White liberal resentment over the role of discipline in 'taming' ADD/ADHD children from minority backgrounds seems to be a theme echoed by the ever more powerful teachers' unions.
Discipline in the classroom is essential to the success of every school; whether achieved through rules not found on the street or a broken faux family, it works. Violent assaults are epidemic in public schools and better controlled in charters and pre-schools. Were school records unsealed the numbers of assaults would stagger the prescriptions of various reformers; and more than justify the turnover of teachers in public schools. Terrorized in your classroom? you bet, whether looks and attitude or actual assaults.
Promoting racism i.e. only Black teachers can 'teach' Black children; and discipline is really disguised racism is so beneath what the NYTIMES once stood for, I still can't believe you're parroting it without a critical perspective or evidence.
I once recruited Black male teachers in vain; at one time the only two in the Va. Early Childhood association were in the program I was part of. They were the 'man in the house' not found in the single parent families our students were growing up in; and running the entire operation was a former Army officer who infused staff with the value of classroom discipline and uniformity.....school uniforms are an invaluable companion to classroom discipline.
In Maine, the teachers are in the top ten percent of wage earners.
1
Really? The latest school miracle? Are we on to something here? Thanks reporter! Jettison your school discipline codes and your academic achievement as measured by test scores will soar! So tired of reading every six months about the new magic formula for solving a deep problem. Author writes: “Ascend jettisoned its discipline code in 2013. Suspensions for elementary school students have since plummeted by 40 percent while test scores have risen by about 35 percentage points in English and math.”
10
____________________Arizona_______New York City
Spending
per student__________$7,501___________$17,500
Charter School
Students_____________200,000___________100,000
8th grade math scores
Demographic
Black __________________272 ______________256
Hispanic ________________269_______________264
White ___________________296 ______________291
Asian ___________________316 ______________306
8th grade math scores by
Mother’s education
High school dropout _________265 ______________262
High school graduate ________269 _______________270
Some college _______________285 ______________272
College graduate ____________296 ______________282
This difference in charter school counts is critical for understanding why Arizona outperforms a school district which spends more than 140 percent more per student.
Two hundred thousand charter school students is critical mass. New York City's 100,000 charter school students is just beginning to approach critical mass.
Critical mass is that point at which so many students are making school choice and have been doing it for so long that it has permanently changed education culture.
Because NYC schools receive so much more money per student and perform so much lower than Arizona schools, the incentive to politically oppose the charter school movement is huge.
8
As a committed public school (for ALL) citizen, I have been opposed to charter schools from the beginning. Most of the children in charter schools will "make it" because they have a parent or parents who care about them to take the initiative to get their child/children into a charter school. My answer, which has been since working at a very poor inner-city neighborhood in Chicago in 1958: MANDATORY pre-K for all children in families that receive Medicaid, welfare, or have a parent in prison (prison population (costing us $28,000 in Virginia per prisoner per year, whereas day care is $8,000 per child per year in our area). AND, prison population is projected, based on the number of children NOT reading at grade level at the end of 3rd grade, and we know who most of these children are--our poor. But, we LOVE putting our young in prison, as the prisons become more and more privatized. Let's be like the two poorest countries in our hemisphere, Cuba and Nicaragua, and have FREE pre-K through university FOR ALL, paid for by tax dollars!!!!
8
Charter schools should not exist, it is the product of corrupt politicians and the ignorant and malignant idea that because you built a company and got lucky with your product you have some kind of secret capability. The public is ignorant, many politicians are the same and are on the pay of someone, we are sinking. Other signs of decadence are theories like there are 10 types of intelligence, that could learn algebra from some other subject matter. You need to learn algebra from algebra, with the graphic base which is the origin of it. You need to practice and demonstrate, there is no other way around. Whatever it is you are studying, you need to study, pay attention in class, and have a silent place at home to study, and food at the table and safety. The difference in cultural capital of the parents is the problem, and unscientific charlatanism in Education departments is also great part of the problem. In South America, 30 years ago it was well known ( a teacher mentioned the situation here) that going to College or HS in the US was easy... peasy.. We have also a generation of brilliant students...that will be under the yoke of student loans forever, and thousands of indentured workers, enslaved pedagogues, the Adjunct Lecturers at The City University of New York, for one example.. But..Hey!! such is life!!!
6
The Times has been a cheerleader for charter schools for many years. It has consistently sought to portray charter schools in the best possible light. Now that so many problems have come to light we get an article saying “We’ll fix ourselves, don’t regulate us.”
I don’t understand why the Times has this attitude. It’s lasted long past the time that any fair minded person could claim that charters are better. Perhaps the editors like that charters are ostensibly public, but don’t have to work with parent or teacher input. Perhaps, as politicians do, the paper has seized on one troubled school system to conclude that real public schools are bad. Perhaps the editors just believe in the privatization of the public sector, which has been so rampant in recent decades.
Missing statistic in the article: charter schools enroll some 3,000,000 but real public schools enroll some 48,000,000
8
Once again, I have read another article plus reader comments about the broken state of our education system. As so many readers have stated, the good students suffer terribly because the bad students are wild while the charter schools are scamming us. There is no social support for the bad eggs, so why bother educating any of them? Might I suggest we look towards a country similar to our own but producing much better outcomes? In a word, Canada. Google leading education systems and Canada is always in the top 10 if not top 2 or 3. For all the talk about Finland, why not look a little closer to home? They have healthcare figured out, they're dealing with racism well, they dont have mass shootings, plus we can learn from their tradition of education. Surely our biggest trading partner and one of our strongest allies would help us fix our own systems. All we have to do is ask.
7
Any fair analysis of performance in public schools must consider the readiness to learn of the students.
In low income communities, parents tell their kids to study and to succeed just as do parents in wealthy communities. They believe that good educations will give them better opportunities in life. Both expect that the schools will provide good educations to their children. But that is where the commonalities end.
When students in affluent school districts attend school, it is a peaceful and safe place despite the tendency of children to act without much understanding of consequences. When teachers tell them to behave, the do. The children engage with the teacher and they all learn. They finish educated and ready to benefit from it. A few students will have suffered from challenges that prevent them from these benefits but they are few, usually due to disorders which hold them back or reactions to dysfunctional family circumstances. But schools usually have resources to help them.
When students in low income school districts attend school, it is often in a state of confusion and insecurity due to some children acting out their personal issues and affecting the others. Teachers may not be able to teach until they have calmed down disruptive children or passed them off to administrators. The students often receive abbreviated lessons and cannot fully focus long upon the instruction. The finish partially educated and in need of further tutoring to proceed.
10
Behavior is the elephant in the room—and behavior comes from someplace.
When the mindset is to demand compliance and obedience, and you reward the behaviors you like and punish the ones you don’t, you are completely relying on the willpower of students to get the results you want.
That’s nuts.
Discipline comes from the Latin for “to teach.” When you set forth unrealistic expectations and punish kids for not meeting them rather than teach them self-regulation skills, you’re not teaching them what they need to know. How are the kids with ADHD, developmental delays, autism, sensory processing issues, learning disabilities, and/or brains rewired by trauma supposed to develop self-regulation skills if we refuse to teach them? The behavioral expectations are typically decided upon by people who have no clue how these brain differences affect kids.
Become curious. What’s really going on? Are they shut down because not only the other kids but a member of the school staff has ridiculed them for something they can’t help, such as a learning disability that may not even have been diagnosed yet? Are they acting out because they are filled with anger at what’s happened to them?
Judgment and punishment in lieu of curiosity just makes it all the harder for these kids to function well in a school environment and not identify with their failures.
They're our kids. Let's invest in them.
5
Children are extremely sensitive and unable to gain the perspective on what they experience as do mature adults. The high likelihood of families suffering from the distresses that beset low income circumstances will leave children with feelings and unaddressed needs and concerns that the bring into classrooms. It’s a situation where children are reacting to distresses which they cannot manage.
6
Many parents in poor districts are working two jobs to survive, or are in prison, addicted to drugs, mentally impaired, or angry at a system of government that they deem unfair to them. In wealthy districts parents instill monetary values as opposed to civic and humanistic values. Can children be educated without first instilling pride, respect, confidence and a safe caring environment for them?
Perhaps what is missing in our education system in wealthy and poor districts is a lack of instilling pride and respect for our communities, state and country. Pride in sharing common experiences, pride in having friends of various beliefs, pride in respecting others regardless of their beliefs, pride in tolerance of others and pride in helping others.
Where is our civic & community leadership? Should this leadership begin at the federal level and work its way down to our communities?
Perhaps we could step away from honoring our athletes and politicians and invest more in honoring communities and those in our communities they help others. A change of role models is desperately needed.
2
My daughter was placed in a Charter School by the Teach for America program. She was put into a classroom without any mentors or help. The principal was a former businessman and had no experience with education. She finally left with only a few months to go. She has since taught in other schools, both public inner city and suburbs. None were as bad as the charter school. She did say that parents sent their children to the charter school because it was a safer environment than the public schools.
10
Completely equal public education for all. No charter schools, and those who prefer private schools will still pay their fair share for public education. Enough of this.
7
The tenth paragraph in this article sums up the case against charter schools. Teachers unions have consolidated power in NYC over the past year....The power of teachers unions are also the reason American educational output ranks so low in comparison to the rest of the advanced world. Which is ironic, given the progressive penchant for heralding all of the wonderful socio-economic advances of the advanced world, such as universal healthcare. It's a down right shame that progressives prefer an American third class educational system instead of a Singaporean or Finlandish system.
8
Instead of charter vs. public schools, which doubles administrative costs and sets up a phony competition, I would love to see more pilot or magnet schools that have different goals beyond test scores, such as dual language schools, performing arts schools, green schools with a science, environmental, engineering focus, or a school designed with autistic children's needs at the fore front. Some of these schools could even be exam schools or have entrance criteria, but why not better tests that may not be language based; for instance, use X materials and build a structure within so many minutes. Maybe we could suspend testing until middle or high school and create other criteria for success such as attendance of students and parents at critical events. We should also leverage technology so parents who can't make school hours can participate in other ways. Most schools also need affordable before and aftercare, because parents work!
2
You really shouldn't judge charters by whether they are 'high performing', but how well they educate YOUR child.
Each charter should negotiate an individualized education plan (IEP) for every child along with the parent(s)/guardians.
That is the real yardstick; not some abstract statistic. Re-storing parental control over a child's destiny is critical to the future of democracy; strengthening the government's control over a child's education only furthers a socialist edutocracy.
3
Let's bottom line it gang. The three secrets to success for our children in schools are:
1-Involvement of the parents.
2-Involvement of the parents.
3-Involvement of the parents.
Jewish and Asian parents get it. Minority and other white parents don't get it.
This is not to disparage many minority and other white parents who do get it.
96
@Paul I am a white, middle-aged professional mom and main breadwinner, and I can barely keep up with the amount of work my local public school requires of me to care for one child. I make a decent living but just enough with no frills. STOP pinning the blame on parents of low-income kids, especially when they're mostly women trying to hold it together.
23
I worked in public schools in Michigan for many years and discovered that students who were doing the best work had a great deal of parental support. Their children did their homework and followed the rules of the school.
My own children would come from school - have a bite to eat, go outside to play and after dinner their dad and I would sit with them at the kitchen table while they did their homework. After that they were free to enjoy whatever activity they wanted.
They have successful lives set by discipline in the importance of their activities - after their school work was completed. There was no t.v. while we were engaged in this important task.
They all have graduate degrees - and contribute to society. All are now retired and living a good life. I am a grateful parent
34
@Paul
You got it wrong. According to Diane Ravitch, the three secrets to success for our children in schools are:
1-Income of the parents.
2-Income of the parents.
3-Income of the parents.
I'd like to see any data showing that the success of Asian students is correlated with race, rather than with parental income.
19
I went to school for 20 years and volunteer occasionally in K-12. I think hundreds of schools are unconstitutionally disadvantaged and must be closed by force, perhaps by the national guard, and all budget/ contracts zeroed out. This would be a joyful step forward for justice. This is part of every child’s right to be in a constitutionally conforming school, with clear and demonstrated access to education. Charter schools should expand and meet high standards. Expelling problem children is an essential practice for any school, one that should be embraced by the community as it is globally. The expulsion of disruptive students is essential to success and fair access. The well being, pay of school workers is of secondary importance, but should be considered where we can, if there is extra time or money. Otherwise it is irrelevant,
8
One data set that is often left out (or is unavailable) is student attrition over time. In Denver, the highest rated high school charters enroll students through a lottery (no cherry-picking) but their class numbers decrease 25% - 50% over the course of four years. In 2018, the top rated high school accepted 165 students into 9th grade but only graduated 80 seniors, a trend that has been consistent for ten years. The school's grading, behavior and attendance polices effectively push out low-performing students and allow the school to skirt accountability for the high drop-out numbers. Their "success" lies in attracting and retaining students who are proficient readers and who score well on standardized tests.
7
Charter Schools began and remain an educational option because of the transparent failure of conventional public schools to even barely adequately educate children. If conventional public schools were successful, charter schools would be out of business. But they are not, which says everything that needs to be said about public education. Despite years of effort and countless tax dollars, public schools still fail our children. And what do we get from teachers and their union: nothing but excuses. Its always someone else's fault and in this case the bogey man is the charter school. But mostly were were from teachers and the education union is that the problem is they need more money, more money, more money. No matter how much money we pour into education, for them its never enough. Time has run out. Put up or shut up. Demonstrably improve the education of our children or quit and let others, yes the Charter schools, take over.
32
@Toni The problem with low performing inner city and rural schools is poverty. More than 20% of American students live below the poverty line and qualify for free and reduced lunch. Charter schools are not going to change this--and they have had little to no long term success improving schools. Why do you think wealthy, suburban schools continue to be so successful on the world stage (PISA testing, etc.)? It is about money, but not giving money to schools. A strong middle class is vital to future educational success.
30
@Toni
I don't know about you, but from where I'm sitting "pouring money into the schools" would, at the very least, end us with class sizes under 30 kids. So long as we don't have that, and teachers are making peanuts, I don't know how you can claim that we "pour" money anywhere.
12
@Toni
You seem to have fallen for someone's propaganda that all public schools are terrible and the teachers don't care. I assure you it's false. My children had very good public schools that tried with much success to educate all the children, whatever their ability or problems.
12
I have subbed at many of these schools and some are very good but most of the others are awful. The kids are eating candy and cookies and drinking gatorade in the morning and then spinning out of control later. I have been called "pathetic, a loser, a racist, an idiot, etc." High schoolers use the F word in every sentence. There are kids selling drugs in the bathroom. The attention span is limited so within an hour if you can get 15 minutes of teaching, it's pretty good. Most teachers are simply trying to keep the class quiet so they can be heard. Amidst all this, the administrators are trying to do mindfulness meditation and 3 minutes of quiet reflection but when these kids' home lives are a wreck or when parents are not there to support them, it's hard for a school to do much. And what I feel most sad about are the 3 or 4 students who I see in each of these insane classrooms who ARE paying attention and ARE doing the work. They are truly heroic.
