Also, inquiring minds note the sleight of hand that redefines the cohort by looking at kids who stay enrolled K-8. This eliminates all the lottery winners who were weeded out and/or had needs the charters were unable or unwilling to address.
JMB
At 01:31 PM 9/22/2009 -0400, you wrote:
Lots of PR spin about the new charter school study by Caroline Hoxby. No quote from any possible critic or skeptic except in Daily news article. Nor is there any mention of following facts in any of the articles:
1- Hoxby is a very controversial figure , a conservative economist, who has been accused of skewing her analyses before to benefit the notion of vouchers and charters. See this controversy sparked by her pro-voucher study of school quality based on whether they were near "streams": http://www.thecrims
2- One of the prime advantages of most charters, if they do indeed show better results, is their smaller classes. In NYC, this results from the fact that DOE has allowed them to cap enrollment and class size at far lower levels than most regular public schools in NYC.
3- it is difficult if not impossible to figure out how much of the advantage at charter schools, in addition to smaller class size, might be due to "peer effects"; ie charter school students are surrounded by other students from more motivated families, who know they can be kicked out at any sign of slacking off or disciplinary trouble. This is certainly not the case in regular public schools; where the students who "lose" the charter school lotteries are surrounded by students from less motivated households, who are also less afraid of being forced out of school for bad behavior or poor performance.
Thus, whether the entire comparison is fair is quite debatable.
From: Feinberg Marge
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:02 AM
To: &News Clippings
Subject: Daily News Clips
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Tuesday, September 22, 2009
INDEX
Study Shows Better Scores for Charter School Students
New York Times
Students who entered lotteries and won spots in New York City charter schools performed better on state exams than students who entered the same lotteries but did not secure charter school seats, according to a study by a Stanford University economist being released Tuesday.
Charter schools, which are privately run but publicly financed, have been faring well on standardized tests in recent years. But skeptics have discounted their success by accusing them of “creaming” the best students, saying that the most motivated students and engaged parents are the ones who apply for the spots.
http://www.nytimes.
4 comments:
Caroline Hoxby, who conducted this so-called "study," is not an impartial academic researcher. She's a longtime, high-profile proponent of free-market "solutions" and privatization. Her work should not be treated like credible academic research; it's advocacy -- or propaganda, if you will.
I'm really shocked that the mainstream press is not even including disclaimers to this effect in its massive hyping of this so-called study. That truly violates media standards and ethics, and misleads the reader.
Here an analysis of the flawed study itself, by a New York blogger. But to me it's also a huge issue that the press has simply abandoned its standards and ethics by reporting on this propaganda as if it were credible academic research.
http://morethoughtful.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-is-gold-standard.html
School choice isn’t crucial to anything but the propigation of your myth. What does matter is that people work to improve our public schools. Irregardless, you are nothing but a paid propagandist, and need to be exposed as such. You and the misinformation you offer are the cause of many problems for our children. It disturbs me that you sprinkle in just enough misinformation in a propagndistic message to steal from the future of our children. I honestly don’t know how you sleep at night.
Irregardless [sic], I would say...if you have issues with Prof. Hoxby, there are academic means available to express them. If she is a fraud, why not pull together some of her colleagues to publicly confront her? Where are all these protesters? Without their voice, she has all the trappings of academic authority, and the Harvard Crimson story wears a little thin.
Remember the Bell Curve folks? Those guys were rightfully skewered, because they used their elementary misconceptions about basic math to promote racist beliefs. There was a huge outcry against them, discrediting their work. If Hoxby is also mistaken or biased, where is this outcry from her peer community, which is empowered and expected to hold her accountable in like fashion?
That said, is this tired old "motivation" argument all charter opponents can muster in response to this report? Again, the district school students are left to wallow in misery with the rest of their unmotivated, disenchanted peers while charter families happily sing their songs together, with loving motivation.
This argument is blatantly offensive and has no basis in reality. There are motivated families everywhere, and there is a difference between "unmotivated" and "turned off." Charters typically focus on increasing motivation and building it.
I have had families in my charter school enroll for weeks before even realizing they were IN a charter school! Signing on the dotted line was actually easier than going through the district kindergarten registration - we actually call families back!
District schools (in my experience, which is in poor communities) typically do whatever they can to stamp out parent engagement. All too often parents are seen as the enemy. Is it any wonder that families in district schools are less engaged?
It isn't the parent's fault, so stop blaming him or her. Charters aren't sorting through who would get involved and who would not. It's the system that is creating this distinction!
Kitchen Sink
You call for a critique of Hoxby's study yet Carolyn points to a web site that offers a critique of the study. Check it out and then respond.
http://morethoughtful.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-is-gold-standard.html
On the Hoxby credibility issue. History does matter.
As Leonie said:
Hoxby is a very controversial figure , a conservative economist, who has been accused of skewing her analyses before to benefit the notion of vouchers and charters. See this controversy sparked by her pro-voucher study of school quality based on whether they were near "streams": http://www.thecrimson.com/printerfriendly.aspx?ref=508253 (this story, coincidentally, was written by Javier Hernandez as undergraduate at Harvard, before he was hired by the NY Times.)
It is easy to fit studies to your ideology when you have a dog in the race.
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