The charter school dust-up : examining the evidence on enrollment and achievement / Martin Carnoy, Rebecca Jacobsen, Lawrence Mishel, and Richard Rothstein.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Carnoy, Martin.

Contributor:

Jacobsen, Rebecca.

Mishel, Lawrence R.

Rothstein, Richard.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Charter schools--United States.

Charter schools.

Evaluation.

United States.

Charter schools--United States--Evaluation.

Physical Description:

186 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Washington, D.C. : Economic Policy Institute ; New York : Teachers College Press, 2005.

Summary:

When federal statistics showed test scores lower in charter than in regular schools, some chorter school supporters insisted this must result from charter schools enrolling harder-to-teach minority students. Data show, however, that typical charter school students are not more disadvantaged, yet their average achievement is not higher. Even if some charter schools are superior, deregulation also permits charter schools that are inferior, with average performance no higher than in regular public schools.

Debates spurred by federal charter school test data show how all debates about education could be improved: by carefully accounting for the difficulty of educating particular groups of students before interpreting test scores, and by focusing on student gains, not their level of achievement at any particular time.

Contents:

Chapter 1 The reaction to the AFT's report on charter school scores 9

Chapter 2 Can the 'dust-up' lead to a new consensus in education research and policy? 17

Chapter 3 Problems with the critiques of the NAEP report by charter school supporters 21

No schools, charter or regular public, should be evaluated using point-in-time score levels 21

Shortcomings of 'No Child Left Behind' performance measures 23

How charter school zealots helped create the NAEP charter sample 25

Chapter 4 Are charter school students more disadvantaged than regular public school students, and does this explain charter schools' unexpectedly low NAEP scores? 29

How selection bias complicates the evaluation of charter schools 29

The NCES analysis of the charter school NAEP sample 33

Comparative studies of charter and regular public school demographics in individual states 36

Arizona 37

California 37

Colorado 40

Connecticut 41

District of Columbia 42

Florida 42

Illinois 42

Massachusetts 42

Michigan 43

North Carolina 44

Pennsylvania 44

Texas 44

Wisconsin 45

Summary of demographic data from state-level studies 45

Are charter demographics over-stated because of a failure to offer the lunch program? 47

Other evidence of the relative advantage or disadvantage of charter school students 48

The KIPP case 51

Chapter 5 What we know about relative charter and regular public school student achievement 67

The NCES's own analysis of charter school NAEP scores 67

Evidence from state-level studies regarding the achievement of charter school students 70

On the policy views of researchers 70

Description of state-level studies of charter school achievement 71

Arizona 80

California 81

Colorado 85

Connecticut 86

District of Columbia 86

Florida 86

Illinois 87

Michigan 87

North Carolina 88

Pennsylvania 89

Texas 89

Wisconsin 89

Age-of-school influences on charter school student achievement 92

The competition effect 95

Segregation 97

The Hoxby studies 98

Summary of evidence on charter and regular public school achievement 106

Chapter 6 The philosophy of charter schools 109

Are standardized test scores less important for charter schools, because charter schools will be shut down in any case if they don't perform well? 109

Are bureaucratic regulations and union rules the cause of low student achievement? 116

Appendix A Using different standards for evaluating charter and regular public schools 127

Robert Lerner and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) 127

Former U.S. Secretary of Education Roderick Paige and Deputy Secretary Nina Rees 130

Jeanne Allen and the Center for Education Reform 132

Rev. Floyd Flake 133

Jay P. Greene; Kaleem Caire, and the Black Alliance for Educational Options 134

Howard Fuller 137

"Shoot the Messenger" reactions of charter school zealots 138

Appendix B Alternative presentations of NAEP charter school demographic data 141

About EPI and Teachers College Press 179

Titles of special interest to educators from the Economic Policy Institute 180

Titles of special interest to educators from Teachers College Press 184.

Notes:

"Published simultaneously by the Economic Policy Institute and Teachers College Press."--T.p. verso

Includes bibliographical references (pages [163]-176)

ISBN:

0807746150

OCLC:

60384393