202
@Dee You write as if you’re talking about traditional inner-city public schools rather than charter schools. Which is it?
4
@BVS
Certainly fits the description of the urban charter for profit school businesses here in the Tristate area; what they get away with is unbelievable; but so is the behavior and lack of effective discipline at the campuses. The absence of disciplinary codes and procedures are justified by "mirroring the culture of the community. "
15
@Dee, yes, and the ones that are willing to behave and try deserve to go to a school where decent behavior is the norm. Unfortunately, due to the current drive for reduced consequences for bad behavior, they are unlikely to get it unless they switch to a good charter school.
This is why I generally support charter schools despite being a public school teacher at a school that’s losing enrollment.
24
I have worked in 3 different NYC Charter networks including one featured in this article, and the biggest myth is that charter schools are about educating black and brown children at all.
I can attest that charter school teachers are ill prepared to discipline or even interact with the children they teach because the relationship is based on a racist, dehumanizing premise.
The majority white teachers often view themselves as saviors to the majority black and brown students, and with that feeling of superiority comes all the racist notions that keep schools segregated in the first place. The students are viewed as dangerous, unknowable beings who need to be brought to heel; the white teachers are fragile, beneficent beings who need to be protected at all costs.
To protect white teachers, these schools employ black deans to serve as overseers and disciplinarians so the white folks don’t have to learn to relate to and care for the children in their charge. The purpose of the whole system is to create a form of school segregation which absolves white folks of any guilt for their racist, classist policies while ceding yet another part of the public trust to private capitalist interests.
43
@Elle Yvette Thank you so much for sharing your experience in NYC charters. The conversations I've had with many current and former black and Hispanic teachers in charters largely align with your reflections. One element here that I didn't have space to get into but I think is worth thinking about - since some charter networks have so much teacher turnover, they rely on inexperienced teachers, many of them white, who do not live in the neighborhoods they teach. That is of course also a problem in traditional public schools, but I have heard many examples of young white teachers in charters following discipline to the letter of the law because their lack of experience in classrooms, and in low-income neighborhoods, made it hard for them to adapt the rules as more experienced teachers often do.
10
@Eliza Shapiro It really is distressing to hear you and others here speak about "white teachers" as being a part of the problem. Do you not understand that many of us "white teachers" are not rich and elite or overly privileged or ignorant of social/cultural issues? We--like black, Asian, or Hispanic teachers-- feel a calling to educate kids so they can be competitive in the world. To be targeted like this is simply not helpful, nor is it correct. And it would be considered racist if I had said that about anyone of color.
18
"After Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Mo., in the summer of 2014, Ms. Vardiman held an assembly so kindergarten and first-grade students could discuss the shooting on the first day of school."
Michael Brown robbed a store, assaulted the store owner, and then assaulted a police officer. So what is the point?
And 5-year-old's are taught about this? Why? How about sticking to the basics of reading, writing, math, art, music and play? Make kindergarten joyful, not traumatic.
202
You sound like the teachers they needed to get rid of. The discussion around the shooting would have taken up their entire summer vacation. It's not absurd that their young minds may have needed the conversation contextualized in the school setting in case there was lingering anxiety.
14
@Erik
The children already KNEW about this. How could they not?
Also, there is absolutely no evidence that Brown assaulted Wilson. Even if he had, there's no need to escalate to guns. Since when is it okay for cops to act as executioners, over petty shoplifting?
13
@Uly Grand jury, and then AG Holder concluded, per physical evidence, Brown had reached into cop car, most likely trying to grab the officer's gun. Nice try.
20
I’m black and went to Catholic school through grade 6. School discipline wasn’t harsh but they certainly didn’t tolerate what I later witnessed at public school.
It’s baffling to me that some want to lower disciplinary standards out of some sense of racial justice. The results will just get worse for black students as a result. Kids need a safe, ordered classroom in order to learn.
215
@Ed - I think they would like to have better discipline in the public schools and the teachers and administrators would be happy to implement better discipline but our political system and legal system doesn't allow for better discipline. Can you imagine the lawsuits? You can't suspend a student in public schools the same way that you can in private schools and charters.
Children, up to the age of 16 have to be in school. If they have been thrown out of the private school or the charter school, where do you think they end up? Back at the public school.
I got the paddle in the sixth grade. (Thank God for that. I'm glad we avoided having my parents come to the school.) Do you think they still do that now?
One little story here. I was talking with a school administrator charged with evaluating students for learning disabilities and autism. You would think the parents would be happy with the evaluation; having their children getting the appropriate level of education. Wrong. "Not my child! He (she) doesn't have autism or a leaning disability." And then if the parents are divorced, one parent wants one thing and another parent wants something else and then you end up with three attorneys in the mix, one for each parent and one for the school system.
Do you think the charter schools, private schools or parochial schools have that problem? Not chance. Who pays for all this stuff in the end? We all do. Don't blame the teachers. Blame ourselves.
35
@Steve...This why a guardian/parent needs private schools they can turn too. A place where a child's needs are part of a contract with the school. If you think a black male teacher is essential to your child's learning, you can demand it from the private school and may just get it.
With a public school you get what they give you.
2
These conversations would make a lot more sense if more people actually had a clue what it is like to be a classroom teacher. For low-performing schools, 95% of what is going to happen is already baked in before the teacher sets foot in the classroom. High numbers of student-to-teacher ratios, disruptive students, poverty, uninvolved parents, unprepared students, and lack of student and teacher support. In those schools, even very good teachers struggle just to maintain control of the classroom. Even in these schools, if you can expel or otherwise avoid having the disruptive students, or the intellectually challenged students (which public schools cannot but charters apparently can), you can raise those scores that teachers are evaluated against.
In a school with low student-to-teacher ratios, well-behaved children, affluence, involved parents, well prepared students, and specialists to help students and teachers, students are going to score higher, and good teachers can simply do what they love and are trained to do--teach.
We can get, and keep, better teachers by bestowing societal respect on them for the hard job they do--and, oh yes, paying higher salaries. But the best thing of all would be to solve the social problems that lead to chaotic classrooms and compromised educational outcomes.
257
This is the best comment I’ve seen. Thank-you.
20
@Madeline Conant
Thanks for this. I completely agree.
The big question that no one seems to be addressing is, how to you teach individuals and communities to hold off having kids until they are able to raise them in a stable (including two-parents in most cases), loving, environment in which education is emphasized? If you can't create a healthy, stable life for yourself, then don't have kids. This should be taught to everyone.
Too many kids from messed up families grow up (barely) to have children of their own, and on and on. These poor kids get sent to schools and the teachers end up being responsible for somehow making them whole. Its madness.
38
@Andio, you made an excellent point. I have long thought this concept of family planning -- not simply using birth control -- should be explicitly taught in certain school districts. It's like we know what the problem is , but don't want to address it. Talk about t the elephant in the room!
22
As a young man, I taught in a couple of elite private schools. But at 50, after a career in technology, I decided to return to teaching where I thought I could make a bigger difference. However, after visiting a couple of public schools in Detroit, I decided that the system was too hard to fix, and I opted for a small charter school on the west side of the city. Half the teachers there had graduated from U of M and were a dedicated, committed group of people.
And it did work. For awhile. I was putting in 80 hours a week during the school year, and I know I was getting somewhere. Then the school got to be about making money. When I finally left, 3 years later, almost none of my UM cohort were left.
So, Betsy Devos, come and teach in my school for a year. Or just a semester. Then I'll listen to what you have to say.
262
Discipline is the one thing we don't have in the NYC public schools where I teach. In my elementary school, children are allowed to do what ever they want because the schools are penalized for reporting violence, both student-on-student and student-on-teacher. (And, the children know this,) The mayor and chancellor can sugar coat it with their publicity visits and photo ops, but that's not what's happening in the real world of our schools.
We have children (five years old) screaming in the halls, rolling on the floor, hurting other children, and six adults trying to get them calmed down. We're not allowed to say anything or do anything. And those children, by law, must be admitted to the school Parents refuse responsibility for their children's behavior and teachers are unable to teach. It's heartbreaking for those children who do have respect for education and want to learn. They are overshadowed by the unruly and disrespectful. Our funds are limited for the professionals we need for counseling and family services.
The discipline question, in both public and charter schools, is so political that I haven't a clue what can be done. I'm counting the days to retirement - if I can survive that long.
336
@ScienceTeacherMom I feel for you. What you describe is not a learning environment. Its a zoo. I blame the mayor of NYC and the governor---those ultimately responsible for allowing such behavior. As a substitute teacher, I have been in schools like that. Terrible.
The pictures in this article, showing organized classrooms, show a good learning environment. The critique,getting more joy in the school, is valid, and seems the main thing for the teachers to work on. Hope your retirement is near....
47
@ScienceTeacherMom
Maybe the State will finally pay the amount its aid formulas require for the NYC school system and that money can be used to hire the necessary personnel. Maybe?
19
@ScienceTeacherMom I will forever applaud all teachers I had in NYC - and my daughter's teachers. One huge issue I noticed when my adult daughter was in grade school in the late 90's was the horrific abundance of medication children of all ethnicities were given - and handed out by the school nurse. This was a real shocker and I was stunned. Thank you for teaching all these years and hang in there!
21
Charter schools should NEVER have been allowed to absorb public school money, never. They have become largely a scam for turning taxpayer education dollars into a source of private profit. The few positive results are not worth all the negatives. Return public money to the public schools, where it belongs.
396
@SherlockM
disagree wholeheartedly. children of diverse backgrounds and living in poverty should be given a choice of schools just as advantaged rich kids are. public, private, charter etc.
10
@Rain choice in these schools is more often an illusion than not. Talented teachers and quality administrators don't magically appear with a swish of the charter school wand.
Use up idealistic young staff at bargain prices until there's nothing less and then hire fresh ones. Ignore the huge turnover rate and avoid testing whenever possible. Successful charters rarely do things you don't find in quality public schools but they'll still often cherry pick students to find the easiest to teach and parents that can commit.
And yet, yes, there are good charter. But once you factor in the other issues, believing more disadvantaged students are being helped up than public schools being drained is not supported by any relevant statistics, sorry.
37
@SherlockM Unfortunately all of the empirical facts on this issue contradict everything you’ve written. In NYC, charter schools receive 5K less per pupil in public funding. You are slandering thousands of hard working, dedicated educators with baseless claims. If you want to criticize for-profit charter schools, I’m with you. But schools like KIPP, Democracy Prep, and Success change the lives of poor children in this city. The talking-points you’re promulgating obscure the facts and don’t serve the people you presumably want to help.
19
It is not only how charters handle discipline, race and politics.
At a charter school where my spouse taught for a year before getting out of there asap, the school used the exception granted to charters to hire teachers who weren't state certified to employ egregiously unqualified teachers. The original idea behind the exception was that charters would be able to hire retired engineers, college profs, and so on. Instead, at this school, a worthy who could not solve quadratic equations was teaching calculus, a history major was teaching bio, and so on. Why? Because you could pay these people less.
On the day of the PSAT the students were given a steak breakfast to reinforce the idea that a great injustice was being done to them. With the teachers they had, maybe it was, but that is probably not how the principal was thinking.
This particular charter was so bad that it was shut down a few years after my spouse left, but I have heard similar stories about many others.
The fundamental problem with all schools -- charters and non charters -- is not being addressed. The education experts -- a group of complete dodos if ever there was one -- are firmly in charge, and sensible ideas are shot down by stupid liberalism that focuses entirely on form and ignores content.
4
"Mr. Buery is part of a growing number of charter school executives to acknowledge shortcomings in their schools — partly in an effort to recast their tarnished image and to counteract a growing backlash that threatens the schools’ ability to influence American public education."
That's like saying the Sackler family has influenced American health care.
It is extremely disappointing to me that the New York Times continues to publish pieces like this that hint at the problem that charter schools have created for the American school system, but refuses to investigate, examine, analyze, and disseminate the enormity of the problem.
Taxpayers nationwide have been fleeced out of a BILLION dollars or more by charters that never opened or closed soon after opening, with money funded through the federal Charter Schools Program, according to the Network for Public Education's report, Asleep At the Wheel.
The bottom line is, our schools and our students should not be for sale. Our commitment must be to educate every child, not just our own, because we all reap the benefit of an educated populace. Charter schools undermine this commitment by siphoning dollars away from the public school system, resulting in elimination of honors classes, wrap-around services, and arts programs. It's not equitable. We have lost our moral compass and our society is greatly diminished when we say "For me, but not for thee".
3
I keep hearing that teachers are underpaid “relative to their education level”.
Nonsense to compare a masters in Ed to say an MBA or an advanced degree in a STEM program. Pay is dependent on what the market will pay for your services, not simply a multiple of your years spent in college.
2
The concept of “charter schools” only muddled already dirty waters. The US should have excellent public education. Period.
2
More accurate headline would read, "Charter School Teachers Unable to Solve All of the Many Pathologies of Urban Poor." Far, far too many of these children have unstable home lives, face food and economic insecurity, live in communities with high rates of crime and drugs, and will unfortunately grow up to replicate these same patterns with their own children.
While education can be a powerful tool to break these toxic cycles, the root causes must be addressed, and that's going to take policies that both liberals and conservatives won't like. These communities need public investment for things like job training, access to birth control and family planning, and better housing. But it also will require these communities to take some responsibility for themselves. Have fewer children and wait to have them with a committed partner when both parents are financially stable. Break cycles of gang violence, etc.
5
Charter Schools - another bad faith right wing privatization scheme, a Trojan Horse designed to defund public education while picking the pockets of the poor. After Reagan, everything is a revenue stream, a racket to fleece the rubes. The last thing Republicans want is a well educated populace: who’d be left to vote entirely against their own interests? Keep them dumb, keep them poor, keep them sick, keep them bigoted, keep them scrambling - it’s the Republican Way.
2
Telling the truth is now an unusual strategy?
1
Finland has the highest rated educational
system in the world and is in many ways the exact opposite of what exists in the US. Can't someone swallow their pride and institute their successful theories and make the educational system here world class without Charter schools? The Department of Education should be creating excellence the standard for every school using a uniform system in an environment that is conducive to learning and working. Teaching for tests, which is big business, has crippled the system for both teachers and students. Raising wages and respecting the teaching profession is essential. Like much of the infrastructure the schools are decaying, books outdated or non existent, supplies short and bureaucracy bloated. It is an epidemic that is crippling future generations and am beginning to think that is the intent. Keep people dumb while those who can afford the best will be assured their progeny continues to thrive.
