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Study: Charter schools are improving, but performance still close to public schools

June 27, 2013 By

by Jeanette Rundquist
The Star-Ledger
June 26, 2013

Students in charter schools fared better than those in traditional public schools in some states — including New Jersey — but a majority of charters across the United States still deliver no better education than traditional public schools in reading, and 40 percent are about the same in math, according to a new study released Tuesday by researchers at Stanford University.

The study, which updates a 2009 report and which Stanford researchers described as the largest study of charter school performance in the United States, looked at test scores from 1.5 million charter school students in 27 states or districts, including New Jersey, and compared them with their “virtual twin” students attending traditional public schools.

The study determined that about a quarter of charter schools performed better than regular public schools — specifically, 25 percent did better in reading and 29 percent better in math.

The original study, which looked at charter schools in 16 states, showed only 17 percent of charter schools outperformed traditional public schools in math, and 37 percent fared worse.

“The results reveal that the charter school sector is getting better on average and that charter schools are benefiting low-income, disadvantaged and special education students,” said Margaret Raymond, director of the Center for Research on Educational Outcomes at Stanford.

New Jersey is one of 11 states or districts where charter school students’ performance outpaced traditional public schools in both subjects in the new study. The state was not included in the original research.

“It’s not saying 100 percent of New Jersey charter schools are hitting it out of the park,” said Dev Davis, research manager at CREDO. “Overall, they’re doing better than the national picture.”

New Jersey has about 84 charter schools, educating about 23,000 students.

Nationally, there are about 2.3 million students in privately run, publicly funded charter schools, or about 4 percent of the total public school population, according to the study.

Some in education were quick to criticize the study.

The Washington, D.C.-based Center for Education Reform took issue with the findings, calling the study “extremely weak in its methodology and alarming in its conclusions.”

“No matter how well-intentioned, the CREDO research is not charter school performance gospel,” said Jeanne Allen, president of the center. She said the CREDO study “is based on stacking mounds of state education department data into an analytical process that is decidedly lacking in rigor.”

New Jersey Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf applauded the findings of the study, which used the same data as a report released on the state’s charter schools in the fall.

“The Center for Research on Education Outcomes’ rigorous, independent analysis of the achievement results of charter schools in New Jersey shows that the results are clear – on the whole, New Jersey charter school students make larger learning gains in both reading and math than their traditional public school peers,” Cerf said in a statement.

Filed Under: CER in the News Tagged With: ,

Daily Headlines for June 26, 2013

June 26, 2013 By

NEWSWIRE IS BACK! Click here for the latest weekly report on education news and commentary you won’t find anywhere else, spiced with a dash of irreverence, from the nation’s leading voice in school reform.

NATIONAL COVERAGE

Judge Considers Tossing School-Cheating Charges
Wall Street Journal, June 26, 2013
A conspiracy case stemming from one of the largest school-cheating scandals in U.S. history could be scuttled or drastically diminished if a judge rules that investigators coerced some educators into talking.

Education study gets low marks for poor research
Editorial
The Olympian, June 26, 2013
At the end of the school day, it may not matter so much how a teacher was trained or what university they attended that will make the difference in a student’s life. It’s whether that teacher had the inherent personal qualities to inspire a thirst for learning in young people bombarded with so many enticing distractions. And that’s a subjective quality so hard to measure by a black and white data point.

FROM THE STATES

CALIFORNIA

No reprieve for Oakland Indian charter schools
San Francisco Chronicle, June 25, 2013
Three controversial Oakland charter schools facing closure this summer failed to win a reprieve from the Alameda County Board of Education on Tuesday night.

DELAWARE

Charter school measure heads to governor’s desk
News Journal, June 26, 2013
A bill aimed at tightening safe­guards on charter schools while also giving them more access to state money passed the Senate on Tuesday. Gov. Jack Markell is scheduled to sign the mea­sure today.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Teacher observations can give best insight into effectiveness
Letter
Washington Post, June 25, 2013
Teacher observations are the best way to determine what is happening in a classroom. Principals who routinely observe teachers have a much stronger feel for which teachers are excellent and which ones need support.

David Catania, Marion Barry want to spend extra D.C. revenue on schools
Washington Post, June 25, 2013
D.C. Council members David A. Catania and Marion Barry are pushing to spend more than $40 million of the city’s projected — and unexpected — additional revenue on public education, funds that would be distributed to schools as extra dollars for poor children.

GEORGIA

School board: No to charter school
Brunswick News, June 26, 2013
The Glynn County School Board voted down a start-up charter school petition submitted recently for Valloita Preparatory Academy during its meeting Tuesday.

IDAHO

Meridian School Board votes to revoke North Star’s charter
Idaho Statesman, June 25, 2013
School official said they had agreements to temporarily give North Star Charter School a financial break on its large construction debt while it worked out a long-term plan to meet its obligations.

Teach for America is a step toward privatizing public schools
Opinion
Boise Weekly, June 26, 2013
The Idaho State Board of Education continues to make decisions toward privatizing Idaho’s public schools. In a move by the board on June 20, the Teach For America program was, according to their Facebook post, “approved as a state sanctioned vehicle for the preparation of teachers in Idaho.”

LOUISIANA

Charter schools are giving children a better chance than the old system did
Letter
Times-Picayune, June 25, 2013
Robert Mann’s June 23 column, “Louisiana is walling off schoolchildren from each other,” uses a Frost poem to support his position that “gate-ification of schools” through school choice has done more harm than good. I would argue the true “gate-ification” has come through Louisiana’s failing school system, mired at the nation’s bottom ranks for decades, creating the greatest barrier for students and educators.

Louisiana’s public schools on a long road to improvement
Opinion
Alexandria Town Talk, June 26, 2013
Louisiana public school students made, in most instances, marginal improvement on several fronts in 2012.

MICHIGAN

Pontiac schools taking applications for charter high school board
Oakland Press, June 25, 2013
The Pontiac Board of Education is inviting members of the community to apply to serve on the Public School Academy Board that will provide oversight of Pontiac High School that is in the process of being authorized as a charter high school by the district.

MINNESOTA

State pumps money into early education to close achievement gap
Minnesota Public Radio, June 25, 2013
In a little over a year, many of Minnesota’s youngest students will be spending more time in the classroom.

MISSISSIPPI

Miss. charter school advocates form association
Hattiesburg American, June 25, 2013
Groups that pushed for the passage of Mississippi’s new charter school law have formed an association to promote the schools.

MISSOURI

Charter school closing, but its work will continue
St. Louis Beacon, June 26, 2013
Stephanie Krauss remembers clearly a moment when she saw that her vision for Shearwater, a charter school giving new chances to teens whose education had been interrupted by life, might not work.

Riverview parents demand information about school transfers
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 26, 2013
Close to 150 parents and grandparents in the Riverview Gardens School District nearly filled a church sanctuary Tuesday with their hopes set on one goal: transferring their children to higher-performing public schools.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Charter funding: Some small but needed growth
Editorial
Union Leader, June 26, 2013
It is somewhat surprising that $3.4 million in funding for additional charter schools found its way into the new state budget. In the last legislative session there was a big fight over charter schools.

Proposed Nashua charter school up for authorization in July
Nashua Telegraph, June 26, 2013
It’s been more than a year in the making, but the founders of the proposed Gate City Charter School for the Arts will finally have their day in front of the state Board of Education.

NEW JERSEY

Christie says he’ll continue to push tax credit, vouchers not included in state budget
The Record Blog, June 25, 2013
Governor Christie said he expects to sign the Legislative-approved budget for the coming fiscal year in the coming days even though it doesn’t set aside funding for his tax credit or school voucher programs.

NEW YORK

New York City School Chiefs Get Informal Job Checks
Wall Street Journal, June 26, 2013
Top administrators at the city’s Department of Education haven’t been subject to formal evaluations during the Bloomberg administration, a break from past practice and an unusual occurrence among school districts across the U.S.

CARES program helps struggling New York City students graduate from high school
New York Daily News, June 26, 2013
Harlem students Moet Fontanez and Terrance Russell were dangerously close to dropping out of school. St. Luke’s and Roosevelt Hospital’s CARES program helped both of these talented teens find their voices—and earn their high school diplomas.

NORTH CAROLINA

Low pay may bring NC teacher shortage
Opinion
News & Observer, June 25, 2013
After flirting briefly with teacher salaries at the national average some years ago, North Carolina has been in a steady decline, to the point that currently the state is 46th in the nation in teacher pay. That’s disgraceful in a state that has long boasted of being more progressive than others in the Deep South and has advertised itself as a place that values education.

Controversial semi-autonomous charter board dropped
News & Observer, June 25, 2013
The main advocate for a semi-independent state board to govern charter schools has dropped the controversial idea in favor of setting up a new charter advisory council.

OHIO

Aurora man indicted on charge of giving kickbacks to charter school CEO
Aurora Record-Courier, June 26, 2013
An Aurora man is among 10 people and 13 firms indicted by a Cuyahoga County grand jury on charges they laundered nearly $2 million from a Cleveland-based charter school.

School choice would get a boost
Cincinnati Enquirer, June 25, 2013
Legislators in conference committee Tuesday approved amendments to the budget proposal that change how schools would be funded over the next two years.

Kasich gets bill to have Columbus schools share tax money with charters
Columbus Dispatch, June 26, 2013
A bill that would allow Columbus schools to share local tax dollars with charter schools is on its way to Gov. John Kasich, who is expected to sign it.

OREGON

Portland Public Schools vs. charters: Agenda 2013
Editorial
The Oregonian, June 25, 2013
Public schools will walk away from this legislative session with a budget that’s either good or very good, but money isn’t everything. Education policy matters, too, and one piece of policy worth following is House Bill 2153, sought by Portland Public Schools. As approved by the House last week, it would allow a handful of school districts to serve as judge, jury and executioner for proposed charter schools.

PENNSYLVANIA

Confusion as state takes over Camden schools
Philadelphia Inquirer, June 26, 2013
On the day the state took over the Camden School District, teachers protested and board members were perplexed about their new role, while a new interim schools chief offered hopeful remarks.

Charter-school teachers try to unionize in N. Phila.
Philadelphia Inquirer, June 26, 2013
BROTHERS DEREK and Kyjuan Bolling no longer complain about going to Aspira Olney Charter School, and their great-grandmother Jean Bolling gives much of the credit to their teachers.

End teacher seniority rule
Opinion
Philadelphia Inquirer, June 26, 2013
Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. has proposed ending teacher seniority as part of a set of concessions from the teachers’ union.

TENNESSEE

Metro school board approves four new charters for 2014-15 year
Nashville City Paper, June 26, 2013
The Metro school board spent Tuesday night trying to alter the narrative that the district is hostile to charter schools while easily approving four of six charter applications for the 2014-15 school year.

Memphis-Shelby board rejects charter school applications
Commercial Appeal, June 26, 2013
The unified Memphis and Shelby County school board, praising the work of staff members charged with vetting applications for new charter schools, rejected a long list of them Tuesday.

State’s treatment of teachers is a recipe for disaster
Opinion
The Tennessean, June 26, 2013
I am proud to stand with Tennessee’s teachers, who do fine work despite being some of the worst paid and working in the bottom 10 funded schools in the nation. It’s now time for this administration to stop its continued attack on teachers and restore some dignity to this time-honored profession.

UTAH

Study: Utah charter students learn less than traditional school students
Salt Lake Tribune, June 26, 2013
Utah charter school students learn less than traditional district students over the course of a school year, losing the equivalent of 43 days of math and seven days of reading, according to a new national study.

WISCONSIN

Voucher schools will not be held to same standards as public schools
Wisconsin State Journal, June 25, 2013
In Chris Rickert’s Sunday column, he states that Wisconsin’s 2013 legislative session created a myth that private school vouchers amount to an unaffordable second public school system. He then states that the voucher expansion funnels “state tax dollars into a parallel system of publicly supported private schools.” I believe the second of his statements is the myth.

ONLINE LEARNING

Virtual school gets final state approval
The Recorder, June 26, 2013
A state education board voted 9-1 Tuesday morning to allow Greenfield to run the state’s first Commonwealth of Massachusetts Virtual School for at least three years — officially ending six months of uncertainty about the town’s cyber school future.

Study: Pa. in bottom 3 for charter school scores
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 26, 2013
A national study on charter school performance shows that academic achievement is on the rise nationally among charter school students, but Pennsylvania is not sharing in that success, likely due to students in cyber charter schools.

Pasco pushes its own eSchool to retain student funding lost to Florida Virtual
Tampa Bay Times, June 25, 2013
Despite anticipated budget shortfalls, the Pasco School Board agreed to spend $896,400 this spring to establish a summer program for Pasco eSchool.

Filed Under: Daily Headlines

Newswire: June 25, 2013

June 25, 2013 By

Vol. 15, No. 25
Special Charter Research Wars Edition

DON’T LET EM’ FOOL YOU. We’d like to caution Newswire’s readers this week about the release of another national report that uses statistical gymnastics to make spurious comparisons of student achievement in charter schools across state lines. At the stroke of midnight a report on charter school achievement started making headlines across the country. Some accounts were positive, some negative and others called it a “mixed bag.” Regardless, they are all simply wrong.

CREDO REDUX. Prior to its release of the National Charter School Study 2013, The Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) produced a series of reports – one national, the others state-based – looking at student achievement in charter schools compared to traditional public schools. CREDO’s 2009 national report, Multiple Choice: Charter School Performance in 16 States, is the basis for the statement often made across certain media, policy and education circles that only one out of five charter schools succeed.

The 2013 report is broken down into two separate analyses. First, it provides an update on the 2009 report, which reviewed charter school performance in 16 states yet made generalizations about charters nationwide. Second, it examines learning gains across states, schools and nationally using data from 27 total locations (New York City is included as separate data from New York state).

There’s a perception that this report was done based on absolute test scores using apples-to-apples comparisons. Highly criticized by leading researchers and economists for failing to use “gold standard” Randomized Control Trials (RCT) it also fails to address concerns raised by RCT standards.

THE FINE PRINT. Within this CREDO study it is said that, “not surprisingly, the performance of charter schools was found to vary significantly across states.” CREDO recognizes in fine print that there are wide variations in state tests and that they have somehow determined a way to align them for meaningful comparison. That of course begs the question – if it’s that easy to align state tests and results across state lines, why is there a national move for Common Core State Standards and aligned tests?

CREDO’s report also argues that it employs growth data for students to create a picture of student achievement gains – or losses – over time. It attributes the ability to do this with better and more consistent data collected by states. However, it’s not that simple. Page 24 of CREDO’s Supplementary Findings Report demonstrates the conundrum of analyzing groups of data and not individual student data consistently over varying periods of time. For example, CREDO acknowledges that their results include students who have only spent one or two years in charter schools, “not allowing much time for their cumulative impact to be seen.” Much more is of great concern and anyone using this report to make conclusions would be wise to read the fine print before doing so.

‘GOLD STANDARD’ IT’S NOT. CER has argued – echoing highly respected researchers — that the only studies that are valid for understanding and comparing charter school achievement are “gold standard” randomized control studies such as those done by Stanford Economist Dr. Caroline Hoxby, and University of Arkansas’ Dr. Patrick Wolf, to name just two among at least a dozen more. Such studies compare students who were chosen randomly from two pools – students who were chosen by lottery and attend the school of choice, and students who did not attend, but were also in the lottery.

The 2013 CREDO Study takes CER’s previous critiques to account in a side-by-side rebuttal, stating, “The lottery must be random. This is often not true in charter schools, as many schools permit preferences to siblings of current students, children of school founders or staff, or residential preferences for students who live near the school.” Once again we take issue with this statement.

CER has responded in a point-by-point counter response you can find here.

THE NEGATIVE ECHO. The echo from this report is damaging as the results do not accurately convey a national picture. CREDO’s policy prescriptions are even more troubling. Its plans to address what it concludes as uneven student achievement in charters is lacking in any experience in how state policies are written and how they impact actual schools and students. State-by-state and community-by-community analyses are the only true measures to date that offer validity for parents, policymakers and the media to report to make smart decisions about educational choices and outcomes for students. We still believe this is not the detailed study that the charter community needs to assess real progress or lack thereof. Check out CER’s full analysis for helpful talking points.

Filed Under: Newswire Weekly

Process to create charter schools in Maine weak, ineffective

June 25, 2013 By

by Jeanne Allen
Kennebec Journal
June 25, 2013

On Jan. 17, 2001, the Maine Association of Charter Schools met in Bangor to discuss the possibility of creating charter schools here.

It was another decade before the Maine Legislature passed a law to allow charter schools to serve students in need of more options. It soon became clear, however, that the law would not result in significantly more choices for students, but rather preserve the status quo.

Maine’s mechanism for setting up charter schools has proven to be weak and ineffective. This was most recently exhibited in January, when the state charter school commission rejected four out of five charter applicants.

Gov. Paul LePage rightly called the commission’s rejections “a dereliction of duty.”

He also said, “What we are talking about is a commission moving far too slowly and putting political favors ahead of the needs of our children.”

The commission’s parsimonious approval of new schools displayed why Maine epitomizes the wrong way to go about charter school authorization.

A May analysis from the Center for Education Reform, titled “Charter School Authorizers: The Truth About State Commissions,” explains how Maine’s charter school commission has offered no evidence of success.

