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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > October > 24 > Entry
Editorial: “Who’s better?’ is not the debate kids need
The debate about charter schools really has to move beyond the argument that asks, “Which is better — charter or traditional schools?”
Some recent research on charters, while raising interesting questions, remains too focused on pitting schools against each other.
When you put it in perspective, this is really an odd way to view the issue. Despite the grandiose ambitions of a few early supporters of the idea, charter schools are no threat to supplant traditional public schools. About 3 percent of American K-12 students attend the free, publicly funded, but privately run, schools.
It makes more sense to think of charters not as a competitor seeking to challenge the established public school system’s franchise, but rather as a complement to that system. Ideally, the new options offered by charter schools should be truly unique and experimental. In the best cases, that’s what charter schools do now.
On the local level, you see this approach at the Dayton Early College Academy — challenging students early with college-level work — and the ISUS Trade and Tech Prep High School — taking dropouts and teaching them job skills along the way to getting their academic careers back on track.
Nationally, new models like the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) — offering extended school days and school years and cultural reinforcements encouraging academic success — are perhaps showing the way to improve the life chances of poor, urban kids who too often haven’t had good schools to attend.
While these are charter school success stories, other ideas have flopped or, just as bad, floundered too long in mediocrity. As a result, charter school test performance has been mixed overall, which has partly fueled the obsession with comparing them to traditional schools as if this were a competition.
Two big studies this summer from the same university had differing takes on charter performance. While one set of Stanford researchers found charters lagging behind traditional schools in a survey of test data in 15 states and Washington, D.C., another Stanford team found New York City charter school students were gaining more test ground than kids who did not get selected for the schools via a lottery and thus remained in traditional schools.
This fall, Ohio’s Policy Matters think tank took a novel approach that looked at whether charter schools had an advantage by attracting better prepared kids. It found that in Ohio cities, charter school kids scored slightly higher than their traditional school counterparts on a kindergarten readiness assessment.
The study concluded charters are a bad policy choice since they have higher performing kids, on average, but were coming in with similar, or even sometimes lower, test scores than comparable traditional schools.
That kind of argument misses the point. The reality is that there are extreme differences in the quality of charter schools. Absolutely Ohio and other states should be more aggressive about closing down perpetually low-scoring charters. But without the charter school movement, education reform would be a big step behind where it is today.
The successes and exciting ideas that have emerged from charter schools are crucial to wider future reforms.
Dayton, which was the state’s first big charter school hot bed, is certainly better for having lived through what was, at times, a tumultuous evolution of the city’s education offerings. Dayton kids have better options today — both from outside and from within the district — than they did a decade ago. Charters were an important catalyst for positive change here, even though Dayton’s charter school test scores, on average, have not blown away those of traditional schools.
The focus should be on nurturing charter school successes, incubating other promising new school reform models and pruning those charters that have failed. To focus on an artificial horse race between charters and traditional schools is giving into distraction at a time when school reform needs to remain focused.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Scott Elliott
Comments
By bobby
October 24, 2009 9:16 AM | Link to this
The relevancy of any study by Policy Matters should be viewed with skepticism. They are a union advocacy group. They are unlikely to release any information that would paint a negative picture of unions, in this case, teacher unions. An interesting comparison might be the number of charter teachers fired as compared to public teachers, or the cost per pupil for similar scores.
By Calvin
October 24, 2009 10:02 AM | Link to this
When pushing charters a few years ago, the DDN and its peers stated how much better they would do than the public schools. No problems, just shining examples of education. Then they were pitting the Charters against the Public. But now we don’t want to “really” compare, because, just because….———————Is that because the charters haven’t done better than public schools, especially comparing the money cost and the damage they do to the public schools from whom they suck students, for a while at least?——————-Let’s stick with our old saw of which is better at the job that we started with a few years ago. Now that charters have had lots of problems with ineffective pricipals, often escapees from the public system due to low performance, and teachers who are not teaching within their prime area of certification, let’s talk about what the original premise was: THE CHARTERS WOULD DO EVERYTHING BETTER THAN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Didn’t happen did it?————As for Policy Matters, I didn’t see they mentioned unions as bobby suggested. They compared a cursory measure for ability levels of the kids; higher ability kids means higher outcomes to generalize. Bobby seems very concerned that the teachers in charters might be compared in competence with the “Union” teachers in public schools. Indeed, the level of quality of teachers in charters does need a look. The lower pay attracts those who can’t get a job in the public system, principals and teachers.
