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“ We want children to achieve many things, including the ability to read, write and calculate. Learning to play a musical instrument is an achievement; writing a research paper is an achievement. For some children with unusually difficult lives, just being in school everyday is an achievement. Like you, I have learned not to accept test scores as synonymous with achievement, nor to assume that the only children who matter are those who “win” whatever competitions we create for them. ”

If Ravitch has really learned these lessons, then it is completely nonsensical for her to oppose charter schools on the sole ground that they don’t increase test scores enough.  Charter schools are one of the main places where one can find teachers and students doing exactly what Ravitch purports to favor: studying Core Knowledge-type curricula, or focusing on the arts, etc.  

Kitchen Sink,

In fact, until the fraudulence of the state test scores was revealed, test scores were exactly what charter school PR hype focused on, and based their claims of superiority over the public schools upon. Now, with the tide receding and shown to be swimming naked, they claim that the scores are not the be-all and end-all.

Which is it? Because it can’t be both.

Then again, since we live in a through-the-looking-glass world of impunity, where only the little people are accountable, perhaps it can be both.

As for Obama and Gates (and Bloomberg and Klein, et. al.), they are entitled to seek the best for their children. But it’s the stench of their hypocrisy that nauseates, since they deny for public school children what they have insisted upon (small class size, enriched curriculum, freedom from test mania, etc.) for their own.

I’ve read the book, and wasn’t impressed.  OK, test scores are not the “sole” argument, but it is certainly the main argument.  And she trots it out every time she writes about charters — the CREDO study, etc.  Anyway, delete the word “sole” from my comment, and everything else stands: Ravitch’s case against charter schools is fundamentally incoherent.  

Stuart,

It is possible to hold a complex view: to see tests as informative and useful and yet not as the sole measures of education. It is also possible to question the value of charters as a reform while acknowledging the quality and accomplishments of certain charters.

Diane Ravitch does this. She questions the recklessness and narrowness of certain reforms, the exuberance over ideas that have not panned out, and the priorities of powerful philanthropists and politicians. Her argument is not anti-testing or anti-charter; rather, she points out the excesses and dangers of the testing, choice, and accountability movements.

You are entitled to disagree with her, of course. But when you use sarcastic and dismissive language (e.g., “completely nonsensical,” “trots it out”), you undermine your own argument. Courtesy and thoughtfulness would not hurt.

Also, I am not sure whether you know John Doe or not, but he makes points that are practically identical to yours, in similar language and tone, in many a comment on many an education blog. Of course you can’t control what he writes, if you are not the same person–but the repetition of such posts does not make them more convincing.

GGW,

Point well made, well taken.

On the flip side, can anyone provide 50, or even 10, examples of Chancellor Klein proposing steps to improve the OTHER 90% or so of schools whose performance he either lauds before election time, or pans otherwise?

And teacher-bashing, including test-based and value-added hoopdie-doo, doesn’t count.

Curriculum? Breadth? Parental involvement? Citizenship? Social development? Arts? Sports? Etc.

After all, that’s where 90% or so of his responsibility truly lies, no pun intended.

Trying again without links:

You make an argument that is much more coherent and logical than Ravitch.  Would that you had been able to moderate her anti-charter polemics a bit!  

It would be coherent for Ravitch to say, “Test score gains are what really matters.  And charter schools don’t measure up.  We should look for other means to produce test score gains.”  But of course, she doesn’t say that, because that’s not what she thinks about tests. 

It would also be coherent for Ravitch to say, “Test score gains are far from the only thing to value about a school.  Thus, even though charter schools on average don’t show dramatic test score gains, they are doing wonderful things — there are charter schools devoted to the arts, charter schools devoted to at-risk kids, charter schools that focus on Core Knowledge curricula, etc.  There are bad apples, to be sure, but there are plenty of bad apples in the rest of the public sector as well.  Expanding charter schools may not ’save’ American education, but the availability of more charters of more varieties is a wonderful thing that gives American children more freedom and opportunities to find a niche that really fits their interests, personalities, and tastes.”  

That would be a coherent argument, too.  But again, she doesn’t say that.  

Take her WSJ op-ed, for example, which is very representative of her book.  What does Ravitch say about charters? 1) she cites the Stanford CREDO study on test scores; 2) she cites charters’ NAEP scores; 3) she claims that charter schools have favorable student bodies.  Or check out her article in The Nation.  What does she say about charters? All the same stuff: citation of the CREDO study on test scores (check), citation of NAEP scores (check), criticize charters for supposedly failing to enroll hard-to-educate kids (check).  

Or check out her LA Times article from Aug. 2009. Same litany: NAEP scores, CREDO study, a dig at who enrolls in charter schools, and this time topped off with the accusation that two (2) charter school operators make too much money.  