3
A charter school works on the same principle that a privately run prison works on; take in the easy cases, and turn a buck on on them.
3
Such are the wages of meritocracy.
1
Urban charter schools (for minority kids) have uniforms and demerits and kids walking in straight lines and getting detentions for having untucked shirts.
Suburban charter schools (for white kids when the local schools aren’t good enough) have project based tech and Mandarin.
Hmmmm...
1
The real reason that charter schools are so much better is that the people who run them, like Moskowitz are paid so much more money than public school superintendents.
If a student goes from green light status to yellow light status because of interrupting another speaker, what would be the score for the recent presidential debates...interruption was epidemic!
1
Hmmm.... soliciting 50 opinions about the best way to educate US child will produce 150 opinions.
On average, the lower the economic status of a family, the less well is the child likely to do academically. Poorer families on average provide less support to a chile's education.
Art and music education is important
We can learn much from how Denmark, Finland and possibly other nations educate their children
Many nations direct the less academically successful students to trades. Thus high school age visiting students are typically ahead of their US age peers
Facility and supply wise, schools in urban, and especially low income areas are under funded and are more likely to need major upgrades.
Charter schools are fine, for-profit charter schools are not.
In the US citizens and alleged experts have been arguing about education for 150+ years. Thus I have no guilt that this comment lacks any suggestions
3
in Scandinavian countries, teachers are given the same social status as doctors and lawyers. People have a living wage, parents are deeply involved with their kids, and they are racially and culturally homogeneous. Slapping a few cherrypicked best practices on schools that serve stressed, fractured, unengaged communities won't help.
6
The headline for this article calls these schools "some of the best" urban schools. I'm not sure why these schools are best. They may graduate more students or give them better grades. But this is pretty much a matter that the school itself controls. The article goes on to say that many students face undue amounts of stress and that they don't perform as well after graduation. This doesn't speak well to the success of the school and the best adjective doesn't fit.
7
You are a parent raising children in an urban area that is characterized by crime, poverty and lack of resources. You are working hard and want your kids to have a better life than your own, but could not dream of sending a child to private school. You are overwhelmed with the task of finding enough money to put food on the table, clothes on your children, and not being evicted from the substandard apartment you call home. You have a choice: Send your child to a failing public school that is plagued by chaos, disruption and violence, or a charter school, which may or may not be what it says it is, but it is safe, your children will get meals there, and it provides them with a fighting chance at getting into college. I challenge the anti-charter people to honestly say they'd choose the former. Fix the public schools before you start taking away options from people who are desperate for options. I find some of these comments deeply troubling in their lack of empathy for families in these circumstances.
16
While I agree with the criticism of charter schools that the article mentions, excessive discipline and charter schools not taking enough disabled students, there are much more fundamental problems with charter schools.
Charter schools function largely as test prep schools which results in very impressive standardized test scores. However, they do not teach the students to think independently or to analyze. Hence, the relatively poor college performance of charter school students. The 35% college graduation rate that the article mentions is worse than it sounds because the student population is made up of self selected students who come from families that are committed to education. One would expect this population to do significantly better in college than a 35% gradation rate. If charter schools are not going to effectively prepare students for college, I question if they should exist at all.
3
Every child wants to learn. Not all children come from traditions that allow them to accept education easily (whether because of systemic racism or lack of studious culture -- we can debate this till pigs fly, it's not relevant). What is relevant to this discussion is that you don't always need the cudgel -- there are methods to make education more in line with these children's attention spans. I've seen combinations of kinesthetic learning (acting out math & science concepts), hands on experiments and demonstrations, and peer tutoring make a dent in pass rates. It's not perfect-- you still lose some kids. All this requires expertise and patience and investment. Yes, money but less money than concerted effort, deep content knowledge and enough personnel to allow for collaborative lesson planning. I teach at a charter school. They have money. Unfortunately, they've taken public funds but applied them to the same poor model of sticking one unsupported teacher in a class of 25 and then blaming them when results are poor. My advice to oversight boards: when renewing a charter, don't talk to the principal, book 20 min with every single teacher, every janitor and cafeteria worker to find out what's needed at the school. Then you can assemble a team for every subject to plan out lessons that engage students. Engagement is an antidote to discipline problems.
2
The arguments against charter schools ignore the fundamental difference between public schools and charter schools.
If a parent enrolls their child in a charter school, and the parent does not believe the school is offering a good education, they can easily change schools.
If public schools underperform and there is no alternative available, parents are just expected to take it. They have no other option.
Why does the focus of every school need to be on “the most vulnerable children”? Do average and above average kids have a focus anywhere?
The real reason for the objection to charter schools is the ability to influence American education systems.
4
Thank you for mentioning in the piece that opposition to charter schools is political, and stems mainly from politicians seeking to maintain the support of teachers' unions (and of course from the unions themselves). For pols like the governor of New York and the mayor of NYC it's all about political power and control. Are charter schools perfect? Of course not. Should parents have the right to send their children to charter schools if they feel that's the best thing to do? Yes, obviously.
5
I am amazed that the impact of trauma never enters into these discussions. Many cities and schools are moving toward a trauma-informed model, understanding that trauma is not uncommon, poverty exacerbates the impact, and the effect on brain development is negative and profound. Students, especially the students described in this article and in some comments, are coming into school traumatized; the smallest of triggers (a jarring school bell, a teacher's raised voice), sends them into a panic. For many, this response looks like "bad" behavior. These students are constantly vigilant, on guard for danger. Mount Vernon Teacher Kenneth Fox said it best: "Focusing on academics while struggling with trauma is like trying to play chess in a hurricane". Until our public schools can provide the safe, calm settings required for learning found in charters and privates (and the affluent take for granted), nothing will change, and failing public schools will continue to fail our most vulnerable students.
4
All together now: charter schools are an organizational structure.
They are NOT a philosophy, a disciplinary code, or a curriculum. Discussing pedagogy and in-house policies as an all-or-nothing deal would be akin to expecting the same meal from Per Se and Popeye's. This article errs in using disciplinary practices found in some no-excuses charter networks as a proxy for charters nationwide.
Education is controlled by states. Each state has different charter laws. In New York, all charters operate as non-profit 501(c)3. Some are network charter schools (Ascend, Success, KIPP, etc) and many are standalone. Like any public- or private!- school, there are jewels and there are duds.
Charter schools exchange autonomy for accountability. That autonomy is a tremendous responsibility. Mr. Buery and Mr. Wilson are to be commended for being responsive to the adaptive challenge of ensuring positive school culture alongside a strong learning environment. I encourage anyone who is concerned about the education being offered by charter schools to spend some time in some, rather than be swayed by the most media-connected network leaders or government officials.
6
It would have been helpful, given the article is essentially about changing the discipline practices in charter schools, to have given a few more examples of discipline problems and the actual changes in procedures.
6
In the classroom photo of young children being taught, shown in this article, is a large poster of several brownish arms being raised in fists. While I can't know what message is meant by this classroom poster I fear it is possible that these young children may take from it that their goals are achieved by force of arms. I imagine that every teacher, every parent, every adult would prefer a counter message to acheive goals, hopefully one of reason and argument rather than force. Which makes me wonder why that poster, with the raised fists, is so prominetly displayed in a classroom.
1
Making schooling a capitalistic enterprise has the same effects as it does on health care. Some of care is better. Much is just more expensive and redundant. There are some good charter schools and there are many more excellent public schools. Excellence in the U.S. unfortunately largely depends on zip code, parental education, and parental oversight. Charter schools depend on underpaying recent (white) college graduates who are often worked to death and given phony titles like director of this and that do not translate into other jobs that pay more elsewhere when they quite two years later. All of the students are typically black or Latinx striver parents who are unhappy with under-resourced public schools. The public schools in many urban areas do have problems. They need more support for Special Education, ELL, Social Workers, School Psychologists, and classroom aides before and after-school care and not to have to spend two hours on buses everyday to get a decent education. Those are the services the high-achieving schools have so that they children who are gifted or disciplined can learn, thrive, and achieve grade-level gains. Simply segregating children in supposedly elite charter schools from those who are traumatized or undisciplined actually doesn't work.
11
All school systems in the U.S. suffer from a lack of discipline. Students are there to learn and enjoy themselves while doing so. But the lack of discipline starts at home and is then carried to the classroom making it difficult for teachers to teach. It is no different in the "public schools" than in the Charter schools. I would like to see a study on the lack of discipline in the "public schools". A very significant problem with the "public school" systems today is the inability to get rid of bad teachers. They get tenure and cannot be fired. New York and California are the worst and the results show it. Come to Tulsa, Oklahoma and you will see how well our pre-school and Charter schools are doing in educating students. We have some problems in our "public schools" but they are being addressed and the results are rewarding due to the leadership of our board and the head of our "public schools". Again education starts at "home" and students need to be punished for bad behavior so that that behavior does not restrict the learning of other students.
4
Tenure does not give a teacher the right to a life time job. Tenure gives the teacher a right to due process. Anyone one can be fired as long as the administration has followed the process. Bad teachers are the result of administrators not doing their job.
12
In Pennsylvania it has appeared to me that too many charter schools get approval without close scrutiny. I have met kids who transferred to other schools after a year after discovering that the promises made were not met. Certain courses were not offered because the school could not get qualified teachers. One would think that all charter schools would have higher test scores than nearby public schools. But in many cases that doesn't happen.
6
I work in a school building co-located with 2 charter schools. Yes. There is evidence of the learning and high test scores, the cheering on of each other when they learn of the high schools and colleges they get into. But there are also the students crying in the hallways, the seeming innocuous punishments to students forced to sit still for hours, clap in unison and walk in lines. I grew up in an education system that was similar, in the West Indies, that produces scholars and high achievers. But at what cost? Sometimes I feel the parents, having no time and/or effort to discipline, have signed that aspect of parenthood over to charter schools, and that's what's really attracts them. But true learning isn't constrained by reigning in students, it is fostered by an encouragement of expression coupled with guidance, respect and understanding of/and for each child. Easier said than done, but when funds are diverted to charter that can hire more teachers, put more counselors in elementary schools, produce more space for UPK programs, to name a few, then is it any wonder our schools can't improve?
29
@embellishedlife Thank you so much for sharing your experience in a co-located school. I have spoken to many current and former charter school teachers over the last six years and have heard similar stories about discipline that to some teachers seemed unnecessary and overly punitive. What I've found so interesting over the last year is how willing at least some leaders of charter networks have been to admit that discipline had gone too far.
6
@embellishedlife Totally agree!
@Eliza Shapiro
But your reporting misses the big picture.
If a top performing charter school with mostly affluent and white students was losing huge cohorts of students, you would ask far more questions. You wouldn't assume that white parents just don't like top performing schools. You wouldn't assume that as many of 20% of the white kindergarten students were given out of school suspensions because they acted out violently due to their violent nature. You'd talk to the parents who left to find out why.
And yet when Success Academy was handing out those suspensions to kindergarten students who were mostly African-American, you accepted the charter's claim those 5 year old students deserved it.
You would never say, "parents also leave that nearby failing school that has no resources so that means I will never question why so many educated white parents would also leave the best performing charter school in the state. I believe charter CEOs when they tell me that those educated white parents just don't like good schools and so pulled their kids from it at high rates." You'd talk to the parents who left and find out why.
You would do some real reporting.
You would recognize that this harsh treatment was always about having an excuse to target and drum out students the charter did not want to teach.
Instead this entire article is still entirely based on what some high profile charter CEOs and their paid mouthpieces tell you.
2
I am against relaxing discipline standards at charters. I teach at one, and discipline is the only thing the school has going for it. You can't teach an unruly class. Otherwise, it'd be just another public school and there'd really be no point in diverting public money.
10
@fairly opinionated Just another public school? Public schools outperform charter schools. Charter schools are just the tool to privatize public education. They should all be closed.
16
Several years ago I worked on year-end reports of charter schools in nyc for the Dept of Education. In one elementary school- in oder to keep oridinarily lively young children in line, a zero-tolerance disciplinary system was in place that required kids to raise one finger if they wanted to use the bathroom, two if they wanted to sharpen their pencils, three if they had a question, etc. Absolutely no talking was allowed, and in one class which I observed, two inexperienced young teachers were meting out demerits to students who were chatting to each other. In fact, the lesson had dragged on too long and students who had finished the assignment were clearly bored.Thinking it a very chilling environment, I told the principal of my concerns. The following year, when I returned, I learned that a substantial number of parents had withdrawn their children due to the harsh diciplinary code. Zero tolerance turned out to be an ineffective system.
20
Without parental figures to instill intellectual curiosity in a child outside of the schoolroom, the child will not grow in an intelligent direction. Parents of the petit bourgeoisie who permit their kids to live on bags of Cheetos and game all night, the same ones whose kids didn't read or have access to books and developmentally designed games, these will be the foundation of the underclass. If they live, because they're usually exponents of childhood obesity and vices like vaping. Just ask my coworker whose "brilliant" son enrolled in such a school, a kid she claims is as intelligent as Einstein or Edison therefore misunderstood, weighs in at 500 pounds at age 15...
8
'Ascend, like most charter school networks, embraced a strict set of discipline policies known as “no excuses,” which is based on the idea that punishing minor issues will prevent bigger problems.' And we wonder why education polices analogous to the city's "broken windows" approach to policing didn't work. Regardless, schools -- both the regular public ones and the charters -- are doing at least three things wrong: 1. They don't address problems in children's home lives. NYC's former school chancellor, Carmen Farina, wanted to assign a social worker to students in need from middle school through high school, but that idea has fallen by they wayside with the appointment of the new chancellor. 2. Most curriculums don't incorporate accepted child development theory that most young children learn best by doing. Instead, in most classrooms they are constantly told to sit down and do "seat work". By extension, young students need to be outside of the school building more -- at least twice a week in good weather -- doing and observing things that help them learn. And, by further extension, they need more exercise. 3. There is too much emphasis on test scores. That is no surprise, but what's surprising is that young students in disadvantaged areas sometimes do much better than their more well-off peers. However, this advantage usually disappears by middle school, and by high school the poorer students are way behind. Perhaps this is why they struggle in college.
28
@Rhonda Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Mayor Bill de Blasio recently added funding for new social workers, but the number of social workers in schools that serve the most vulnerable students, particularly students living in temporary housing, is still far below what many advocates want. It will be interesting to see whether large charter networks that are changing course on discipline and handling of students with disabilities will embrace something like the community school model that cities like NYC and Cincinnati have.
4
@Rhonda's comments are spot on, to which I would add the following:
Educators have known for eons that learning builds on previous learning and when connected to what people like, do well and feel is relevant. Obviously, this differs by age and life experiences. For example:
a. Young children love physical activity, sports, music and art. Some countries use these modalities to help teach reading and math. But most U.S. educators are unaware of their power in learning academics. Most believe that kids will learn by sitting most of the day in pursuit of state standards, despite research suggesting otherwise.
Bottom line – pre-K to Grade 3 teachers need to be proficient not only in teaching basic skills but also physical education, the arts and home economics. They also need to be sufficiently fit to keep up with the children they teach, doing things with them and having fun in the process. This will require a sea change in how we select and prepare teachers. Can you imagine having to pass tests in physical fitness and a few of the arts to qualify for teaching Pre-K through Grade 3?
b. Teens must care about what they are learning and with whom. They have to feel teachers are competent and truly care, the subject matter is relevant, and the teaching methods are engaging and help them understand not only course content but why knowing it matters. Sensitive to peers, teens learn best when experiencing and explaining with others whom they know and trust.
2
@Rhonda.....What ever happened to NYC's fabled meritocracy in which entire generations of immigrants succeeded through academic success in the classroom? Have you forgotten how invaluable a meritocracy is for all strata of immigrants, refugees, and low income children?
1
Charter schools are the Trump University of early learning, with taxpayers subsidizing the fraud perpetrated on families, students, and teachers. In addition to all of the problems and abuses detailed in this article, such schools here also act as quasi - private schools paid for with public funds. There is a snob appeal to some of the schools- the marketing promises stellar academic achievement measured primarily by high standardized test scores, and some - certainly not all- students do make the grade. (They probably would succeed in any school, given their family support and a decent environment.) Charter schools diminish the possibility of public schools fulfilling their mission in a democratic society. They consume far more from the public trust than they return in results, and they further corrupt teaching as a vocation and profession. What a waste. Traditional public schools, even with their problems, managed to educate generations of students. With what we have discovered about learning styles and technology, we should be able to help every student meet his or her potential- even through the tough stages of adolescence.
22
@Kate: charter schools only came into EXISTENCE because of the utter, absolute and provable failure of public schools and public school (union) teachers.
Charter schools ARE public schools; they operate under a charter from the state. As such, they cannot discriminate racially or by religious faith.
Many critics confused charter schools with private or parochial schools.
Seriously: NOTHING could possibly corrupt teaching as a vocation or profession MORE than teachers (IN UNIONS) have already done.
16
@Concerned Citizen Unions built this country and they are what keep the system accountable to their customers, the students and parents. Without unions teachers could not advocate for their students.
12
Very insulting attitude toward teachers and the union which brought them out of poverty. The problems of many children are overwhelming and unlike charter schools regular public schools are extremely limited in what is permitted to maintain discipline. So charter schools use cruelty and public schools try to access counselors etc but parents do not have to comply with such recommendations.
6
Why can't we spend charter and voucher money to improve public schools, and commit additional funds to make starting teacher salaries on par with entry salaries for other valued professions such as accountants, engineers, and lawyers?
At the same time, drop sports teams entirely and invest those infusions purely on academics, both STEM AND THE ARTS!!!
And make our goal EQUITY in quality education regardless of the socio-economic background of a child, rather than shooting for excellence, which ends up creating an arms race among affluent districts, depriving less affluent ones of essentials, and failing at the singular objective that American schools should have -- to facilitate a true meritocracy by providing ALL our nation's children equal opportunity when it comes to education.
All these charter, voucher, and for-profit schools, as well as fundamentalist homeschools (an educational travesty) are but tactics in the Grover Norquist playbook for privatizing and drowning legitimate public programs in the proverbial bathtub.
They're nothing more than an effort to undermine our nation's collective response to perhaps the biggest challenge facing our nation -- preparing our youth for an increasingly competitive and sophisticated world.
Conservatives would sabotage that and the spirit of the Declaration of Independence in the name of their false God of Libertarian theology.
Meritocracies aren't born, they are MADE -- by providing equal opportunity for its children.
23
@Ron Reason Your wording sounds like you simply want us to teach to the lowest common denominator -- it's more important to make sure that everyone is doing equally well, not that all students are doing as well as they possibly can. Nations do not thrive that way. Nurturing the very high achievers is important, and gifted students have needs, too. That's what countries do that are starting to take leadership roles in the world economy. They nurture their most brilliant students. Our problem is that we have not provided equity in bringing out the brilliance in students of all ethnic and economic backgrounds, and that starts long before school.
9
@Ron Reason I agree with most of what Ron is saying, however, excellence in a child should be furthered with special classes for gifted children. They have to be challenged, encouraged, and placed in intellectual settings that accommodate their intelligence.
High school sports teams are sometimes diversions. I'm inclined to think perhaps they're not as productive as say, extra curricula activities such as music, art and as Ron says, STEM programs. Definitely, a gym period at least 3x a week.
Definitely, increase teachers' pay. Disgraceful how we treat teachers, who work much more than a 40-hour work week and use their own money for supplies.
Our whole education system is in need of repair.
8
This article is hardly newsworthy. Charters are finding that it's hard to educate students with disabilities and it's hard to raise test scores in impoverished areas. So what else is new ?? In the meantime, public schools need to stop bashing charters and start worrying about their own underwater balance sheets and out of control pension costs. CalSTRS has a $100 billion unfunded pension liability which is why schools in the state are crumbling. Voters in L.A. just rejected Measure EE to fund schools because they know it was a scam to fund pensions.
11
Can the charter schools make a profit while doing a better job of educating our children? No.
How is it possible to educate a child at less-cost-per-student when charter schools have the same expenses as public schools.
It isn't.
What is it that charter schools know about education the public schools don't?
Nothing.
If we are to believe charter schools have a lower-cost panacea for public education, why haven't those dumb public schools adopted it?
It doesn't exist.
The bottom line: There is no such thing as a good, cheap education. If we want a better eduction for our children, we must be prepared to spend much more than we currently do(and a little less on the military). And we must start by hiring many more, higher paid and thus fully qualified teachers, the foundation of any educational system.
27
@sjpbpp The bottom line: there will be more budget cuts so school districts better be prepared. It would be a very good idea to do what the San Diego School District did, which was ask parents what they were willing to cut. Do you really think there's more money for schools out there ?? Here's a typical school balance sheet: Philly School District has $1 billion cash and $8 billion debts and unfunded pension liabilities. The defense budget has nothing to do with education so leave the military out of this.
4
@sjpbpp-I can't up vote this enough!
Yet another conservative idea that doesn't work. Pretty sure that won't stop conservatives from pushing for charter schools for decades to come.
15
Charter schools are public schools. Often amazed how slapping a positive name on the building, coming up with a cool theme, and hiring all your relatives has been enough to circumvent federal requirements to educate all students.
14
NYT-- please justify the headline, "Why Some of the Country’s Best Urban Schools Are Facing a Reckoning""--emphasis on the word "best". Some of these schools claim to be the "best"-- that I get. The "best" by cherry picking students who submit, but abusing those who don't, OK, that's a definition of "best." It's just not a widely accepted definition.
This article shows that the claim is "best" is tenuous at the least. I'm willing to believe that charter school proponents aspire to be the "the best" (and are paid as if their aspirations were already achieved, but we don't live in Kansas anymore.
39
@MFinn Hi there - thanks for the question. New York City's charter school sector includes some of the highest-performing public schools in the state, where some students in places like Harlem and Brownsville outperform their much wealthier, white peers in the city's suburbs. Obviously, test score data is just one metric to determine school quality. But on the basis of test scores, and preliminary graduation rates for the NYC charters that have been around long enough to graduate 12th graders, NY's charters are both some of the highest-performing in the state and some of the highest-performing charters in the country. Massachusetts also has particularly high-performing charters.
3
@Eliza Shapiro
Ms. Shapiro -- kudos to you and the NYT for fostering an intelligent discussion. Quite impressive.
But to my question (and to badcyclist's) I think you dodged it and changed the subject. We both asked how the claims these schools make survive the accusation that their students are selected from the most motivated families. BadCyclist and I both used the term "cherry picking." You didn't address that, either in your article nor in your responses today.
4
@MFinn Usually people who fail to advance in a Meritocracy; blame it on 'cherry picking' policies. If you can't pass the test; study harder or pick another field.
2
The main problem with charter schools is that they signal that the U.S. has just given up on educating all of its children. So now, if you are poor/lower middle class, you will enter a lottery when you're 5 or 6 years old, and if your number is selected you can go to a nice charter school, whereas the majority will be left in failing public schools that receive no funding or attention.
21
Charter schools might be a good idea, but if and only if they have to play by the same rules as other public schools. There is a long list of what charter schools do in order to game the system, but perhaps their biggest grift is cherry picking their students, so that they siphon off the better students and force the public schools to absorb the more troubled, difficult, and disabled students-- who are much more difficult and far more expensive to educate.
54
@badcyclist Yes, exactly. Not to mention it is far easier to expel students from charter schools than public ones, so if a kid turns out to be a problem, charter schools can permanently exclude them and who has to pay to educate them? Public school. Then a slot at the charter school opens up: "Easy" student out of the public school, special-needs in.
29
@badcyclist Thanks for your thoughts. I think you might be interested in reading more about a nascent movement within the charter sector that I'm hoping to write more about soon -- Camden, NJ has charters that admit students according to school zone, rather than random lottery. Those charters, which are called Renaissance schools, tend to enroll more students with disabilities, for example, than even the city's traditional public schools. This is still a small-scale experiment within the charter movement, but it is seeking to to some of these fundamental criticisms that many charters agree with to some extent - that charters skim, that they send troublesome kids they cant handle back to district schools, etc.
If you'd like to read more about the work in Camden, here's a story I wrote about the district last year: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/06/30/camden-superintendent-education-reform-paymon-rouhanifard-218940
3
@badcyclist ... the parochial schools did this for years...and returned failing students to the public school
Public schools need the ability to hold parents and children accountable for discipline with due process of course. Some students should lose the privilege of going to public school. Once that privilege is lost then the student can find a charter school to continue their education.
16
@Sutter First, charters are public schools run by private entities. The core funding comes from tax payers. I'm not saying yay or nay just correcting the record. Second, public schooling in the US is never a "privilege" it is a right of every child.
1
Charter schools are all about the money $$$$$$$$$$$$ not education. Surprised??
22
The myth of the superiority of charters just will not die. No matter how much it is debunked, no matter how many times charters get exposed as fraudulent, fund-sucking cash grabs, no matter how many times the the Waltons and charter lobbies and the GOP and Betsy Amway DeVos and Eli Broad and on and on are exposed as parasites trying to privatize American public institutions and profit off of people’s children, the myth keeps perpetuating like a mutating virus. Charters are like the trickle-down of education. Perhaps it’s the billionaires funding the endless charter propaganda. Whatever, the charter monster continues to move forward. People that aren’t familiar with the charter issue would do well by reading former US Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch’s blog on the bottomless skeptic tank that is the charter universe.
55
@Mickey Hi there - one crucial fact to keep in mind is that there is huge variability in quality among charters nationwide. Obviously, some for-profit charters have been plagued by scandal in Ohio and Arizona. This is where charter policy gets wonky, but the quality of a city or state's sector really depends on the strength of their authorizer. NYC has strong authorizers and its charters are non-profits. One huge challenge for the leaders of the charter movement going forward will be to differentiate between high-performing charters in big cities like NY -- where there are many problems with pedagogy and discipline, as I outline in this article, but no obvious issues with corruption or scams as in other places -- and low-performing, scandal-plagued charters in other states. Bottom line - it really comes down to the authorizers.
7
@Mickey
A great analysis, well thought out and supported by facts!
Congrat's on a wonderful contribution to the discussion.
2
@Eliza Shapiro makes perfect sense that “authorizors” are crucial, also non profit is crucial to inhibit corruption.
30 years ago I helped start the Oneness Family School in Bethesda MD and my 3 daughters went there through grade 6 and two through grade 8. This was a rewarding and successful experience, the community was very close and aligned on humanitarian values as paramount. In my school days, I was an exceptional math/science student but learned from Oneness that academic metrics are highly overrated. More important are things like community participation, conflict resolution, and critical thinking skills. We had families from diverse religions and ethnicities and our biggest annual event was United Nations Day. We taught a reverence for the natural world with regular camping trips into the Appalachian mountains. We recently had a thirty year reunion and I was so pleased to see outcomes. Nobody was financially rich, but they were artists, health workers, small business owners with supportive social networks and love of life and of the natural world.
Every community will be different but , whether it be public, private, or charter school, community participation and a community alignment with humanitarian truth (as expressed in all the religions ) will produce results that serve the best interests of the individuals themselves, our natural world, and of our own species.
I think the ’right’ Authorizors create the framework that can produce the best outcomes.
2
Charter schools and their donors had one goal in mind when they started and that was to destroy the teachers union. What better way to undermine public education than to appeal to the least served? Unfortunately by and large their sales pitch fell flat and they have either failed to achieve real results or have inflated their meager accomplishments. Stop public funding for these schools and let their supporters rent space and subsidize poorer students.
23
Thank you for finally talking about the underlying issue-the fact that the charter school “movement” is a ploy to undermine unions. Why not start with a female-dominated profession like public school teachers? Unfortunately, the horror was non partisan, with the Obama administration swooning in the corporate thrall of the terrible destruction of public education. Of course these schools will have better stats! Foster kids’ foster parents aren’t likely to chase after a coveted charter school, and their plight remains unstable and affects their school performance. Poverty is so deeply tied to school performance. That’s what should be funded, not this anti labor “movement” masquerade
1
Why should anyone believe that NYC runs its K-12 public schools any better than it runs its public housing...
12
There is life after teaching.
5
“The network’s high schools had impressive academic results and graduation rates, but their students then struggled in college. “
This is absolute confirmation that the teaching in KIPP doesn’t foster effective critical thinking skills necessary to succeed in college; rather it reflects relentlessly teaching to standardized tests. No charter organization is more committed to teaching to the test than Edupreneur Eva Moskowitz and her Success Academies.
21
@Paul
It’s not even that, it’s the reform school parents and teacher threatened to send us to when we acted up.
4
People blame the teachers unions for the lack of discipline in public schools. But what can teachers do to discipline a kid? They are not supposed to raise their voice, they certainly can’t hit a student. They can’t dispel any one. Anyone who complain about teachers and teachers union, how about you try to teach for one day?
For those who say our education system is biased against minority boys, look at the poor English learner students from Chinatown or Caribbean immigrant communities. They don’t have teachers who look like them either. They are doing better than many white kids.
We cannot improve public education without changing our culture. If all parents understand the importance of education, if all parents support the teachers, if all parents read to their kids everyday, our public education will work just fine.
30
@Yan Yang: I absolutely know I could do a better job than most of the teachers I know or have seen, but the way the union is run…..it is IMPOSSIBLE to get a teaching job without being a union member and in the union pipeline from college onward.
The draconian rules and regulations are so rigid, you must take only certain classes and graduate certain programs and do specific internships and take specific qualification tests.
