Well, about 4,593 of you emailed me with the original NYT article that bashed charter schools. And about half again as many emailed me with the follow-up articles bashing NYT reporter Diana Schemo and the AFT.
OK, so I exaggerate on the number of emails. Still, it does seem that the most fiskity stuff happens when I'm out of commission.
Sayeth the NYT:
The findings, buried in mountains of data the Education Department released without public announcement, dealt a blow to supporters of the charter school movement, including the Bush administration.
The data shows fourth graders attending charter schools performing about half a year behind students in other public schools in both reading and math. Put another way, only 25 percent of the fourth graders attending charters were proficient in reading and math, against 30 percent who were proficient in reading, and 32 percent in math, at traditional public schools.
Because charter schools are concentrated in cities, often in poor neighborhoods, the researchers also compared urban charters to traditional schools in cities. They looked at low-income children in both settings, and broke down the results by race and ethnicity as well. In virtually all instances, the charter students did worse than their counterparts in regular public schools.
On the other hand, one of the benefits of being out of commission is that everyone's already done the heavy fisking for me:
UnterGeek: What the story doesn’t seem to take into account, however, is the history of the surveyed fourth-graders. Were they in public schools for their third-grade year? Were they significant under-achievers before, and that’s why their parents put them in the charter school? What were the test scores like the previous year? Was there any noticeable improvement over the previous year?
Joanne Jacobs: Most charters are new schools still getting up to speed. Charter teachers often are young and inexperienced, though idealistic. I've seen a lot more troubled than cream-of-the-crop students in charters. But the bottom line is that the charter concept doesn't guarantee that every new school will work; it promises that ineffective schools will improve quickly or shut down. (And here's more linky goodness from her FoxNews column.)
SharkBlog: The national teacher unions are expected to pour millions of dollars (taken out of union dues skimmed from teacher salaries) into Washington state this election to try to defeat our charter school law. Expect to see more anti-charter propaganda from the teacher unions over the next couple of months.
Opinion Journal: It is not unusual for interest groups to issue misleading reports that further their political agenda. And for this reason, newspapers generally ignore them, treat them with great skepticism, or make sure they vet the study with independent observers. Not so in the case of the recently released study of charter schools issued by the American Federation of Teachers, which, after receiving top billing in the right-hand corner of the front page of yesterday's New York Times, was picked up by news media across the country.
The New York Post: The Times claims that the NAEP-based comparison "shows charter school students often doing worse than comparable students in regular public schools." Yet, on key comparisons, especially by students' race, there is no statistically significant difference between the performance of kids in charter schools and traditional public schools. This is especially salient considering how heavily charter schools are patronized by black and Hispanic families. Their kids aren't doing worse in charter schools.
Rod Paige: The New York Times' front-page 'analysis' of charter schools used faulty methodology to come up with a flawed conclusion. In other words, it was wrong. The Times made no distinction between students falling behind and students climbing out of the hole in which they found themselves. The Times grudgingly conceded that 'tracking students over time might present findings more favorable' to charter schools—but that point was buried at the end of the story.
Eduwonk: Most importantly, though, when one controls the grade 4 data for race it turns out there is no statistically significant difference between charter schools and other public schools. But, you'll search in vain in the Times story for that context. In fact, to the contrary, a chart accompanying the story fails to offer readers any significance tests for the numbers they're looking at, inaccurately indicating that there are significant differences by race.
Redline Rants: Simply put, the NYT is wrong. Federal data actually shows no difference between charter schools and traditional schools that serve large populations of disadvantaged and minority students. And studies show students in charter schools often make significant strides in key subjects after transferring out of public schools and attending charter schools for a period of time.
And Jay P. Greene gets the award for best analogy:
The New York Sun: Buried in a new report by the U.S. Department of Education is a comparison claiming to show that charter schools — independently run public schools free from many restrictions — have lower average test scores than regular public schools. A front page New York Times story, put together with the help of America’s second-largest teachers union, recently trumpeted this previously obscure statistic. But the original report buried the finding for a very good reason. Such a broad comparison between charter schools and regular public schools is sheer nonsense. Unlike regular public schools, many charter schools are specifically designed to serve students with low test scores. Denouncing charter schools for having lower-than-average test scores is like denouncing drug rehab clinics for having more drug users than regular hospitals.
Think the Grey Lady will admit they were wrong? Think the Grey Lady will start disclosing what organizations are feeding them data? Think the Grey Lady will start providing links to data so readers can interpret the results for themselves?
I think I'll be grey before that happens...
Posted by kswygert at August 23, 2004 01:36 PM