“[C]harter school commissions, like those currently in place in states like Maine … offer no evidence of success, have been subject to more political oversight and bureaucratic interference than any other chartering institutions, and have shunned many charter applications, even by proven providers, because they employ external consultants who have varying degrees of expertise,” the report said.

What separates independent authorizers from state commissions is their freedom from public entities.

Though approved by the state, authorizers typically do not operate under boards of education and are free from existing bureaucratic frameworks. This means they are able to objectively review charter school applicants without political interference.

The commission in Maine is composed of state appointees with a propensity to establishment interests and no practical experience in actually setting up charter schools.

Since the 2011 charter law was enacted, only two small charter schools have opened their doors to students, with another three finally approved. With those kinds of numbers, it’s no wonder LePage told the commission that Maine needs people “with backbones.”

Although Maine is very homogeneous, most families’ median income is below the national average and 12 percent live in poverty.

While some 83 percent of students graduate on time, high school graduates make up only 34.4 percent of the population; 21.6 percent have some college, 10 percent have a two-year degree and 17.9 percent have a bachelor’s degree.

This is clearly not the picture of a state where education can be ignored, and many young adults lack what is necessary to raise the bar for themselves and their families. Only 32 percent of Maine’s fourth-graders can read at grade level, and only 45 percent are proficient in math.

Those numbers don’t get better for eighth-graders, with only 38 percent proficient in reading and 39 percent in math.

LePage’s bill, L.D. 1529, would have been a bold step in the right direction, by removing the limit on the number of charter schools approved to 10 within 10 years and allowing for multiple and independent charter school authorizers.

LePage is showing that he’s got the backbone to stand up for the students of Maine; it’s unfortunate legislators couldn’t do the same.

The public university in Michigan and the State University of New York network have designated authorizers and have a proven track record of approving quality charter schools.

University authorizers also tend to be more innovative with K-12 curriculums, and often have the necessary infrastructure to oversee successful charters.

In Michigan, this has led to public university authorizers being responsible for the vast majority of the state’s nearly 350 charter schools.

These university authorizers oversee all aspects of approved charter schools, monitoring their compliance with state laws as well as academic performance.

It’s time for Maine legislators to act on this potential, and produce a system that will foster the most amount of opportunity for students.

As far as LePage is concerned, they’re duty bound to do so.

Filed Under: Opinions

Daily Headlines for June 25, 2013

June 25, 2013 By

NEWSWIRE IS BACK! Click here for the latest weekly report on education news and commentary you won’t find anywhere else, spiced with a dash of irreverence, from the nation’s leading voice in school reform.

NATIONAL COVERAGE

Charter schools offer scant edge over neighborhood schools: study (CER in the news)
Reuters, June 25, 2013
Charter schools across the United States have improved in recent years, but on average, they still offer little advantage over traditional public education, according to a new study released on Tuesday.

Charter Schools Receive a Passing Grade
Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2013
Students attending publicly funded, privately run charter schools posted slightly higher learning gains overall in reading than their peers in traditional public schools and about the same gains in math, but the results varied drastically by state, according to one of the most comprehensive studies of U.S. charter schools.

Charter Schools Are Improving, a Study Says
New York Times, June 25, 2013
An updated version of a widely cited study that found many students in charter schools were not performing as well as those in neighborhood public schools now shows that in a few states, charter schools are improving in some areas.

Charters not outperforming nation’s traditional public schools, report says
Washington Post, June 25, 2013
The nation’s public charter schools are growing more effective but most don’t produce better academic results when compared with traditional public schools, according to a report released Tuesday.

The solution to US public schools is not corporate America
Opinion
The Guardian, June 24, 2013
America’s K-12 schools are being hollowed out, dismantled and converted to private management. It’s the ultimate outsourcing of our children’s futures.

America’s mayors take lead on education reform
Politico, June 24, 2013
There’s been a sea change in the education landscape over the past two years, but you won’t see it if you’re looking toward D.C. Instead, look toward our nation’s mayors.

FROM THE STATES

CONNECTICUT

New legislation will put extra pressure on local school districts
West Hartford News, June 24, 2013
Local school districts have mixed reactions to new legislation that will affect how often they evaluate teachers and administrators.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

D.C. school system reduces truancy rate
Washington Post, June 24, 2013
Fewer students were chronically truant this year from the District’s traditional public schools, but absenteeism is still a rampant problem at many high schools, Chancellor Kaya Henderson told the D.C. Council Monday.

Pr. George’s should approve new charter school
Letter
Washington Post, June 24, 2013
As a parent of an incoming sixth-grade student at the newly formed College Park Academy (CPA), I was distressed to read [“Vote on Pr. George’s charter is shelved,” Metro, June 20] that one of the first actions taken by the reconfigured Prince George’s County Board of Education was to table a contract agreement with the charter school, which has already gone through approval processes.

Classroom observations to rate teachers are shifting focus to students
Washington Post, June 24, 2013
The new mandate in Virginia to make student achievement a significant part of teacher evaluations is bringing more than an infusion of test scores. It’s also changing the way classroom observations are conducted.

INDIANA

Funding issues threaten Indianapolis, Gary takeover schools
Indianapolis Star, June 24, 2013
The charter school organization hired to run Indianapolis’ Arlington High School after it was taken over by the state for poor test scores said Monday it might not be able to continue operating the school unless it receives extra aid from federal grants.

LOUISIANA

Charter school academic gains in Louisiana outpace conventional public schools, study finds
Times-Picayune, June 25, 2013
Louisiana charter school students are improving academically at a faster rate than their peers in conventional public schools, according to a major study from the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University.

Principals get more control over teacher evaluations
Editorial
The Advertiser, June 25, 2013
An announcement last week by Superintendent of Education John White that principals would be given more authority in evaluating teachers may be a step in the right direction.

Louisiana school to pay Arkansas school to take students
KNOE, June 24, 2013
Louisiana officials plan to pay an Arkansas school to continue accepting Louisiana students.

MAINE

Process to create charter schools in Maine weak, ineffective
Column by Jeanne Allen
Kennebec Journal, June 24, 2013
On Jan. 17, 2001, the Maine Association of Charter Schools met in Bangor to discuss the possibility of creating charter schools here. It was another decade before the Maine Legislature passed a law to allow charter schools to serve students in need of more options.

Local districts shouldn’t bear burden of funding charter schools
Letter
Bangor Daily News, June 24, 2013
Communities have faced funding challenges in recent years as costs rise and state support at all levels shrink. Our local communities have been forced to make hard decisions.

MASSACHUSETTS

target=”_blank”>Ease the charter school choke hold
Opinion
Daily Hampshire Gazette, June 24, 2013
The Amherst school district has had to close a budget gap of $1.6 million for the elementary and regional secondary schools next year. Northampton schools are looking at educational cuts of more than $700,000.

MICHIGAN

Only 20% of Mich. students ready for college
Detroit News, June 24, 2013
Michigan’s high school juniors continue to improve their scores on the ACT college entrance exam and the Michigan Merit Exam, though some MME scores declined from the previous year, state education officials said Monday.

WayPoint Academy school board to keep their school open
Muskegon Chronicle, June 25, 2013
Emotions spilled over at a WayPoint Academy board meeting Monday afternoon where dozens of parents and students expressed anger and sadness over the closure of their charter school.

NEVADA

Nevada students in charter schools shortchanged on learning time, study shows
Las Vegas Sun, June 25, 2013
Nevada’s charter school students lose between six and seven months of learning each year compared with their traditional public school counterparts, according to a Stanford University study released Tuesday.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Excluding religious schools narrows reach of education tax credit
Concord Monitor, June 25, 2013
About 70 percent of scholarship applicants under the education tax credit law sought money for religious schools, and only a small portion of applicants were public school students looking to transfer to private schools.

N.H. NCLB Waiver Passed Over By Feds; State Says Acceptance Is Imminent
New Hampshire Public Radio, June 24, 213
The US department of education announced another round of waivers from the controversial federal education policy, No Child Left Behind, and once again New Hampshire’s application for a waiver has been passed over.

NEW JERSEY

New Jersey budget / Voucher plan dies
Editorial
Press of Atlantic City, June 25, 2013
Democratic legislative leaders did score at least one small victory in their budget “negotiations” with Gov. Chris Christie. The $32.9 billion budget, which lawmakers approved Monday, did not include Christie’s pilot school-voucher program.

NEW MEXICO

Eubank Elementary to get an academic boost
Albuquerque Journal, June 25, 2013
It’s not every day that a principal asks for a turnaround initiative at her own school. But that’s what Christy Sigmon did. Sigmon, who just finished her second year at the helm of Eubank Elementary School, went to associate superintendent Diane Kerschen and said she needed a boost turning around the struggling school.

