Worst Pro-Charter Statement Yet
Today, the Seattle Times ran an editorial by Lynne Varner ("Adding color to the education reform debate") which is, without a doubt, the worst statement in support of charters yet to appear.
Ms Varner proudly quotes a study which reports:
Note that we don't know what share of the charter schools showed performance that was similar to that of traditional public schools, but, if this study's results were anything like what the CREDO study found, it is likely to be around 50% or so. This leaves a very narrow band of charter schools that actually out-performed public schools. This data is not an endorsement of charters; it is a condemnation.
I'm more than a little troubled that Ms Varner can't see this. She has the loudest voice in the state education issues, and she doesn't appear capable of getting information out of data.
Ms Varner proudly quotes a study which reports:
"60% of the charter schools performed with similar or better success than the traditional public schools in reading and 53 percnet (sic) of charter schools performed with similar or better success in math compared to traditional schools."Those of us with math skills instantly recognize that this means that 40% of charters had WORSE results than traditional public schools in reading and 47% of them had WORSE results than traditional public schools in math. Rather than using this data to support the creation of charter schools, I would use these results to oppose them.
Note that we don't know what share of the charter schools showed performance that was similar to that of traditional public schools, but, if this study's results were anything like what the CREDO study found, it is likely to be around 50% or so. This leaves a very narrow band of charter schools that actually out-performed public schools. This data is not an endorsement of charters; it is a condemnation.
I'm more than a little troubled that Ms Varner can't see this. She has the loudest voice in the state education issues, and she doesn't appear capable of getting information out of data.
Comments
And Pennsylvania is having a heck of time right now funding all their school districts properly. So I wouldn't use that state as an example. Not while you have poor school district going broke, without funds to pay teachers and staff and yet have charters run by for profit company suing the district for payment while unwilling to trim their own costs.
Brilliant! The solution is to create a PUBLLIC funded system of haves and have nots. This is what we are creating to solve the academic/opportunity gap?
Disgusted
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/education
/pennsylvania-schools-funding-fight-pits-
district-against-charter.html?pagewanted=2
I also have to wonder if Ms. Varner would enroll her child in a school that show no improvement for the first three years?
What does that mean? And, I'm not being snarky. I really don't know what she's trying to say.
She talks about "updating" our information (always reasonable, I think, and what I look for in whether positions are data or ideologically driven). But, the report link is an organization that says its principles are (1) all children should be educated well and 2) public schools are bad). And, a quick glance didn't include any data on either how public schools are bad or how charters are better (but, instead, concentrated on how many charters there are and how to get more of them.
Is there an update on charters that shows some set of circumstances in which charters reliably perform better than current schools (i.e. a new study?). I know what the Stanford study says, and it is not good data for charters.
(zb)
Well, she's given up on "better" and replaced it with "similar or better."
Does she realize she just gave up the game? Maybe she does, and this is just damage control from an ineffective carnival barker, to preserve her name on the next "who's who" guest list.
WSDWG
n...
The fact that we're talking about kids means nothing to those who see charters as financial workhorses. Where we see children they see dollars. If that isn't evident by now, it never will be.
n...
Apparently Ms. Varner's employment at the Times requires that she only spout the company line. Her articles and opinion pieces are worthless.
Remember when Hands Off Washington fought against the Christian Right carpet-baggers from outside the state who tried to restrict gay rights? I'll be a bunch of LEV folks joined HOW and fought like tigers to turn the carpet-baggers away then. But what about now? Nope.
Now, we have a similar assault aimed at our kids by out of state interests, and LEV is rolling out the red carpet & saying "come on in!" A tad bit of irony here? Hypocrisy perhaps?
Where's the HOW-type outrage against out of state charter carpet baggers and their minions? Can we muster that fight LEV? Or do we not dare touch friends of Bill?
WSDWG
Mr Ed
I would say it would be quite unwise for the Board to expand the list for any reason.
Hell no.
Southie
Mont. mom
For those of new to this stuff that's getting old, the Our Schools Coalition was "coalesced" by the Alliance For Education. League of Education Voters, and Technology Alliance in spring of 2010 for the sole purpose of disseminating a bogus "survey" of people, meant to discredit teachers on the eve of their contract negotiations. (ON the new OSC website, the survey is gone, but its results are in the appendix of the new "Case Study, which lays out the "use 'data' argument") This "survey" was done using names and numbers of families and teachers, gained nefariously from Seattle Public Schools, and had silly, biased questions. When people complained about the bias of the first one, they ran another, almost equally as biased.
The OSC website was thrown up, with little content except for this "survey" and its "results" (excluding the results of the survey questions regarding the superintendent.) It had a list of the "coalition" (Tim Burgess was first signer-on, followed by a couple of other politicos; then you had three or four business orgs, then five or six eductation Reform groups, like LEV and Stand, then about twenty Seattle minority groups....or at least their names: I was in one of these groups, and nobody said nothin' to me about joining OSC, which is no surprise: Like WPTSA, it appears that many groups don't poll their consitutents, they merely lend their names out for political power and qui pro quo. It ain't a coalition of people, much as it would like you toe believe that, but merely a name representing power, lent by a person angling for power.
When it was pointed out that the OSC "survey" methodology said the names came from SPS, it was changed to say the list came from SPS and King County voters records, then it was changed to say it came from just King Co. then it was changed to not say anything about where the names came from. THAT'S a group that stands behind its research methodology!
OSC at first had a contact email, and when one clicked on that, it brought up the email of Strategies 360, a PR form hired by the Alliance. That was quickly changed, too: Can't have people see your "coalition" (that never meets, never discusses, never has done anything) is merely a PR front. (Not incidentally, a Strategies 360 staff member was then hired by SPS....)
Now it seems that OSC, their webpage dormant for 18 months, is back in business: They have a whole new look, but no new content. The "contact us" now eliminates the email completely in favor of one of those fill-in-the info pages, so no one tracks it back to S360 or wherever.
I guess someone deciced to reactivate the "coalition": It's no wonder, Gates and the Alliance have been prime manipulators in all these Reform actions, and their PR machine, Strategies 360, along with some politicos, businesses, and individuals speaking as if they represent groups of people are back onthe warpath.
Let's watch Our Schools Coalition and see what they do next. Also, someone do a FOIA on Alliance, SPS, and Strategies 360 communications. Hmmm.....
WV says OSC is a dealr