioration of traditional schools. As highly motivated and engaged families pull their children from traditional public schools, urban districts have fewer resources — both financial and human — to address their many problems. The worse the schools get, the more appealing the escape to charters and private schools, all of which feeds into the conservative dream of replacing public education with a free-market system of everyone for themselves, the common good be damned.”
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September 22nd, 2009 10:34 am
And: Caroline Hoxby has long been a prominent spokesperson for “the conservative dream of replacing public education with a free-market system of everyone for themselves, the common good be damned.” I cannot express too strongly how sloppy and misleading it is for the press not to mention that prominently in all coverage of this so-called “study.” For shame, Gotham Schools (and NYT, WSJ and the rest of the miscreants).
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September 22nd, 2009 11:04 am
Oooh ooh I love this. Harlem parents are choosing charters over public schools in droves. The students there are doing much better than the Board of Ed run system that has crushed dreams for decades, and what’s the response? The parents must not know any better to be choosing charter schools in Harlem. They know better! They know what is right for their kids.
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September 22nd, 2009 11:06 am
Interesting essay on Professor Caroline Hoxby [then at Harvard] from the Carnegie Reporter, 2002. (click my name for the link.)
“Hoxby, who is also the director of the Economics of Education Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research as well as being a fellow of the Hoover Institution, the Sloan Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation, was named a Carnegie Scholar in 2000 and given support to conduct research in promoting excellence in public education through an innovative system of student vouchers.
The project flows naturally from Hoxby’s longstanding interest in the economics of education, which was the subject of her doctoral dissertation as well as her theses for Oxford (where she earned an M. Phil. in economics), and Harvard, all of which won awards. As a pioneer in the economic issues of education, her research and testimony at state and federal hearings over the last decade have influenced policy and public debates on many school reform ideas, including the benefits of decreasing class size (it yields surprisingly small increases in student achievement, she found) and increasing students’ choice of schools (her research suggests that competition generates significant increases in student achievement). While she delves into these highly controversial school reform issues, she says she does so as a scientist with complete indifference to her findings or their political ramifications. “Frankly, I’m not very interested in politics.” ”
As if vouchers aren’t political. As if Prof. Hoxby doesn’t have a career-long agenda. The economics of education indeed.
Then there’s this pearl: ““It’s important to allow unpopular schools to close, rather than continue our current practice of rewarding failing schools with more money.” ”
Anyone who still thinks the good professor doesn’t have a Big Game Axe to grind, signify by raising your tree.
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September 22nd, 2009 11:34 am
I can’t imagine that anyone would even try to make that case, Michael M. The best they could say is that statistics are statistics — and that claim would of course overlook the way statistics can be selectively used, worked, spun etc. — “juking the stats,” as the TV series “The Wire” put it.
But I am still really shocked by the mass press lapse. I’m a daily newspaper veteran myself, and this just grossly violates the standards that I learned. What is going on?
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September 22nd, 2009 11:56 am
C,
Press bias, press incompetence, or press malice?Occam’s Razor would have it a 3-way tie; Napoleon would eliminate malice (when adequatedly explained by incompetence).
Just to beat a not-quite-dead horse…. the rhetoric of “allow” and “reward” coming from an economist is indicative of politics, not analysis.
“The lady doth protesteth too mucheth.”
– Bugs BunnyDid you learn your standards in a charter school?
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September 22nd, 2009 12:04 pm
Our school participated in this study. We’re all looking forward to having a long weekend to read and digest it
While it’s clear that the partisans, both pro- and anti-charter, often are the loudest and least interested in dialogue, I’d love to see a meaningful exchange here in NYC based on this data. Instead of the pro-charter folks, such as myself, crowing and the anti-s darkly accusing Hoxby of bias, let’s look at the actual numbers and see what this study can add to the conversation.
For me, the best aspect of this study for me is Hoxby’s methodology: they looked at not only the kids accepted to our school, but compared them to the kids who applied but did not get chosen in the lottery. It seems that this research design can also help us get a handle on the disturbing accusations of creaming and counseling out that have been raised by commenters at GS.
As a public educator, I believe that public schools serve all students equally well. I feel those of us in charterland have an even stronger responsibility to serve our share of at-risk kids, as that is that is the mandate of the Charter Act. As the educational program, policies, accountability and decisionmaking are local to the individual charter schools, not the larger system, we simply can’t blame anybody else if our schools aren’t successful.
The biggest issues for me are: understanding the ELL gap, acknowledging the impact of class size, determining impact of longer instructional day or year, looking at difference in models between cmos/emos, mom and pop charters and the larger system.
Best,
NicholasNicholas Tishuk
Director of Programs and Accountability
The Renaissance Charter School
teach11372 @ gmail.com -
September 22nd, 2009 12:09 pm
NT,
Agreed 99%.
1% quibble with comingling of “loud” and “least interested in dialogue.” ; - ) -
September 22nd, 2009 12:14 pm
Michael, as you might imagine, when I was a newspaper editor I was fairly outspoken about standards and quality. At times there were lapses here and there that might have been interpreted as due to some kind of bias. Occasionally I looked into them enough to find out, and invariably learned that they were due to sheer cluelessness.
So it could be that all the press covering this “report” are actually unaware of Caroline Hoxby’s advocacy role. However, there’s no excuse for cluelessness — reporters are supposed to do adequate, competent research, and failing to learn about Hoxby’s background is not adequate, competent research — so the sting of my slaps is not lessened in the slightest. And I’m sorry to be so sharp, but this kind of sloppy reporting does harm, so it needs to be called out forcefully and sharply.
Teacher, it’s not valid to behave as though “darkly accusing Hoxby of bias” is some kind of paranoia. There’s no disputing Hoxby’s bias, any more than there would be disputing my anti-charter “bias.” She is thoroughly involved with the privatization movement, as an advocate. That isn’t in question. Nor is it in question based on journalistic standards that the press should be disclosing her affiliation when reporting her supposed “research” (or even considering whether the “research” is a story at all, given that it’s pure advocacy). The only question is why the press is lapsing so badly.
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September 22nd, 2009 12:29 pm
Caroline,
You said: There’s no disputing Hoxby’s bias, any more than there would be disputing my anti-charter “bias.” She is thoroughly involved with the privatization movement, as an advocate. That isn’t in question.
I can’t speak towards Hoxby’s personal bias (ie her motives as an individual person); I’ve only briefly encountered her via a phone call regarding our participation in the study. She seemed nice enough to me, but your results may vary.
I’d be very interested in evidence you have in an actual,demonstrable bias in the study. Can you show where something negative for charters was hidden? A design methodology that made the students who applied but were not accepted via lottery look bad? Conclusions that don’t follow the data results? Please share, as that would indeed be a big story!
Micheal- Point well taken. I like to think that folks on CS are just passionate about kids here and that it occasionally gets in the way of the little things like being polite, or respectful of the ideas or others.
Best,
NicholasNicholas Tishuk
Director of Programs and Accountability
The Renaissance Charter School
teach11372 @ gmail.com -
September 22nd, 2009 1:01 pm
Nicholas (sorry I got your “handle” wrong previously) — I haven’t scrutinized the “study” for details, including for bias. The point is that when it is created by someone who has an open professional partisan involvement, as an advocate (not just a personal viewpoint; advocating for privatization is the focus of Hoxby’s career), that inherently means the “study” cannot be presented as an impartial piece of research. That’s just a basic standard.
If the charter field wants impartial research, there are organizations it can turn to — in fact, those organizations (such as RAND) HAVE studied charters. But a “study” by a professional advocate simply cannot legitimately be presented as impartial research.
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September 22nd, 2009 1:07 pm
Further: If I did a “study” — though I’m a volunteer advocate — it would certainly be wrong to present it as credible, as I have an open opinion critical of charters.
However, I would never be so dishonest as to try to present any work of mine involving charters as an impartial study — unlike Hoxby, who is apparently perfectly willing to be dishonest.
In addition, I still should have more credibility than she, because I’m an unpaid volunteer advocate, while she is a paid advocate for privatization. (By the way, she’s a nationally known advocate and I’m not, so otherwise aside from our first names, the comparison is entirely hypothetical.)
Educators especially — who must select educational materials to present information to their students — should have heightened awareness of this kind of bias. It’s alarming when they (as well as journalists) instead seem oblivious, or deny that it matters.
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September 22nd, 2009 1:14 pm
Oh, and one MORE thing — “bias” and “nice” are not conflicting characteristics!
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September 22nd, 2009 1:22 pm
I certainly hope Hoxby did her own testing!
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September 22nd, 2009 2:01 pm
Here’s something that might be very significant, although not too many people are talking about it: Newspapers are having severe financial problems right now, so most are discouraging their reporters from doing investigative research, which is expensive. Therefore, many of these reporters might just be accepting information as it is offered to them. In the case of this report by Professor Hoxby, they might not be asking crucial questions, such as: “Is there a conflict of interest?” and “Was the testing strictly overseen and administered by the researcher?”
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September 22nd, 2009 2:02 pm
I would go back to Nicholas’s original point of debating the facts and really staying away from the perceived bias of the source (true or not, I dont see how that advances the debate). The study is actually very strong in its methodology (random selection) and makes very limited claims (students who lotteried in- overall showed greater improvement than those who lotteried out). As a previous commentor stated, this could be due to the “endowment effect” where people who feel they “won” something often value it higher (and by extension might be more engaged with the school, or more supportive, pushing student achievement), another interesting finding in the study was that students who lotteried out seemed to do better than they would have been expected to as “average” students (I havent finished reading the whole thing so I dont want to do much analysis). Which again could imply that parents that apply to lotteries are not the “average” parent. Presumably the data sets are public and others could review them for the bias asserted, but I actually think a more constructive approach would be to try to focus in on what is working at individual schools or across several schools. Because a “charter school” is essentially an empty vehicle and there is no defining characteristic, except a desire to be independent of the District, I always find it curious that we make the comparisons in the way that we do, usually Charter v. District schools. I am sure if you disaggregated the Hoxby data you would find charters that are driving huge gains in achievement, ones that are flat, and probably some that have negative effects. These schools run the gamut of instructional practices and personnel policies, with high performing union and non union schools. The conclusion of the study in that light is that being free of the District, in general, increases student achievement. The next step is to really dig into what makes good schools and how to do that in a sustainable and equitable way. As an African American I really cant harken back to some golden age of education that existed pre-charter, and we are not in one now, but charters can offer good public options to many of our families that they never had before, and if there is evidence that that is actually happening I dont understand the vehemence of the negative responses.
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September 22nd, 2009 2:13 pm
Thank you Dirk. I appreciate your comments. The Ad Hominem arguments are often unaddressed. It’s easy to attack the person, but does this invalidate the numbers? Her findings of average class size and specific curriculums used are invalidated because she may or may not have biases in favor of charter schools? Let’s look at the numbers and discuss like Dirk and Nicolas have suggested. Sorry to reiterate their statements, but I think that this needs to be stressed.
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September 22nd, 2009 2:34 pm
Dirk,
I appreciate your comments and look forward to more.But the so-called “vehemence” (do you have a comparable term for the even-more-avid supporters?) has a history, at least here in NYC.
The general headings include, in no particular order:
Creaming;
Space Wars;
Class Size;
Targetted or selective school closure;
Union-busting; and
The neutrality of the Chancellor and moreover his lack of accountability for the specific schools he sets the charters out to compete with.Like two kids armed with forks in a Bill Cosby routine, fighting over the last pork chop when the money runs out to keep the lights on, pitting communities against themselves, with nary a public plea or peep for any semblance of high-mindedness.
As to “considering the source”: I too would prefer to look at facts. But not in isolation. It strains credulity to impute objectivity to the analysis of potentially selective facts — when it is easily researched that the author has a well-documented history of partisanship, if that’s any better a term than bias, while pretending NONE.
And I too would like to believe the Chevron-funded scientists when they tell me global warming is a hoax.
Good science requires peer review. I look forward to what the luminaries of educational policy say of the study.
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September 22nd, 2009 2:39 pm
Chris,
Agreed… 90%.But to split a not-so-fine hair: questioning study-author objectivity by citing study-author’s prior positions is not “ad hominem” — it is a fair-game examination of pertinent aspects of the public record.
As to ad hominem attacks by commenters on each other, on that we agree in full.
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September 22nd, 2009 2:44 pm
One big issue that should be considered: This isn’t really a study about NYC charter schools vs NYC District schools. It is a study about the students in charters (selected by lottery) vs students who were prospective charter school students (applied by lottery but not selected) who are now in District schools.
While it seems like a minor distinction, it isn’t. Charter schools are not the schools of choice for many, many parents. According to the data, the percentage of ELL students who apply to charters (4%) is the same as who are lotteried in (4%) as who actually enrolled the schools (4%). This looks like a solid trend. If 4% applied and only 1% were lotteried in, that would be a cause for concern that might suggest creaming. If 4% were lotteried in but only 1% were enrolled, that would also be a concern, perhaps counseling out.
A few things could possibly explain the gap between students who apply/are lotteried in/enrolled (all at 4%) is considerably less than enrolled in the District schools (14%). Some possibilities and solutions:
1) ELL families may not know enough about charters to apply: More recruiting by charter schools for ELL students. This includes translations of applications, materials, workshops, open houses, and websites into multiple languages. This also would require a staff that speaks the home languages of these applicants (not just Spanish!)
2)ELL families know enough about charters to apply, but they choose not to apply: Better ELL programs in charter schools would alleviate this issue. Unfortunately, charter schools are denied all “categorical funding” for ELL learners, by an interpretation of the Charter Law. What this means is that the State has money set aside for all NYC residents who have ELL status, however the money is not granted to the charter schools where they attend. At Renaissance, we’ve tried very hard to get access to these funds, but the current interpretation of the law is that charters do not get categorical aid for their students. If you look in those Galaxy budgets for District schools, those lines dedicated to ELL are the ones that the kids in my school don’t get.
Just recently charters have been given the ability to access their Title III funds for ELL learners, but only by joining a consortium of schools. What this means is that ELL is an unfunded/partially funded mandate. We are required (and morally obligated) to provide services which are not covered financially by our revenues. This needs a fix in Albany.
3) Partnerships are needed. Charters should work with CBOs and community advocates to get the word out and increase ELL populations in their schools. Albany should fund the required services that students in the schools can “test-out”, learn English and become successful in their studies.
Nicholas Tishuk
Director of Programs and Accountability
The Renaissance Charter School
teach11372 @ gmail.com -
September 22nd, 2009 3:41 pm
I’m not attacking Hoxby for having a bias — I have one too. I would attack her for dishonesty if she had attempted to conceal the fact that she has a bias — but it’s pretty hard to conceal when her primary identification is as a proponent of free-market privatization and opponent of public education.
In my view she probably didn’t attempt to conceal it but just hoped that the press would be lazy, gullible or whatever lapse led to this. Unfortunately, her hopes were realized. (Linda, it’s true about the diminished resources of the press, though Googling is free.)
The problem is that a “study” that’s actually a piece of advocacy work is not credible as research. It’s like me putting out the word that the school I run is the best in the world — and then portraying my self-serving propaganda as impartial academic research. Even if it turned out to be true, it’s not credible if it comes from me. (I don’t actually run a school — this is a made-up example.)
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September 22nd, 2009 4:20 pm
This study design is crap, and yet Hoxby and others claim that it is the “gold standard.”
I’ve got a longer explanation over at my blog (click the link in my name), but here’s what I said to Jay Matthews:
I understand why many people look at these lotteries as the gold standard for studies, but there remain serious problems with them.
First, there is no placebo here. The lottery “losers” are not under the illusion that they are getting the desired treatment. So, you cannot tell how much of the difference is due to dashed hopes or simply belief by the students or their families that one school is simply better than the other.
Second, obviously these kinds of studies never seem to account for peer effects. That is, we already know that stronger fellow students (i.e. high scoring, more cultural capital, higher SES, what have you) lead to higher scores. And we know that charter students are not representative of the the non-charter public school population. The real question that we are looking to answer is whether charterness makes a difference. But if you don’t control for peer effects, then you are not actually looking at charterness.
Third, not all charter schools are oversubscribed. We would expect that the better ones, by some measure, would be mostly likely to be oversubscribed. Well, if we think about it a bit more deeply, we’ll say that the ones that are MOST likely to be oversubscribed would be the ones with the biggest gap in quality with their nearest non-charter schools. This biases the study to below average non-charter schools and above average charter schools, meaning that neither set of schools included in the study are representative.
Given these kinds of issues — and from what I’ve seen, Hoxby’s works is often subject to sample bias isssues — how should we read this report?
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September 22nd, 2009 4:38 pm
But Nicholas,
While I see your point re lotteried-in vs. lotteried-out, I am then confused by the leap to…. Scarsdale. Why Scarsdale? (The opportunity for conjecture boggles.) Why not, straight up, NYC non-charter non-lottery?So it’s small wonder the casual observer might miss the lottery distinction and see this all — as does the main GS write-up — as a charter vs. non-charter study.
But is it really as simple as lotteried-out (and attributing all achievement differences to the charters) when there may be another bias in the lotteried-out crowd? Many of those families implicitly had the financial wherewithal — not just the initiative and dedication to “choice” — to get up and leave the NYC public (charter or non) system, either for parochial or private or out-of-town.
Next: Any discussion of one city’s gap vs. another’s is (channeling skoolboy here)… risky! For the sake of argument, let’s say that on a 100-point scale, the NYC achievement gap is 30 points, and the Scarsdale gap is 20 points. Say NYC Charters close the NYC lottery-in-out gap to 25 points and claim progress in closing the difference between the two cities gaps. BUT — and I’m picking wild numbers to prove a point — if the underlying initial scores were 45-75 (NYC trailing group to NYC leading group) and 75-95 (Scarsdale trailing to leading), does a post-charter NYC trailing to leading of 50-75 mean anything at all? And to push the point, what if the NYC charters ZEROED the gap to 75-75. Would we be swamped with news that NYC triumphed in the gap race? 75-75 vs. 75-95? Too much focus on the gap, not on the chasm, I suggest.
I would further suggest that such gap analysis is more an insight into what’s going on within a school district than between cities.
Gut check: Would a Scarsdale family move to Harlem if the intra-Harlem gap were zero?
I look forward to your comments. Call it an unpaid “ad,” hominem. ; - )
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September 23rd, 2009 7:55 am
I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on the Harlem/Scarsdale comparison. It makes an interesting headline but there are too many other factors for me to make the leap (and no, I doubt Scarsdale parents will be moving and enrolling their kids in Harlem schools any time soon).
What seems to be most important to me is that kids who get lotteried in and enrolled in charter schools have stronger outcomes the longer they are in the charter schools. The methodology piece that makes this a meaningful study is that instead of comparing charters with “similar schools”, which is a dubious concept in the first place, they are comparing charter students to students who simply lost out in the lottery. This is one of the rare studies that doesn’t immediately imply school to school comparisons, rather student to student comparisons.
What this data suggests is that charters aren’t just getting kids to standards, but the kids are showing stronger outcomes each year they enrolled. My guess is that some combination of positive peer pressure, extra hours of instruction, strong parent involvement, good teaching and a supportive school culture helps contribute to student outcomes. Unfortunately, we can only refer to “outcomes” in this study, as standardized tests should only be one data point of many to measure student learning and success.
I’d still like to see some informed conversation on GS about the creaming accusations. While it is not a comprehensive survey of all NYC charter schools, the study provides the best data so far that I’ve seen about NYC charter school lotteries. Anyone seeing the creaming? The counseling out?
Nicholas Tishuk
Director of Programs and Accountability
The Renaissance Charter School
teach11372 @ gmail.com -
September 23rd, 2009 10:09 am
I’ve had a lot of discussions with KIPP partisans that confirm that there’s plenty of creaming and counseling out — and those are KIPP SUPPORTERS.
Here is the head-spinning discussion I routinely have with charter folks, Nicholas:
Me: Charter schools have an unfair advantage because they cream.
Charter advocate: They do not!
Me: (Explain how charter schools cream.)
Charter advocate: What’s wrong with creaming?Sometimes I have that same discussion with charter advocates over and over, including one frequent poster on this site.
To use KIPP as an example, its schools require signed commitments to various behaviors and practices from the student and the parent. The commitments are signed at a counseling session before the enrollment is completed. KIPP partisans will often generally deny that there’s creaming going on, but then will acknowledge that this counseling/contract-signing session serves to weed out the less-motivated and non-compliant.
And let’s not forget the daily reminder that the new so-called “study” is actually a piece of advocacy work by a longtime partisan of charter schools, privatization and “free-market solutions,” and that Gotham Schools and other media (and yes, I include the big boys) screwed up big-time by not treating it as such!
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September 23rd, 2009 11:38 am
teach11372,
You really haven’t seen good discussion of creaming? And you complain about that here!?
Search in google for “Toward a new definition of creaming” and follow the first hit. It will take you to a VERY thoughtful and well informed piece, some Aaron Pallas wrote for this very site.
What is it that you think is missing?
As for this particular study, I don’t think that it really looked at the aspects of creaming that most people are concerned with, and these comparisons that Maura has faithfully copied are spurious.
The proper comparison groups are just the entire city. You see, we can already figure out that charter schools are not opening up in competition with the best schools in the city. Clearly, they are aimed at the most troubled or challenged. So, one might adopt hoxby’s old method of comparing charters to their closest non-charter public school neighbors. Or perhaps pairing each charter with the non-charter public school that the most lottery losers first attend after losing the lottery. Then, we’d have a better idea of whether or not the easily observable demographics of these charter schools match the populations they are drawn from.
But the really important issues are not so easily observable, as Prof. Pallas pointed out in the post I directed you to, above.
I’m sure we’d all be happy if you joined our already informed conversation about creaming. Maybe you can bring a perspective and insight that we have not heard from.
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September 23rd, 2009 12:18 pm
Creaming is illegal. It’s also morally wrong for any school that calls itself public to condone it, directly or tacitly. Although it is not only charters who take part in this practice, it has become a charter issue because anti-charter folks want to explain away any perception of success charters might be having. So the not-very-nuanced “common knowledge” becomes Charters Cream Everybody Knows That.
What this study is showing is that the same percentage of ELL students who applied were accepted to charters. Maybe that number is lower than surrounding schools and you might fault charter recruitment methods by saying that charters should try harder to attract a larger pool of ELL students to apply. But what these numbers do not show is significant evidence of creaming across all charters. This is good news for charters who do not cream, who find the practice abhorrent, and who do their best to serve whatever population they draw effectively even with non-equal funding.
I would love to see a coalition of schools, charter and district address important issues together like creaming, facilities, funding, standards raising. It would be much more effective than vilifying each other and ignoring anything positive that either side brings to the table.
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September 23rd, 2009 12:32 pm
Nicholas,
I had to laugh.Re your comment: “The methodology piece that makes this a meaningful study is that instead of comparing charters with “similar schools”, which is a dubious concept in the first place…”
Bingo, and stop the presses. Peer grouping of “similar schools” is one of my biggest gripes with the School Progress Reports, second only to the excessive weight (60%) on the debatable “progress” metric.
Mrs. T,
The point is not that the lottery mechanics are random, it’s that the distribution of IEP and ELL — let alone failing of any stripe — kids in the down-stream Charter vs. Non-charter debate is skewed, and that the down-stream debate does NOT fairly factor that out. (Note the 4 vs 14 for ELL in the bottom right corner of the table above.) -
September 23rd, 2009 12:32 pm
Hi Alexander,
I’ve actually followed the debates here on GS pretty closely. I believe Aaron’s main thesis in the article you mentioned was “creaming is any selection process, intentional or unintentional, that results in the students within a school being more likely to succeed due to their differences from the broader population of students from which they were drawn.” If you take this as a starting point, then Hoxby’s study does this exactly by looking at the broader population of students from which they were (literally) drawn (ie the 1000 kids who did not get accepted vs the 80 that did, just as an example.) As you smartly point out, you can’t compare charter kids with the schoolwide population because a large part of that population including the vast majority of high performing students simply never apply to charters.
My issue with the creaming conversations on GS, at least amongst the commenters, is that they are largely anecdotal. In no way am I defending any creaming that school school operators might be engaged in if these anecdotes are true; I’d just like to see a more substantial, multi-school analysis of this issue and a study of its actual prevalence in NYC. The Hoxby report is one place to look at lotteries, which should be the core of any conversation about creaming.
If anecdotes are the evidence for this conversation, it’s a lose-lose. Anti-charter folks get to say “Charter Schools cream.” thereby making a blanket accusation of nearly 100 schools in NYC that are often very, very different. Pro-charter folks get to say, “Show me the proof. And if you DO show me the proof, my school doesn’t do that. Show me that its systemic, not just one or two “bad apples.” See what I’m getting at here? I’d like to see someone take this massive longitudinal study and give us some fresh insights, not just the usual back and forth.
From a practical perspective, here’s the procedure if you or a parent you know feels they have been discriminated against or creamed out by a charter school:
If a parent feels they have been counseled out or discriminated in the application process for a charter school, they should put their complaint into writing. Following a general protocol common to all charter schools, this would lead to a complaint being filed with the school’s Board of Trustees and with the school’s authorizer (in NYC, this is the most likely the DOE’s Office of Charter Schools or SUNY’s Charter Schools Institute. This is would lead to both an internal and external review. These accusations are taken very seriously by authorizers and Boards of Trustees.
Best,
NicholasNicholas Tishuk
Director of Programs and Accountability
The Renaissance Charter School
teach11372 @ gmail.com -
September 23rd, 2009 12:40 pm
I think that Nicholas’s stamment, “lotteries, which should be the core of any conversation about creaming” is nearly indefensible.
Is there any reason at all to ignore recruitment? If you can shape, influence or alter the applicant pool though the unregulated and unmonitored recruitment and marketing phases, why would it matter whether creaming happens at the lottery stage.
I think that Nicholas might be — perhaps unintentionally — setting up a straw man here. He seems to be saying that if the lotteries themselves are fixed that creaming is not going on. But skoolboy explained quite clearly how creaming can occur through efforts long before the actual lottery.
In fact, because the lotteries are actually regulated by the state, I would think that the core any conversation about creaming should be elsewhere.
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September 23rd, 2009 12:42 pm
Nicholas,
Our comments crossed paths.Another way to take allegations of creaming OUT of the debate is to take subgroup demographics INTO account in the debate. i.e., Do charters or non-charters do better or worse with: Whites, Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, ELL, Special Ed, Economically Disadvantaged, etc.
(And even that wouldn’t specifically address varying rates of social promotion hold-back, or drop-outs, which would also impact comparisons.)
Just curious:
What might your thoughts be on a city-wide “CEC” for charter parents, or simply including charters under the local CEC? (Candidly, my own preference — full disclosure, as a CEC member — is that given the space wars alone, charters should be included under the local CEC. I think there would be much more benefit to ALL stakeholders than the current set-up.)
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September 23rd, 2009 1:18 pm
Ceolaf,
Recruiting is certainly an promising topic to look at concerning charters. Every charter leader I know seeks to increase the number of applicants for their schools. While it can sometimes become a bit macho, those of us in charterland informally use number of applications as a measure of parent interest/demand in their schools.
Do you have any studies that show that NYC charters are using their recruiting process to cream the best students? I’d all be eager to read it.
Best,
NicholasNicholas Tishuk
Director of Programs and Accountability
The Renaissance Charter School
teach11372 @ gmail.com -
September 23rd, 2009 1:40 pm
Micheal,
Representation on the CECs is a big demand by many parents of students in charter schools city wide. While I’m no expert on CECs, my understanding is that many CECs have members who ran unopposed or were voted in with just a small handful of votes. The fact that there are a large number of NYC parents who would like to engage in this process but are structurally blocked from participating doesn’t make much sense to me.
On the other hand, the majority of NYC charters have parent representatives on the Board of Trustees, which is where all major decisions about the school are made. Best,
NicholasNicholas Tishuk
Director of Programs and Accountability
The Renaissance Charter School
teach11372 @ gmail.com -
September 23rd, 2009 1:42 pm
Nicholas,
If you find the funding for it, I’ll do that study, or at least try.
But I don’t think that we would just need hard data. We can ask some simple questions.
* Do some — or many, or even most — charter operators tell parents that they need to be involved with their school, in ways that they do not necessarily hear when applying to non-charter public schools?
* Do some — or many, or even most — charter operators talk about how parents in their school have a responsibility to help their children with their homework, in way that they do not necessarily hear when applying to non-charter public schools?
* Do some — or many, or even most — charter operators talk about their ELL and SPED programs in proportion to their distribution in the communities from which they recruit?
* Do some — or many, or even most — charter operators target their recruitment and marketing efforts at all, in any way?
Here’s how I know I don’t need to win this argument: people point to this study’s methodology as the “gold standard.” This lottery design is only important if we believe that charter applicants are somehow different than non-applicants. I have a post up in the community section where I explain a greater length why this i such a bad approach, but I do have to admit that it does acknowledge that applicants to charter schools are not the same as non-applicants — in terms of group averages. (Of course, there is overlap.) I don’t need to win this argument because the argument has already been won.
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September 23rd, 2009 2:41 pm
Alexander,
I’m going to have to part ways with you here on not needing hard data (I guess I live up to the charter stereotype there) to address the issue.
Your questions seem as good a start as any to answering these questions. Perhaps the CG team can collect some funds via their new funding model to underwrite your research on charter recruiting.
Contact me offline at the email below and I’m happy to volunteer Renaissance as one of the participating schools; I can send you information about our open houses, parent materials, admissions procedures, interviews with parents, etc.
Best,
NicholasNicholas Tishuk
Director of Programs and Accountability
The Renaissance Charter School
teach11372 @ gmail.com -
September 23rd, 2009 2:54 pm
Thanks, Nicholas. Very well balanced.
A few points about CECs at a higher level than my tease about charter-parent representation:
1) Every parent I spoke to thought last spring’s “straw poll” was a joke, hence the under-5% straw poll turnout. “Selector” turnout was around 40%, and those PTA officers were not bound by straw poll results anyway. This DOE invention was an expensive insult to parent participation.
2) Low interest in the council membership itself is complicated. Pure conjecture: CEC’s are not perceived as power-centers, and imho DOE has done little to empower them and MUCH to evade or disempower them. With full respect for members of its staff, structurally speaking, OFEA (Office for Family Engagement and Advocacy) is widely perceived to advocate for the administration, not for the parents. Activist parents know better ways to push for change, via Community Boards, City Council, etc. But not through the PEP or CECs, sadly.To your points:
a) Given the perceived weakness of CEC’s, and parent representation on charter BoT’s (as there is parent representation on SLT’s and DLT’s), why oh why would any charter parents WANT to be on a CEC? (Loaded question, tongue in cheek.) Could it be… Space Wars? It seems charters already have a Vulcan mind-meld with the Chancellor already.
b) “Structurally blocked” makes no sense to me either, but I understood to be the charter world’s historic preference. Comic relief: CEC interest, membership, and public attendance at meetings would skyrocket if we exanded the tent. The circus belongs under a big top.Bottom Line: Public policy affecting a community should be debated in the full light of day with all stakeholders welcomed at the table.
Cheers.
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September 23rd, 2009 2:57 pm
Nichalas,
I want data. I want strong and informative data.
I just don’t think that quantitative data will tell us everything we need to know. There is a lot to be gained from qualitative data, especially because we want to know about processes and mechanisms, things that so-called “hard data” can’t really tell us. And I would hardly be doing very good research if I depended upon you to send me information. I would want to sit in meetings — planning and open houses — see drafts and memos, accompany recruiters on visits to schools and where ever else they might go. If I were to look at your marketing and recruiting practices, I want to see it through my own eyes, not through yours.
Furthermore, I think that you are making the same mistake that you accuse others of making here. You don’t believe that your charter school is doing this, and you are extrapolating that conclusion to all other charter schools in the exact same absence of “hard data.” You hardly seem agnostic on the issue, yourself.
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September 23rd, 2009 3:07 pm
Alexander,
Again, contact me when your study is ready to go.
