Charter Schools, An Exchange: Part V
Dmitri Mehlhorn and I continue our exchange about charter schools.
Part I: Mehlhorn's opener.
Part II: My reply.
Leave your thoughts in the comments below. My final reply will be up shortly.
- See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2015/11/charter-schools-exchange-part-v.html#sthash.9zeoFDZA.dpuf* * *
Five Questions for Charter Critics
Jazzman-Mehlhorn Episode V
Reform skeptic Jersey Jazzman is hosting a debate about charter schools. He and I have spent 4 posts and about 10,000 words discussing the past few years’ worth of research by charter advocates, detractors, and academics. We will probably have a “long tail” of comments in social media, but this is the final formal installment of my appeals to Jazzman and the other skeptics who have engaged over the past year or so, including Sue Alexander, Dr. John Thompson, Deb Stahl, Jack Covey, Ajay Srikanth, Daniel Katz, Greg Clark, Mindy Rosier, Ben Spielberg, Peter Greene, Ben Faber, Randi Weingarten, Dr. Bruce Baker, Gail Richmond, Ed Harris, Jennifer Berkshire, and others.
If you’re up for it, I have five questions for all of you. Of course, this is not an exhaustive list – we could talk for years about test scores, poverty, fixed costs, and other issues. But in the spirit of trying to make progress in at least some areas, I’d be grateful for your honest take in these five areas, not conflated with other issues.
(1) Jazzman, why don’t TPS test results go down as charters expand?
Mark, the skeptics’ most common and most powerful arguments involve “skimming.” Compared to TPS [traditional public schools], these arguments claim that charter