GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• A breakdown of snarky coverage from the AFT’s national convention. (Antonucci)
• So far Randi Weingarten has promised to be the union of solutions. (Seattle PI)
• She also promised to “fight smart.” Read a hilarious dispatch from an opponent. (EdNotes)
• Learning to teach by practicing on Second Life-style student “avatars.” (Inside Higher Ed)
• City charter and district schools both suspend about 8% of their students on average. (Curious 2)
• Meet the group that brought the new Chicago teachers union president to power. (Notebook)
• How a college graduate today compares to a college grad of the 1930s. (Quick and the Ed)
• Should schools really spend millions buying new technologies? (Larry Cuban)
• Obama’s edu-research team will focus on finding ways to support learning. (EdWeek)

Teacher turnover rates at charter schools nationwide are more than double those of traditional public schools, according to a study done by the National Center on School Choice.

Researchers found that charter schools lost 25 percent of their teachers to other schools and careers while district schools lost 14 percent, a difference the report called the “turnover gap.” The report’s findings are based on teacher survey data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics from the 2003-2004 school year.

“The odds of a charter school teacher leaving the profession versus staying in the same school were 130 percent greater than those of a traditional public school teacher,” the researchers noted.

The report’s authors found little data to support the idea that charter school turnover is higher because these schools have more leeway to fire teachers, a claim made by some charter school supporters.

(more…)

Gittleson compared the average suspension rates at district and charter schools in central Brooklyn, Harlem and the South Bronx.

How do the number of students suspended from charter schools compare to the number of students suspended from their district school counterparts?

That was the question GothamSchools contributor Kim Gittleson set out to answer this week by comparing the numbers of suspensions district and charter schools report to the state each year.

Overall, the two categories of schools suspend students at about the same rate, Gittleson found.

But suspension rates vary by neighborhood. In central Brooklyn, charter schools suspend a higher percentage of students than their neighboring district schools. In Harlem and the South Bronx, district schools suspend more students.

And the number of suspensions varies widely by charter school. Some schools didn’t suspend any students last year. Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant Charter School and Kings Collegiate Charter School, by contrast, both suspended nearly 40 percent of their student bodies last year.

You can read Gittleson’s full analysis here. Gittleson is employed by Ken Hirsh, who also helps fund GothamSchools.

On Tuesday, the Daily News published a report on the rising rate of student suspensions in New York City’s schools. Since charter schools in New York often have discipline policies that differ from their traditional public school counterparts, I was curious to compare suspension rates in charters to those in traditional public schools. Looking at the Basic Education Data System (BEDS) filings for both charter schools and traditional public schools during the 2008-2009 school year, I found that both types of schools suspended, on average, around 8% of their student body. (BEDS data asks schools only to report on the number of students that were suspended, not the number of overall suspensions, which is the number that the Daily News article cited.)

Since school demographics can be correlated with suspension rates, I looked at charter school suspension rates as they compared to their traditional public school counterparts. I found that the results varied by neighborhood. In Harlem and the South Bronx, charter schools suspended a lower percentage of their student body.  In Central Brooklyn, charter schools suspended slightly more students. A breakdown of suspension rates at co-located charter schools is available in this spreadsheet. (more…)

• The number of central Department of Education employees is up 70 percent since 2003. (Daily News)
• Some summer school students are baking in non-airconditioned rooms. (NY1)
• Bonnie Brown, the superintendent of District 75 for disabled students, is retiring. (S.I. Advance)
• The newest conflict at John F. Kennedy High School is over its scoreboard. (Riverdale Press)
• D.C. schools chief Michelle Rhee will introduce standardized tests in more grades. (Washington Post)
• Some see virtual students as key to improving teacher training. (USA Today)
• A new, teacher-controlled school in Detroit won’t have a principal. (Free Press)
• The Washington Post defends the charter school board’s right to close failing schools.
• A nationwide survey paints a dismal picture of social services for minority children. (AP)
• The number of Boston students who aren’t fluent in English has ballooned recently. (Boston Globe)