Tag Archives: charter schools

Watching the School Reform War in New York

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I feel like I have much better insight into what’s happening in the New York mayorial race at least as it relates to education reform now that I’ve got Steven Brill’s Class Warfare under my belt. He focused a lot of attention on New York where battles over charter schools, union contracts, and using test scores for evaluation played out on a grand scale. That battle continues and if you’re interested, Gotham Schools provides daily news feeds related to education in the Big Apple.

Today’s links led to an editorial by Eva Moskowitz, famed CEO of Success Academy Charter Schools, whose students have outperformed even the most well-heeled schools on the state tests. She is bashing candidate Bill de Blasio over his plan to begin charging charters for the space provided in public school buildings. She talks about the dismal test scores of most New York public school students, particularly those of color. I thought it was interesting that she didn’t bother to mention her own success rate. Maybe she doesn’t have to.

Or maybe she doesn’t want to have to defend all charter schools. While the Success Academy has lived up to its name, other charters have shown similarly low scores, leading to the conclusion Brill came to in his book: trying to figure out how to “fix” schools is a complex process and just calling something a charter school is no guarantee of success.

Parent Triggers and Charters

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I am visiting in Pennsylvania, and this commentary on the need for a parent trigger law was in today’s paper. The Commonwealth Foundation supports charter schools, and the writer points to evidence that charters are outperforming public schools by demonstrating that more charters have made Adequate Yearly Progress. It’s telling that the organization does not compare scores on either the PSSA (Pennsylvania’s state test) or NAEP (the national test of progress).  That data is only used to show that scores for public schools are declining.  I can’t help but wonder why?  Could it be that, when it comes to actual scores, the charters aren’t doing any better and maybe worse than the traditional schools?

In fact, that’s what data is really showing about charters. What little reliable data can be found shows what much educational research does: results vary across schools, states, and students. Some charters do better; some charters do worse. There is certainly no research to support increasing the number of charters or that parent trigger laws lead to greater student achievement.