The Charter Wars Revisited: “Backfill,” Suspensions, Choice and Authentic Assessment at the Manhattan Institute
The Manhattan Institute (MI) is a conservative think tank, publishes City Journal and supports research; Marcus Winters, a senior fellow and professor at University of Colorado has written a number of papers supporting charter schools. The latest MI event was entitled “Are NYC Charter Schools Doing All They Can to Serve the Neediest Students?”
Winters presented his latest paper, “Pushed Out? Low Performing Students and Charter Schools,” Winters argues,
• Low-performing students are more mobile, regardless of where they are enrolled: in NYC charters as well as traditional public schools, low-performing students are more likely to change schools than their higher-performing peers.
• Low-performing students are not more likely to exit NYC charters than traditional public schools.
• To the extent that higher attrition rates for low-performing NYC students offer cause for concern, they are no less a problem for the city’s traditional public schools than they are for its charters.
Winters agreed there was anecdotal evidence in regard to “push outs,” however due to the lack of transparency there is no hard data, although he did agree that the failure to fill vacated spots in charter schools, commonly called “backfill” was The Charter Wars Revisited: “Backfill,” Suspensions, Choice and Authentic Assessment at the Manhattan Institute | Ed In The Apple:
• Low-performing students are not more likely to exit NYC charters than traditional public schools.
• To the extent that higher attrition rates for low-performing NYC students offer cause for concern, they are no less a problem for the city’s traditional public schools than they are for its charters.
Winters agreed there was anecdotal evidence in regard to “push outs,” however due to the lack of transparency there is no hard data, although he did agree that the failure to fill vacated spots in charter schools, commonly called “backfill” was The Charter Wars Revisited: “Backfill,” Suspensions, Choice and Authentic Assessment at the Manhattan Institute | Ed In The Apple: