charter schools – Hank Kalet

The charter question and Cerf’s answer

State Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf probably wishes he could take back his statements about a Princeton-South Brunswick charter school. Cerf, a gung-ho supporter of charters, raised questions about so-called boutique schools like the proposed Mandarin-language one here. (It has been approved by the state but has been unable to find a home that can get through the local zoning process.)

At a forum sponsored by NJ Spotlight last week in Newark, Cerf cited a proposed Mandarin-immersion charter in Princeton in questioning whether the harm such charters could cause to their districts outweighs their potential to enhance a “portfolio” of educational offerings.

“I think you really can have a very serious debate, the outcome of which is unclear, as to whether that rounds out the portfolio or impairs the success of the overall district,” Cerf said, referring to the Princeton International Academy Charter School, which hopes to open in South Brunswick in September and draw students from that district, Princeton and West Windsor-Plainsboro.

Cerf was correct — and not just about the Princeton International Academy Charter School. The charter school movement requires far more scrutiny than state educational officials have been willing to give it, and this goes for those working both for Gov. Chris Christie and Gov. Jon Corzine.

The argument in favor of charters is that it enhances freedom of choice for parents, but it also offers the state a convenient out when it comes to fixing public schools. Rather than do the hard work — which would include modernizing buildings to a much greater degree than has been imagined, training teachers and paying them enough to stay in the public sector, reducing class sizes and doing what needs to be done to improve school safety (and this list does not include the societal changes required to put poor kids in a position to learn) — the state is giving children of motivated parents a way to escape failing schools. This does nothing to fix the failures, but consigns those students unlucky enough to escape to even worse conditions.

So, let me rephrase the question Cerf was asking, but apply it to charter schools more generally: Do charter schools enhance or hinder the quality of public school districts?

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Push back on charters from NJSBA

The New Jersey School Boards Association is asking the state to give voters a say in the development and budgeting for charter schools.

The organization “overwhelmingly” backed a resolution from Princeton that ask that the state change rules governing charter schools so that the schools would need the same kind of voter backing that new public schools require. Princeton already is home to one charter school and a second one has been approved that will draw from Princeton, South Brunswick and West Windsor-Plainsboro.

The vote is the first major challenge to the charter school movement and could give supporters of proposed charter reform legislation the boost they need to get their bill to the governor’s desk. While there is little chance that charter-backer Gov Chris Christie would sign the legislation, it would make public the basic issues at play in the debate over charters.

The fact is that local tax money is used to fund charters, but the entity elected to manage the public’s money — the school board — has been forced to sit on the sidelines as charter schools have popped up around the state. Some survive and thrive, others muddle along and many fail, but no one other than the state Department of Education has any say over whether they are needed.

The legislation proposed by state Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex) would change that. Before the NJSBA vote, it seemed unlikely the bill would go anywhere, even though Buono is the chairwoman of the Senate Budget Committee. Maybe this will alter the balance.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Unbiased statistics needed to ensure honest debate on charter schools

There appears to be some doubt about the numbers that the Christie administration has been using to “prove” its contention that charter schools are the panacea to the problems facing poor school districts.

Robert Braun, in The Star-Ledger, took the state to task for its selective approach to statistics a month ago. More recently, Gordon MacInnes does the same thing. In an opinion piece on NJ Spotlight, the former education commissioner, raises questions about the structure of studies cited by Gov. Chris Christie and acting Education Commissioner Chris Cerf to support charter schools. In fact, he writes, the “evidence for this contention is thin.”

To bolster its case, the NJ Department of Education (DOE) released in January tables of test results showing that about three-quarters of charters had higher proficiency rates on state tests than their district peers.

Not so fast.

Columnists, respected academics and public school advocates lost no time in pointing out that meaningful performance comparisons must involve students with similar characteristics — like free lunch eligibility, special education or English learner status.

Failing that, the comparisons cannot be used to decide which schools do the better job.

The department returned on March 11 with much more expansive documentation that — surprise — supported the same conclusion concerning the superiority of charters. Accompanying the multiple charts, tables and bar graphs were statements confirming and strengthening the Christie administration’s policy preferences.

Poverty status is at the core of the DOE’s contention.

Essentially, the department anchors its argument that charters are pretty much like district schools when it comes to poor kids by dismissing the distinction between “free” and “reduced” lunch eligibility.

And that, MacInnes says, makes little sense. There are significant differences in scores between free and reduced lunch students, as well as between girls and boys in charter and public schools and those of English learners and all of these variables need to be controlled for in order that studies be taken seriously.

MacInnes — who served under Christie Whitman and serves as an assemblyman from conservative Morris County — is not taking sides in the charter debate. Rather, he is asking for an honest accounting, especially given that a handful of national studies offer evidence that directly contradicts what the Christie administration would have us believe.

Before the Christie Administration bets just about everything on charter schools, it should conduct a fair and more complete assessment of the performance of similar students. When Stanford undertook a large-scale evaluation in 17 states, it did just that. It found that only 17 percent of charter school students outperformed their district peers, but 37 percent underperformed them. The rest did about the same.

Eighty-three percent doing worse or about the same does not sound like the answer to New Jersey’s educational woes.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Data matters

If we are going to debate the efficacy of charter schools in New Jersey and elsewhere, shouldn’t we have non-biased and complete information on student achievement? The answer, I think, is implied by the question.

The problem, as Robert Braun points out today, is that we are being asked to judge charter schools without that information — with data, in fact, that has been selected to prove a particular political point.

“We are seeing a classic demonstration of how data gets manipulated to support whatever point of view is in vogue,” says Joseph DePierro, dean of the Seton Hall College of Education and Human Services.

DePierro, who is a charter school supporter, warned, “It’s a classic demonstration of how not to do research: First assert the conclusion and then scramble to find the data that supports it.”

Like other independent researchers, DePierro has concluded there are no significant differences between charter and traditional public schools.

The problem with the numbers, as released, is that they do not compare apples with apples. Consider the numbers from Newark’s Robert Treat Academy:

In third-grade language arts, RTA children scored 36.1 points above the Newark district percentage passing rate. In third-grade math, they scored 38.1 points above. Those kinds of scores held true throughout the grades. In sixth-grade language arts, all RTA students passed the statewide test — 65.6 points ahead of the district pass rate.

Great numbers that allegedly demonstrate the difference between traditional public and charter schools in the city. And yet, there is far more than meets the eye here:

According to the state’s data, of RTA’s 500 students, 42.9 percent are eligible for the federal free-lunch program — compared with 71.2 percent of children in the district. By income level, those children are not comparable. Only 6.6 percent of RTA’s students have been classified as disabled, compared with 19.7 of the district’s students. Again, the populations are simply not comparable.

That last part is not something we hear from charter supporters.

To truly judge charter schools and their impact on students and the public schools, we need to start by acknowledging that the populations served by the charters is drastically different than those in the public schools — the obvious economic differences are only a small part of the equation. Charter students tend to have more involved parents — parents have to apply for the admission lottery, which is a subtle self-selection process.

And, this is the part we have ignored, we need to do extensive research into what happens in the schools that lose students to the charters. If the students leaving are economically better off or come from more involved families, doesn’t that necessarily mean that those left behind are more disadvantaged? Shouldn’t we at least get an answer to that question and try to understand what that means for the students left behind?

Whatever your view of charter schools — I dislike them — I think we can all agree that we need unbiased research before we make wholesale changes in the relationship between the public schools and charters.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Charter dissent

There appears to be some dissent from charter mania, and not just in the suburban districts.

Droves of parents and community members at tonight’s Newark school board meeting expressed vociferous outrage about a plan to close and consolidate failing Newark schools in an effort to clear space for charter schools.

The meeting became so raucous and hostile at moments that Advisory Board President Shavar Jeffries threatened to remove audience members or stop the meeting. About 300 people attended the meeting at the 15th Avenue School, one of the facilities slated for consolidation.

Everyone wants parental involvement. Well, here it is.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.