Comments on: Seven takeaways from a closer look at the state test scores

By: Thanks Mike!

Thanks Mike! — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 12:23:00 +0000

First let me preface this by saying that I do think SOME of the charter schools are doing some good things. (At least the ones who aren’t laundering money) BUT, there is no mention that Charter schools have the ability to remove students from their schools mid-year, where DOE schools do not have that capability. If the charter schools have the ability to remove their top discipline problems (who are also probably lower level learners), say 3% of their worst behaving students and those students get thrown out or forced transfer mid-year to DOE schools, your looking at some inaccurate numbers.

Then we know that “new schools” are not counted in DOE statistics until their fourth year, how does this change the overall numbers? But I think has to do more with High Schools.

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 00:54:00 +0000

yes, but data for the state report cards is determined from last year’s scores, not this year’s.

And the ‘student stability’ statistic does tell us something about schools that add kids, it tells us absolutely nothing about attrition–it is simply the percentage of students in the school’s top grade who attended the school at any time during the previous year. A school could lose its entire enrollment, save for one kid in its terminal grade, and have a 100% student stability rate.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 00:48:00 +0000

I thought I was replying to Ken here, but it ended up as a stand-alone comment.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 00:47:00 +0000

I was more struck by the fact that only half the kids in charter schools are reading and writing at grade level. What ever happened to the theory that it was mainly “union rules” that were holding kids back? Why are charter schools failing to educate nearly half their students even though they’re mostly union free and, more importantly, what can be done for the students who are not succeeding in charter or public schools? Is there a Plan B for the wealthy charter backers, now that charters don’t seem to be the answer? Or is union busting the overriding goal?

By: ms. v.

ms. v. — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 23:15:00 +0000

It is. You can find it here, for instance, in the state’s report cards for each school: https://reportcards.nysed.gov/ The information is digested in various ways in any number of places. Incidentally, the report cards include the student stability rate, which might be a first place to look if you want to see which schools keep students and which don’t. (But be careful… instability could be due to many factors, not just “counselling out.” A school serving large numbers of homeless students would have high instability without doing anything wrong…)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 22:16:00 +0000

Why isn’t the demographic of each charter ( ell, sped, etc) broken down and publicized? I thought they were PUBLIC schools.

By: Cyrus

Cyrus — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 21:47:00 +0000

Don’t worry, New York State is currently working on annual performance tests for physical education, civics, and art. Soon, every aspect of every single minute of the school day will be tested for “effectiveness”. Don’t be surprised when kids are tested on how well they eat their lunches every year.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 21:42:00 +0000

A disinfomercial.

By: Mary Conway-Spiegel

Mary Conway-Spiegel — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 21:35:00 +0000

…that doesn’t measure many aspects of education I value: creativity, physical education, civics, public service, genuine curiosity, community, multi-culturalism and more…so much more.

By: Mary Conway-Spiegel

Mary Conway-Spiegel — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 21:31:00 +0000

While I’m happy the stats are good/improving, in real time, as a public school parent, I experience this as a ten-year-long infomercial.

By: East Sider

East Sider — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 21:24:00 +0000

We always look at level 3 (proficiency) and above … kids at level 1 indicates the depth of the problem … anecdotally I’m told the % of kids at level 1 in low performing schools increased … if so, a really, really bad sign … as far as charter schools until there is tranparency we simply don’t know whether the increases are instructional gains or selecting of kids and deselecting of kids.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 21:08:00 +0000

Words are kind of important, huh?
Even subtleties of understatement!

It affects things, doesn’t it? Comparisons, morale, treatment of human beings. Talk to the Mayor about it, if you can speak his language.

By: Ken Hirsh

Ken Hirsh — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 20:44:00 +0000

I haven’t reviewed the data yet, but from looking at your graphs, it seems like your last point is an understatement: ”Charter Schools bounced back from a tough year in 2010 with significant gains.”

It looks from the graphs that charter schools are now outperforming traditional public schools in NYC by a very large margin — much larger than ever before. They are even significantly outperforming the rest of the state in math. Now, these results don’t prove that charter schools are “better” than traditional public schools (most of us know the various alternative explanations) or that we should have more charter schools, but the results are much more striking than “bounced back from a tough year… with significant gains”.