Mayor de Blasio Kicks 700 Kids Out of Over-Performing Schools

Townhall.com ^ | March 2, 2014 | Michael Schaus

[RipSawyer]

“NYC has ceased to be America a long time ago.”
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And since then Turtletown, Podunk and Possum Hollow have followed.

[thirst4truth]

I listened to an interview with Eva Moskowitz, very smart and motivated, she has built a super successful charter school program and she is a democrat, most likely voted for DeBlasio.

[Kid Shelleen]

This should make Spike Lee happy.

[JimRed]

Look at the lemon/lemonade scenario. The charter kids if relocated will be safer from the thug class who consider beating them up a little innocent recreation.

[miss marmelstein]

I’ve lived in NYC all my life and never absorbed leftism. It’s a daily fight not to be called names and spoken to like a dim child but it can be done. In fact, it builds character. Tell your relative he’s got weak kids.

[Stegall Tx]

The real reason for the disparity (well, most of it) is that charter schools can kick out kids who either don't behave, have special needs, or are simply low-performing.

OK, so let's do the math. You take 1,000 kids from a low performing student body that has 5% of the kids pass a state exam. In order to make those 50 kids (5% of 1,000) account for all of the rise to 88% passing rate in the charter school, you would have to kick out 946 of the 1,000 (50/56 = 89%). That does not account for 824 of the 880 (or 93%) who pass the exam in the charter school.

[A_perfect_lady]

No, no. You're assuming the populations are the same to start with. They aren't.

1. Charter schools can pick and choose from the beginning, and a child who has a record of juvenile delinquency or consistent failure can be denied entrance. Kids actually have to apply for entrance (at least the ones around here.) Public schools can't do that.

2. The kinds of parents who go to the trouble of getting their kids into charter schools are the kinds of parents who tend to have well-behaved children, and learning in school is at least partly dependent on being able to sit still and listen, and do the work.

3. Throughout the course of the year, children who get into trouble can be (and are) kicked out. Not only does that result in their lousy test scores not registering on the charter school's scorecard, it eliminates the kind of chaos in the classroom that brings all the other kids down too.

4. By the time you get to "kicking out the ones who screw the test averages" you're just finalizing the difference. I point it out because it's just a continuation of the trend.

In other words, we all know that one advantage a charter school has is that it can pick and choose its teachers without union interference. And that is true. But the other truth you ignore is that it can pick and choose its students as well. And that is a bigger advantage.

[ExCTCitizen]

I wonder if those 700 kids are mostly whites? If it is, you won’t hear it. If it mostly blacks or Hispanics, you’ll hear it on the news.

[Savage Beast]

He already knows.

He's very disappointed in them.