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At some point in the far, far future, we will have audited, verified numbers from NYC DOE schools re real enrollment, actual attendance (not ATS default “present” attendance), legitimate transfers to non-NYC DOE schools, and real moved-out-of-NYC kids, as well as real numbers of dropouts including those who cease attending school during or immediately after middle school. It is my understanding that the latter number is substantial.

The NYS Ed. Dept. has a unique student identifier system which has been functional for quite a few years now. This could be used, if the NYC DOE wished to do so, to provide some serious verification for reported numbers on each of the above issues and would also tell us how many kids should have, but were not, tested at each appropriate age and grade level. The fact that this information is available, but has not been made public, leads me to believe that were it to be made public in an unmanipulated form, there would be a stupendous scandal.

Be that as it may, until we can get this data for the NYC DOE and its individual schools – ALL of them, including District 75 special ed. schools – then it is not particularly appropriate to ask for this information only for charter schools.

It would also be useful if the NYC DOE released the hard numbers on how many kids in each school, in each grade, were given last minute modifications and/or accommodations due to some alleged temporary infirmity as well as the same for kids marked “absent” or not tested due to some clerical error. Again, my understanding is that these are not-insignificant groups. Do charter principals find instant infirmities more frequently than their regular public school principal-peers? Interesting question, albeit one to which our grandchildren may be able, finally, to get some answers.

L/RT,
I hear ya, but on this I am inclined to cut slack.
Just imagine the hue and cry if, rather than piggbacking off the same test-and-score data used by other researchers, Hoxby had ginned up her own.

Sorry to be redundant, everyone, because I’ve posted this on other threads. But just for the benefit of anyone reading only this thread:

Caroline Hoxby, who headed this study, is not an impartial reseacher, and it’s misleading to represent her “study” as credible academic research. She is well-known as a longtime advocate of “free-market solutions” in education — charter schools, privatization and vouchers. It’s a glaring lapse on the part of all press who reported on this so-called “study” that they did not identify it as having been conducted by an openly partial advocate of charter schools.

While I agree that Hoxby should release the N’s for the study so we know exactly how big the sample size is, it is still a silly list of questions or line of attack because an expanded data set will likely further enhance the positive results for charters.  The number of excellent charters that have opened since 2005 is far larger than those in 2001-4 (all the top charters in fact, Williamsburg, AF, Infinity, Democracy Prep),  and the idea that because the students were lotteried into bad schools is exactly the point of the study.  

The issue of mobility and persistence rates is also a red herring.  if you look at mobility in traditional schools in districts like Harlem and Bed Stuy, it is off the charts…20%+ A YEAR.  so if charters have a cumulative 40% rate over 7 years, they’re way below the district mobility.  But then again, charter critics would say that proves “Creaming.”  In fact, that proves that a family who has a good school is LESS likely to move because they are satisfied than one who goes to a school where their child is unsafe. 

Here is a specific situation that might be part of the Hoxby study: Mrs. Jones wants to get her son out of his terrible urban classroom because of low achievement and many disruptions. Mrs. Smith feels the same way. Although they are poor, they are both very concerned about the education their children are receiving. Both of them apply to the local charter where their children are placed in a lottery. Mrs. Jones’ son gets in but Mrs. Smith’s child is placed on the waiting list for over a year. During this time Mrs. Smith is forced to send her child back to the school with all the disruptions. Whose child will have a more successful school year? Do we really need a Stanford study to give us the answer to this question? Would the fact that all the parents have chosen the charter school affect the outcome for their children? Do you think Mrs. Smith’s child would do better in the traditional public school than the children’s whose parents are less involved? Actually these questions were all answered over 40 years ago. Perhaps it’s time to recognize the importance of the parents and apply that knowledge.

I just received my copy of Education Week today and discovered that Professor Hoxby used children who were randomly assigned to the charter schools instead of children whose parents applied. This makes a huge difference in the validity of the study and does seem to indicate that perhaps the students in the charter schools performed much better. I’m still very much a cynic so I would want to know if the charter schools drilled the students on the test more than the regular school teachers did. After all, without public oversight, who would know?

I must admit though, that there is a strong possibility that the charters are improving achievement for low-income minority students. If this is indeed the case I hope teachers apply to open and manage their own charters. This would give them the opportunity to have autonomy over the important work that they do.

Caroline,

I understand what you are saying because when I was in graduate school I saw how researchers “guided” their studies to make results come out a certain way. With endless numbers of variables involved, it’s not at all difficult to do. However, I find it hard to believe that a Stanford researcher would spend eight years on a study if she weren’t trying to get valid results. Still, she definitely should have told journalists about her charter school bias. It’s all very puzzling to me. Since charter schools seem here to stay, do you agree that teachers need to take the lead? What bothers me more than anything is the fact that non-teachers are opening these schools and establishing leadership that ought to go to teachers.

L/RT,

The parents applied. THEN there was an albeit random lottery.

This is what was written in Education Week:

“Studies comparing student achievement in charter schools with that in regular public schools are difficult to do credibly, however, because applicants and their families are presumably more academically motivated than students who remain in regular schools. Ms. Hoxby was able to overcome that problem in New York City because its charter schools are oversubscribed, requiring administrators to us lotteries to allocate seats. That allowed researchers to compare students randomly assigned to charters with students who applied but did not win a seat in a charter school, thus providing for a more apples-to-apples comparison.”

If Hoxby took students whose parents applied for a position, how would that alter the effect of “the more academically motivated?” I don’t get it. One journalist who seems interested in getting at the truth is Bill Turque of the Washington Post. Maybe he’ll do some digging.

Oh, my lights just went on. Hoxby figured that her control group also were among the “academically motivated.” That doesn’t prove anything important to me because if you take a group of motivated kids and place them in a school together, that school is going to be better. That’s the secret of the Catholic schools. The children who were not placed were presumably spread out to different schools so that would certainly affect their education significantly. To truly control that group, you’d have to put them all in one regular public school that had no other students. Also, what we all want to know is this: Can a charter school take the SAME kids that are in a regular public school and get superior results? If they can prove that, I will become a supporter.

Diana,
Thank you for your analysis of the Hoxby study (I rather call it the Hoaxby study) and your thought-provoking questions that should raise concerns about the study’s lack of information and true accuracies.