We are now receiving the hard data. Throughout the Charter versus Public School debate, the concern on one hand was that allowing Charters to compete, would force Public schools to close, and once done, the charter schools would perform no better than did the public……
In the ’90’s as these ideas were first proposed and debated upon their merits, but there was no evidence; it was all theoretical.. Now, we have actually done it and are getting hard data….
Here is their history in one paragraph. If a charter school opens up in a failing school system and the public money per student is allowed to follow that child, obviously parents at no cost to themselves will opt to put their children in a charter school. Simply put, if their public school is rated “F”, the charter school can be no worse. So the charter School being someone’s private investment, now begins accepting children with public school money that comes from citizen’s assessed property taxes… As more charter schools open up in that same failed district, they siphon even more public money into these private enterprises, pulling it of course out of the public school system in that local area. So the public school which was previously failing, is now accepting a much lower number of students, yet trying to maintain the same infrastructure covering that wide geographical area.. For example, its school buses have to run the same routes whether they receive cash per student to carry 5 students or 35… Obviously the public schools have to do with less, while the charter schools have to do with more… The charter schools choose their students in certain cases, and can send them back to public if they don’t meet expectations. The Public schools must take whomever is left, in. Gradually the quality and sheer numbers of students deteriorate so much, that these public schools have to be shut down. Too many schools are too empty and that is too costly… Consolidation must occur.
Philadelphia and Chicago are closing schools. And Guess what? Most of both are black.
The argument can be made that we are accidentally closing the door on the only one way a person can pull himself out of the inner city quagmire: with a quality education….
Now let us back up. The argument for charter schools was that they would provide that door or that opportunity for these citizens to help pull themselves out. Theoretically, if all charter schools had huge success stories, then this plan could be a viable option.
If such were the case, all of us including myself would be in favor of charter schools… As I look back over the past 20 years I can now see how we were seduced into allowing them to happen. If someone had substituted the word “private schools” instead of “charter schools”, no one would be against; we’d all be in favor….. private schools (which used private funds), competing with public schools would be a good thing. People would have a choice if they could afford to let their children get a great education or a good one… I think Britain has functioned fine with its Eton School for Boys.
Then, when the argument became enhanced, that drawing such a line financially was not fair to underprivileged children who had talent, a lot of us felt that yes they should receive scholarships to go to good schools, and that was fair. Then, when the lack of scholarships for the amount of private school openings became apparent, all were lulled into letting the public money for that child, follow the child where he wound up going… even if it was outside the school system and into someone else’s private pockets….
Allowing public money to enhance private pockets, particularly in a urban environment where lots of potential students surround a converted building, opened up great possibilities for some to get wealthy… Just a hundred students at $15,000 each per year, could bring one a gross of $1,500,000.. One could squeeze that few into just three rooms of 35 students… Double that, and one gets $3 million. Do it across the city, and gross $100 million….
So is it really that bad for someone to get wealthy IF… kids are getting a much better education?
And up to now, this was the dilemma .. No one really had that answer because no one really knew. No one had ever tried it before….
That was then. We now have results and can analyze this experiment and see, once and for all, how charter schools can impact the growth and development of our children!… This is truly awesome, actually!…. .
In Philly, over a quarter of the district’s 195,000 seats are now empty. That is 48,750 empty spots… But more important, is the number of the remainder: 146,250…
The actual number of Charter School Students within the Philadelphia School District, according to the National Alliance for Charter Schools, is 47,800… just 950 student shy of the district’s empty seats……..
Quite a coincidence!
In all 23.4% of Philly’s children are enrolled in Charter Schools…. The district projects a 37 percent increase in costs associated with charter schools over the next five years, bringing the total charter cost to more than $800 million…. That will come out of the public school budgets.
Last year, Philadelphia charters met AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress)at only 29 percent, yet that was still better than the 13 percent tally for Philadelphia’s district-run schools…..
Mathematically that stacks up thusly….
