Category: x2015

Charter Schools and The Issue of Scalability: An Unexpected Conclusion

Posted on Author Leib Sutcher

A fundamental tension throughout A Smarter Charter and the greater charter debate is should charters be mere laboratories with the sole purpose of improving public education for all, or should charter schools provide an increasing segment of the population an alternative to traditional public schools. The ability for charter schools’ methods to scale up to the rest of public schools is the central consideration in this tension. It may seem like the lack of scalability charter schools face would support proponents of limiting charter growth. However, when you reframe the question, the exact opposite conclusion comes to light, universal charters are the solution to the issue of scalability.

Throughout A Smarter Charter, scaling up proved to be challenging. Numerous teachers at the Cesar Chavez school, in D.C. experienced a significant drop off in support and positive work environment when the charter network expanded from teaching 60 students to nearly 1,500 (25). It was not until they unionized that some of that empowering environment was restored. But even then a lot of the teacher-administrative collaboration is delicate, largely hinging on a “more communicative and responsive administration” that could change at any time (44). Kahlenberg and Potter point out that stand alone schools are more conducive to promoting teacher voice (96). There are ways to mitigate these growing pains, but it is not easy to scale all of these reforms. Co-op teacher models, unions, slim contracts, and teacher voice in particular have trouble scaling up (104,109, 117). This inability to scale is not only evident in the very successful schools in the book, but in the charter school community as a whole. On the whole charter schools are not showing gains in student outcomes (68).

Many of the successful practices at the schools featured in this book are examples of charter schools moving in the right direction. However, we saw these policies lose their edge when applied to larger charter networks. How do we interpret this lack of scalability, does this inability to scale support or refute the idea that charter schools should provide education to an increasing number of students? One response to these findings, would be to curb the number of charter schools allowed as Al Shanker original suggested. Charter schools would be used as innovative labs to inform public education and not as a universal school.

Alternatively, the inability to scale successful methods could be interpreted as the exact reason why a universal charter system is needed. A large network of charter schools or the even larger network of traditional public schools will never be able to support the teacher voice, student integration, small community, and site specific flexibility necessary to best address the needs of the students. Perhaps we can preserve the benefits of the smaller charter school by replicating the model rather than expanding the model. In other words, keeping the charter schools small, each with a democratic participatory governance that are independent, yet associated with other charter schools for support and shared knowledge.

Additional questions for Kahlenberg and Potter:

We think of no excuses schools to be paternalistic (20), however these school rarely practice progressive education and other techniques used in schools that serve the elite. What do we make of this irony?

One of the positive impacts highlighted about integrated schools was the role of the parents (64-65) is the increased parent involvement by middle and high income parents. However, are these parents serving the interest of all students at their child’s school or only the interest of their own child? If so, I could see a situation where middle and high income parents bend policy to benefit their own students, for example advocating for extra funding going towards enrichment rather than extra support that actual harms low income students.

Using portfolios to evaluate teachers and teacher pay is a really interesting proposition. How would this affect the current incentive structure for teacher evaluation, and what unintended consequences would come of this policy shift?

In Hartford, the Sheff case has forced minimum levels of integration in all magnet schools. Schools use weighted lotteries to insure this balance. These weighted lotteries receives pushback from some communities leaders arguing that these lotteries take away spots from Hartford students who would otherwise be going to struggling schools and gives them to suburban students who would be going to a high achieving schools no matter what. By using a weighted lottery we are sacrificing equity for integration? Are we okay with this?

On the Development of Charter Schools: Changing the Paradigm and the Purpose of Schooling?

Posted on Author Emma Kemler

While Kahlenberg and Potter argue in their book, A Smarter Charter, that public charter schools should be aligned with the foundational promise of public schooling to promote a common American identity, social mobility and social cohesion, they also underscore that charter schools were, in fact, conceptualized by Albert Shanker to depart from the paradigm of traditional public schools. Although both types of institutions are considered to be “public” for receiving public funds, several factors complicate the comparison between public charter schools and traditional public schools. As frequently noted, choosing to apply to and to attend a charter school implies different levels of student and parental motivation (61). Studies with rigorous research designs that examine charter school outcomes often control for this selection bias (e.g., Bifulco et al., 2009). Yet, what many studies fail to account for are differences in missions. Charter schools were intended to be “educational laboratories” that allow for teacher innovation and experimentation (1). To ensure this flexibility, charter missions outline different goals than traditional public schools (e.g., close the achievement gap or target certain demographics rather than promote social cohesion) (51, 56). Therefore, perhaps it is unfair to use the same original intent of education in the U.S. to evaluate the school demographics of both public charter schools and traditional public schools.

One of the most controversial departures from both Shanker’s original vision of charter schools and the mission of schooling in the U.S. is the often racially, ethnically and/or socioeconomically hyper-segregated student bodies of public charters. While for many this structure appears to be a regression towards the unconstitutional “separate but equal” policy, there is a pivotal difference: parental and student choice. Families actively choose to be part of a charter school. Still, choice is often constrained by housing, neighborhood opportunity, income, etc.