Ravitch has had the same script for over a year now.  Every time she mentions charters, and this includes the book, it’s all about test scores, enrollment patterns, and the occasional suggestion that charter school operators make too much money. 

I never see any acknowledgment of “the quality and accomplishments of certain charters” (when she does mention successful charters, such as KIPP, it’s only to criticize their attrition rates or to say that it’s not a scalable model, which may be true in some sense but again the modus operandi is one of unrelenting criticism).

What’s particularly bothersome is that Ravitch now acts as if she’s totally unaware of the social justice values that she once so eloquently expressed — i.e., richer people already have abundant school choice in the real estate market, and charters/vouchers are just a finger on the scale that might help give poor kids more opportunities to make choices and find a niche that fits.  

***

By the way, I wouldn’t be surprised that lots and lots of internet commenters have pointed out that Ravitch, of all people, shouldn’t be criticizing charter schools for their supposed lack of great test scores, while ignoring all the things various charter schools do that (from her perspective) should be praiseworthy. That point isn’t original with me, and it’s sufficiently obvious that I’d expect anyone capable of reading Ravitch’s book to be aware that she’s inconsistent. 

By the way, I refer to the arts: I was on the board of an arts-based public charter school for a few years.  One of our occasional frustrations with the state board of education was that they criticized us for not having high enough reading/math test scores (which, incidentally, were pretty good but could theoretically have been even higher).  Our feeling was something like this: “Sure, we may have lower test scores than expected, but that’s precisely because we’re providing an outlet for all the artsy students whose passion in life is ballet or theater or orchestra, and who aren’t being well served by the other public schools right now.”  
But as frustrating as it is for an arts-based school to be criticized for its test scores, at least the state board of education didn’t simultaneously claim to believe that test scores are a bad way to judge a school’s merit, because the school will end up narrowing the curriculum by eliminating the arts.  But that’s exactly the contradiction Ravitch offers. Indeed, as often as Ravitch cites the CREDO study, she’s directly criticizing my school — which is in Arkansas, and was therefore part of the CREDO study.  So Ravitch is directly guilty of criticizing an arts-based charter school for not having high enough test scores, even while elsewhere claiming that schools should do precisely what my school was doing: focusing on the arts rather than just reading/math skills.  

Stuart Buck,

I agree with you that there are charter schools staffed and run by dedicated individuals that are indeed doing good work.  I also know there are charter schools that are doing a terrible job.  I know that there are public schools staffed and run by dedicated individuals that are also doing good work.  I also know that there are public schools that are doing terrible.  

Now, you can ignore it, but, to me, one of the most important things  mentioned by folks here is that educational reform is focused on charter schools as a primary means of reform.  You can attack the semantics (panacea) if you’d like, but, the reality is that the “reformers” seem to be focused on: 
1. blackmailing states into lifting charter school caps
2. rating and firing “bad” teachers while claiming there is almost impossible to get rid of bad teachers with a ratings system that even the makers admit is unreliable, even over a 3 year period
3. vilifying teacher’s unions (don’t get me started)

I’m a public school teacher.  Find me links clearly showing specific initiatives that will help me in my class this week in my public school.  And, let me also add something, I teach in NYC and happen to love the standards for chemistry and have based my curriculum around them, so, new national standards would probably be a negative.  

Now, I think many teachers such as myself would love it if maybe reformers looked at other countries and considered some steps they are continuing to do.  One example, in Canada, most provinces now have posted curricula for all courses that teachers can use.  Imagine, instead of putting money into testing and judging teachers on how well students perform on a test based on a list of things they need to do and know, provinces are creating the course and generating material (including animations) to help teachers actually teach the course rather than just testing them on how well they do.  Teachers are not required to use this class material, but, the lessons are there, including how much time each activity will take, etc.  
Now, to me, that sounds like a great way to invest money.   

Stuart Buck,

Your argument about Diane Ravitch and charter schools is flawed.

You are very dissatisfied with Ravitch’s critique of charters, based on what you claim is its repetitiveness. But you fail to refute them. She is entirely correct to criticize charter schools as she does, because she is in fact dismantling what has been – before the ongoing scandals about fraudulent, politically gamed test scores – their overriding claim to superiority over public schools: that their test scores are higher, and that the entire center of gravity of US education should therefore be tilted in their favor. 

Now that the tests have been shown to be, shall we politely say, flawed, charter supporters are paddling furiously upstream to underplay the hyping of their juiced test scores, and focus on all the enrichment they provide. Kitchen Sink seems to have taken it upon himself to perform this dreary and hopeless task here at Gotham Schools.