Establishing a charter school worth trouble
Column
Albuquerque Journal, June 25, 2013
I am often asked by parents and teachers, “How do we start a charter school”? Although I have never started a charter school myself, I have observed a number of folks who have and here is my perspective on what it takes to successfully bring a new charter school to life….

NORTH CAROLINA

NC schools chief warns of teacher losses
Asheville Citizen-Times, June 25, 2013
North Carolina is losing ground in teacher pay and losing teachers to other states, state Schools Superintendent June Atkinson said Monday.

Ensuring the Best Form of School Accountability
Opinion
Carolina Journal, June 25, 2013
Few pieces of education legislation filed this year have been subject to more debate than House Bill 944: Opportunity Scholarship Act. The bipartisan bill would award private school vouchers of $4,200 to a relatively small number of low-income children.

OHIO

Districts double up on superintendents
Columbus Dispatch, June 25, 2013
Five Franklin County districts are getting new superintendents. In three of them — Dublin, Hilliard and Upper Arlington — school boards are paying two leaders at the same time.

PENNSYLVANIA

Reduced busing radius for private, charter schools could save districts money, Parkland officials say
Lehigh Valley Express-Times, June 25, 2013
Pennsylvania school districts are required by state law to provide transportation for students who live within their boundaries, but attend private or charter schools up to 10 miles outside them.

Lakeside’s grads overcame problems to get where they were
Philadelphia Inquirer, June 25, 2013
Lakeside is one of those alternative, last-chance schools. It opened in 1976 in Horsham Township at the request of the Montgomery County Juvenile Probation Department.

Poll: Voters would pay higher taxes to avert school cuts
Philadelphia Inquirer, June 25, 2013
Amid widespread concern over school-funding cuts, a majority of Pennsylvania voters would be willing to pay higher taxes to reverse them, a poll released Monday said.

TENNESSEE

More education in computer programming will put students on path to success, advocates say
The Tennessean, June 25, 2013
Children stare at computer screens, their faces tight with concentration, typing numbers, letters and symbols on their keyboards in a seemingly nonsensical pattern.

State board overhauls teacher pay
Murfreesboro Post, June 24, 2013
The Tennessee State Board of Education voted Friday to overhaul the state’s minimum payment requirements for public school teachers.

VIRGINIA

Moving quickly in Norfolk schools
Editorial
The Virginian-Pilot, June 25, 2013
Norfolk public schools’ need for drastic change has been clear for some time.

ONLINE LEARNING

Atlanta Public Schools Selects Blackboard as its First LMS
The Herald, June 24, 2013
Atlanta Public Schools has selected Blackboard Learn™ as its first district-wide learning management system (LMS) after a nine-month evaluation of leading commercial and open-source platforms. The district of 51,000 students will use Blackboard Learn to rapidly expand online classes offered to students and to align all class content with Common Core standards.

Oregon Connections Academy offers 10 tips for summer learning
Statesman Journal Blog, June 24, 2013
Oregon Connections Academy, a virtual school for students in grades K through 12, offered its list of the top 10 activities for exploring the arts this summer:

Filed Under: Daily Headlines

Reviewing the Conclusions of CREDO’s National Charter School Study 2013

June 25, 2013 By

Prior to its release of the National Charter School Study 2013, The Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) produced a series of reports – one national, the others state-based – looking at student achievement in charter schools as compared to traditional public schools. CREDO’s 2009 national report, Multiple Choice: Charter School Performance in 16 States, is the basis for the statement often made across certain media, policy and education circles that only one out of five charter schools succeed.

We at The Center for Education Reform (CER) have questioned that conclusion, both due to the lack of research rigor in its methodology (pairing charter school students with virtual twins in traditional public schools), and to the subjective nature that is required to make such assessments about unobserved variables in students. In addition, CREDO’s continuing habit of making comparisons of schools and student achievement across state lines ignores the wide variation in state standards, tests, and measurements.

This CER analysis scrutinizes the new CREDO National Charter School Study 2013, identifies the problems with its data and calls into question the subsequent conclusions.

Summary of Analyses

This report is broken down into two separate analyses. First, it provides an update on the 2009 report, which reviewed charter school performance in 16 states yet made generalizations about charters nationwide. Second, it examines learning gains across states, schools and nationally using data from 27 total locations (New York City is included as separate data from New York state). In the 16-state revisit, schools are broken down into continuing schools (those included in the 2009 report) and new schools, and analysis of overall charter impact in reading and math is done within these states and by those types of schools. In the 16 states, continuing schools made modest progress – about seven more days of learning in reading compared with traditional school students, and closed the learning gap in math by seven days. CREDO believes the closure of eight percent of schools from 2009 is the cause for this improved charter school performance.

The data from the 27 states were used to show national trends in charter schools as compared with traditional school students, and found that the average charter student gains an additional eight days of learning in reading and they are on par with their counterparts in math. In addition, in reading 16 states had charter students performing better than traditional students, weaker for charters in eight states and similar academic performance in three states. For math, 12 states had higher charter school academic growth, 13 had weaker growth and two were similar.

If National Comparisons Are So Easy, Why Do We Need Common Core?

Within this CREDO study it is said that, “not surprisingly, the performance of charter schools was found to vary significantly across states.” CREDO recognizes in fine print that there are wide variations in state tests and that they have somehow determined a way to align them for meaningful comparison. That of course begs the question – if it’s that easy to align state tests and results across state lines, why is there a national move for Common Core State Standards and aligned tests? Leaders across the political spectrum recognize that America’s school standards are a mixed bag in terms of rigor and requirements. In addition, the assessments that measure them are completely different and impossible for even the best researchers to standardize. Not only are there uneven rules and varying assessments, but the cut scores to determine which outcomes are passing – and those that are failing – are all over the map.

This great variance in school standards is why year after year the NAEP results, while limited because they only offer a snapshot in time, are so compelling and so universally accepted by those who understand research, and why CREDO’s results are so wanting and, in some quarters, derided. When NAEP measures student performance across state lines, it measures them on identical levels, albeit in a small sample and not for the same students each time. When CREDO claims to do the same, it is improvising at best, but even worse jumping to erroneous conclusions that are potentially detrimental to students.

In addition to the two national charter reports, CREDO has released 25 state reports using the same methodology, and through which many find overall positive results. Such comparisons, while still based on the same questionable methodology, at least compare students on the same state assessments. CREDO argues that many states now have data that permit growth over time comparisons. Such acknowledgement makes one wonder: why bother with sweeping, national generalizations when one can obtain state by state results and compare non-virtual traditional public schools students with charter students in the same state, and in some cases, same cities? Comparing students within the same location, and under the same policy environment and laws is closer to the gold standard methodology for which researchers have been advocating. Researchers want to know the effects of the activity or intervention being studied even if only for a limited population. Having inaccurate measurements of said activity does researchers and policy makers no good.

If the methodology employed were based on randomized controlled trials (RCT), then one would also want to account for variances in state laws that often dictate conditions under which charter schools operate. Some states require charters only to recruit at-risk students; most underfund charter school students, on average, 30 percent less than their traditional public school peers; a very select few have policies in place that allow for objective authorizing and oversight; and all vary greatly on how they look at school and student-based performance.

Student Achievement

CREDO’s report argues that it employs growth data for students to create a picture of (ignore edit above) student achievement gains – or losses – over time. It attributes the ability to do this to better and more consistent data collected by states. However, it’s not that simple. For example, some students in the groups are only in their first testing year in a charter school. Others have been tested each year over five years in the same school. Growth measures are supposed to be grounded in comparable data for comparable students year after year. If the sample doesn’t account for the same students year after year, how can it conclude that achievement is positive or negative?

Page 24 of CREDO’s Supplementary Findings Report demonstrates the conundrum of analyzing groups of data and not individual student data consistently over varying periods of time. For example, CREDO acknowledges that their results include students who have only spent one or two years in charter schools, “not allowing much time for their cumulative impact to be seen.” Much more is of great concern and anyone using this report to make conclusions would be wise to read the fine print before doing so.

Methodology

CER has argued – echoing highly respected researchers — that the only studies that are valid for understanding and comparing charter school achievement are “gold standard” randomized control studies such as those done by Stanford Economist Dr. Caroline Hoxby, and University of Arkansas’ Dr. Patrick Wolf, to name just two among at least a dozen more. Such studies compare students who were chosen randomly from two pools – students who were chosen by lottery and attend the school of choice, and students who did not attend, but were also in the lottery. Hoxby has done such studies with regard to charter schools and Wolf has conducted such studies for voucher programs.

The CREDO study employs a completely different method of assessing student achievement, which is described in detail in the report. Because of the Center for Education Reform’s ongoing critique of their methodology, CREDO addresses the issue of randomized control “gold standard” studies and argues that RCTs are not valid for broad charter school studies.