Have those things produced a stellar roster of teachers? NO!!! it's done the OPPOSITE entirely. Teaching programs accept the worst students and graduate future teachers who can't even read or write!
It's time for a total do-over.
3
What are you talking about? You want to become a teacher? Become a teacher! It’s actually much much easier (and cheaper) than becoming a lawyer or a doctor and probably tons of other things. The challenge for urban schools is actually keeping people in teaching, as statistics make clear repeatedly.
1
It would be best for all to fix the public school system. Implement teacher accountability and fire ineffective teachers. If unions are against that, get rid of unions
6
@F R
Most charters are not unionized, and have even higher teacher attrition rates than the public schools.
It is dead wrong to blame the union when administrators fail to accurately document malfeasance in a way that easily could lead to teacher dismissal. That is hardly the union’s fault.
A major problem is that there is an increasingly large cohort going right into administration and ariiving in management roles after having next to no line experience actually teaching. A perfect example is John King, Jr., who taught for two or three years, went into administration, was a principal of a charter school before the age of 30, became NYS Education Commissioner by age 38, and Secretary of Education in his early 40s. The guy never got the experience teaching to be able to help teachers succeed as their administrator, and was even less effective as Commissioner and Secretary of Education. But, unlike Arne Duncan, his predecessor, at least he had SOME relevant experience. Neither Duncan nor DeVos have even that.
20
@Paul,
You’re right - there is a process to get rid of ineffective teachers, particularly in their first few probationary years. Once tenured, it is far more difficult but can be done. As a K-12 public school administrator, my experience is that it takes about 2 years of constant monitoring, meetings, improvement planning and documentation by the principal. So - yes, it’s doable but the process goes at a snail’s pace because of union protections. And, if you had several teachers you wanted to get rid of, that would basically be your entire job for years. It would be helpful if we could all just admit not everyone who is in front of our children should be, and put better systems in place to counsel or even force them out. Many of the ineffective ones seem pretty miserable with their jobs anyway.
6
@Ann
I don’t know what your pay scale is like in MN, but in most places, teachers are vastly underpaid compared to others with comparable education levels, where the de minimus in New York is working toward Masters, and must complete fairly shortly.
My own daughter just finished her sixth year teaching middle school special ed and science.
While there are teachers who should not be in front of our kids, there is a similar proportion of administrators who are doing that as AN ESCAPE from being in front of the kids, not to mention the pay bump. Peter Principle much?
What else should an administrator be doing other than monitoring, correcting and disciplining teachers? I am confused by the tone of what you say.
My daughter’s experience is that there are far too many administrators who can’t be bothered to follow the mandated progressive discipline process. They would rather wring their hands over the “impossibility” of it all.
How long were you a teacher before going into administration?
My daughter came to teaching through a Bloomberg program called “NYC Teaching Fellows.” After two 3 credit summer school classes, then six weeks of half days student teaching in summer school, she was deemed fit to lead a class of kids categorized as Special Ed due to emotional and/or behavioral problems. What a joke that idea, conjured by non educationally experienced administrators THAT was. She Is talented teacher by dint of hard work and dedication, with little support from administration.
5
Reagan and a Nation at Risk were at the helm for this one that went hand in hand with weakening teachers' unions and stealing public funds from public schools.
Charter schools cull the students that they want and leave those with special needs to the public schools.
Test results show that charters perform no better than public schools and sometimes worse. They're generally a scam using public funds to enrich their founders.
17
I don't live in NYC, but I like what I read about the Harlem Childrens Zone Promise schools. HCZ seems to be very successful with their students, families and the community.
3
Too bad that it appears their model is difficult to replicate.
Hmmmmm, I wonder WHY?
Maybe that’s a real story the NYT reporter can report on and let us know.
I think the answer is that while HCZ does great work ie great commitment every day in the trenches - there is no simple answer, no panacea.
Let teachers use their own judgement again in discipline. That's the best way. Chances are once or twice on the road to high school, each student will encounter a rigid disciplinarian, the teacher whose detention is always full, and that's a valuable experience for them. The obsession with crunching data and demanding that it look exactly like a normative predictive model is out of hand.
Moreover, it's time to stop wagging the dog from the tale. Just because suspensions for a particular race (or gender) are higher than another, it doesn't mean teachers and administrators are discriminating against them. The Michael Brown syndrome, where it's considered acceptable to punch a cop and outrageous that someone assaulting a cop is shot, begins with the mushy, race sensitive enforcement of school rules. Unfortunately, ridgid discipline alone is not a cure for it, particularly if school records and a clean discipline sheet is not considered important for life success.
14
The issue is this: Education is not what is wrong in public education. Poverty is what is wrong in public education. If you see a "good" public school, it is almost always in a middle-class or wealthy area. This narrative that we can educate our way out of poverty is simply false.
Nothing affects a person more than stress, and constant stress (which human bodies are not evolved for) can be detrimental to brain development in kids. There is no greater exercise in stress than poverty: Are we going to be evicted? Will I get dinner? Is Mom going to have to work two shifts and not be home tonight? Can we have heat this month?
What do we expect? Teachers make a difference, but they are not the silver bullet. Until we get good, living wages and a stable society, we are going to continue to have huge problems in education because we are going to have millions of students dealing with unstable homes and the subsequent anxiety that comes with it.
Charter schools have become the new philanthropic way for rich people to maintain the status quo while trying to look like the heroes in the story. We cannot use charter schools to get out of this. We need a strong, middle-out economy. This will create more government funding, more funding for schools, calmer students, and a more equitable country.
112
@Ashleigh Adams
This is absolutely true and I agree with you 100%. The same is true with medicine. Why are there such poor health outcomes in high poverty areas. You can put the best doctors there, but if people don’t take care of themselves and under constant stress, it won’t matter
33
@Billy when I am stressed, sometimes I do stupid things just to relieve it. Usually it is harmless stuff like binge-watching TV for a couple hours, eating too many sweets, or pounding a pillow, but I grew up with a stable middle-class family that could teach me those coping skills. When kids' parents have to work 80 hours a week to pay rent, they don't have the time to stay home with their kids and teach right from wrong, and their kids' stress is magnitudes higher than mine was when I was a kid. Less time with parents + constant extreme stress = unstable family. No matter what way you cut it, it comes down to low wages and poverty that are at the root.
30
@Ashleigh Adams
Diane Ravitch said that when she became an assistant secretary of education, she believed that the problem was incompetent teachers, and these teachers could be identified with high-stakes tests.
But Ravitch had a PhD and she knew how to analyze data. When she looked at the data, she saw that the factor most closely associated with achievement was parents' income. That had more of an effect on standardized tests than the teacher.
Clearly there are underlying problems that you must solve before you can expect student achievement to improve, and before you can start firing teachers on the basis of high-stakes tests.
The first underlying problem is poverty -- which has gotten worse in the last 40 or 50 years. The solution to poverty is easy: tax the rich, and give their money to the poor. Organize unions. Raise the minimum wage. Provide affordable housing and health care.
Then talk about personal responsibility.
17
Critics of Charter Schools are picking at gnats compared to problems at unionized Public Schools. Seems Democrats are determined to remove any competition or parental choice. Coincidentally, teachers unions are political powerhouses in Democrat strongholds as CA & NY where attacks on school choice are succeeding. Republicans need to push for adopting the very successful Swedish education financial model where politics has been mostly removed. Parents get vouchers to pay their choices of competing schools that meet basic standards. Most parents know what's best for their kids much better than poltical Bill de Blasio types who would dictate what school a child would attend for other motives.
14
Very interesting what Sweden is doing = I like that idea and it would certainly make parents more concerned with their children's work habits and attendance.
1
@Lane
The biggest problem is retaining competent teachers. Non unionized charters are worse at it than unionized Public Schools.
Why? Because they pay non living wages, as do schools in a whole bunch of red states. Republicans are dead set against paying teachers for being the guides and guardians of our supposedly most precious resource, our children.
Why has Sweden taken the politics out of education? Because they PAY teachers as if they are performing a vital, most valuable service, and are more highly educated than most other professions other than law and medicine.
13
@Lane But in Sweden, the income distribution is so much more equitable, that the financial model for education is that much more equitable. in Sweden, the top 20% of the population earn four times as much as the bottom 20%. (And the country's 53 Universities and Colleges are free.) In the U.S. the top 10% have nine times the income of the bottom 90% with the 1% having 39 times the income of the bottom 90% and the top .1% having 188 times the income of the bottom 90%. It's a heck of a lot easier to remove politics from a people who's incomes don't lead to the kinds of stresses that ours does. The vouchers/ "school choice" system has been proven over and over again to be even less effective in the U.S. than charter schools. Only when the rich are willing to help alleviate poverty, will our education system reflect a more just society with equality of opportunity.
4
Charter schools are just part of a movement to destroy public schools, and the unionized teachers and other workers who staff them. They siphon better-performing students, and funding, from public schools, leaving the public schools less able to succeed. The motivation is largely that public education tends to educate citizens and not just workers. The solution is not unclear and has not been unclear. It is to improve public schools, including funding them, working with them and helping families to support their children.
21
Some time ago, I substitute taught at my town's well-regarded public high school. I was shocked and saddened at the disruptive, destructive, disrespectful behavior that students exhibited, often with impunity: belittling and shouting down the teacher; throwing objects at others or around the room; sashaying between rows of desks when there was no reason to do so; and so on and on. I was perpetually amazed at how often students raised their hands during class and asked, "Can I get a drink of water?" When I was in high school, such behavior hardly ever occurred, and if it did, administration dealt with it so teachers could teach and students
could learn.
Without the necessary discipline, no school can function.
124
I don't understand how can there be any disagreement: of course low scores but relaxed, do-nothing atmosphere is much better than discipline and impressive results. Why there's even a debate about it?
10
The reality is, any school - charter or not - is not a replacement for good parenting at home. We cannot expect children from chaotic and traumatizing home environments to thrive in any school. Ask long as we ignore the needs of families: affordable health care and childcare, mental heath benefits, an attempt at work/life balance, our children are in trouble.
This past school year, my child was in an ICT class in Brooklyn, where several students in the class where on an IEP. A couple of them were on the spectrum or had other learning challenges. But a few them were students who had the goods to do just fine but came from families where the parents were absentee. I never saw the parents of either child during various classroom events. I fully believe based on the charisma and intelligence of the those kids that they would be just fine if their home lives were different. These are the challenges we need to be addressing. It takes a village, and not just from 8:30 to 2:30.
54
I totally agree - I worked in schools for 19 years and where parents were involved and caring students did their best to reach higher goals.
13
The reality is, any school - charter or not - is not a replacement for good parenting at home. We cannot expect children from chaotic and traumatizing home environments to thrive in any school. Ask long as we ignore the needs of families: affordable health care and childcare, mental heath benefits, an attempt at work/life balance, our children are in trouble.
This past school year, my child was in an ICT class in Brooklyn, where several students in the class where on an IEP. A couple of them were on the spectrum or had other learning challenges. But a few them were students who had the goods to do just fine but came from families where the parents were absentee. I never saw the parents of either child during various classroom events. I fully believe based on the charisma and intelligence of the those kids that they would be just fine if their home lives were different. These are the challenges we need to be addressing. It takes a village, and not just from 8:30 to 2:30.
4
Don't expect Eva Moskowitz to budge. She earned compensation of $782,175 in 2016, more than double the salary of the New York City school's chancellor (link below) thanks to private donors determined to undermine public education. Also keep in mind, that while she says her schools take anyone "based on lottery"
1 - they ease out those they don't want, which public schools cannot do. One administrator had a "got to go" list.
2 - parents incarcerated or involved with drugs are not likely to enter her lottery.
https://nypost.com/2018/07/14/charter-school-ceos-get-massive-paychecks-thanks-to-private-donors/
45
Success Academy charter schools teach more than 16,000 students, the vast majority of whom are low-income black and Hispanic children. And their test scores are among the best in the state among all races. This is 2019, and the proof is easily available to anyone with access to a smart phone or a computer.
You are right — incarcerated parents are unlikely to enter the lottery. But there are thousands and thousands and thousands of poor, often poorly educated single mothers and other parents facing tough challenges who crave a better life and better opportunities for their children.
Don’t take my word for it, New Yorkers. Get on the subway to Harlem or the Bronx and spend an hour before or after school chatting-up the parents dropping their children off or picking them up at a Success Academy charter school in a poor neighborhood. These people know that they did indeed “win the lottery.” I guarantee you: It will be one of the most enjoyable days of the year for you. It was for me.
18
@David Dickson
16,000 students in Success Academies.
1.1 million in NYC Public Schools.
Yet Moskowitz makes double what the NYC chancellor makes. Hmm...
Also, Success “co-locates” under Cuomo rules that require the city to GIVE her schools space, for which they pay zero rent and maintenance costs, and they get a disproportionate use of common facilities such as libraries, gyms and auditoriums.
The only way to accurately measure Moskowitz’ schools against public schools would be to randomly assign students there, with the same proportion as public schools of special ed students and english language learners, and make it as hard as the public schools to push underperforming students out. Only then might the comparison be meaningful.
Even entering a lottery represents a greater level of parental commitment than many public school students have.
21
@David Dickson
I notice you didn't chat with any of the parents who were at Success Academy in the past until the network made it clear to the parents that their child was not acceptable to the network and should leave.
I hope you are educated enough to realize that "16,000 students" is less than 2% of the over 1 MILLION students in NYC public schools. Over 1/3 of the African-American and Latino students in public schools test proficient, so the fact that charters cherry pick a tiny percentage of those higher performing students is nothing more than what magnet schools have always done. Except magnet schools weren't profiting from it.
10
People are always jealous of success. You want to be rid of charter schools? It’s time for free education for all in great schools throughout the country. From K-12 and even through college. It’s not such a radical idea. And it certainly would eliminate the many for profit scam schools thought the country.
11
“Steven Wilson, the chief executive of a Brooklyn-based charter school network, Ascend, scrapped his charters’ rigid approach to discipline after he realized his schools were full of unhappy students and tense teachers. “We wanted to blow all that up,” he said. “We wanted to hear students talking, exchanging ideas, taking intellectual risks. And that was largely absent.” IN A SCHOOL.
10
So only black teachers can be effective with black students? That's a real bind because there aren't enough black teachers to go around. What will happen then?
I have seen some terrible teachers of all races.
48
The charter number should have never been better than public schools. It’s a fact in philly. Yet they go on and on. Why? A mystery to me.
@Joe doaks Why? Because they cherry pick kids, eliminate problem and low performers from the start. Eliminate non-native speakers and then they compare their results to public schools which harbor all those needy kids.
