Separating fact from fiction in 21 claims about charter schools
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools released a report last year titled “Separating Fact & Fiction: What You Need to Know About Charter Schools,” which takes 21 statements that it calls “myths” about charters and attempts to debunk them, one by one. Now three education researchers have completed a fact-checking analysis of the charter report, coming to some difference conclusions about each myth. Following is part of the new analysis, which was published by the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, and which you can find in full, complete with extensive footnotes on the NEPC website. (I have removed the footnotes and endnotes from the text in this post but you can see them,as well other parts of the report, here.)
This analysis was written by Gary Miron, William J. Mathis and Kevin G. Welner. Miron is a professor of evaluation, measurement, and research at Western Michigan University. Mathis is the managing director of the NEPC and a former Vermont superintendent. Welner is the director of the NEPC as well as an attorney and a UC Boulder professor of education policy.
Here are the first two parts of the seven-part fact-checking analysis of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools report:
By Gary Miron, William J. Mathis and Kevin G. Welner
Introduction
Separating Fact & Fiction: What You Need to Know about Charter Schools is a concise policy document assembled by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS). No authors or contributors are identified. The paper (we use the term “report” throughout this review) lists 21 common “myths” about charter schools, which it then summarily rejects.
There exists an extensive body of research around charter schools, including a great deal of scholarly work published in peer-reviewed journals. The NAPCS report attempts to support its claims in response to the 21 “myths” with a narrative that includes 47 endnote references. But a closer look at these endnotes reveals that 15 of the citations came from NAPCS (the group that prepared the report), and another eight are from two reports produced by the school-choice department at the University of Arkansas, which have been strongly critiqued for advocacy-driven problems.
Because the report relies almost exclusively on other advocacy documents, does not give a balanced or thorough examination of any of the “myths,” and does not provide more than superficial research evidence to support its position that the myths are indeed false, this review will use the more neutral and factual term “criticism” instead of “myth.” The 13-page report is written for a lay audience and is beautifully laid out with colorful text and photographs of children. The criticisms are organized across four general areas: (i) charter school resources, (ii) students served, (iii) performance, and (iv) accountability and impact.
II. Findings and Conclusions of the Report
Although the NAPCS report claims to “set the record straight on the truth Separating fact from fiction in 21 claims about charter schools - The Washington Post:
