The Quality Challenge for Charter Schools

Gary Miron:

Nationally, I would grade the charter reform movement with a “C” which is average. There is considerable differences in quality between and within states

Nelson Smith:

Of course I say A-plus! Actually, there are three bands. At the top is a significant group that really is A-Plus. Then a large group in the middle, a solid B, and at the bottom, some schools that probably rate less than C and should be closed.

Gary Miron:

Here is where things get complicated. Plenty of misunderstanding when we talk about quality.

The original charter school concept was to be mission driven, so quality should have been relative to the mission of the school and the measurable objectives that would be used to monitor quality.

Chris Barbic:

At YES Prep, quality means student achievement results that are not marginally better than the traditional school--but significantly better... At YES, top three components: Great People, a focus on results and great relationships betweens students, parents and staff.

Nelson Smith:

For a quick baseline of “things that should be measured,” I’d refer folks to the Framework doc on our website, that was mentioned in your article. But this is a floor, not a ceiling - -Gary’s right that mission is really important, and hard to measure sometimes!

Nelson Smith:

Can’t type fast enough -- now for Erik’s question....

Nelson Smith:

It will take time to get school folks, authorizers (especially) and state folks not just to read the “indicators, metrics, and measures...”

Chris Barbic:

Charter schools provide a targeted program to a targeted student. And we get to create new schools instead of turning around existing ones. Additionally, we have more control over people and program.

Gary Miron:

K.Carpenter. There are too many answers to your question depending on who you talk to and which charter schools they are thinking of.

Gary Miron: Yes, there are many poor performing charter schools in the mix.

Chris Barbic:

I’d like to chime in...

Nelson Smith:

Let’s face it, authorizers are really the linchpin for quality and - -as your article noted --there are too many that don’t do, ummm. “best practice.” And sometimes, their own powers are unclear. Some fear they’ll get sued for closing a poor school. So we need to make sur ethey’ve got that authority - -and then hold them accountable for performance.

Gary Miron:

The poor performing charter schools exist and continue to exist for many reasons, including the fact that some authorizers are not able or willing to do oversight, and many charter schools establish political constituencies which make it difficult to close. In some states there are perverse financial incentives for authorizers to keep school on line even when they should be closed

Gary Miron:

There are also high performing traditional public schools and magnet schools. My guess, is the there is an equal proportion of traditional public schools that are positive outlyers.

Nelson Smith:

There are certain bright lines that need to be observed - -the ability of the school to set its own calendar, for example. But charters also need to provide “voice” like Chris says, and make sure that they’d paying a competitive wage, good benefits, and cultivate real professionalism and opportunity in the workplace.

Nelson Smith:

On the stimulus: First, there’s a lots of money to plug budget gaps, so if you’ve been hit by cutbacks, there’s new revenue. Second, there’s a lot of Title I and IDEA money, that will be distributed by regular formula. Third. charters are eligible to compete for the 650M “Innovation” grants that DOE will distribute. Lots more on our website about this.

Chris Barbic:

The days of people coming out of college doing the exact same job for 30 years are over... Teaching professionals included. You can combat attrition by providing teachers a professional career track that leads to more growth, responsibilty and money.

Nelson Smith:

Istowell -- That’s the theory and it’s often right, especially if folks have really good information about performance. But sometimes parents get attached to a school that’s mid-educating kids. We have public accountability here - -so there is a role for an authorizer to make sometimes-unpopular judgments.

Gary Miron:

This whole notion that our K-12 schools can be considered a market is silly. We are talking about a public good, not a private good.

Gary Miron:

In some states, likey my state (MI) groups are disuaded to start their own school without a management company. hmmm.

Gary Miron:

With NCLB, charter schools have also seen more restrictions in terms of autonomy, which makes innovation more difficult.

Gary Miron:

Innovation was linked with mission driven schools, which we seem to gone away from.

Nelson Smith:

Hmm., We have 31 percent charters in DC and the performance of DCPS has improved a lot -- there’s no numeric formula, it depends on leadership - -and Michelle Rhee is quite a leader.

Chris Barbic:

K. Carpenter: Charter schools in Texas are all open-enrollment. We dont take the “cream of the crop”. We believe enough examples of what is possible will drive higher performance on a larger scale.

Gary Miron:

Charter schools can have reputations that help them attract the higher performing students, and there are also some charter schools that end up atttracting the lower performing students. It really depends on the specific charter schools and the student they target and eventually serve.

Gary Miron:

staff at one large EMO, National Heritage Academy reported to me that they expect $1,000 per student in profit per year. We did out own analysis and found that their Michigan schools had a “cost advantage of $1,033 per pupil/year. Not bad for profit. And that does not count the equity the company (i.e., sister company) acquires through the facilities that are paid off in a little more than 5 year.

Nelson Smith:

Gary -- The question is not how much NHA is making but how well their kids are learning!

Gary Miron:

The issue is not the unmotivated parent, the issue is the uninformed or misinformed parent, and it is also whether parents have transportation (when required) to actually choose. There is a large body of international studies on which types of parents choose.

Chris Barbic:

A 6th grader in ALL of Houston has a 7% chance of graduating from college. Given this stat, all of our students are at risk. 90% of YES Prep students are first-generation college-bound.

Gary Miron:

In increasing number of cases, the EMO comes before the school board is established. I would like for charter school boards to consider at least 3 bids for EMOs before hiring one. How ‘bout that.

Nelson Smith:

Israel -- In three big state studies (FL, TX, and CA), RAND and other researchers found that kids who enroll in charters really are disproportionately behind their peers academically. So while some of our schools explicitly cater to “at-risk” kids, a whole lot of charters do enroll kids who have at least started to slip.....

Nelson Smith:

Jeffrey -- Lots of charters administer their own value-add testing. Check out Terra nova or NWEA for those purposes.

Chris Barbic:

Steve, 9% of YES Prep students qualify for Special Ed services and 100% of the graduating seniors have been accepted to four-year colleges. Charters are at an advantage because they foster strong relationships and small class size.

Gary Miron:

It is outrageous, and its very unfortunate.

Chris Barbic:

It’s inaccurate.

Nelson Smith:

I’ll just say this: Some really, really bad “research” has purpoted to make the conclusion Gary just typed. There is no movement more committed to expanding opportunity -- and I cite Chris Barbic as one example - -than the charter movement.

Thanks everyone. We’d love your feedback. What did you think of the format of this chat?
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Chris Barbic:

I appreciate everyone’s interest in the charter school movement and our collective efforts to improve student outcomes for ALL kids.