As for Ravitch’s so-called repetitiveness, the mainstream media refuses to honestly listen and report on alternative narratives to the current one of “Public schools/unions/teachers: bad. Charter schools/privatization/ at-will workforce, good.” Even with her prominence, she has a hard time breaking thorough a media echo chamber in which corporate ed deform is the default (literally and figuratively) program. When you have something to say and people won’t listen, you have to repeat yourself. Especially when you’re right.

As for your claim that charters are providing the same choices and increased opportunities for needy populations that have always been enjoyed by the affluent, the opposite is true. While benefitting small populations, charters in fact divert resources away from the overwhelming majority in those communities. By accelerating the destruction of the neighborhood school – often concurrent with the gentrification of those same neighborhoods – charters eliminate choice. In the aggregate, which is what we talk about when we speak of public policy, resources to the majority are diminished to the, which is then treated as some kind of “leftover” population. Look no further than to see the treatment of public school students and parents in buildings that Eva Moskowitz has invaded in Harlem.

That this process also disenfranchises the very people that charter promoters claim to be serving, since the growth of charters in urban districts is based on mayoral control and loss the right to vote for school representatives, further exposes the falsity of the argument.

Corporate ed deformers have been remarkably successful in creating a dark, rhetorical alchemy, where reality and facts are transmuted into their opposites: teachers have been successfully blamed as the agents of the (very real, multi-decade-long) crisis in education, and the (further) disenfranchisement of minority communities has been marketed as “the civil rights issue of our time.”

“Look no further than to see the treatment of public school students and parents in buildings that Eva Moskowitz has invaded in Harlem.”

“Look no further” is an apt phrase, for there is very little evidence of the phenomenon you describe anywhere else.  Even if Moskowitz is the devil, she manages only 7 of the nation’s 4,000+ charter schools.  

Stuart Buck,

“…there is very little evidence of the phenomenon you describe (charter school invasions of public schools) anywhere else.”

That’s because almost everywhere outside of NYC charters have their own facilities, and are less likely to have an citywide administration that encourages and enables their aggressive turf conquests.

As for Moskowitz, I mentioned her only because Harlem is Ground Zero for this process and she’s the poster girl for it. But the process is epidemic all over the city.

By the way, why no response to the main substance of my argument?

GGW, re the panacea point: 

Ravitch’s book says (p. 229): “There are no grounds for the claim made in the past decade that accountability all by itself is a silver bullet, nor for the oft-asserted argument that choice by itself is a panacea.” She claims that choice and accountability were sold as “panaceas and miracle cures,” as an “elixir that promised a quick fix to intractable problems.” (p. 3).
Apart from one line that two authors (Chubb and Moe) wrote some 20 years ago, Ravitch does not identify anyone who has ever claimed that “choice by itself is a panacea.” Describing this claim as “oft-asserted” strikes me as a falsehood, much as with other of Ravitch’s claims (i.e., she has claimed that there “is not a shred of evidence , , ,  in the research literature” in favor of mayoral control, even though one of her own articles was published in a book along with Kenneth Wong’s study finding that mayoral control benefited student achievement).  

The effort to privatize education is extremely well-funded, and employs many highly (profit) motivated and intelligent people. (In fact, one way to think about it is as a jobs program for Ivy Leaguers).

These folks are well-versed in the art of semantic dodging,diversion and misdirection. Stuart Buck’s comments are one example of many, with its nit-picking but ultimately pointless contortions over the term “panacea” and whether ed deformers and privatizers see charters as such. They will always leave themselves a rhetorical escape hatch, whether its about charters, unions (with my favorite: “I’m not anti-union. Unions were once necessary, but they’ve outlived their usefulness”) or school governance.

While the rhetoric of education privateers is worth noting, it’s far more instructive to observe their behavior. The old adages, “watch what they do, not what they say,” and “follow the money” come to mind. Far better to analyze their budgets and policies, since those are the ultimate markers for their values and intentions.

Vouchers, charters, privatization, union-busting… the case for dismantlement of public education — the bedrock of the middle class — goes on.

School’s Open (for a while more anyway).
Drive carefully.

Histrionics is a panacea.

BTW, is it histrionic for Klein to suggest public school teachers are the biggest obstacle to kids’ civil rights?
http (colon) //www (dot) huffingtonpost (dot) com/joel-klein/transforming-the-teaching_b_200616 (dot) html

You’re a thoughtful guy. I look forward to your suggestions as to how to improve the lot of the OTHER 97%.