Renaissance has participated in probably a half-dozen studies on multiple issues in the past few years and I am familiar with the access levels required by academic researchers.
Best,
NicholasNicholas Tishuk
Director of Programs and Accountability
The Renaissance Charter School
teach11372 @ gmail.com -
September 23rd, 2009 3:15 pm
Michael M.,
My comment was regarding the percentage of ELL students who applied to charters vs those who got in - which was the same. The numbers 4 vs 14 above that you mentioned are the percentages of students who used ELL services - 4% for charters vs %14 for district. But as others have pointed out, charters don’t receive separate funding for ELL so the delta between those two numbers could either be explained by assuming fewer ELL students OR that ELL services in charters weren’t being monitored or reported in that way because there was no funding and thus no impetus to do so. Really, you’d have to disaggregate to be certain which it was in each case. I will say that if you have a charter with a consistently much lower percentage of ELL students (or SPED) than the district, that’s fishy. The school is possibly either intentionally encouraging those students not to come or isn’t recruiting adequately. I’d like to hope it’s usually the latter but in either case the school should address it.
Alexander,
You haven’t won the argument to my satisfaction simply because even if it were true that some, many, or most charters attempt to engage parents in some kind of contract (and I really don’t know how many do this, do you?) those contracts are, as I’m sure you know, completely non-binding. A charter simply can not legally get rid of a student or not admit a student because his or her parent didn’t sign a contract or uphold their end of one. It’s illegal. There’s also no evidence that parents are intimidated by such a contract (which you seem to suggest) or take it so seriously that they would actually opt their child out of a desirable school situation because they couldn’t adhere to it. I’m sure there are parents who take such contracts seriously and I’m sure there are many who sign it and never think about it again.
I have personally heard many charters speak about their SPED and ELL populations and their efforts at recruiting those populations. But my evidence, like yours, is anecdotal. The best thing to do if you are concerned about any school is to talk to approach the school leaders with your questions.
I don’t pretend to know what a gold standard study design might be, but this design calibrates for the common belief that those parents who apply to charters are more savvy or engaged. Thus controlling for the parents and trying to isolate the experience of charter v non-charter.
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September 23rd, 2009 3:34 pm
HERE’s what I was looking for yesterday!
(HT to Leonie.)Campbell’s Law! (Click name for link.)
“”The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decisionmaking, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.”[1]”
– Professor Donald T. Campbell“Bearing” in mind Prof. Hoxby is now at Stanfurd, I liked him even before I knew he was a Cal grad.
Thanks, Mrs. T.
But to split a fine hair, it’s not about use of services in the years AFTER the lottery — once in a charter or even once staying in a non-charter. It’s simply about whether a child was classified as such the year PRIOR to applying.Fact remains, per above, charters take 4 ELL kids for every 14 ELL kids who remain in non-charters. How the services are funded and tracked is interesting most certainly, but not germane to my point about factoring prior-year-ELL-kids in future-year-non-disaggreggated-comparisons.
Further, if charters do NOT get separate, or even incremental, ELL funding, a) how do they provide ELL kids the extra help this historically lower-scoring group needs, and b) wouldn’t that be an incentive to not recruit additional-needs ELL kids? How to explain the 4-14 gap not seen in any other category?
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September 23rd, 2009 3:53 pm
Michael M.,
Maybe I’m not reading the data above in the same way you are so totally open to being schooled. But I thought those two numbers referred to percentages of students receiving ELL services, not those who were identified as ELL upon entering. And, again, without disaggregating, its really impossible to say but I posited that since charters have no fiscal incentive to design “ELL Services” programs they may be serving ELL students under another umbrella (after school remediation, extra reading/writing classes, Saturday classes, intensives, one-on-one para support, etc.) and not reporting those efforts as specifically ELL.
I don’t know if these methods are more or less effective than those at district schools. To know if the students were being adequately served, you’d have to track them as ELL longitudinally with benchmarks that compare them to their district school peers. They may in fact be exactly the same remediations, just called something slightly different. And that data may even be in the study. I just haven’t had a chance to read and digest the entire study yet.
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September 23rd, 2009 4:05 pm
Not to join in the Golden Bear group hug (Boalt ‘95), but coming from California, and Oakland specifically, where ELLs are overrepresented in charters, i would say there are several factors at work in the disparity. First, the school choice research says that people choose based on informal social networks and that is more pronounced with minority families. Many of the charters we started in Oakland came out of the atrocious neglect that ELLs got in the District, and were started by community groups moreso than esatblished charter management organizations like KIPP. I do not think that the charter sector has penetrated teh ELL market in NYC yet and I would also say that a lower percentage of schools in NYC are started by community groups than a place like Oakland. I would also say, that because many charters dont anticipate a high percentage of ELLs they dont necessarily staff appropriately or build out program, and conversely, as with a school I work with, we designed a co-teach (full time Regular ed, Full time Ell teacher in classroom) ELL model and we didnt get enough students to justify the staffing. Both of these suituations can contribute to cycles of underserving. But overall we need to do a better job of developing programs that are responsive to what the communtiy needs and also doing credible and deep outreach. I hear the funding issue, that up until recently charters did not get the supplemental fedarl money for ELLs, but the money is not that significant, and in Ca we got about 60% of the funding that charters in the City get and had twice the hassles, and it got done. So the money can matter but I think it is less important than an overall will. I would also say that there are some bad apples out there. But those come in varying shades (and may not really be “bad”)–some really probably do not design programs that are responsive, do not recruit, and may formally or informally discourage applications for ELL families, others may not have multilingual staff at the front desk and by that create a more challenging environment, others may honestly tell parents that they have a great school, but they have limited options for ELLs (you will get English instruction with push in support), but there are three really strong other types of programs in the neighborhood in other schools. As just a fact of the recruitment process– which makes it seemingly egalitarian but maybe not so–most of the new schools just do a blanket mailer to all the families in the local district, usually English/Spanish, my feeling is that there is a vast underresponse from ELLs, but it would actually be interesting to do smoe research. The DoE did receive a 10 million dollar grant to increase choice among ELLs and other underserved students, but I dont know where that has really gone. I would also note that these are often problems faced by small schools as a group, and I believe by the NYC small high schools. Thats not to excuse it but just to say it is not just a charter issue–though it is one the charter community should and must address
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September 23rd, 2009 4:42 pm
Mrs. T. dismissed charter schools’ parent contracts as “completely non-binding” and claims: “A charter simply can not legally get rid of a student or not admit a student because his or her parent didn’t sign a contract or uphold their end of one. It’s illegal.”