The 2013 CREDO Study takes CER’s previous critiques to account in a side-by-side rebuttal, stating, “The lottery must be random. This is often not true in charter schools, as many schools permit preferences to siblings of current students, children of school founders or staff, or residential preferences for students who live near the school.” Once again we take issue with this statement.

CER has responded in a point-by-point counter response you can find here.

The bottom line is RCT ‘Gold Standard’ research is prominent accepted research practice, which CREDO rejects. In fact, some researchers have suggested this is a way to draw easier, not better, conclusions.

RCTs easily handle students who are exempt from lotteries, like siblings, by excluding those students from the analysis. This is common research practice and in no way threatens the internal validity of the research. Randomization can be tested and is tested by all ‘gold standard’ student performance analyses.

The CREDO study’s authors have admitted that it is easier to “generalize” about a charter school by creating so-called virtual twins, while admitting that head-to-head studies (referred to as “Lottery Studies,”) are superior to their approach. According to respected researcher Dr. Caroline Hoxby of Stanford, Harvard, and the National Bureau of Economic Research, “the CREDO study does not have data on charter schools’ admissions lotteries, so it does not use a randomization-based method of evaluation. Randomization is the ‘gold standard’ method of evaluating charter schools’ effects on student achievement because it effectively eliminates all forms of selection bias so long as (i) randomized admissions lotteries were used and (ii) a sufficient number of students participated in them.”

Matched vs. Unmatched Students

CREDO acknowledges that there are problems with finding matches for all students and that in some cases students who may or may not have a huge impact on the outcomes of the achievement data are excluded altogether. In addition, whereas this report finds matches for 85 percent of the students in charters, the last report found only 75-80 percent. However, as Dr. Hoxby argues, “lacking lottery data, the CREDO study depends on a matching method based on charter school students prior histories in the traditional public schools. But it does not match each charter school student to individual traditional public school students with similar demographic characteristics. Rather, it matches each charter school student to a group of students in traditional public schools. A charter school student can potentially be matched to a group that contains many students. The study then computes average achievement and other average characteristics of each group. Thereafter the study treats these group averages as though they were students.” There are numerous other problems with this approach that experts such as Hoxby have enumerated and CREDO addresses itself in this newest report:

“Although the VCR method used in this report provides matches for 85% of the charter students in our data set, it is important to identify ways in which unmatched students may differ with those included in the analysis. The ability to extrapolate findings from a particular sample to the broader population is referred to as external validity (discussed above). In the case of this analysis, CREDO’s sample encompasses a large proportion of the entire population of charter students across the country, but as can be seen below, unmatched charter students do differ from their matched counterparts.

“We see that the test scores of matched charter students are significantly higher than for unmatched students in both math and reading in the year in which they were matched (period 1). This is because charter students at the very low and high end of the test score distribution have more trouble finding matches in TPS. The fact that our data represent over 90% of all charter students in the country makes us confident that estimates are highly aligned with actual population values, although we are uncertain to what extent our results apply to students without matches.”

Policy Prescriptions vs. Data

As weak as CREDO’s research is, its policy prescriptions are even more troubling. For instance, CREDO’s plan to address what it concludes as uneven student achievement in charters is lacking in any experience in how state policies are written and how they impact actual schools and students. CREDO concludes that the closure of eight percent of charter schools in the 16 original states studied in 2009 is why the achievement may be a strong factor in why previously studied states have improved. However, this latest report also concludes that new schools alone are not responsible for the improved quality.

In reality, charter schools that are inadequate close long before they are academically deficient. This is because, as CER has pointed out in years of study, operational and financial deficiencies are the first and earliest sign that a school may not be equipped to educate children.

Conclusion

At the Center for Education Reform, we follow a simple premise: all schools, including charter schools, must be held accountable. The path to accountability for charter schools must start with strong laws with multiple and independent charter school authorizers and tools in place to hold charters to the highest academic and operational standards.

State-by-state and community-by-community analyses are the only true measures to date that offer validity for parents, policymakers and the media to report to make smart decisions about educational choices and outcomes for students.

Continued analysis of this report is forthcoming and ongoing given the voluminous nature of the data.

Filed Under: Choice & Charter Schools

New CREDO Study Fails Test of Sound Research

June 25, 2013 By

THE CENTER FOR EDUCATION REFORM FINDS MULTIPLE SHORTCOMINGS IN NEW STANFORD RESEARCH STUDY ON CHARTER SCHOOL PERFORMANCE

According to Jeanne Allen, President of Washington, DC-based Center for Education Reform, “No matter how well intentioned, CREDO report is not charter school performance gospel.”

CER Press Release
Washington, DC
June 25, 2013

The Center for Education Reform (CER), the nation’s leading advocate for substantive and structural change to K-12 education, today criticized a new study by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), taking issue with flawed CREDO findings that purport to show the performance of charter schools in the United States.

The new CREDO report, an update of one previously issued in June 2009, is again extremely weak in its methodology and alarming in its conclusions, according to Jeanne Allen, founder and president, CER.

“No matter how well-intentioned, the CREDO research is not charter school performance gospel, said Allen.  “Similar to its failed 2009 effort, this CREDO study is based on stacking mounds of state education department data into an analytical process that is decidedly lacking in rigor.”

Added Allen: “The extrapolation of state-by-state data is a worthy exercise, but hardly the foundation upon which to set forth sweeping national solutions, when there is no consensus on the problems.”

Allen, a leader in the education reform movement for nearly two decades, explained that CREDO’s misguided attempt to make comparisons of student success across state lines ignores the reality behind the widely varying state assessments that make such alignment impossible.

Joining Allen in voicing criticisms of the CREDO report was David Hardy, CEO, Boys Latin of Philadelphia.

“As someone who has seen firsthand the power of charter schools to transform student lives, I crave credible studies of school performance,” said Hardy of Boys Latin.  “It is simply not credible of CREDO though to claim it is primarily the closure of certain low-performing schools that leads to better academic metrics for the entire charter school sector.  School closure is a tool that should always be available, but it is not a long-term strategy for serving students.”

According to Allen of CER, as lacking as CREDO’s research is, its policy prescriptions are even more troubling.  For instance, CREDO’s plan to address what it concludes is uneven student achievement in charters is lacking in any experience in how state policies are written and how they impact actual schools and students.

“At the Center for Education Reform, we follow a simple premise: all schools, including charter schools, must be held accountable,” said Allen.  “The path to accountability must start with strong charter school laws, with multiple and independent charter school authorizers and tools in place to hold charters to the highest academic and operational standards.”

About the Center for Education Reform: Our nation’s economic future depends on the successful creation of new, available school choices that break the mold of conventional education. Such competitive forces have continued to yield dramatic improvements in achievement among students of every income level.  The Center for Education Reform helped launch this movement in 1993, and continues to be the leading voice and advocate for lasting, substantive and structural education reform in the U.S. The Center was founded with a simple, but ambitious, guiding principle: to restore excellence to education by bridging the gap between policy and practice such that great ideas are put into action.  To learn more, visit www.2024.edreform.com

About Boys Latin of Philadelphia: Boys’ Latin of Philadelphia Charter School, a college preparatory high school, serves qualified boys of diverse backgrounds who live in the City of Philadelphia.  Boys’ Latin offers its students a rigorous contemporary/classical education that prepares them for college matriculation and sets high standards for achievement, character development, and age appropriate conduct.|The school has created a self-selected group of young men who value academic success, hard work, and the development of their intellectual, moral, social, creative, and athletic potential.  Boys’ Latin is a school where young men prepare to become leaders through challenging coursework within a supportive environment.  Our curriculum blends liberal arts, classical studies, and state-of-the-art technology as we cultivate world citizens for the twenty-first century.  To learn more, visit www.boyslatin.org.

 

Filed Under: Press Releases

Response to CREDO’s 2013 National Charter Study Rebuttal of CER Methodology Concerns

June 24, 2013 By

June 25, 2013

The Center for Education Reform (CER) has argued – echoing highly respected researchers — that the only reports valid for understanding and comparing charter school achievement are “gold standard” randomized control trials (RCTs) such as those authored by Stanford Economist Dr. Caroline Hoxby, and University of Arkansas’ Dr. Patrick Wolf, to name just two respected creators of nearly a dozen reports. Such studies compare students who were chosen randomly from two pools – students who were chosen by lottery and attend the school of choice, and students who did not attend but were also in the lottery. Hoxby has done such studies with regard to charter schools and Wolf has conducted such studies for voucher programs.

