But Everybody Knows!

WaPo’s Bill Turque looks at the numbers on kids leaving the city’s charter schools.   Different than the rhetoric…

Update:   Forgot to mention that Lisa Stone ( née Guido) and I wrote a squib for the WaPo on the challenges around this issue a few years ago.

5 Replies to “But Everybody Knows!”

  1. His sources, which include DCPS spokesperson Jennifer Calloway and professional charter school advocate Barnaby Towns, also claim that even this number is offset by students who transfer from DCPS to charter schools.

    That may be what his sources are telling him, but it doesn’t appear to be true, based on the only actual published data that is in the public domain.
    ……
    In addition to that, the actual published data show that during the three-month period November 2007 to January 2008, there were approximately 400 students who transferred from some DC charter school to some DC public school..
    …….
    Now, how about mid-year transfers from DCPS to charter schools? According to the only publicly available data out there, there was a grand total of twenty-one (yes, 21) students who transferred from public to charter schools during the same 3-month time period mentioned earlier (11-08 to 1-09).

    http://gfbrandenburg.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/transfers-from-charters-to-dc-public-schools-are-real/

    It seems some data over time is needed.

  2. In Texas, charters shed their lowest performing students back to neighborhood schools. Some KIPP schools lose over 40% of kids from 6th grade to 8th grade. One set of schools (Harmony Charter Schools) loses over 50%. The difference in the scores of those staying at the KIPP-type charters and those leaving is over .75 standard deviations across all schools and greater than 1 standard deviation in some KIPP schools.

    But don;t let the FACTS bother your pretty little head.

  3. Billy Bob, As I would like to see in the case of DCPS, do you know where to find the mobility stats on Texas charter schools.

  4. They are not publicly available. But someone testified to a legislative committee about it and I think he is going to out them out in a paper.

  5. Billy Bob – what’s your citation on the .75 difference b/w stayers and leavers? I’ve never seen that before.

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