 Kahlenberg and Potter provide a persuasive parental anecdote and several empirically backed arguments outlining why integration is unequivocally beneficial to student outcomes. Some of the highlighted reasons include that racial and socioeconomic integration increases academic achievement, it facilitates interaction and collaboration with diverse groups, and it influences positive behaviors. Thus, the question becomes, why don’t public charter schools prioritize integration? Several reasons are provided that illustrate the forces of economics and location in the design of charter schools. Firstly, educating high concentrations of at-risk students is considered to be economically efficient (47). Secondly, the location of many charter schools either in inner cities or in suburbs attracts either predominantly low-income minority families or affluent White families. The solutions offered include strategically changing the location of public charters or developing charters like inter-district magnet schools by abolishing the constraint of attendance zones and municipal boundaries (48-49). In either case, to truly ensure integration, charter schools should make this goal explicit by writing it into charters in order to be held accountable to it. Otherwise, expecting that charter schools will follow in the public school tradition of seeking to promote diversity and social cohesion will remain an unproductive way to evaluate charter schools.

Questions to authors:

1) In your research process, did you come across parent anecdotes indicating a preference for charter schools due to their high concentrations of a particular racial, ethnic or socioeconomic group? If so, why did you decide not to include them in your book?

2) Do you think that charter schools have alternative definitions of concepts such as “social mobility” and “diversity” than how they are operationally defined in your book? For example, could closing the achievement gap for some be seen as an instrumental way to attain social mobility?

3) At the end of chapter 4, you make a persuasive and substantiated argument that the success of the KIPP model shows that it is not that “poverty doesn’t matter” but rather that peer influence, resources and dedicated teachers can be the catalyst in education. In what ways do you think charter schools such as KIPP that mainly serve low-income minority students could emphasize this message as opposed to the often polarizing and discipline-associated “no excuses” message? Is this a marketing/branding issue or a school culture issue? Additionally, how can success stories like those of KIPP be prevented from fueling arguments in favor of segregation in education?

 

A Smarter Charter: Self-Selection Biases in Charter School Studies

Posted on Author Alyssa Glanzer

Chapter 4 of A Smarter Charter summarizes research comparing student outcomes between charter and traditional public schools. The authors concluded that students in most charter schools perform about the same as students in comparable public schools (68). However, since students choose to enroll in charter schools, this comparison is difficult to make due to self-selection biases that make students attending a charter school and traditional public schools different.

The authors discussed a CREDO study that found low-income and ELL students in charter schools outperformed students in traditional district schools, but without a randomized controlled experiment, an alternative explanation could be that families who sought out charter schools were more motivated (70).  Bifulco et al., who studied magnet schools, also listed motivation and parental support as potential confounding variables. Thus, the authors stress that although the findings may look promising for charter schools, it is unclear if charters are directly responsible for gains in student achievement or if the gains are due to other factors, such as family motivation.

An IES study controlled for family motivation by comparing students admitted to charter schools by random lottery with students who applied but were not admitted. The authors explain that although this may eliminate the concern with the CREDO study about family motivation, peer influence is still a potential bias, with lottery winners surrounded by classmates from similarly motivated families, while lottery losers are educated with many peers who did not apply to a choice school, and hence may not be as motivated (72). Again, as in Bifulco et al.’s analyses, we cannot determine if the school is directly responsible for improving student achievement or if another factor is driving the relationship.

The authors also discussed KIPP, a charter organization that emphasizes tough love and boasts demanding expectations (78). This program undoubtedly uses many of the strategies explained by Welner to influence student enrollment, including the “bum steer,” by driving away ELL and special needs students from applying with their tough love mentality. KIPP also makes use of Welner’s “flunk or leave” tactic, and only students that survive the demanding expectations remain by high school, as KIPP does not replace students who leave. Although KIPP students have shown substantial academic gains, when KIPP took over a regular, high-poverty public school, serving a non self-selected population, the program failed, indicating that the academic achievement at KIPP may be due to the high motivation levels of the students, and not the charter program itself.

The authors highlight the self-selection biases that make it difficult to definitively state that charter schools cause gains in student achievement. It is possible that influence of parental motivation and peers may be driving the apparent improvement among charter school students. Additionally, a close look at the KIPP organization indicates that student achievement may in fact be due to the types of students the school enrolls than the actual school itself. Is it the quality of instruction or the students who choose to enroll that make charter schools successful? Can these self-selection biases ever be completely controlled for?

 

 

From Shanker to “Superman”: What Happened?