18
I briefly worked at Brooklyn Ascend Middle School - and was appauled at the treatment of students and the structures in place.
upon further research I learned that Mr Wilson and many of the board members had long histories in for-profit education (Edison Schools). Their previous attempts to profit failed students - and to me, it seemed like their school was not set up to educate students, but rather, to capture dollars.
I would also bet money that they are using tax-credits to generate profit for connected board members (contractors who are connected to board members - getting contracts from the school to renovate an old, historic theatre in brooklyn - then having a brooklyn ascend school rent the property - generating profit for landlord).
the whole thing was pretty fishy....
wish someone with an investigative journalist background could check it out!
24
The fact that you worked at the school and don’t now how to spell appalled appalls me.
6
Allowing charter schools was the worst thing this country did to the educational system of America. Its worst result was what it did to each student that left public schools as it humiliated our students seeing their neighborhoods became divided. No longer was there a feeling of togetherness, working and learning as one unit. Charters just commercialized education, just another path to make money. It also took teachers as a profession, and made them pawns in the system. I am so happy my kids never had to go through that. And lastly, it said public education is a failure.
33
"Low income and minority"? Stuyvesant High is full of low income "minority" students; in fact they are the majority. What is the problem?
37
@Jonathan Katz there are very few minority students at all the special high schools in NYC. The NYT has had a ton of articles on this, and how to fix this very problem.
6
@Rita Margolies you are simply wrong. Are not students of East Asian, South Asian, Southeast Asian and Central Asian heritage not minorities? Asian students compromise the greatest percentage of students at Stuyvesant and a large potion of those students come from households with income in the lower quartile . Rethink your position.
17
@Rita Margolies
Do you exclude Asians from the category of minority?
11
“A growing backlash against charter schools”? By whom? Liberal democrats who hate the idea that government-run, union-dominated schools are a house on fire ten billion times more tragic than the migrant detention centers?
Please. This story is nonsense.
19
Evidence, please. Cite your sources, that is the basis of academic argument
3
According to 2017 NAEP data for NYC public-school students in 8th grade: 22 percent were black, and a staggering 58 percent of them scored “below basic” in math; only 9 percent were proficient, and 1 percent were advanced. 42 percent of NYC 8th graders were Hispanic, and 49 percent of them scored “below basic” in math; only 15 percent were proficient, and 2 percent were advanced.
Needless to say — what a disgrace!! And what an indictment of NYC public schools, whose black and Hispanic students, it’s frightening to contemplate, performed much better than their peers in DC, Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore, Milwaukee, etc. While we have no NAEP data for Success Academy charter schools, we know for a fact that their black and Hispanic students perform far, far, FAR better than NYC public-school students on state tests in grades 3 through 8 — ELA, math, and science.
16
@David Dickson - The proficient and advanced students went to the charter schools. I would imagine had they remained at their old schools, neighborhood schools, they would still have been proficient and advanced.
7
@David Dickson
You may need to try a different approach to your charter advocacy...
https://www.npsk.org/cms/lib/MA01907678/Centricity/domain/28/minutes%202017-2018/SC%20Meeting%20Minutes%202.6.2018.pdf
1
@David Dickson yep after the charters weeded out all lower performing kids or simply didn’t admit them.
9
The data are clear - Charter schools are no more (and possibly less) successful than public schools at improving student engagement and learning.
The only thing Charter schools are demonstrably good at is diverting money from public education into corporate profits.
(Exhibit A: Betsy DeVos).
Everyone knows how the game is rigged; public schools have been consistently underfunded since the late 1960’s. The fact that this situation corresponds with the passage of the Civil Rights Act is not coincidental. “White” students fled from the public system to private and parochial schools. Chronic underfunding reduced the quality of public school outcomes to the point that conservatives could militate for privately-run charter schools as a solution - further beggaring a public education system now largely serving the poor and non-white.
Charter schools were a bad idea from the outset; recent history has merely confirmed that fact. High-quality public education is the key to a healthy and wealthy nation. Abandoning the poorest half of the population to substandard learning is societal suicide. Actively supporting legislation that denies them a quality education is not only a crime against humanity; it is the worst form of selfishness.
57
@Norman McDougall - I think looking back on Prop. 13, June 6, 1978 when Californians approved a measure to limit property taxes was in fact a revolt against funding integrated schools. Although it was touted as tax relief to the afflicted property owners, it was really a nasty, back handed, way of extending segregation.
So now we have people living in $10 million mansions paying less property taxes than someone buying a house in Pacoima or South Central Los Angeles.
People are complaining about a $200 tax increase while living in a $2 million house.
17
California public schools are largely STATE-financed. In fact, the per-pupil expenditure for the LA Unified School District exceeds $16.000, which is far larger than the national average and, of course, much, much larger than per-pupil expenditures throughout the developed world — with the possible exceptions of Switzerland and Lichtenstein. You can look it up.
8
@Norman McDougall please share your data that is so clear.
The only point of charter schools is to privatize another governmental function so people like Betsy DeVos can make even more money, just like after privatizing prisons the private prisons housing children keep them in overcrowded, horrific conditions and don't spend the money on basics like soap. Providing a good education is not in their top 5. We are spending more and getting less.
22
Best Urban Schools? Please preserve me from such drivel. They take money targeted for public school systems, then they take the more talented kids from the same systems. They reject kids that are learning disabled, and otherwise fall into the “difficult to teach” category. They expel students who don’t behave or perform up to their standards. These are NOT great schools.
50
@JTOC - I know someone working with students with disabilities so serve that they have to be lifted out of their wheel chairs to use the toilet. What about students 21 years old with learning disabilities? Can you imagine the costs in supervising and working with those students? Those teacher aids should be paid $6.50 an hour. Right! That's the way patriot Americans think.
4
Is anyone asking about whether public schools that routinely graduate students who can’t meet state standards are also facing a reckoning?
One can dislike charter schools for all sorts of reasons, but until these same individuals are willing to address the fundamental issue with public schools - that they have incredibly poor records in many urban environments - their criticism verges on the absurd.
If you are a critic of charter schools from a wealthy district, have children in a magnet or specialized school, or send your children to a private school then please spare us your pieties.
20
@TGO I second your sentiments on parents who shield their kids from having to be in low academic expectation and minimal discipline environments, but lecture against charter schools and are aghast at Betsy DeVos defending local teachers in the class room from federal statisticians (eg 14% of demographic must receive no more than 14% of disciplinary action or school administrators will be punished). It’s also easy to be high minded when one never has to worry about their kid’s class size being over 25.
7
@TGO This is a crucial point - families are choosing charters for a reason. There's no denying that in NYC at least, there is huge demand for charters. And the city's traditional public school system, the nation's largest, has of course been plagued by poor performance for decades. One of the most stubborn issues has been improving the performance of the most severely struggling schools. Mayor Bill de Blasio's attempt, a $773 million program called Renewal, did not achieve the results the city had hoped and it was canceled earlier this year.
You can read more about Renewal here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/nyregion/deblasio-school-renewal-bill.html
5
@Eliza Shapiro
This is not to say that money is the panacea that will cure all problems in regular public school. However, there is little question that charter schools take money that would go toward regular public schools. More money needs to be allocated to schools in poorer districts from richer ones as well as from charter schools which siphon money off. There should not be issues in schools that are in "poorer" areas about having copies of books for home, access for technology, etc. (all the "perks" that kids in better off schools get). Other things need to happen as well in order to have these schools come up to a standard. The problem is yes, parents may have a reason that is somewhat valid to send their kids to a charter school--it may be the lesser of two evils. That is the part we need to fix. I truly understand the need to have your kid safe and trying to learn something which may be appealing in a charter school versus a bad choice. But having more charter schools will not fix that bad choice--it will only accentuate it. Then, as stated in the article, you may have kids that follow the rules but don't know how to learn well enough to go to college. It is looking at the short run versus the long run. I do understand though, why it happens and we have to deal with that underlying problem.
4
I thought it was a good article, but I thought Ms. Shapiro's description of herself as a product of both New York City public and private schools was a bit misleading as she is a graduate of St. Ann's in Brooklyn, an elite private school where tuition is almost $50,000 a year. I recommend she change her bio tag.
60
@Alan Singer Hi there - I went to two public schools in Manhattan for K-8, and then went to St. Ann's in Brooklyn for 9-12, which is exactly as my bio says. Thanks for your very keen interest.
9
Why are you conflating charter schools with "best?" By any of the measures of an excellent school, charter schools fall short. What are their AP scores? Where are their winning math teams? Chess champions? Model UN? Special ed achievements? With their overworked teacers and sites set on grade level for all, we should question putting more money into these experiments on children and communities. Just because you choose a school, doesn't mean it's good.
16
My advice to the charter schools ... stick to your principles of decorum, discipline, and academic excellence. Don't the the teacher's unions and their political cronies drag you down to the level of the typical public school.
22
@BD yep keep on shaming little children, push out kids who don’t perform well, don’t admit learning disabled children...
6
The late legendary educator Dr. Barbara Ann Sizemore's research and practice in public school education demonstrated that pervasive white supremacy denied an equal education to all black children.
But that black boys were particularly and specifically malignly profiled and marginalized from pre-K to 12th grade. By separate and unequal discipline along with low academic expectation tracking them nto remedial programs.
Her academic research focused on community control of schools with the idea of expecting academic excellence from the teachers and administrators in cooperation with the parents and community. Her work with the University of Chicago set up the Woodlawn Experimental Schools Project to practice what she preached in one of the toughest poorest neighborhoods.
Charter schools are a corrupt crony capitalist corporate plutocrat oligarch welfare takeover of public schools by private business interests.
Dr. Sizemore went to the District of Columbia as the Superintendent of the DC Public schools. Then she embarked on an academic career as the Dean of Education at Pitt then DePaul.
Talking about what is wrong with charter schools with regard to the academic educational needs of black and brown students with out recognizing and acknowledging and practicing the deep educational insights of Dr. Sizemore amounts to educational malpractice.
See ' The Ruptured Diamond: Community Control of Schools' Dr. Barbara Sizemore: ' Pipeline' Dominique Morriseau.
8
@Blackmamba Are you on Barbara's payroll? For how long did she slog it out in the classroom? Administrators live in their own world: less "experts" like Barbara and more teachers would make things a lot better. No teacher can succeed with 25 to 30 kids in a class, such as the one my child is in.
3
@Elizabeth
Before you accuse somebody of being "on Barbara's payroll," you should at least take the minimal effort to do a Google search, which would have told you that she was teaching in the elementary and high school classroom from 1950-63, before becoming principal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Sizemore
3
Charter schools employ cruelty and humiliation to achieve discipline. They also get rid of lots of kids. Public schools cannot and should not do so. There is also a willingness to blame teachers for all of society’s ills, especially teachers who make a decent salary, a source of resentment for so many non educators.
15
Traditional public schools have little to no accountability, thanks to the teachers' union. Funds are also misused, as there is little to no improvement in academic performance and students w deficits and disabilities are shunted aside.
This is the teacher's union trying to stamp out NON union competition, charter schools. We should not be compelled to spend our public tax dollars in public schools who refuse accountability, use those tax dollars to cement their political power, run up their salaries as much as practicable, and stamp out the non union competition. What about the kids?
18
Who is going to advocate for your child when teachers aren’t unionized? It’s not a perfect system but unions protect the rights of children as much as they protect the rights of teachers.
6
@Kathy wait what! Teachers are highly paid in which world do you live?
5
I wonder if you’d like to privatize other public services, like the fire department or the police? Maybe we can have charter police precincts where there’s high crime? There is a world of ignorance in blaming the union. Stick to parental involvement and income. Schools are often just a reflection of what’s occurring in a neighborhood
2
What the Charter school in my school district promised was not what they delivered.
Our Charter school "cherry picked" students, charged a lot of money and then reported the best scores.
8
@V
If your "charter school" "charged a lot of money" it is not a charter school. Charters do not charge people money. They are free, public schools.
13
@Jim My child has attended both charter schools and traditional public schools. Everything is more expensive at charter schools: lunch, field trips, transportation, supplies, etc.
11
I think inclusion of students with disabilities is not a problem but including all children in the same set of test scores doesn’t make much sense. Just as a school should be able to break up participation in certain sports if there are wheelchair users who cannot compete in the same way, children with documented intellectual abilities should not be expected to pass the same tests.
8
@Lawyermom. that was supposed to be disabilities.
1
I designed and delivered an arts program to a KIPP charter school in San Francisco. I conducted residencies in public schools, as well, in the past decade. What I observed at the charter school was much of what other commenters have noted: uncredentialed teachers, an iron grip of discipline leading to odd priorities, a vague shallowness to the education.
Though the public schools had problems, their faculty and staff were overwhelmingly better-trained and experienced. The challenges they faced were typically ones of funding, and, considering that they could not cherry-pick their student body, the results were admirable.
What disturbed me the most about the charter school was the scene of 250 Hispanic children being subjected to intense discipline by a cadre of young, white, female teachers. It felt like colonialism at its worst, and in San Francisco, no less, with its sad Mission history. I could not escape the implication of savages needing taming.
The reality was that these joyous children were from intact families, intensely poor, but rich in culture. What they deserved was an education that respected their strengths and helped them navigate the rocky transition to life in mainstream America.
56
@Bohemian Sarah
These “joyous” children are indeed not well served by our educational system. I have no problem with there being some competition with public schools. If the public schools themselves were doing such an excellent job there would have been no opening for charter schools. That some charter schools don’t work to overhyped promises doesn’t mean that our educational system cannot benefit from many models to try, finally, to serve all of America’s students.
Let each sector try new approaches until we get it right. Let’s stop spending all of our energy fighting each other. The children’s education is in the breach, and I worry that we don’t pay enough attention to that reality.
5
@Bohemian "What disturbed me the most about the charter school was the scene of 250 Hispanic children being subjected to intense discipline by a cadre of young, white, female teachers."
To target one group of people because of their race is offensive. My niece is young, white, and a teacher. She works in an underserved part of NY. She has many many students of all colors who love her - she teaches 4th grade. I, too, am a white teacher (though older)-- I've been subbing all over Los Angeles, mostly in challenging areas. We are all not like how you described: privileged people taming the savages.
5
"That approach has led to extremely high test scores and national accolades"
I don't even understand how can there be any disparagement, of course low scores but relaxed, do-nothing atmosphere is much better than discipline and impressive results. Why there's even a question?
And, of course, if you replace a store with a bodega and five apples with three avocados, it's a totally different approach to a math problem.
4
So let's punish Charter Schools because they need help in one area? How about we do something to better prepare students for college AND offer continuing support at least through their freshman college year? Cuomo isn't a fan and I would like to know why. There's something political behind his skepticism...maybe the teacher's union? It would be great if these politicians could, for once, do the right thing for our kids!