The CREDO 2013 National Charter Study employs a completely different method of assessing student achievement, which is described in detail in the report. Because of the Center for Education Reform’s ongoing critique of their methodology, CREDO addresses the issue of randomized control “gold standard” studies and argues that RCTs are not valid for broad charter school studies. Once again, we take issue and have addressed each of CREDO’s research methodology arguments below:

CREDO concedes that, “randomized controlled trials (RCT) are considered the ‘gold standard’ in social science research. However, there are a few caveats necessary to conduct a RCT.” Points 1 through 4 in the Technical Appendix are CREDO’s points about RCTs. The subsequent notations represent CER’s response, based on input from experts and credible researchers in the field.

CREDO POINT 1. The lottery must be random. This is often not true in charter schools, as many schools permit preferences to siblings of current students, children of school founders or staff, or residential preferences for students who live near the school (See Betts, J. and Hill, P., 2006 for a summary of potential challenges to the internal validity of RCTs).

CER RESPONSE TO POINT 1. This is not a valid statement. RCTs easily handle students who are exempt from lotteries, like siblings, by excluding those students from the analysis. This is common research practice and in no way threatens the internal validity of the research. Randomization can be tested and is tested by all good charter studies.

CREDO POINT 2. There must be sufficient numbers of students participating in the lottery. In other words, there have to be large numbers of students who do not get selected into the charter school. While many charter schools have waiting lists, most charter schools do not have large enough waiting lists for a RCT.

CER RESPONSE TO POINT 2. The CREDO study does not have data on charter schools’ admissions lotteries, so it does not use a randomization-based method of evaluation. Had they had access, they may indeed have had enough subjects to conduct such a trial. According to Caroline Hoxby’s critique in 2009, “Lacking lottery data, the CREDO study depends on a matching method based on charter school students prior histories in the traditional public schools. But it does not match each charter school student to individual traditional public school students with similar demographic characteristics. Rather, it matches each charter school student to a group of students in traditional public schools. A charter school student can potentially be matched to a group that contains many students. The study then computes average achievement and other average characteristics of each group. Thereafter the study treats these group averages as though they were students.” There are numerous other problems with this approach that experts such as Hoxby have enumerated.

CREDO POINT 3. The charter schools that meet conditions 1 & 2 above must be representative of all charter schools. Violating condition 3 creates major problems in conducting a valid national charter study using RCT for several reasons.

1.     Charter schools which have a long-term reputation for quality may be more likely to hold a lottery than weaker or newer charter schools.

2.     Charter schools located near particularly low quality traditional public schools may be more likely to hold lotteries than charters located near higher performing TPS.

3.     Charter schools in areas with fewer choice options may be more likely to have lotteries than charter schools located in areas with a higher number of choice options.

CER RESPONSE TO POINT 3. There is nothing scientific or evidentiary about the points in this argument. Presuming that highly reputable charters are more likely to hold a lottery than weaker or newer schools is not only presumptuous, but it ignores the legal requirements set forth in states and as a consideration of federal funding. Charter schools that have more applicants than seats are required to have a lottery. As such schools fill up, students who are selected by lottery have preference year after year. Most charters then have lotteries only for certain numbers of seats that are available in certain grades year after year. Some schools may not have a lottery for years after they have been open and operating because they are oversubscribed. That doesn’t mean that the students attending those schools are not able to be part of a trial because they have self-selected as they began in that school by lottery and subsequently chose to stay in that school. That is no different a condition than students who attend their neighborhood public school who choose to stay year after year because they either have no choice, were denied from a charter lottery, they are satisfied, they have no knowledge of other choices or any number of scenarios. In other words, once a charter school lottery occurs, the students who “settle” in each of the schools being studied are comparable.

Federal law defines a charter by virtue of lotteries: NCLB, Title V, Part B: Charter Schools. Section 5210: “The term ‘charter school’ means a public school that . . . (f) does not charge tuition, and ;. . . (h) admits students on the basis of a lottery if more children apply for admission than can be accommodated.”

The presumption by CREDO that charters near low-performing traditional public schools are more likely to hold lotteries again ignores requirements of law and has no basis in fact. Whether or not a state or community has many or limited choice options, every school community has different circumstances dictating how parents may view their local options. From NYC to Boston to rural Colorado, charters are having lotteries when they are new to fill seats unless they do not have enough enrollment, and if they do not have enough enrollment, experience tells us that that whatever that school offers is not sufficient in the eyes of parents in that community, or the school was compromised by local political battles or procedural delays in getting approved. There are also several other possibilities that exist for undersubscribed charters that do not have lotteries, but to attribute one possible cause relating to quality options demonstrates ignorance of the landscape CREDO is purporting to study.

Thus CREDO’s Point 3 to qualify why RCTs do not work with broad charter samples – based on assumptions about why parents choose and bad information about how lotteries are conducted – is wholly without foundation.

CREDO POINT 4. RCTs have strong internal validity but weaker external validity. While RCTs are the gold standard for estimating the effect of a single treatment (e.g. the effect of attending a specific charter school), any of the violations listed in 3 above could damage the ability to generalize results to other charter schools. CREDO’s matching method has much greater external validity because it is not limited to charter schools with random lotteries and sufficiently large waiting lists. The charter schools and students in CREDO’s data set look much more like the national charter sector than those eligible to be included in a RCT. In addition, a recent meta-analysis of the charter school literature found that, “as long as baseline test scores are controlled for, the specific method of analysis employed will not severely impact conclusions.” (Betts, J et al., 2011) In this light, RCTs and quasi-experimental methods should be considered complements, not substitutes.

CER RESPONSE TO POINT 4. External validity (i.e. extrapolation to charter schools outside the study) is a problem for ALL studies. It is not at all improved by the CREDO methodology, which is fundamentally flawed because it cannot control for selection.

 

Many researchers concede that there is a trade-off between internal and external validity. But rigorous research almost always prefers internal validity when a trade-off is forced. We want to know precisely and accurately the effect of an intervention, even if we can only know that for a limited population. It does us little good to know inaccurately the effect of an intervention on a broader population.

All studies are representative of the schools they include. This does not make CREDO studies better–just different.

The overwhelming problem with CREDO studies is that they have NO method of controlling for self-selection into charter schools or for charter schools disproportionately attracting disadvantaged students.

Filed Under: Choice & Charter Schools

Daily Headlines for June 24, 2013

June 24, 2013 By

NEWSWIRE IS BACK! Click here for the latest weekly report on education news and commentary you won’t find anywhere else, spiced with a dash of irreverence, from the nation’s leading voice in school reform.

NATIONAL COVERAGE

How education schools can turn out better teachers
Editorial, Chicago Tribune, June 22, 2013
College students who aspire to be teachers often graduate from teacher prep programs unprepared to run a classroom effectively. That takes a toll on their health and happiness and on their students’ academic performance.

Time for a re-evaluation of teacher training
Editorial, Seattle Times, June 23, 2013
Teacher-training programs nationwide need to rethink the skills educators need for today and tomorrow’s classrooms.

No Child Left Behind brought strict standards, unattainable goals
Concord Monitor, June 24, 2013
When No Child Left Behind passed with bipartisan support from Congress in 2001, it promised a new system of accountability that would raise academic expectations and bring all students – rich, poor, black, white, mentally or physically disabled, limited English speakers – to the same level of achievement.

STATE COVERAGE

ALABAMA

School tax credit may have few takers
Editorial
Gadsden Times, June 23, 2013
Seventy-eight Alabama schools were branded last week as failing under the Alabama Accountability Act. One of them was Gadsden’s Litchfield Middle School.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

School reform in D.C. should stay the course
Editorial
Washington Post, June 22, 2013
MAYOR VINCENT C. GRAY’S (D) first speech dedicated to education, delivered last week, contained no dramatic proposals or revolutionary changes. That is a good thing.

Principal of Alexandria’s Jefferson-Houston School asks state for more time to improve
Washington Post, June 23, 2013
Principal Rosalyn Rice-Harris has been counting small victories since she took on the urgent task of reversing more than a decade of low achievement at Alexandria’s Jefferson-Houston School.

Maryland teachers prepare for tougher math curriculum under Common Core
Washington Post, June 23, 2013
A team of teachers and the principal of Piney Branch Elementary School hovered over two math questions designed to test fourth-grade students on their understanding of perimeter.

FLORIDA

Education challenges mean all options should be on the table
Opinion
Sun Sentinel, June 24, 2013
Last week we were pleased to see the City of Pembroke Pines and the Broward Teacher’s Union came to an agreement, albeit under enormous pressure, to keep the Pembroke Pines Charter Schools open.

With More Than 400 Students on a Waiting List, Lake Wales Needs Middle Schools
News Chief, June 23, 2013
With more than 400 students on a waiting list to attend Edward W. Bok Academy, it’s clear Lake Wales Charter Schools Inc. needs to expand to local middle schools.

Pinellas abruptly closes Ben Gamla charter school
Tampa Bay Times, June 23, 2013
Ben Gamla was closing, and it had nothing to do with the school’s performance or finances — but a seeming technicality.

