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A frequent criticism of charter schools is that they succeed by “creaming” children. A new analysis by Insideschools finds that many city charter schools do have significantly fewer needy students than other public schools.

Vanessa Witenko, a former colleague of mine, analyzed data from city charter schools (although she had trouble obtaining some data) and found that most do not enroll homeless students, offer special programs for students still learning how to speak English, or provide special education services that are legally required for some children with special needs.

Here are a few key excerpts.

On why charter schools enroll just 111 of the city’s 51,000 homeless students:

“The application period is February and March and the lottery is held in April,” said [Jeff] Litt [of the Carl C. Icahn charter schools]. “A mother who comes [to the shelter] in June is too late, so their kids go to the neighborhood school.” Homeless families may have priorities other than seeking alternatives to their neighborhood schools, he said. “They have daily survival needs. I don’t know if they have the time to research who we are, what we are, how to get in.”

On some charter schools’ use of Collaborative Team Teaching classes, intended for some children with special needs, to educate children who are learning English: (more…)

A major downside to opening up boutique schools with special programs and higher expectations is that some children will inevitably be left behind. What becomes of them?

Victor Harbison, a Chicago teacher, grapples with this question on a post on Nicholas Kristoff’s New York Times blog today. Selective schools offer opportunities for top students, Harbison writes, but they also cause less motivated or skilled students to be concentrated in non-selective schools, making it harder for those schools to succeed. He writes:

When educational leaders decided to create magnet schools, they didn’t just get it wrong, they got it backwards. They pulled out the best and brightest from our communities and sent them away. The students who are part of the “great middle” now find themselves in an environment where the peers who have the greatest influence in their school are the least positive role models.

Schools adapted, and quickly. We tightened security, installed metal detectors, and adopted ideas like zero-tolerance. And neighborhood schools, without restrictive admission policies based on test scores, quickly spiraled downward …

Imagine if pulling out the “bottom ten” had been the policy for the past 30 years. Neighborhood schools could have purred along like the go-go 90’s under Clinton and the students with the greatest needs, facing the greatest challenges, would have had millions of dollars in resources devoted to their education in brand new state-of-the-art buildings (with Ivy League-educated, amazing teachers, no doubt). …

I look forward to the arguments defending magnet schools. They are legion and many are spot on. That is, if you can live with the idea of condemning the vast majority of students in your community to sub-standard schools.

There’s an extensive discussion of this phenomenon, which critics call “creaming,” going on elsewhere on our site. Read more here, here, and here.

Among those who have commented on Elizabeth’s post about journalist Jay Mathews’ seven KIPP myths are one of the charter school chain’s most vocal critics; a graduate of a KIPP school in Philadelphia; and Mathews himself. It’s a vibrant discussion and one you should check out.

One topic of debate is whether KIPP schools “cream” students — that is, whether the students who enter their lotteries are better prepared academically or socially, thus priming the schools to outperform their local competitors. In the comments section of Elizabeth’s post, Seth Andrew, the head of Harlem’s Democracy Prep Charter School, argues that other public schools are far more guilty than charters of creaming. He writes:

Traditional Public Schools “cream” far more than charter schools throughout New York. I attended NYC Public schools from grade k-12, and I always took a test before being enrolled. The NYC middle school process evaluates students by their test scores, grades, attendance, and even has parent interviews for a number of traditional public schools. Whether it’s great traditional public schools like FDA, Bronx Science, or Anderson, that require specific entry requirements or G&T tests, or traditional schools that select based on other factors, traditional public schools are far more guilty of “creaming” (both in terms of agressiveness and quantity of students effected) than charters could ever be. We have a legal mandate to enroll by a random lottery.