7
The public schools worked just fine until the 1970s. Schools and teachers can’t fix societal problems so why do we pretend that they can. In NYC, hundreds of thousands of poor Jews were educated in the public schools in the early 20th century. Their poverty was far worse than anybody living in the USA Today. The schools had less resources and the teachers weren’t as educated. Yet, there were many Nobel Prize winners and great scientists that came from that period. What was different then? I would suggest that it was a hunger for knowledge as the key to success and reinforcement from families. Is that still the case?
142
@Abbott Hall . and a respect for education - something that's very rare today.
39
@Abbott Hall right on. The issue isn’t what happens at school but outside of school. The problem is that those in leadership are scared to say it,
47
@Abbott Hall
I'm not so sure their level of poverty was worse. There are tens of thousands or possibly hundreds of thousands of kids in school now who live in homeless shelters, cars, are couch surfing or dealing with other unstable housing situations.
Housing is unaffordable for many working families and it takes only one medical crisis or car breakdown, etc. for them to lose their residence. Instability causes anxiety, inability to focus, acting out.
6
Conceptually, charter schools are a great idea...a way for educators to experiment and try different approaches without having to worry about funding, like private schools.
The problems arise when charter schools are poorly monitored and regulated, thus allowing bad actors to misuse public funds.
14
The Charter kids did well in high school and struggled in college because they need more support, more tutoring, more guidance - basically everything we middle class parents give our kids. To think that kids from poverty schools will just succeed is too optimistic. It took a village to get them to college and it will take a village to see them through.
20
@Deirdre, I also think there's a lot of "teaching to the test" at charters. If NYC charter school students did very well (85 or higher) on Regents exams and received at least a 3 on AP exams, they probably didn't struggle too badly academically in college. But if expectations of college success were based on their scores on the tests they took in elementary and middle school -- the scores that are usually touted by charter schools -- I can understand them struggling.
2
We keep going round and round looking for gimmicks.
Hire teachers who know their subject and have a sensitivity to kids and leave them alone and let them teach.
Reduce class size.
Close down the education schools which gave us the new math and the new new math. Children are no longer required to learn their addition and multiplication tables. Students know all about sets and different bases and rotational symmetry but could no longer do simple ARITHMETIC.
The education school geniuses also gave us whole language instead of phonics. Kids no longer could read.
California went to whole language. Reading scores dropped. Phonics re introduced scores recovered. QED
Get trouble maker students out of the classrooms.
Put them in special classes.
But the main problem is that people who run the public schools do not care about educating other peoples' children.
They do not send their children to these troubled schools.
42
@david
I'm an NYC public school teacher. I agree with what you're saying. We have new curriculum, methods, books, and more thrown at us year after year, in a desperate attempt to raise test scores (not increase learning). Get the uncontrollable ones out of the classroom and into rooms where they cannot wreak havoc on the majority of kids who just want to learn.
On your final point, many of my colleagues send their children to private schools. It's always bewildered me. How you can believe in public schools if they aren't good enough for your children? Amazing. Planning on sending my kids to NYC public schools, 100%.
32
@david "Children are no longer required to learn their addition and multiplication tables. Students know all about sets and different bases and rotational symmetry but could no longer do simple ARITHMETIC."
This is simply false. My kids were doing timed tests in addition and subtraction in 2nd grade and multiplication in 3rd, requiring memorized addition and multiplication tables. Of course, some parents complained about the "stress" of these tests.
They learned of different bases and such too, but this is hardly new. I recall learning that myself in elementary (though i believe it is taught with greater clarity today).
...Andrew
2
@A. Gideon, david, is not wrong. In NYC memorization is frowned upon for some strange reason. I've taught 6th, 7th, and 8th graders and high school students (not to mention adults) who can't add or subtract anything in their heads and don't know the times tables by heart. .
3
Community schools, as the center of communities, funded well, by well educated highly paid teachers, with strong wrap-around support and services for parents and families in poverty --all working for community based-traditional public schools. That's much preferable to this "charter experiment" of 25 years.
This sounds like a puff piece really from the pro charter "side"--"we have done some things wrong but we're trying to improve."
I'm not buying it that they will ever evolve into a workable solution for students living in poverty.
Look at Newark, New Orleans and Newark if you want to really examine how charter operators have decimated and DEFUNDED public school systems, promote union busting, hire unqualified teachers, have no transparency, de-professionalize teaching with box curriculums, and don't understand at the granular level the communities they drop into and some even close abruptly mid -school year leaving vulnerable families at even higher risk.
67
The author makes a mistake by labeling the strict discipline of charter schools as a "no excuses" policy. Within the charter school world, where I taught for two years, "no excuses" refers more to a community ethos that academic failure is not acceptable, no matter the barriers students, staff, schools, and communities face.
The policy that the author describes as "the idea that punishing minor issues will prevent bigger problems" was referred to as "broken windows" at the school where I taught. People might recognize "broken windows" as the policing method embraced by New York and other cities in the 1990s, part of the push that led to mass incarceration. When my assistant principal explained this approach at my school, no one remarked on the irony that a school reform movement that intended to break the school-to-prison pipeline was adopting both the verbiage and the philosophy of that process. The author is right about one thing: it didn't work. My school had stupendously high suspension rates, student behavior never improved, staff were always tense, and students were unhappy.
21
What is the statistically single most predictive variable for school success? Parents' economic class. If we want to achieve academic success for our children we must address poverty. 21% of American children live in poverty.
79
@Barbara Stanton
But that's because economic class correlates to how hard someone works and how high they aim their energies. If you drop a million dollars into the lap of someone who hasn't a clue about those things,, or hasn't any interest in them, all you will get is a stunning spending spree.
17
Do you honestly think that simply giving parents a bunch more money, enough to make them middle class, would improve their children’s academic performance?
It’s not the parents’ economic situation that really matters, it’s the parental characteristics that created their financial status. Hardworking people who are smart enough to complete high school and get some higher education produce not only financially stable homes, but also children who tend to resemble their parents in intellect and personality. Likewise, the reverse is sadly true.
Think of all the lottery winners who end up broke after five years, having won more money than I’ll see in a lifetime. It’s not the money, it’s the brains.
29
@Z97
People aren't rich because they work hard. That's a myth. People are rich because they start on third base while the rest of us are still at bat.
16
One commenter suggested that charter schools “...produce people with far higher authoritarian preferences”.
I was involved in psychological and educational research for many decades and can’t offhand recall ever hearing about any such studies, much less seeing any.
Most research on charter schools relates to academic performance measures such as graduation rates, test scores, disciplinary rates, educational attainment after graduation, etc.
Measuring attitudinal criteria such as “authoritarian preferences” (whatever that means) is much more difficult than measuring academic performance, and measuring attitudinal changes over many years or even decades is very challenging indeed.
Just for fun I Googled “measuring authoritarian preferences of charter school students” and found no relevant items, I think because the formal evaluations of charter schools have focused almost entirely on academic performance.
Suggesting that “authoritarian preferences” are inculcated by charter schools is not supported by any research I have been able to find. Any citations to the contrary will be greatly appreciated.
22
@Mon Ray
There was a study a few years ago that appeared to show that conservative political beliefs were linked to authoritarian attitudes, but then it was discovered that the authors had reversed the connections. It was liberals who were more likely to have authoritarian attitudes.
Here's a link: http://retractionwatch.com/2016/06/07/conservative-political-beliefs-not-linked-to-psychotic-traits/
7
@J. Waddell, that's funny about the liberals.
1
"Many of New York’s charter networks, including Success, have long waiting lists of parents eager for a seat for their children."
So, what NYC public schools can claim this?
The educational ecosystem, like the rest of life, is an organic, evolving ecosystem. If there wasn't change happening as time goes by I'd be very suspicious.
9
@Mark Many elementary schools in New York are zoned, meaning they can only accept students from a defined area. If they can, parents and prospective parents move to areas with well-regarded schools. Real estate agencies are acutely aware of this and routinely list properties with the name or number of the zoned school. After fifth grade, all students go through an application process in which many public middle and high schools screen applicants for test scores and special talent, or just for good attendance and effort, as reflected in a teacher's recommendation. Competition is intense for these respected schools -- not just the specialized science high schools, but also neighborhood secondary schools that accept many students with disabilities and English Language Learners. So, yes, demand exceeds capacity at many NYC public schools. That's equivalent to a waiting list.
6
Excellent point
I find it curious that all of the critisims of charter schools either help the adult teachers or try to push a social agenda all at the expense of black and brown kids learning. I don't care what color the teachers are, how many union teachers there are, how much the ceo is paid, how many teachers experience burnout. I care that kids learn. If you want to break the chains of poverty the kids have to learn. Nothing else matters. No excuses. Public schools in NYC have not worked for black and brown kids in NYC since at least when my mother went to school in the 1950s. After 70 years of failure let people who are having some success expand their role. Most importantly let parents decide for themselves if they want to send there kids to charters or public schools. I really hope that people do not give into people that care about union members getting paid or people trying to push their social agendas.
26
@Chris
Right on!
3
@Chris
Chris,
Thanks for brining up The Most Important Factor in this entire debate. The parents of the kids attending the better performing charter schools.
4
So, this article doesn't address any of the serious issues that Charter Schools face, such as lack of accountability, the drain of public school funds, high teacher turnover, teacher burnout, union busting, or segregation, just to name a few. Instead you provide what appears to be a carefully constructed public relations article. You begin with a vague acknowledgement of "over-discispline" and then get into the serious business of promoting charter school's high test scores and student achievement (without acknowledging the fact that charters cherry pick high achieving public school students, and reject students with disabilities as well as English Language Learners. All of which skew tests scores.)
Not acceptable and I'm not buying it, sorry.
96
This article does not really deal most key element of anger at Charter schools, they basically have no accountability and can follow their own rules. While you touch on their ability to expel "trouble makers" you don't mention that even at allegedly "non- profit" schools like Success Academy they can pay unlimited salaries so Ms. Moskowitz made nearly $800.000 last year while also employing relatives. Nor are they subject to the same kind of ratings by test scores, nor do their teachers always . have to have teaching degrees Charter schools are a scam that cherry pick students, make money and leave the public schools in far worse shape. I look forward to new regulations by New York State to force them to follow the same financial and disciplinary rules as public schools.
73
Maybe some if the rules and regulations governing public schools should change?
10
@Jerry
You agree that the "playing field" should be level?
2
@Jerry
Which "rules" would those be? Allowing public schools to expel disruptive and disabled students ( often one and the same). Schools have a legal and moral obligation to teach all children and while it might be better to allow stricter disciplinary rules they are sadly misused. Perhaps you prefer Success Academy were one head suspended 44 kindergardners and first graders in one year for infractions like wrong uniform and "mouthing off". Or perhaps we could get rid of those pesky rules on teacher certification so that again like Success Academy they could allow a 2nd year COLLEGE student to teach an AP econ class provided he is the son of the founder. Some "regulations" my seem like a pain but everyone needs to play from the same level field and obey the rules.
7
I found so little to substantiate the claim that New York's "no excuses" charter schools are actually implementing any policies that would negate their brutal discipline systems that I read the piece a second time looking for something that might justify a delay in these punitive charters' well-deserved day of reckoning. At the risk of dating myself, I can only ask, "Where's the beef!?"
The discipline changes noted at the Ascend charter schools was covered in a bit more detail in a Times piece from 2017 (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/09/nyregion/brooklyn-charter-school-discipline.html), even though that piece, too, doesn't say much.
The other big change at Ascend appears to be a new school that lumps disabled students into one school, a practice that lost pedagogical credibility decades ago and one that cripples efforts to create inclusive learning environments.
It's hard to say why Success Academy is even mentioned in this piece, since its management is staying the course on its total compliance penal variety of schools.
As for KIPP, there seems to a kinder, gentler change in rhetoric from the top, but in terms of policy change, I can't find it. There seems to a belief that more black and brown teachers will be enough to humanize the zero tolerance "no excuses" approach. Sadly, KIPP seems to have put most of its black and brown teachers in a single school. In the end, KIPP teachers follow school policy, or else.
Sadly, I see little evidence of real change.
10
“... new school that lumps disabled students into one school, a practice that lost pedagogical credibility decades ago and one that cripples efforts to create inclusive learning environments.”
This is exactly what makes charter schools desirable. “Inclusive learning environments” sound great until you actually count up the amount of instructional time lost by having the autistic kid screaming during lesson or hitting other children constantly. Multiply this disruption by the number of kids with major disabilities in each classroom.
Perhaps affluent children can get the missed instruction made up at home; the less fortunate cannot.
Full inclusion protects the appearance of “equity” at the expense of the safety and education of the many. As a policy, it is morally wrong. Some children need and deserve special education apart from a regular classroom environment they can’t handle.
7
One slight problem; "full inclusion" in the least restrictive environment is federal law. Also, public schools are required to accept any student who shows up on their doorstep. So your proposed solutions are illegal and meaningless in the real world that public school officials mus live in.
6
@John, then perhaps we should lobby to get the least restictive environment regulations to include some weighing of the student’s potentially negative impact on their classmates safety and education. Interpretation of that guideline has changed in the past 20 years. It can change again.
3
It was not easy to figure out from this article what exactly the 'shortcomings' are of charter schools. But by the end i had the rough sense that they are: too many white teachers for black and brown students, too much focus on discipline, and (perhaps?) too much focus on academic achievement. Did I get that right? But i'm still struggling to understand what they are striving for that's different from the traditional public schools, and how they are trying to get there.
25
With less focus on discipline, test scores went up. That's the core message. White teachers were a little too handsy (figuratively) with the children and in turn that affected morale. It's not complicated.
1
@Hamilton Fish Could it be the reporter's fault for not clearly communicating her findings in the article? Eliza Shipiro, can you help us out here.
I taught at an urban 88% minority urban high school, and if the charter school movement had worked within school districts, restructuring curricula and disciplinary policies and retraining union teachers, they would have received teacher support and the benefit of our experience. Instead, many charters blamed districts, unions, and teachers for failing schools, siphoned money out of the public till, hired, overworked, and burned out naive young teachers, trying to reinvent the wheel. KIPP’s hyper-discipline and routinized teaching methods are better than public schools with demoralized staff and chaotic classrooms, but not as good as the many public schools that are thriving. I taught creativity and project-based critical thinking to urban kids, who in some ways are more open-minded and engaged than ambitious Ivy League obsessed kids. There are no magic disciplinary or curricular policies. Schools based on care and dedication, setting high standards, paying attention to the kids’ responses, and involving parents and the community—that works.
88
This is a highly charged debate with plenty of vitriol and absolutist claims on both sides. As someone who has taught in both a public school and a charter school, I can definitively say that many charter schools do good work. But that is if, and only if, they adhere to the following:
1. Only allow non-profit schools.
2. Accept all students, regardless of IEP (special education) or ELL (English proficiency) status.
3. Do not "counsel out" students, period. That means keeping both kids who struggle academically and those who struggle behaviorally.