By bobby
October 24, 2009 10:41 AM | Link to this
Policy Matters is the Ohio branch of a national organization, Media Matters. I suggest you view their web sites. It should then be self explanitory that a pro union outcome{three board members of Policy Matters are union officers} is part of the criteria of many of the “studies they undertake. A question I would appreciate the media asking is, Are the results of all their “studies” released to the media, or just the ones that have the outcome they advocate?
By Bill
October 24, 2009 11:46 AM | Link to this
Public schools for the most part have been an abject failure. Private schools, i.e. the parochail schools consistenly outscore and produce a more productive citizen. It is time to eliminate the public school system, it’s union structure of employment and start over using the parochial and charter business model. Only then will we be able to compete in the 21st century.
By calvin
October 24, 2009 5:27 PM | Link to this
If you will check, parochial (notice the spelling please) schools get students that have a better background AND have parents who are interested in their progress, therefore they appear to succede better in some cases. However, students who are in parochial schools don’t all progress thus and when they return to the public schools, they are far behind their grade level due to the teaching at parochial schools. Note point number 2 that parochial schools can kick out kids for any reason which means they keep the ones who appeared to help their image. I note the rest of the comment is about citizenship so I’ll comment that the teachers and helpers and others in the Catholic school system seem to have their share of sex abuse cases making the media news. Who knows how many of its (notice no apostrophy in the word its) problems it gets rid of without publicity. So generalization that the Catholic parochial schools are wonderful don’t wash here.
By George
October 24, 2009 7:13 PM | Link to this
Sorry about your facts Calvin. Parocial school students out perform public school students in all areas of academics when the national and state tests scores are compared. Nice try about the sexual abuse cases in parochial schools too. Better check your facts there also. From 2002 to 2007, latest facts available, 98% of teacher-student sex cases have occurred in the public schools. Better started saving your nickels and dimes and send your kids to a Catholic or Christian school.
By calvin
October 26, 2009 1:09 PM | Link to this
Exactly what I said: the parochial (notice the spelling, George) schools get to pick who goes there and pick who has to leave because they “don’t measure up” to standards of grades or behavior. Also many parochials have kids way behind others, especially when they started being less selection about whom to admit as fewer people were sending kids there. ++++++++++++++It’s like the college football teams that recruit and pay their players with scholarships and benefits. Some colleges get to select who plays for them and they have excellent teams. +++++++++++++++++As for sex cases, if most schools are public you are going to have MORE reports, out of the cases reported, from them. Of course if you push your cases under the run as much as possible…. hmmm then the cases don’t come out until much later and become a financial bombshell. Sound familiar? I send my dimes to the public schools rather than financing payments for sex abuse cases for the Church.
By Alice
October 26, 2009 1:41 PM | Link to this
I believe in the foundation of our public school system. When did things have to get so complicated? When did it have to become so politicized? Whatever happened to finding a solution to a problem instead of an alternative to the problem? My kids went to private school for some time. While the school did receive some federal funds, I paid out of pocket for tuition, about the same cost that taxpayers pay per pupil at public school. I found that the quality of education at the private school was high but I had to pull my kids out as a result of some financial changes and I enrolled them in public school. I’ve been frustrated because I felt they were better off at the private school, but I want to support our public school system. I believe in an equal opportunity education for every American child, regardless of race or class. But I also believe that the basis for public education is a good one and that we must fight to reform, support and protect our public schools. How about taking an idea that works in a private school and applying it to the public school? Or an idea that works in public schools in India or Japan? Why does it have to be us vs them? I don’t have any problem with private schools - and I think they often provide the best alternative to public school - but they should not be funded by taxpayer money. If you want to send your kid to an alternative school, then you should have to pay extra for it. To those that argue that all public schools are not equal and that a charter or private school may be more necessary in lower performing areas - fight to reform your communities and your public schools. Take them back. Your charters are just a band-aid for the real problem and I shouldn’t have to pay for something that I can’t afford to provide for my own children. SUPPORT PUBLIC SCHOOLS!
By smarterthanyouare
October 27, 2009 7:15 PM | Link to this
are we to pretend that we don’t remember all of the pro-charter cheer leading done on this editorial page by this group of editorial writers? charters were another example of the gop trying to defund or drown the government piecemeal. i won’t forget, nor will i allow you to be branded liberal when in fact you endorsed every single bum that caused this state and federal trainwreck of a government. the adults are here now. you should at LEAST fess up to your ignorance on so many subjects—but i give you credit: you were right about predatory lending. the rest of it? HANG YOUR COLLECTIVE HEADS.