Stuart Buck, 

Have you been intellectually honest by disclosing that at least one of your links is to a website by a person you are publishing papers with?  Have you mentioned that Greene is affiliated with a right wing think tank?  Did you also notice that if you follow Greene links that back his point of view, one of the 9 papers said vouchers didn’t have an effect, one was by Hoxby (right wing think tank ties, just to start with), and, 3 of the papers are by the blog writer himself.  Describing this as “scholarly consensus”, as he does, hardly smacks of intellectual honesty to me.  
Also, speaking of intellectually honest, let’s mention the work of Caroline Hoxby, who is frequently quoted by pro charter folks because her research runs contrary to CREDO studies.  Maybe you could help explain how her refusal to release her calculations and the fact her paper a few years ago was treated as fact when it wasn’t even published in a peer reviewed journal is intellectually honest?  I always thought putting your work out for public and peer scrutiny was part of the process. 
I must have missed the parts where pro charter folks have been intellectually honest and mentioned these things.  

CarolineSF,

To my knowledge, no one seems to be talking about my (self-hat-tip: brilliant) idea of opening a charter school as a neighborhood school. If you’re worried about charters not attracting “truly at-risk” kids (my language trying to summarize the argument against the current enrollment patterns) then eliminate that potential barrier by trying it as “opt-out” rather than “opt-in.”

I know many of the neo-con people in the charter movement would go on and on about school choice, but I’d bet there would be a bevy of charter school folks lined up at the door to have that arrangement: autonomy over governance, curriculum, hiring and work rules; accountability to the state authorizer for a coherent set of targeted goals; and zoned status. To quote the SNL Harry Caray impersonation, “I know I would.”
I don’t know, maybe some of this turnaround work that’s going on includes charters-as-zoned-schools, but the law remains the same: charters are schools of choice.

I know you also claim to have damning evidence about counseling out and charters pushing out low test score kids; I’m sure that’s true at many charters, but charters are not a monolith and it is certainly not happening at at least SOME charters (while it certainly is happening at some district schools, like the one with the principal who told one of my former students’ grandmother, “I don’t want your special ed kid, I can’t deal with him! You have go to somewhere else.”

Another point I’d like to make about this counseling out business is that, as my school has grown and evolved, we have found (through authorizer pressure, internal and external feedback and strategic planning) that our expectations are going up every year in all areas – meaning that we are starting to be perceived as “too strict” or “too tough on lateness” or “bothersome about attendance” by some parents, parents who are used to a frankly laissez-faire district that doesn’t seem to care whether their kids are in school or not. So when a parent opts for the path of least resistance (“I’m going to a school that is going to leave me alone!”) but we are seeing patterns of poor attendance correlate with low achievement, what do you recommend we do in order to change that dynamic? Should we lower our standards to meet the expectations of the community schools that serve as a de facto outlet for frustrated parents who don’t want to or don’t understand our expectations? (Mind you – in every step of the process for this attendance issue there is an explicit question, “How can we help you?” and involvement of both parent assocation and student support/social work team. I understand that’s it’s one thing to have high expectations and quite another to be ruthless.

Am I missing something else in your argument?

Tim, 
I’m going to throw two things out there.  
1. I teach at a public school that’s kinda kicking butt compared to all other schools in our category.  There are several reasons for the success and most of them would make it impossible to replicate our success at a large scale.  The principal is brilliant and the school has created a program where 1000 students choose our school 1st overall with only 110 seats available.  We are non selective, but, we do end up getting students who want to be at our school.  The parent buy in is massive and the administration has been very effective at helping students find other schools if they don’t want to be here.  Now, in public schools, that means another student will transfer in, while charter schools don’t get students moved in to replace departing students.  So, i would say you don’t need charter schools to create successful schools with student and parent buy in.
2. follow the money.  http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/conservative-think-tanker-to-head-ua-school-reform-operation/Content?oid=867264
 

SB,

I refer to the dominant theme of Klein’s essay, as I have written about at greater length here on GS numerous times.

Inserting the “how they’re paid” etc qualifiers simply spaces out the core “teachers = civil rights obstacles” connection.

For shame.

Now, if you read that essay and come away agreeing with Klein: “If only we paid them differently, these bigot teachers would suddenly be the second coming of MLK, Ghandi, and Bishop Tutu, all rolled into one,” I’d be at a loss for how next to respond.

Another good read. No mention of Klein’s themes, veiled or explicit, in “What Makes a Great Teacher”, though I would immediately note low turnover is on the list; Klein would prefer the churn for what it does for average salaries.
http (colon) //www (dot) greatschools (dot) org/improvement/quality-teaching/what-makes-a-great-teacher.gs?content=79&page=1

Once charter schools start accepting ALL students (first come first serve)..and I do mean ALL….I mean special ed students, students with physical handicaps (blind etc..). Once they accept students on the DAY of state testing, Once they accept responsibility for ALL students and not send them back to public school once they have grown weary of their antics. Once they accept NO money from the government and become completley private, then maybe I’ll accept what they say. Charter schools cannot compare to public schools in what they offer!!!!