Charting a new course for Rowlett Elementary School
Bradenton Herald, June 23, 2013
Manatee County could have its first charter school conversion in the fall of 2014 if Rowlett Elementary school successfully submits an application by Aug. 1 for school board approval — a complex challenge that has brought together a diverse group of planners.

Charter conversion is not common
Herald Tribune, June 22, 2013
Though state law has granted public schools the option to convert to a charter operation since 1996, only 20 operate in the state of Florida. If approved in August, Rowlett Elementary will be the first public school to convert to a charter operation in the past five years.

Charter school management companies flex political muscle as enrollment grows
Florida Times Union Blog, June 22, 2013
He was at an April meeting in support of a bill that would create a slate of accountability measures for charter schools. The former education commissioner and state senator from Clay County now lobbies for a host of charter school companies and organizations.

ILLINOIS

Teachers union blasts Emanuel’s school board choice
Chicago Sun Times, June 21, 2013
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has named an investment banker with ties to charter school organizations to serve on the Chicago Board of Education.

LOUISIANA

New Orleans Schools
Letter
New York Times, June 24, 2013
Sarah Carr is correct that in our efforts to improve education, New Orleans has unwittingly split schools and communities.

New city sought for school district
The Advocate, June 23, 2013
Residents of southeast Baton Rouge fighting for an independent school district are taking a page from the city of Central and mounting a campaign to form their own municipality.

MARYLAND

Companies back STEM efforts as Maryland seeks to revamp science education
Baltimore Sun, June 24, 2013
Students across Maryland would see revamped science classes under curriculum standards the state school board will consider Tuesday — part of a broader effort by educators, researchers and businesses to kindle innovation in children well before they enter the workforce.

Unleashing charter school innovation
Opinion
Frederick News Post, June 23, 2013
U.S. News magazine’s recently released Teacher Preparation Rankings report is one of the best and most important ever published, and has implications for our elected officials.

MASSACHUSETTS

Reshaping the debate on Mass. charter schools
Boston Globe, June 22, 2013
Not every graduate student who passes through Boston leaves a lasting influence on the city. But Chris Walters, a Virginia native who this month received his PhD in economics from MIT, may just be one of them.

Charter school bill stirring debate
Lowell Sun, June 22, 2013
Legislation aimed at closing achievement gaps in Massachusetts schools would make it easier to open charter schools, especially in the worst-performing districts, and give schools power to override unions on hiring without seniority or lengthening school days.

MICHIGAN

At schools, a new ‘white flight’
Battle Creek Enquirer, June 22, 2013
With a lot of angst, Barbour and his wife decided to withdraw their four kids from Albion and use the state’s Schools of Choice program to send them to Homer Community Schools.

NEVADA

Holding charter schools accountable
Opinion
Las Vegas Sun, June 22, 2013
The release of the Silver State’s first round of school star ratings under the Nevada School Performance Framework this month marks a new era for our state’s education system — one that is particularly focused on student achievement.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

End the pointless private school voucher program
Opinion
Portsmouth Herald, June 24, 2013
Last Monday, Strafford Superior Court Judge John Lewis ruled that paying religious schools with vouchers funded by New Hampshire tax credits would violate the New Hampshire Constitution. That’s an important victory for New Hampshire taxpayers and our public schools.

Hopes for charter school expansion receive boost
New Hampshire Union Leader, June 24, 2013
Advocates for public charter schools have renewed hope for expansion, now that lawmakers included $3.4 million to fund four new charters over the next two years, with $1.7 million in each year of the biennium.

NEW JERSEY

Milton Hinton: Charter schools’ allure wears off quickly
Opinion
Times of Trenton, June 23, 2013
Public school children and their parents in the City of Camden and other districts continue to be brainwashed by the allure of charter schools.

Camden Takeover to Proceed With Interim Super in Place
New Jersey Spotlight, June 24, 2013
Camden County executive superintendent will serve while state continues to search for right candidate

Booker brings education ideas to NJ Senate race
Associated Press, June 23, 2013
Cory Booker had just 53 days to convince New Jersey Democrats to nominate him to be the state’s next U.S. Senator, but the Newark mayor spent Friday afternoon speaking to hundreds of boys not yet old enough to vote.

NEW YORK

NY district recruits students from other schools
Associated Press, June 22, 2013
What it hasn’t always had in recent years is enough students. So to keep from laying off teachers and cutting back programs, the district is embarking on a plan to recruit from neighboring districts whose families are willing to pay tuition of more than $20,000 a year — to a public school.

De-zoning deprives children of the opportunity to attend schools near their homes
New York Daily News, June 23, 2013
With de-zoning, children would be forced to attend whatever school they are assigned to by the Department of Education. It would be harder for parents to attend school events and be active in parents’ associations

OHIO

Ensuring charter-school quality depends on responsible sponsors
Columbus Dispatch, June 22, 2013
Mayor Michael B. Coleman and key community stakeholders are to be commended for their recent efforts to improve K-12 public-education opportunities for students throughout Columbus.

Getting better value from Ohio’s value-added teacher ratings: editorial
Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 23, 2013
An illuminating series last week by The Plain Dealer and StateImpact Ohio, a collaboration of Ohio public radio stations, cast light on one aspect of the possible answer: an imperfect value-added grading system for fourth-to-eighth-grade reading and math teachers in Ohio that the state has begun using to evaluate teachers.

PENNSYLVANIA

Uncertainty as new teacher-evaluation systems near
Philadelphia Inquirer, June 24, 2013
Upper Darby High School Principal Christopher Dormer sat in the back of Joe Niagara’s humanities class, tapping out notes on his laptop. But if having the boss sit in and observe made the first-year teacher nervous, he wasn’t letting it show.

Grim day arrives for those facing school layoffs
Philadelphia Inquirer, June 24, 2013
Most of the 600 other teachers got pink slips based on seniority and will spend their last day on the job Monday. Their spots will be filled by instructors displaced from schools that cut staff or are closing.

Charter school gets OK from Pittsburgh district
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 23, 2013
The staff of Pittsburgh Public Schools has recommended granting a charter to the proposed Hill House Passport Academy Charter School in the Hill District.

Bethlehem Area School District doesn’t want charter school to receive TIF dollars
Lehigh Valley Express-Times, June 22, 2013
Bethlehem Area School District officials are disappointed that a city charter school is relocating into a special tax district aimed at boosting the economic redevelopment on former Bethlehem Steel land.

SOUTH CAROLINA

High Point Academy becomes the second public charter school in Spartanburg
Spartanburg Herald Journal, June 22, 2013
High Point Academy has been given the green light by the state charter school district, clearing the way for the school to become the second public charter school in Spartanburg County.

TENNESSEE

Educational reforms raise bar for Tennessee teachers
Times Free Press, June 23, 2013
Some teachers may think they’ve lived through a roller coaster of educational changes in recent years. But they haven’t seen anything yet.

VIRGINIA

Group proposes boys-only charter school for Richmond
Richmond Times-Dispatch, June 24, 2013
A group called the Richmond Urban Collective is proposing a boys-only charter school for the city of Richmond.

WISCONSIN

Private schools mull whether to join statewide voucher system
Lacrosse Tribune, June 24, 2013
The Legislature adopted a statewide expansion of private school vouchers last week, but that doesn’t mean there will be a voucher in every backpack anytime soon.

School choice records provision deserves veto
Editorial
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, June 23, 2013
Without debate or public dialogue, Republicans slipped into the state budget last week a measure that could curb the ability of the public to understand how choice schools perform. The limits don’t belong in the budget in the first place — they’re another in a long list of non-fiscal items in this budget — and at the very least they deserved the full public airing that introduction as a separate bill would have brought.

ONLINE LEARNING

Online charter school to open Augusta learning center
Augusta Chronicle, June 22, 2013
High school dropouts or students who aren’t comfortable in the typical classroom will have another way to work on a diploma this fall.

Pros and cons of iPads in schools
Letters
Los Angeles Times, June 24, 2013
The decision by the Los Angeles Unified School District to provide its 660,000 students with tablet computers is a step in the right direction. As the head of a nonprofit funder that provides computers and training to parents and teachers in three LAUSD schools, I have lessons to share:

Filed Under: Daily Headlines

Daily Headlines for June 21, 2013

June 21, 2013 By

NEWSWIRE IS BACK! Click here for the latest weekly report on education news and commentary you won’t find anywhere else, spiced with a dash of irreverence, from the nation’s leading voice in school reform.

NATIONAL COVERAGE

A Lifeline for Minorities, Catholic Schools Retrench
New York Times, June 21, 2013
Justice Sotomayor’s emotions are shared by a generation of accomplished Latino and black professionals and public servants who went from humble roots to successful careers thanks to Catholic schools.

