5 ms·

From the studies I've seen, once you take into account the risk selection practices of charter schools, the advantages disappear.

kiba 16y ago
Why is this so? Does the charter school do the same thing as public school?
- andrewce 16y ago
  Most do, yes. It doesn't matter if you're in a private charter school or a large public school, with large classes or small classes, if all that is going on is the lecture-then-test that limits itself to rote recall. If that's all that we're doing as teachers, it doesn't matter a single bit where it happens, so long as students can be made to comply.
  - ktsmith 16y ago
    Some school districts aren't moving towards this methodology even though that's what's being pushed at the national level. The district my wife teaches in doesn't do this however the school she's stuck at this year is doing it to an extreme. They use a scripted curriculum. The teachers read from the script, the children provide a choral response and they repeat until every student gets it right. There's no need for teachers in that kind of a system since they aren't allowed to deviate from the scripts or supplement the scripts with other methods or resources. It's really depressing to see what some schools are resorting to to make AYP.
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      While that method of teaching (direct instruction) is boring for teachers, and makes them easily replaceable, it is highly effective. Some info: http://www.jefflindsay.com/EducData.shtml http://www.jefflindsay.com/EducData.shtml Remember, the goal of schools is to educate children, not provide enjoyable high-wage employment for teachers. Or at least, that is the stated goal.
      - tptacek 16y ago
        This argument ignores the question of whether direct instruction is valuable across the entire curriculum, or primarily for basic core reading / spelling / language / arithmatic; it also ignores the fact that many DI results are generated on special ed cohorts. It's also phrased in a way that suggests that anyone who opposes a k-12 direct instruction regime must be opposed because they want to make teachers lives more interesting.
        yummyfajitas 16y ago
        I phrased it that way on purpose, in response to this part of ktsmith's post: "There's no need for teachers in that kind of a system since they aren't allowed to deviate from the scripts ...It's really depressing to see what some schools are resorting to to make AYP." If DI isn't improving student achievement in some categories of student, I agree we should scrap it. If we don't know if it is doing so, we should conduct randomized trials to determine that. But that isn't the critique ktsmith is making.
        tptacek 16y ago
        I agree with you that 'ktsmith's argument is irrelevant; it is not really depressing to see students achieve in school simply because it turns the teacher's day into a drudgery. I am wary of silver-bullet solutions like DI, though; not only might they not work, but they could also be just as damaging to classroom performance as teach-to-the-test standardized testing has been.
        ktsmith 16y ago
        > simply because it turns the teacher's day into a drudgery. Those words were put into my mouth by yummyfajitas. My complaint with DI is that it focuses on repetition and memorization rather than comprehension. It's great that a child can see a word on a test and recognize it then bubble in the correct answer because then we have "achievement." It's result though is meaningless if the child doesn't know what the word means.
      - 16y ago
- ZachPruckowski 16y ago
  Part of it is demographics, and part of it is the fact that non-school factors play a HUGE role in achievement. If you have parents who are trying to get you into a charter school, you have parents who are making sure you're doing your homework and who care about your education, which already puts you in a higher-achieving sub-set.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    ...part of it is the fact that non-school factors play a HUGE role in achievement. If this is true (I believe this is likely to be the case), we should invest vastly less in education than we currently do. Rather than trying to find good teachers, we should just aim for the cheapest warm bodies we can find, not to mention speeding up the process (e.g., graduate at 14). This belief lies behind the signalling model of education - education adds little value but signals to employers that value was already present.
    - ZachPruckowski 16y ago
      OK, maybe I was unclear, because we're talking about different things. During your K-12 period, what you learn is more influenced by things like "do I have to worry about whether or not I'll be eating dinner tonight?" and "sweetie, you can't play your Gameboy until your homework is done" than by their teachers. If you're in a stable environment with parents who are involved in your education and who take you to the library or the museum or whatever, then you're going to be better off than the kid raised by the TV.
      - ktsmith 16y ago
        These are absolutely huge issues. The school my wife formerly taught at received Title II funds to provide breakfast and dinner (in addition to the free and reduced lunch program) to 100% of the students at the school due to the 95% poverty level in the neighborhood. Having all of the kids eat breakfast in the classroom for the first fifteen minutes of every day drastically reduced the instances of "my tummy hurts" and nurse visits as well as improving participation and attention levels during the day. I thought it was funny at first because she complained about losing the time in the morning considering how much they have to do each day. By the end of the year there was nothing but praise due to the way it had positively impacted her classes.
- ktsmith 16y ago
  It's entirely dependent on the particular school. Some charter schools are no different then public schools in their methods, curriculum or staff. Others take a focused approach to certain types of studies (math and science in particular). Others use rote memorization in order to boost test scores. I believe what the original post was talking about though is something else entirely. Public schools are forced to take any student that is zoned to go there. Charter schools may pick and choose which students attend. In some cases this means that the schools are selecting only those students that will excel at the school thus making the school look better than perhaps it really is. There are charter schools on the end of the spectrum as well. My wife spent a year teaching at a charter school that took in lots of students that were behavior problems in the public schools and who's parents weren't willing to work with the administration/district. That school performs below the level of the public schools. If you look at charter schools, a very small percentage performs better than average, a very small percentage performs worse than average, and the majority are no better than public schools.

