The Myth of the Heroic Charter School - Part I
"Heroic" charter school stories are the stock-in-trade of the "reform" industry. These tales take the same basic form:
1) Present some a-contextual data point -- usually having to do with a score on some sort of standardized test -- as proof of a charter school's "success."
2) Posit a causal relationship between the structure and/or practices of the charter school and the data point presented.
3) Imply or state outright that the many factors outside of school classrooms that we know for a fact contribute to student outcomes can be overcome simply by following the model above.There are two reasons these stories make me nuts. The first is the unwarranted braggadocio inherent in the genre: "We rock, you suck!" There's almost a twisted negative correlation between a charter school's leaders' humility and the unacknowledged factors -- attrition, extra funding, peer effects -- that contribute to its "success."
But there's another, more pernicious effect that comes from telling tall tales about charter "success": they keep us from having the conversation we need to have about American schools as engines of social replication.
Case in point:
I think it’s time that the narrative in our country began a fundamental shift – away from “How is it possible to succeed amid all these challenges?” to “How is it possible to remain- See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-myth-of-heroic-charter-school-part-i.html#sthash.QdIXr8QE.dpuf