Teacher training needs a revolution
Opinion, New York Daily News, June 21, 2013
Why does the academic performance of America’s public school children compare so poorly with those of other countries? The question has bedeviled us for decades. Usually, we just look inside the school system for answers. But a growing body of evidence tells us it’s time to look someplace else as well.

STATE COVERAGE

ARIZONA

Charter schools seeing growth across the state
News-Herald, June 21, 2013
Recent statistics show that charter schools are exceptionally popular in Arizona, with the state having nearly the highest percentage of students enrolled in charters, second only to Washington, D.C.

Elementary schools switched to charters
Mohave Valley Daily News, June 21, 2013
Seeing an opportunity to bolster all of its campuses, the Mohave Valley Elementary School District governing board voted to convert two of them to charter schools.

CALIFORNIA

This ‘n that (CER in the news)
Victorville Daily Press, June 20, 2013
The Center for Education Reform, a conservative outfit focused on making our education system less dysfunctional, reported this week that the University of Arkansas has issued a study noting that students in Washington, D.C., charter schools are treated to almost 44 percent less funding than the traditional public school system there receives.

COLORADO

Two charters gain conditional approval
Our Colorado News, June 20,2013
Two elementary charter schools that focus on teaching foreign languages gained conditional approval June 18 to open their doors in Douglas County.

CONNECTICUT

Commends Malloy, Legislature On Charter Schools
Letter, The Courant, June 21, 2013
This year’s legislative session was a solid victory for thousands of Connecticut’s public charter school students. In keeping with their promises in last year’s education reform law, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and the General Assembly committed to helping close the per-pupil funding gap that treats charter students like second-class citizens, and also secured funding for more charter schools.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

In D.C. public schools, advocacy group finds high rates of suspension
Washington Post, June 20, 2013
The District’s traditional and charter public schools suspended about 10,000 children — more than one in 10 D.C. students — during the 2011-12 academic year, according to a coalition of advocacy groups seeking to reduce disciplinary measures that keep kids out of class.

D.C. Mayor Gray Shares Vision for Education Reform
Washington Informer, June 20, 2013
D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray said Thursday during a 40-minute speech at Savoy Elementary School in Southeast that in order to take education reform in the District to the next level, it’s imperative for the city’s charter and public schools to work together.

DELAWARE

3 new Delaware charter schools get OK
News Journal, June 21, 2013
The state Board of Education approved three new charter schools, rejected one and approved three charter expansions at a meeting Thursday.

FLORIDA

Lake County school board could lose $1M in funding over attendance records
WFTV, June 20, 2013
The Lake County School District is being fined more than $1 million for something that’s out of their control.

HAWAII

Native Hawaiian Charter Schools get $1.5 million from OHA
Big Island News, June 21, 2013
For fourth consecutive year, the OHA Board of Trustees approved the money for the Hawaiian-focused public charter schools for the 2012-2013 school year “to address the budgetary shortfalls the schools have already faced this year”.

IDAHO

Idaho Board of Education Mulls Proposals in Twin Falls
Magic Valley Times-News, June 21, 2013
Budgets, legislative ideas and proposed changes to a rule about gun-free schools were among items addressed yesterday by the Idaho Board of Education.

ILLONOIS

4 stories, 4 diplomas
Chicago Tribune, June 21, 2013
When Fenger High School’s graduating seniors were freshmen, student Derrion Albert was pummeled to death with a wooden plank, an incident captured on a video that sparked outrage and heartache around the world.

INDIANNA

Education in Indianapolis has 2 new strong reasons for hope
Column, Indianapolis Star, June 20, 2013
There are plenty of reasons to have hope in the idea that education in this city can be improved, transformed and ultimately saved. Two of them emerged recently.

IOWA

We’re just getting started with school reform in Iowa
Opinion, SW Iowa News, June 21, 2013
The education reform bill that recently passed the Iowa Legislature is an important victory for Iowa’s children and a step in the right direction toward regaining our leadership role in education.

KENTUCKY

Education funds belong to MNPS, not charter schools
Letter, Courier Journal, June 21, 2013
Mayor Karl Dean’s capital improvements budget included approximately $5 million for new charter school construction in Metro schools. Ultimately, charter schools are annually funded by approximately $40 million of public dollars in MNPS.

LOUISIANA

A new look at standards
Editorial, The Advocate, June 20, 2013
If there is any more of a sacred cow in the State Capitol, it is the costly TOPS tuition waivers that are growing yearly. We agree with the Baton Rouge Area Chamber that the program deserves a critical look, with the aim of either increasing its academic requirements or setting a limit on the grant to students to curb the cost to the taxpayer.

MASSACHUSETTS

Boston mayoral hopefuls voice views on charter schools
Boston Globe, June 21, 2013
The majority of Boston’s 12 candidates for mayor support adding more charter schools in the city, testament to the growing momentum to expand independent schools.

MICHIGAN

New charter school to open in Lansing
Lansing State Journal, June 20, 2013
A struggling South Lansing charter is expected to reopen this fall under a new name and charter.

Detroit Public Schools: Enrollment skid to slow
Detroit News, June 21, 2013
For nearly half a century, Detroit Public Schools has lost students almost every year by the hundreds, sometimes by the tens of thousands.

Michigan House legislators to meet over Common Core standards during summer recess
Grand Rapid Press, June 21, 2013
The summer break for Michigan legislators won’t stop the debate over the Common Core State Standards, as House Republicans announced the formation of a bipartisan subcommittee to consider the standards over the next two months.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Blaine Amendment comes back to bite school choice advocates
Letter, Eagle Tribune, June 20, 2013
Justice John Lewis of the Strafford County (N.H.) Superior Court recently proclaimed that the use of Education Tax Credit Scholarships at religiously affiliated schools is unconstitutional.

NEW JERSEY

N.J. charter schools must do better
Editorial, South Jersey Times, June 21, 2013
Psst, wanna make a quick buck? Find a struggling school district, open a charter school, and siphon taxpayer money from the public education budget. Then run the school badly.

NORTH CAROLINA

Feds investigating Durham school suspension rates
News & Observer, June 21, 2013
The federal government has begun investigating a complaint that Durham Public Schools suspends black and disabled students at disproportionately high rates, a group that filed the complaint said Thursday.

OHIO

School districts poised to raise dropout age
Cincinnati Inquirer, June 21, 2013
With just days before Kentucky’s new high school dropout law takes effect, dozens of school districts are preparing to increase their mandatory attendance age to 18 and seize on state grant money that has been promised to help plan for the change.

PENNSYLVANIA

Gillingham Charter School chooses 5 trustees
Republican Herald, June 21, 2013
Gillingham Charter School elected five new members and chose officers for its board of trustees Thursday, and then passed next year’s budget in a crowded classroom at the school as parents and local residents had the opportunity to voice their concerns.

TENNESSEE

TN teachers would lose money under pay plan, critics say
The Tennessean, June 21, 2013
Tennessee teachers marshaled their forces and House Democrats hurled insults at Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman on Thursday over concerns that teachers will lose money if the state adopts a controversial plan today to require merit pay.

Case of Boys Prep shows charter schools face same startup challenges
Nashville City Paper, June 21, 2013
That’s just a taste of what leaders at Boys Prep Nashville are dealing with in what has become a crash course in everything that can go wrong with a first-year charter school.

WASHINGTON

Superintendent José Banda survives divisive Seattle School Board’s judgment
Editorial, Seattle Times, June 20, 2013
The Seattle School Board’s split over Superintendent José Banda’s first-year evaluation is more of the same from a divisive board.

Lawmakers have but one choice on education funding
Opinion, The Olympian, June 21, 2013
There’s no mistaking the position of State Superintendent Randy Dorn about what the Legislature must do to meet the Supreme Court’s decision in the McCleary case. The state’s education chief has repeatedly told lawmakers that anything less than $1.4 billion in new revenue over the next biennium will not satisfy even the minimum requirements of McCleary.

WISCONSIN

Senate passes budget as vouchers take center stage
Journal Sentinel, June 21, 2013
Senate Republicans passed the state budget by a one-vote margin just after midnight Friday as the state schools superintendent raised concerns a little-noticed provision could lead to a flood of students attending private schools at taxpayer expense.

ONLINE LEARNING

‘Cyber’ should not mean ‘less’
Opinion, Philadelphia Inquirer, June 21, 2013
This school year, the budget for my child’s public education is almost a third lower than the education budget for his peers in our school district. That’s because my child attends a public cyber-school.

Advice on how to open up a virtual charter school
Progressive Pulse, June 20, 2013
North Carolina or other states opening up online charter schools should put enrollment caps and other limits to ensure focus is kept on quality education and not profits, a board member of Colorado online charter school said recently.

Filed Under: Daily Headlines, Uncategorized
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