Well, that’s not what KIPP would have parents think. Tell me if the language from these KIPP websites makes it sound like the KIPP contract (called the Commitment to Excellence) is optional and non-binding:
KIPP in San Francisco, my hometown:
If admitted to KIPP San Francisco Bay Academy, an orientation and home visit will be required
Students and parents sign the commitment to excellence during the home visit.KIPP L.A.:
At the beginning of every year, all KIPP teachers, students, and parents must sign a Commitment to Excellence form. [Caroline here: The word "must" does not sound optional to me.]
KIPP Indianapolis:
The Commitment To Excellence is signed by all staff, parents, and students prior to enrollment or employment at KIPP Indianapolis.
KIPP Albany:
All KIPP TECH VALLEY students, parents, teachers and staff sign this
Commitment to Excellence to ensure clear expectations for all team and family members.I looked at KIPP because I know that the contract is a key part of its enrollment process. Clearly, if KIPP can do it, other charters can; if KIPP is doing it, other charters are.
Cue the charter fans: “What’s wrong with requiring a contract?”
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September 23rd, 2009 4:44 pm
Dirk, I’m in San Francisco but I follow Oakland school issues, including participating in the Oakland Public School Parents’ listserve. It’s not my impression that ELL students are overrepresented in the charter schools. Can you back that up with figures?
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September 23rd, 2009 5:25 pm
here is the report or a linking document I believe–looking back through it it actually categorizes Latino and not ELL– but you have several schools (Oakland Charter Academy, Dolores Huerta, Lighthouse, probably more I havent really kept up) that are specifically designed for ELL kids
http://www.uscharterschools.org/cs/r/view/uscs_rs/2492
Though I guess I have to formally retract my statement as based on the report, I still believe it to be true based on my ground level work, at least at the time I was doing it. though you will see that Latinos are overrepresented and Latinos who went to charters showed higher achievement. Though I dont want to retread all the potential methodological issues
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September 23rd, 2009 5:43 pm
Nicholas,
Dirk makes some great points. Does your school have bilingual staff at the front desk? Can a non-English speaking parent find the front desk?
I don’t mean to pick on you or your school. Rather, I just mean to point out that there are lots of ways that a school can — however unintentionally — impact who actually applies for their lottery.
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September 23rd, 2009 6:10 pm
Our front office staff and educators at Renaissance speak a number of languages, Spanish being the most widely spoken. Our school application is available in 10 different languages in the front vestibule and there is a drop box there as well (ie you don’t have to sign in, enter a main office, have an interview, sign a performance contract, etc to apply). The entire process application process can be done on a “walk on” basis in 5 minutes and assistance is available if parents need it in filling out the application.
Being next to the public library in Jackson Heights and off the main drag on 37th avenue gives us a lot of foot traffic and I’d say at least a plurality of our parents don’t even know we are a charter school, just that we are a “good” school.
Nicholas Tishuk
Director of Programs and Accountability
The Renaissance Charter School
teach11372 @ gmail.com -
September 23rd, 2009 6:54 pm
It looks like Renaissance does at least some stuff really well.
Does anyone think that Renaissance is typical NYC charter schools in this kind of stuff?
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September 25th, 2009 10:59 pm
[...] Findings suggest that by the time the students reached eighth grade, the charter school cohort scored an average of 30 points higher on state math tests. Considering the average gap between public schools in Harlem and those in Scarsdale, the affluent New York suburb, is between 35 and 40 points, the charter school students managed to close that gap by about 86%. The results were similar for the state English test with charter school students closing the gap by about 66%. [...]
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October 1st, 2009 12:04 pm
[...] in the city and a more affluent suburb in the area. Charter schools close 66 percent of this “Harlem-Scarsdale” achievement gap in [...]
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October 9th, 2009 1:20 pm
Here’s is CREDO’s response to Hoxby’s critique, published two days ago. I can’t wait to see it get equal time on the WSJ’s editorial page!
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October 9th, 2009 3:32 pm
Tim,
Thanks. It does a Cal grad proud to see two Stanford camps go at it. ; - ) -
October 9th, 2009 3:55 pm
Thanks for the CREDO link, Tim. I can’t wait to read it since CREDO is in bed with charter supporters but is unafraid to criticize them.
@ceolaf: It’s nice to finally see what you look like! And btw, Renaissance was once a “regular” district school. They chose to conver to charter status.
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Mapping the Budget Cuts
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