NJ Charter Report Does NOT Compare "Peer" Schools
The NJ charter school report, put out by CREDO and Stanford University, is not a piece of hack junk. It is, however, sloppy in its use of language. Take pages 5-6:
Except that isn't what the study did at all.
What CREDO did was look at all of the kids going to charter schools and find "twins" for these kids in the public schools. For example, if Michelle and Diane are both in Fifth Grade, both "*not in poverty," both not Limited English Proficient (LEP), both girls, both got similar test scores in 4th and 3rd grade and both don't have a
Compared to the educational gains that charter students would have had in a traditional public school (TPS), the analysis shows that students in New Jerseycharter schools on average make larger learning gains in both reading and mathematics. At the school level, 30 percent of the charter schools have significantly more positive learning gains than their TPS counterparts in reading, while 11 percent of charter schools have significantly lower learning gains. In math, 40 percent of the charter schools studied outperform their TPS peers and 13 percent perform worse. These school-level results are notably more positive than the analogous pattern presented in the 2009 report. [emphasis mine]I've reread this paragraph several times, and there is only one way to interpret it: that CREDO looked at charters and their "counterparts" or "peers" and concluded the charters do better.
Except that isn't what the study did at all.
What CREDO did was look at all of the kids going to charter schools and find "twins" for these kids in the public schools. For example, if Michelle and Diane are both in Fifth Grade, both "*not in poverty," both not Limited English Proficient (LEP), both girls, both got similar test scores in 4th and 3rd grade and both don't have a