The
Charter School Dust-Up: Examining the Evidence on Enrollment and Achievement.
Martin
Carnoy, Rebecca Jacobsen, Lawrence Mishel, and Richard Rothstein. Washington,
DC: Economic Policy Institute and Teachers College Press, 2005. Pp. 192. $16.95,
paper. ISBN: 0-8077-4615-0. TEL: 202-775-8810
This
new Economic Policy Institute (EPI) study concludes that, despite many charter
school proponents’ claims, they do not serve disproportionate numbers
of economically disadvantaged kids. Based on data from the federally-sponsored
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and from state-level studies,
it challenges the idea that the lower academic performance of students in
charter schools relative to peers in public schools is explained by socioeconomic
differences in the students served.
"On average, the students attending charter schools are no more difficult
to teach than students in comparable regular public schools," said Lawrence
Mishel, EPI president and study co-author. "Thus, we must look for other
explanations of the relatively low achievement scores of students in charter
schools."
The authors did their research last year, after heated debate over NAEP data
seeming to show charter-schoolers performed no better than regular public-schoolers.
Many charter school supporters claimed this was because charter-schoolers
were more disadvantaged.
This report refutes that claim. It shows, for example, that while charter
schools enroll a higher percentage of black students than regular public schools,
black students in charter schools are less likely to be eligible for lunch
subsidies than black students in regular public schools, yet test scores for
black students are no higher in charter schools than in regular public schools.
Many charter school proponents expected freedom from regulation and union
contracts to lead easily to higher average student performance—apparently
not the case.
The report reviews studies from a number of states showing that, from standardized
test scores, students in charter schools perform at levels no higher (in some
cases consistently below) those of counterparts in regular public schools.
States with data available include those with the largest concentration of
charter schools, such as California, Michigan, Texas, and the District of
Columbia.
Some 76% of black students in regular public schools are low-income; in charters,
it’s 68%; charter-schoolers eligible for free-and-reduced price lunches
score significantly lower in math and reading on the NAEP than those at conventional
schools; charter-schoolers’ test scores and test score gains are, on
average, no greater than those of comparable students in regular public schools.
Even in charters operating several years, average test scores are still no
higher.
Dust-Up also examined enrollment patterns at the Knowledge is Power Program
(KIPP), a charter school network often said to get better results from disadvantaged
students. The KIPP analysis showed that, even when charter schools aim to
enroll the neediest children, traits inherent in school choice procedures
can frustrate this goal.
"The evidence that charter schools do not outperform regular public schools
suggests that, while some charters may be a benefit to students, others do
great harm," said Mishel. "Charter schools were designed to be experimental;
it should be no surprise that some experiments lead to failures, experiences
that can provide useful lessons."
Dust-Up data show that charter schools have produced positive outcomes for
specific groups and in specific times and places. For example, rapid test
score gains from initially low levels were found in Arizona early-grade charter
schools. But there were more instances where charter schools seemed to have
negative effects on performance compared to regular public schools.
The authors argue that evaluation of all types of schools, charter and others,
could be improved both by accounting for the difficulty of educating particular
groups of students before interpreting test scores and by focusing on student
gains over time, not their level of achievement in any particular year.
They also call on charter school advocates to adopt consistent standards for
improving evaluation of both regular public schools and charter schools. "We
hope the debate on charter schools opens up a broader discussion on better
ways to assess student performance," said Martin Carnoy, a professor
at Stanford University and study co-author. "At the very least, we should
use the same standards for evaluating charter and regular public schools."
Click below to buy this book
