Friday, July 6, 2012

More thoughts on Charter Punditry & Declarations of Certainty « School Finance 101

More thoughts on Charter Punditry & Declarations of Certainty « School Finance 101:


More thoughts on Charter Punditry & Declarations of Certainty

I’m a little late in pouncing on this one. JerseyJazzMan beat me to the punch with some relevant points.  A short while back, the Wall Street Journal posted an op-ed by Deborah Kenny, CEO of New York based charter chainHarlem Village AcademiesKenny’s op-ed purported to explain why charter schools are successful.  Of course, we could spend all day on that contention alone, since it is relatively well understood that charter results have been mixed at best. Indeed, I have explained in my published work and in blog posts that the track record for certain charter chains and in certain settings seems stronger than in others.
Here is how Deborah Kenny explained why charters succeed (implicitly where traditional public schools do not):
Critics claim that charter schools are successful only because they cherry-pick students, because they have smaller class sizes, or because motivated parents apply for charter lotteries and non-