(0.13)146,250 + (0.29)47,800 = Total Philly students meeting requirements…. The math gives us this many successful students: 32,874…
In 2005, there were 185,000 students in the city district’s public schools. At that time, 34% were deemed advanced or proficient….. Doing the math we get this result…. 62,900…. actual students who were advanced or proficient…
In 2005, the Philadelphia School District put out 62,900 students meeting standards. In 2012, after experimenting with Charter Schools, the same geographical area spit out 32,874 students meeting standards…
Conclusion. Having charter schools and public schools duke it out over scarce resources, not unlike the recent movie Hunger Games, cuts our actual passing students down by almost half….
We now have evidence.
8 comments
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March 11, 2013 at 6:26 am
John Young
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
March 11, 2013 at 8:43 am
gpicone
Reblogged this on ipledgeafallegiance and commented:
I found this post to be quite interesting and informative…Can anyone refute these statistics? Can two masters be served as one?
March 11, 2013 at 9:32 am
samsorbo
“People would have a choice if they could afford to let their children get a great education or a good one…” That’s not freedom. If only 24.4% of kids are enrolled in Charter schools, then charter can account for only a small percentage of the poor-achieving students… What percentage is that, please? Because without specificity, it certainly looks like public schools have really fallen down over the past 7 years. Either that, or perhaps the testing has caught up with them…
March 11, 2013 at 2:11 pm
Durell Anthony Gaston
I think that the canard that charter school out perform public schools has been repeated by everyone that would listen, but the data does not bear that out.
In this article (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/charter-schools/about-the-brill-story-on-chart.html) and many other articles on the subject you will find that the reports of Charter school’s performance are greatly overblown. When you consider the student population, disabilities, classroom numbers, and other facts that describe a population, you will find that there isn’t a major difference in outcomes when looking at the same caliper of students.
Another factor that never gets considered is that Charter schools pick and choose their students. They are not pulling (indiscriminately) from the entire school populace.
The fact is we should not be padding the pockets of private charter schools with public money. If their approach to education is vastly superior to public schools then their mere performance should usher in the end of the public approach to education.
In reality, charter/private schools are not playing on the same field with public schools so you are not comparing apples to apples; you are comparing select apples to every apple that is on the tree including the ones on the ground. Improve public schools and stop public funding private institutions.
March 11, 2013 at 3:50 pm
kavips
Note to Samsorbo. You are correct. Public schools in Philadelphia have fallen down in the past 7 years… That is the point. One of the reasons is because Charter Schools are taking away their funds…
And Durell, charters still can outperform some public schools as they did in the Philly district, where charter schools scored twice as high as did the public school district…. Charters failed at 29%, and the district failed at 13%….
You point out the many fine lines of differences… It’s not apples to apples as you correctly point out.
That why it is so important to see how ALL the children do across the entire city, and compare the results of ALL the children in both charter and public, against the scores from before the charter programs began in earnest.
Essentially, with charter schools in the mix, we are doing worse by about half than we did before…….
March 13, 2013 at 12:56 am
More On Philly School Closings…. | kavips
[…] Recently I documented a comparison between 2005 and now, and illustrated that there were only 890 fewer students in Philadelphia now as opposed to then, and that half as many were college prepared as were back when public school supplied over 80% of Philadelphia’s educational needs. […]
May 9, 2013 at 11:02 am
Rebuttal To News Journal Piece Promoting Charters | kavips
[…] This study of next door Philadelphia, shows that test scores in Philly were collectively higher when there were NO charter schools, then when there were. Meaning that allowing Charter schools to come in and compete with Philly public schools, lowered Philadelphia’s cumulative test score average…. Simply put any any other venue when two teams compete, they both have independent sponsors. Splitting ones resources to fund two teams competing against each other, well… common sense tells you that when they go up against other teams whose funding was unlimited… they are going to lose badly… […]
July 7, 2014 at 12:58 am
All About Common Core, Charters, and Public Education | kavips
[…] How Charters Close Public Schools […]