Is a NY Times Alert the same as a barf alert?
Charter school students score lower in reading and math
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1688247/posts
Here's another similar thread that was posted 8/22/06.
Meaningless unless you know where the charter schools are located and the demographics.
We are looking into a charter school for next year that will be starting up in 2007. We are hoping to get in but there may be too many families applying. There's one established charter school not too far from us that has fantastic numbers as far as their students' achievement in reading and math.
As long as the National Assessment of Educational Progress test is fair, then the way to go is to publish the results in EACH school district and let the chips fall where they may.
I have seen several charter schools fail in Phoenix and several flourish. The difference between charter schools and public is that the public schools can't fail and therefore, won't go away when they don't do the job.
It would be interesting to see the public school scores for an area where charter schools are employed. Specifically, the public school scores compared to their scores after the charter schools went in.
I also believe that some charter schools have been taking on students who did not do well in the public schools. Perhaps they are working with the problem kids.
There is more to this than just a head-to-head comparison of charter to public schools. I am always suspicious of the simplistic use of statistics.
Another charter school thread.
Hard to say with the NY Times. They lying again? Who knows?
What do I think??? We obviously need more federal intervention and control. Locals just don't have a clue how to educate budding socialists.
A few thoughts:
1. If it was previously assumed that charter schools performed better, I'm sure the authors didn't see that as a reason to act against traditional public schools, so they can't very well yell for a rope now.
2. Since it's a "federal study" a certain amount of bias in favor of a government controlled "solution" is probably to be assumed.
3. Can we see the study? How do we know this isn't the only result out of ten in the study that favors govt. schools, and so the only one receiving any air time?
4. Since the public schools are doing so great, I assume we can tear up all their applications for more money.
fourth graders in charter schools score worse in reading and math than their public school counterparts
I don't believe it for a moment.
B.S. story started by teacher unions no doubt.I believe the last couple of spelling bee winners were from charter or home schooled. Anything is better than A Government school.
I am sorry. It is the Jason Blair times. Until it is confirmed by independent sources the crediblity of anything "reported" by the NY Slimes is expected to be more propganda then fact.
There is also ONE charter school that serves middle class kids. The parents in a gentrifying intown neighborhood fought for years to get the school and (when the old building was nearly destroyed by fire) to keep it open. Basically, it is parent-run, and the parents are people who know what their kids need. The school board would have loved to shut the operation down, but the parents had too much clout, so the school continues the flourish.
I suspect a study of the "charter schools" in the city would confirm the findings the Times is crowing about--the "charter schools" aren't doing any better than the public schools. But that's because not all charter schools are equivalent.
I think they're lying through their teeth .. as usual.
I thought this study was debunked by someone, it believe it had the NEA and unions fingerprints all over it. Can't remember where the link was...
More stories etc.. on charter schools:
http://www.neoperspectives.com/charterschoolsexplained.htm
"Charter school advocates denounced the new federal study even before it was released and took issue with its methodology, which is not perfect. But this study does not stand alone. The evidence so far shows that charter schools are not inherently superior to the traditional public schools they often seek to supplant — and that they are sometimes worse."
----
Charter schools typically cater to lower income, or troubled students, which I think is why they were ranked 'worse;, despite indviidual student improvmenet.
Then they hired a ding-bat principal to do their bidding. The first year the socialite moms were able to talk several corporations, and a public utility into donating things such as a 12,000 square foot science lab, a commercial size green house, field trips to Washington,DC, and Seattle,WA.
For the charter school's second year, it was decided to send all the 5th graders on a field trip to an African nation beset with a civil war. The purpose of the trip was for the children to be peace ambassadors. The dingbat principal and his well-coiffed followers was to have the children teach the principles of peace to a ruthless dictator and his cronies.
The school district fired the principal, when he booked forty + airline tickets with the school credit card. The enrollment at the school consisted mainly of filthy rich families, with just a few politically correct minority children. Somehow ordinary lower and middle class children never had their names drawn from the enrollment lottery. Another nearby charter school (4th - 6th grades) was labeled for gifted children. But the school's definition of gifted was both flexible and mysterious. One child, a professor's son, had serious behavior and academic difficulties, and he was selected. Two extremely bright (IQ above 130), well-motivated students were not selected. One was the daughter of an accountant, and the other was the son of a maintenance man.