It’s a Myth That Charter Schools Take Everybody
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| New Issue of Cream and Cherries: CPS: Expulsion rate higher at charter schools - Chicago Tribune |
On March 30, Paul Krugman (the Princeton economist and NY Times opinion writer) wrote a column that introduced the concept of a zombie idea — “an idea that should have been killed by evidence, but refuses to die.” There are a lot of these mythical, zombie ideas in the world of so-called education “reform,” with one of the most persistent being that charter schools do a better job of educating the very same population of children as are enrolled in the surrounding neighborhood public schools.
Charter laws differ from state to state, and most of the states say that charters can’t be selective. If more children apply than there are spaces in the school, the school must hold a lottery. Films like The Lottery and Waiting for Superman have turned these lotteries into rags-to-riches fairy tales. But the fact is that charters rarely educate groups of children who are comparable to the population of children in the neighboring public schools. Like traditional public schools today charter schools are evaluated by the test scores of the children enrolled. Even though students and families are said to be choosing schools, there is a strong disincentive for any school to permit itself to become chosen by a large number of children whose scores are likely to be low.
Here is some of the evidence that disproves the myth that charters educate everybody:
In their new book, 50 Myths and Lies that Threaten America’s Public Schools, Gene Glass and David Berliner describe Tucson, Arizona’s BASIS charter school where, “prospective students were asked to submit a long research paper, an original short story, or an essay on some historical figure they admire. There were interviews of applicants and entrance tests. Parents were asked to fill out a long survey….” (p. 24)
Just over a year ago, Stephanie Simon, writing for Reuters, in Class Struggle–How Charter Schools Get Students They Want, tried to kill the zombie idea that charters educate the very same kind of students as the neighboring public schools and are more successful. Simon wrote: “Thousands of charter schools don’t provide subsidized lunches, putting them out of reach for families in poverty. Hundreds mandate that parents spend hours doing ‘volunteer’ work for the school or risk losing their child’s seat… And from New Hampshire to California,