4. Fill all seats. If one kid moves out of a class, allow a new kid to come in, regardless of the grade and regardless of the month of the year.
5. Replace a "no excuses" mindset with a "high expectations, high support" mindset.
Charter schools that adhere to those standards will generally significantly outperform their public peers. Those that do not are a problem and authorizers should seriously look at revoking their charters. Please stop conflating the two.
I'd love to see students move back into public schools, if at the same time we provided teachers and principals with significantly more coaching and support. But until that happens it's educational neglect to let some of our (mostly urban and rural) kids go to terrible schools on a daily basis.
30
@NA
I’m curious that you don’t mention teacher qualifications or the richness of the curriculum.
The reason that the charters in my community are notably inferior to the public schools is mostly due to those factors.
Charter schools can expel, a.k.a. "counsel out" the problem kids, who are then shipped back to the traditional district schools. Many charter schools have two teachers in the classroom, especially in the lower grades. Parents are compelled to be involved. To compare charter schools to district schools is to compare apples to oranges.
57
@dba . Absolutely!
I agree. It is disingenuous to use charter schools’ scores to bash public schools and union teachers.
8
@dba In our charter schools, aides in the classroom (as well as art , gardening, PE & technology) are paid for directly by parent fundraising. Our school is a not-for-profit.
6
In my area the charter movement has not primarily benefitted poor minorities, but, rather, better off educated families, by siphoning off money from the limited public coffers, and providing a free private school education for the children of these savvy parents. I’d be interested to know if this well meaning movement has been hijacked in this way in other communities.
18
@Helen Goldman Of course it has. That is primarily why it was created. That was true back in the 90's and still is.
9
@Helen Goldman. Same here.
We chose the public charter school in our neighborhood (over the traditional public school) because on paper, the traditional school was a failing school. In person, the school relied heavily on technology, chrome books and online lessons for elementary students. I have yet to read any studies about how hours of screen time is good for children. Our local public charter school (admission by lottery) has a large garden, chickens, rabbits and turkeys. The system of discipline is restorative justice. The school is diverse--it reflects the neighborhood. The teachers are excellent, parents are expected to donate, no one who works at the school is getting rich. Oh, and the school is more than 15 years old. As long as the teachers' unions continue to treat every charter like they are some kind of blood and money-sucking entity, the more resentment they will receive from communities like mine who have a wonderful local public charter for all children.
37
@francine lamb. News flash: public school teachers are not rich. Some of us do earn a solid middle class income, but you seem to think that teachers need to take a vow of poverty, as though they are entering monestaries and nunneries. No, teachers have families too, and they need a good salary like anyone else to support them. I know a lot of charter school teachers who bolted to public schools as soon as they could for the higher pay and to actually teach the subject they earned their BA in.
20
@francine lamb
It sounds like your local public school is a victim of low budgets that lead to cheap and lousy curriculum choices. Do you wonder if the charter school has anything to do with that.
13
A recent study was done in my California school district and it was determined that the local charter schools drained $27.9 million dollars from the authentic public schools. The truth hurts.
14
It's not enough for charters to reform themselves. We need to talk about their impact on the larger public school system. It's clear they're taking money from that system in addition to enrolling a student population with fewer severe needs and fewer English Language Learners. This leaves their surrounding public schools with a more challenging student population, unchanged fixed costs, and less money to support students.
The idea that these schools exist outside the broader system is harmful to that system.
34
“Studies have found that black students who have even one black teacher are more likely to go to college than black students who do not.” I’ve seen this study cited before and appreciated being given a link so I could find out more. The methodology seemed sound and the result was replicated in another study.
The question I have is this: If having one black teacher is good and having two is better, why don’t areas where almost all the teachers and administrators are black do better?
46
@Z97 Because having a black role model is only a piece of the puzzle. Many other factors influence kids' success in their education.
4
According to Carranza's philosophy, these students at these schools should be doing great because of their "anti-racism" policies and culture and majority of teachers and staff being African-American or Hispanic (so these students shouldn't be negatively stereotyped by "racist" white and Asian teachers).
13
How is segregating students with disabilities into separate schools not taking society backward? Of course this practice allows their main schools to report test scores that don't include having to average in those from students with disabilities, thus making charters look academically superior to public schools.
25
@Madeline Conant
Many of the special needs classrooms need specially trained teachers who can handle behaviors and modify the content in such a way that a regular classroom wouldn’t allow
3
Not mentioning the undeniable fact that the US has the highest childhood poverty rate in the entire developed world seems like a large oversight in any of these charter school articles. US public schools in places with low childhood poverty perform as well as any in the world (yes, equal to Asian and Nordic countries). We tried to solve a problem of childhood poverty by siphoning off money to for-profit schools that promised stricter discipline and punishment of poor children; punishment they later acknowledged did not work. We actively punished students for being born poor, and told them it was good for them. It's shameful.
88
@Erik
Never mind jobs. Never mind jobs that don't pay enough for a family to live on. Marriage solves everything.
10
@Thomas Zaslavsky, Two working parents with minimum wage jobs are better off financially than a single mom and provide a lot more stability.
Remember that the original post also stipulated marriage before children. Middle class norms also stipulate that you should have no more children than you can support.
4
@Z97
Two working parents with two jobs each at minimum wage are not able to take proper care of their children. If they have children, excoriate them to your heart's content and accuse them of not having your "middle class norms", but that won't solve a thing.
3
After 27 years of teaching college prep 10th-12th grade Biology, Math, and Chemistry to top students in a mixed population (financially and culturally) and watching in embarrassment as year after year students transferring in to my classes from other countries were bewildered and disappointed to discover within days that they were being given curricula in all subjects that they had studied - and demonstrably mastered - two and sometimes three years - earlier in their countries of origin, including France, Spain, Germany, Mexico, the Mideast, and Mao’s Red China. Curiously(?) we didn’t have a single student from England transfer in.... The 2 Chinese students didn’t have a word of English and were earning straight A’s by the end of the semester.
My students, whom I loved dearly (most of ‘em!) to the last day, insisted enthusiastically that “We’re Number One!”
101
My experience with Charter schools has been negative. They take state money from public schools. The owners make a huge amount of money by hiring less experienced teachers for less money. Many of the schools try to get the parents to pay for teacher salaries. The schools charge for everything and don’t have buses so that eliminates children who rely on busing to and from school. They don’t offer as much as public schools for help with Learning Disabilities. If the students are not meeting their standards, they are asked to leave. Usually this happens before state testing so the school will score well on state testing. The state legislators love them because they are getting kick backs from the owners or board members. I think it is great if parents don’t want their child to attend a public school, just don’t ask other citizens to pay for it.
96
I don't have a problem with charter schools as long as the taxpayers are willing to adequately fund separate education systems.
8
Charter schools are mostly poor public policy. They introduce anti-democratic and intolerant attitudes into children who will grow up thinking that others unlike themselves are adversaries or untrustworthy.
The argument that they help children from low socio-economic circumstances to escape that situation is mostly false. It selects the most gifted to escape it but it assures that all others are even more oppressed by low socio-economic circumstances. The poor outcomes in poor neighborhoods require replacing poverty with prosperity, with much higher funding and rational support for the schools educating these children.
But more to the point, we need the best and the brightest and those who will have to struggle their whole lives to live good lives, to know each other from the time that they are small children to provide a character and view that values democracy and liberty for all, in all of them.
13
Obviously charter schools have some room for improvement, and it is good that charter school operators are committed to making improvements.
How about an article shining a similarly critical light on the numerous shortcomings and performance failures of public urban schools? Or would that offend too many state and city education officials and teacher union officials?
I think it is significant that so many parents opt for their kids to attend charter schools rather than regular public schools.
51
@Mon Ray
Elitist charter and parochial schools produce people with far higher authoritarian preferences. They tend to remain conservatives and less tolerant of people who are different from themselves. That is why most people who support charter schools over public schools, do.
10
@Mon Ray
I'm sure you know you're merely asking for another of the 10,000 articles attacking public schools without doing a thing to provide what they need to get better results, such as more help for the students who have chaotic homes, and more help for the parents who would benefit from training in such parenting techniques as reading to the children, and a decent minimum wage that means parents don't both have to have two jobs to pay the rent.
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@Casual Observer, do you have any evidence for this assertion?
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It doesn't matter how well a charter school performs. The "progressive left" wants to shut it down. And the narrative is conservatives don't care about poor minorities?
And how about a review of the the NYC schools, where tenured teachers cannot be fired unless they commit a crime?
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@Erik Yes, we do want to shut them down because they’re a scam and a conspiracy to loot the public schools, period.
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@sedanchair We have decades of failure in inner-city public schools. And you want to perpetuate the failure. Why?
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@Erik It’s the “reformers” who create failure by setting up laws like No Child Left Behind, which systematically punished poor and urban districts for outcomes over which they had no control. They took money from schools, and marked them with a scarlet letter (which you believed), only because they had to educate more youth below the poverty line.
And here you are, still blaming the schools.
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Charter schools are a scam supported by conservatives and billionaires who want to pay less taxes and turn K-12 education into rudimentary job training for a compliant workforce. They don't have to educate the whole population like public schools do. They don't have to educate youth with special needs. For that reason alone, any success they claim is irrelevant.
Public funding for charter schools should be outlawed.
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@sedanchair I would agree if we can get rid of teacher tenure. And I'm not talking about firing a teacher based on the whim of a principal. But one thing I know for sure - the union would have no input on the decision.
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In NYC charters are non profit and have delivered demonstrably superior results. They have also brought lots of private money into educating children.
I view this as a desire on the part of the finance and hedge fund crowd that kicks in these big bucks to see value for their money - like spending money on quality seed corn that yields strong crops later. As opposed to the dismal return on city income tax assessments which seem to only prop up a bloated and ineffective bureaucracy.
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@GC "Non-profit" does not mean people aren't lining their pockets with public monies meant for the education of our children.
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We need more individuals such as Mr. Buery who are willing to accept and adapt to the shortcomings of their schools instead of succumbing to political pressure. It’s unfortunate, that the type of institutions that educate black and Hispanic children are a deep and divisive political issue which may stymie their progress, another layer of problems on top of the reasons that made them disenfranchised in the first place.
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While it is gratifying to hear charter leaders admit that the movement has lost its way (Gates too!), there’s a very long way to go.
I’m sick of charters declaring themselves to be “rigorous”. One award-winning charter near me broadcasts the high enrollment of its students in AP Calculus. What they don’t broadcast is that for ten years, none of the students has ever gotten more than a 1 (out of 5) on the exam.
And the charter model relies on young, inexperienced, uncredentialed teachers, many of whom leave after a two or three years. That’s not giving the students our best.
Charters need to address their paltry curricular options. Few charters offer world languages outside of Spanish. The urban public’s near me offer four or more world languages.
Perhaps most important, I thought we had all agreed that racially and socioeconomically segregated schools are bad. Charters are filled with low income children of color , often 85% or more. Unacceptable.
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@Cousy I think the point about segregation potentially holds a key to why many of these students struggle in college, and that's important. It is scary to go outside your comfort zone even when you're a middle-class white kid leaving home for the first time. Imagine the intimidation level for freshmen who are carrying the burden of being minorities on campus, first-generation college students, and low-income at a time when many colleges have fallen so in love with fancy perks that they have taken their eye off the ball of ensuring that low- or even moderate-income kids' basic life needs are met. My alma mater, George Washington University, has one of the higher price tags of any college in the US -- and yet last year, a food pantry opened on campus to serve kids who were having to skip meals or otherwise ration their dining points to get through the semester.
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@Cousy, the children in many charters came from racially and socioeconomically segregated public schools. Charters don’t deepen existing segregation where I live, they just allow poor children who are willing and able to learn to be educated in a better disciplined environment. They deserve that.
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The first generation college students go to colleges like CUNY where they often require remedial classes and many fail to graduate. Their prior schools did not prepare them for college level curriculum. They are the norm, not the exception.
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I’m not so sure discussing the Michael Brown controversy in school is appropriate for 5-year olds.
Older kids, sure.
But what, exactly, was the method and purpose?
Sorry, but kindergarten kids don’t need or want drama. They have enough of that in their own lives and imagination.
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@Gsoxpit
"They have enough of that in their own lives and imagination." That's why a sensible, guided discussion was needed.
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@Gsoxpit
What was the purpose? To discuss something that the kids already knew about and were talking and hearing about.
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Well, 3 year olds and up have to endure monthly active shooter drills. How is that fir trauma?
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I’m glad the charter schools are reflecting on how they can do better. Now let’s hear the regular public school leaders and teachers acknowledge how deeply the existing systems are failing poor and minority students and identify how that can change. (And not “more money” given how massively more NY spends per pupil than other localities.)
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@10009 Public schools, unlike charter schools, have to educate everyone. If a child assaults teachers and other students, they can't just kick them out, they still have to provide for their education. I used to work in an "alternative school" that cost $10,000 a month for every student a district sent to us--and that was 15 years ago.
So much of the funding that is allocated to education gets squandered on programs and federal laws that people outside the education system think are solutions. But they're not solutions. No Child Left Behind, the implementation of Common Core, IDEA, ADA--every one of these has been bureaucratically interpreted in a way that wastes teaching time, destroys lives and puts minorities in the school-to-prison pipeline.
A comprehensive overhaul is needed, but until conservatives and education "reformers" are excluded from the debate any changes will be poisoned, useless and counterproductive.
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@sedanchair
And teachers should be included, and have a big say rather than being window dressing in the decision-making system. I'm sure you meant that, too.
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When school children come to the US and have to attend our public schools, they are ALWAYS MOVED UP ONE OR TWO GRADES. It happens all the time across this country.
We had a young lady visiting from France in our town, and as a senior in our school system, she found that subjects in her math class was covered during her sophomore year back home.
Students in our college systems too are years behind students abroad, AND COLLEGE TUITION FOR EUROPEAN STUDENTS IS FREE.
Our kids are great, and many teachers are more than dedicated, but the system is very broken. Shame on us.
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@Eric Merklein
That may be true in NH but it does not reflect my experience with international high school students, and French students in particular.
I live in a city with a huge variety of international students, but given that a large French company has made my hometown its North American headquarters, we have a ton of French kids in our public schools. They are not further ahead by any measure, and they struggle to get admitted to selective colleges.
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@realist
Evidence please? I’ll even accept an anecdote. Your notions do not even remotely match what I see in the public high schools near me.
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@Eric Merklein I have a friend who teaches at an elite boarding school in NH. He says the foreign students are light years ahead of American students in math and science, but they can't answer questions about how poems make them feel, or about imagery in books. In other words, they are behind in English classes and in history. There are tradeoffs. The focus on testing and classes on STEM works for some kids, but we are losing other kids.
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