Education

More Evidence: Anti-Charter Bias is Reality-Based

by Clay Burell

categories: Charter Schools, Education And Business, Education Politics

Published June 26, 2009 @ 01:04AM PT

In his June 25 Huffington Post column, Gerald Bracey makes a really important point about the argument that charter schools don't drain public schools of funds because "charters are public schools." Responding to EdSec Arne Duncan's recent claim on Democracy Now! (video above) that "opponents often say that charters take money away from public schools. And we all know that's absolutely misleading," Bracey writes:

No, Arne, we don't all know that because it's not true. Some, and Arne appears to be one of them, contend that since charter schools are public schools, then Q.E.D., they don't take money away from the publics. The more usual argument is that the money going to charters is offset by reduced costs at the remaining public schools. But this is not the case. It might be true if all the kids going to the charter left from Mrs. Smith's class in P. S. 101. Then we could fire Mrs. Smith. Even so, the school operating costs, transportation costs, administrative costs, etc., would remain the same. But, in fact, maybe only 3 kids leave from Mrs. Smith's class. Because money is allocated on a per-pupil basis, that's three fewer allocations. Costs are not lowered but resources are reduced. And if the three kids return to the pubic school, as happens in many cases, the money does not come back with them.

As important is Bracey's straight talk about the recent report from Stanford's Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), funded by many pro-charter camps, that found a two-to-one margin of bad charters to good charters, according to lead author Margaret E. Raymond, and according to its press release "reveals in unmistakable terms that, in the aggregate, charter students are not faring as well as their traditional public school counterparts."

Duncan has already committed himself to charters as a major pillar of his ed reform package in his speeches and, worse, in what amounts to his extortion to states to either lift their caps on charters or else disqualify themselves from his $5 billion "Race to the Top" fund. (It must be cool to have Bill Gates' ed reform clout by being given $5 billion in taxpayer dollars to push the Gates and Business Roundtable agenda.) So this study surely makes all his missionary zeal for charters a bit embarrassing. Duncan addressed it by saying,

The CREDO report last week was absolutely a wake-up call, even if you dispute some of its conclusions or its language. The charter movement is putting itself at risk by allowing too many second-rate and even third-rate schools to continue to exist.

Bracey's response:

Wake up call? Arne, was living in Chicago like living in China? Did Daley preclude you from hearing news from the outside world? Charter schools have been found to be underperforming for over a decade.

Moreover, if the CREDO results are true, Arne, why are you blackmailing states with threats to withhold stimulus money unless they permit charters or lift charter caps? The logic here is astonishing. Suppose I invent a medicine and find it helps 17% of people, doesn't do anything for 46% and hurts 37%. Would the FDA approve and tout my medicine? CREDO is a Stanford University-based think tank and its findings were that kids in charters did better than matched peers in publics in 17% of the cases, worse in 37% and neither better nor worse 46% of the time. As I closed my chapter on charters in Setting the Record Straight (second edition), "Charter schools were born of perceived failures in public schools. So, if the charters are doing worse than the publics, where is the outrage about them?" Where indeed, Arne?

It's too soon to tell, but I think it's a safe bet that Duncan will tout the brand name charters - KIPP, Green Dot, and such - as the "good charters," and promote them, and brand independent and local charters as the "second-rate and even third-rate" "bad" charters. Which means those public funds will be drained from public schools into fewer and fewer - and happier and happier - Charter Management Organizations.

Isn't it funny how the Obama administration is pushing for a public health care plan against HMO's, while he's pushing against public schools for CMO's and private charters? If the HMO's wanted a good argument against the government's faith in its ability to provide good social services, it should just point to the Department of Education.

In any case, check out Bracey's article on HuffPo. He grades a few more parts of Duncan's speech that I don't mention here.