Posted on Author Ali Felman

I thought I knew the “charter school situation.” I’ve read tens of exposés of charters-gone-wrong, followed Diane Ravitch’s blog for years, and even worked locally with a public school advocacy group in my hometown. And yet Richard Kahlenburg and Halley Potter’s depiction of Al Shanker’s original vision in A Smarter Charter was entirely new to me. While I admit my error and ignorance, I cannot shake the feeling that this story appears, to a degree, hidden from plain sight. The rhetoric surrounding charter schools, on either side, does not make salient the pro-union, pro-teacher voice, “incubational,” integrational model from which the idea originated. It follows to ask: why does today’s charter movement deviate so severely from its beginnings? Is there a particular moment, or is it the culmination of events and processes of relatively equal weight that caused this rift?

Smarter Charter’s beginning chapter points to a few explanatory instances. 1991 saw the first piece of legislation that enabled their genesis. However, it failed to include mandatory teacher certification and automatic collective bargaining rights (14). Already, a significant departure occurs; but is the law itself to blame for today’s segregated and racially isolated schools? In the document, the state charter advisory committee requires representation across racial and socioeconomic boundaries, which might imply a focus on desegregation. However, that is where discussion of diversity ends. Nowhere in the law is Shanker’s goal of desegregation mentioned. The problem with this legislation, it seems, is that it was not definitive enough; rather than mandating requirements that directly opposed Shanker’s vision, the law was too lax to encourage and enforce it. Over time, over 30 racially isolated schools took root in Minnesota (14). Was it only a matter of time before charters, unprotected by regulations, began to slide down the slippery conservative, free-market slope?

This deviation was not without political prodding; oddly enough, the pressure is bipartisan. Bill Clinton was a major proponent of charter schools. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backed the free-market reform movement, monetarily fueling such efforts as David Guggenheim’s charter-worshipping Waiting for Superman, anti-union/teacher tenure efforts like TeachPlus, and even über-libertarian ALEC. Arne Duncan’s “Race to the Top” provided financial incentive for states to open “high-performing” charter schools en masse. Beyond charters’ shifty, gray-area regulations that please conservatives, it is unclear to me why supposed liberals like Duncan do not reach back to Shanker’s original vision to promote desegregation and teacher voice as a means to better educational opportunity for all.

Minnesota’s 1991 legislation did not explicitly cause or create today’s free-market charters; however, it is a case of what wasn’t said rather than what was. By failing to require protections for unions and student diversity initiatives, the state enabled the opposite to take hold, which established an important—and unfortunate—precedent. In the whirlwind of charters that followed, Shanker’s once-revolutionary speech is all but lost in the storm of reformer rhetoric.

Reference: Minnesota Laws, 1991; Chapter 265, Article 9, Section 3

 

Housing Development Arguments in “Climbing Mt. Laurel”

Posted on Author Angus Macdonald

Douglas S. Massey et. al. describe in Climbing Mount Laurel the ways in which the market for housing in the United States, more specifically New Jersey, is not free and fair. Zoning laws and real estate agent interests have made housing markets inaccessible to some, especially racial minorities and lower class families.

Solutions to these sorts of problems do not come easy, and lower income housing developments are contentious due to the many stakes involved. Real estate agents and homeowners have a stake in the value of housing, and inviting low income housing to the neighborhood is generally seen as a risk to be avoided. There is also the fear that with poverty comes crime and other problems less prevalent in wealthy areas, not to mention fears of higher tax burdens, sagging schools, and the like. These sentiments are often fueled by xenophobia. Of course, in the case of Mt. Laurel, the potential residents of such housing aren’t all strangers moving into the community, many are families who have either been forced out or are at risk of losing their housing in Mt. Laurel.

It is no surprise that there was quite a lot of backlash, disagreement, and dragging of feet in the wake of Mt. Laurel II. While the most evident misgivings about developing low-income housing are self interested or bigoted, many are more complicated than this. Effectively integrating low-income residents into an established suburban community is a difficult task, even without the stumbling blocks that the city puts in place. A Mt. Laurel resident posed the argument that integrating low income residents into suburban communities isn’t as beneficial as it seems, because the location and structure of the neighborhood practically requires a car, an expense potential residents might not be able to afford (44).

Others doubt the effectiveness of creating deliberate, low-income developments. For one, potential residents might not appreciate the stigma attached to living in such a development (45). Second, some question that such a development would be effective at integrating low-income residents into a wealthier community (44). Massey engages the idea that in the past, people on all political sides agreed that housing developments created for low-income citizens perpetuated cycles of poverty and did little to combat discrimination (23). Many worry that the results of Mt. Laurel could lead to similarly dismal results.

The property value argument pushed by realtors and homeowners has deeper implications, too. While realtors are worried about the wealthy neighborhoods becoming stigmatized due to poor developments, the stigma could be just as harmful to the residents of the new development. If a community such as Mt. Laurel experienced a severe case of “white flight,” some argue that the poor members of the community would be left in an even worse place – in an empty shell of a residential suburb (47).

While many of the arguments against Mt. Laurel are easily dismissed, several articulate many of the challenges that must be faced in tackling problems of social stratification and segregation.