kiba 16y ago

Why is this so? Does the charter school do the same thing as public school?

andrewce 16y ago
Most do, yes. It doesn't matter if you're in a private charter school or a large public school, with large classes or small classes, if all that is going on is the lecture-then-test that limits itself to rote recall. If that's all that we're doing as teachers, it doesn't matter a single bit where it happens, so long as students can be made to comply.
- ktsmith 16y ago
  Some school districts aren't moving towards this methodology even though that's what's being pushed at the national level. The district my wife teaches in doesn't do this however the school she's stuck at this year is doing it to an extreme. They use a scripted curriculum. The teachers read from the script, the children provide a choral response and they repeat until every student gets it right. There's no need for teachers in that kind of a system since they aren't allowed to deviate from the scripts or supplement the scripts with other methods or resources. It's really depressing to see what some schools are resorting to to make AYP.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    While that method of teaching (direct instruction) is boring for teachers, and makes them easily replaceable, it is highly effective. Some info: http://www.jefflindsay.com/EducData.shtml http://www.jefflindsay.com/EducData.shtml Remember, the goal of schools is to educate children, not provide enjoyable high-wage employment for teachers. Or at least, that is the stated goal.
    - tptacek 16y ago
      This argument ignores the question of whether direct instruction is valuable across the entire curriculum, or primarily for basic core reading / spelling / language / arithmatic; it also ignores the fact that many DI results are generated on special ed cohorts. It's also phrased in a way that suggests that anyone who opposes a k-12 direct instruction regime must be opposed because they want to make teachers lives more interesting.
      - yummyfajitas 16y ago
        I phrased it that way on purpose, in response to this part of ktsmith's post: "There's no need for teachers in that kind of a system since they aren't allowed to deviate from the scripts ...It's really depressing to see what some schools are resorting to to make AYP." If DI isn't improving student achievement in some categories of student, I agree we should scrap it. If we don't know if it is doing so, we should conduct randomized trials to determine that. But that isn't the critique ktsmith is making.
        tptacek 16y ago
        I agree with you that 'ktsmith's argument is irrelevant; it is not really depressing to see students achieve in school simply because it turns the teacher's day into a drudgery. I am wary of silver-bullet solutions like DI, though; not only might they not work, but they could also be just as damaging to classroom performance as teach-to-the-test standardized testing has been.
        ktsmith 16y ago
        > simply because it turns the teacher's day into a drudgery. Those words were put into my mouth by yummyfajitas. My complaint with DI is that it focuses on repetition and memorization rather than comprehension. It's great that a child can see a word on a test and recognize it then bubble in the correct answer because then we have "achievement." It's result though is meaningless if the child doesn't know what the word means.
    - 16y ago
ZachPruckowski 16y ago
Part of it is demographics, and part of it is the fact that non-school factors play a HUGE role in achievement. If you have parents who are trying to get you into a charter school, you have parents who are making sure you're doing your homework and who care about your education, which already puts you in a higher-achieving sub-set.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  ...part of it is the fact that non-school factors play a HUGE role in achievement. If this is true (I believe this is likely to be the case), we should invest vastly less in education than we currently do. Rather than trying to find good teachers, we should just aim for the cheapest warm bodies we can find, not to mention speeding up the process (e.g., graduate at 14). This belief lies behind the signalling model of education - education adds little value but signals to employers that value was already present.
  - ZachPruckowski 16y ago
    OK, maybe I was unclear, because we're talking about different things. During your K-12 period, what you learn is more influenced by things like "do I have to worry about whether or not I'll be eating dinner tonight?" and "sweetie, you can't play your Gameboy until your homework is done" than by their teachers. If you're in a stable environment with parents who are involved in your education and who take you to the library or the museum or whatever, then you're going to be better off than the kid raised by the TV.
    - ktsmith 16y ago
      These are absolutely huge issues. The school my wife formerly taught at received Title II funds to provide breakfast and dinner (in addition to the free and reduced lunch program) to 100% of the students at the school due to the 95% poverty level in the neighborhood. Having all of the kids eat breakfast in the classroom for the first fifteen minutes of every day drastically reduced the instances of "my tummy hurts" and nurse visits as well as improving participation and attention levels during the day. I thought it was funny at first because she complained about losing the time in the morning considering how much they have to do each day. By the end of the year there was nothing but praise due to the way it had positively impacted her classes.
ktsmith 16y ago
It's entirely dependent on the particular school. Some charter schools are no different then public schools in their methods, curriculum or staff. Others take a focused approach to certain types of studies (math and science in particular). Others use rote memorization in order to boost test scores. I believe what the original post was talking about though is something else entirely. Public schools are forced to take any student that is zoned to go there. Charter schools may pick and choose which students attend. In some cases this means that the schools are selecting only those students that will excel at the school thus making the school look better than perhaps it really is. There are charter schools on the end of the spectrum as well. My wife spent a year teaching at a charter school that took in lots of students that were behavior problems in the public schools and who's parents weren't willing to work with the administration/district. That school performs below the level of the public schools. If you look at charter schools, a very small percentage performs better than average, a very small percentage performs worse than average, and the majority are no better than public schools.