Report: NYC Charters Do Cream, Exclude Neediest Students

InsideSchools crunched the data and performed the oversight that the NYC DOE doesn't have to perform, and so, apparently, doesn't bother to. The results are more evidence that charter schools do "cream," are a "separate and unequal" school system, and do need a mandatory oversight body to keep their practices in line with their PR and marketing.

Vanessa Witenko writes,

Charter schools claim they outperform neighborhood schools while enrolling the same student demographic. Opponents argue that charter schools only attract children whose parents are involved and invested in their education, since the parents had to seek out a charter school and fill out an application by the April 1 deadline. Additionally, because charter schools operate independently of the city DOE, opponents say there is no oversight to protect the most vulnerable students – those who don’t speak English or require special education services.

An analysis of student data involving some of the most challenging students to educate, students who are homeless, special education students, and English Language Learners (ELL), shows that charter schools don’t serve or enroll the same students as local public schools. Read more....

Some highlights:

• "In New York City, 51,316 public school students are homeless, and only 111 of them attend a charter school."
• "Although between 14-17 percent of New York City public school [students] are still learning English, according to 2008-09 Title III allocations (federal money schools receive for students learning English), they represent just three percent of the charter school population."
• Charters that do have English Language Learners typically lump them together with Special Needs/Learning Disabled students. As an ESL specialist, I can confirm this is looked upon as very bad practice, and shunned by quality schools. Read more....

Al Sharpton recently said there should be no "sacred cows" in school reform. When pushed, he almost admitted the "sacred cow" in question was teachers unions. Let's add the charter cow to the list.

The issue here is not whether there are good and bad charter schools; of course there are, just as there are good and bad traditional public schools. The issue, instead, is the claims that charters make about their performance relative to traditional schools. Those comparisons only work if the two systems serve the same demographics. Since more and more evidence shows they don't, we need to at least demand the charter marketers be held to a higher and more transparent standard of accountability when making their claims of superiority.

(h/t to Gotham Schools)

photo by garboden