Casting Doubt on The Fordham Institute's Flypaper

The Fordham Institute has a study out today that is so full of shit I can smell it through my computer. They looked at Charter vs. District School turn arounds of federally titled "failing schools." They concluded (of course) that charter schools were more successful and that the federal government should be spending more on charter schools. The findings did come with an asterisk. They mentioned a caveat noting that, "because of the small sample size, the results cannot be deemed statistically significant."

Below is the comment I left:

What was the average percentage of teachers and administrators remaining in district schools vs. charter schools?

I know in NYC, most district turn around models keep the same school personal. Perhaps it has less to do with the district vs. charter status and more to do with the #of school personal remaining. In that case closing down public schools and replacing them with new public schools would work just as well. I am not sure why you are obsessed with the proliferation of charter schools.
You said there had to be “No more than a 10 percentage point difference in their subsidized lunch and minority enrollments” for your comparison.

I would like to know what the average difference in the enrollment of ELLS, SPED, Disabled, Homeless and High Poverty was. An 8 percent difference in one of those categories might not be a big deal, but an increase in all of them would represent a pretty different type of school.
The reality is not that Charter schools can’t scale up. The reality is that they don’t want to turn around failing schools. In NYC (a city where charter schools go to court to fight for building space) only one of the many charter chains submitted an application to turn around a failing school this year.
http://gothamschools.org/2011/03/22/in-a-first-a-charter-operator-will-try-to-turn-around-a-failing-charter/

They don’t want to turn around those schools because the best predictor of success in turn around schools is the percentage of same students (not similar population) that remain at the school. (Is that true? My guess is yes, but we don’t know. It seems like a fundamental question to answer in your research.

On average, charter schools nationally have recognized that the best way to keep the “high performing label” is to not enroll the same students as district schools and if they do enroll, push them out in higher numbers. Turning around failing schools, keeping the same students, is not in charter schools’ business plans.
http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/the-offensively-defensive-ideology-of-charter-schooling/

It wasn’t in Arny Duncan’s business plans in Chicago either.
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/restrict.asp?path=archive/23_03/arne233.shtml

JUST FOR FUN: EDUCATION DEFORMER LOOK A LIKE CONTEST

Michael Bloomberg                                              Tony Blair

                                               













            Chris Christie                                                              Tony Soprano

                                                                                                                         


Arne Duncan                                                                 Michael Phelps

Joel Klein                                                                           Mr. Burns

Eliminating Seat Time helps the Regents Commissioner's Family

Up for consideration by the board of regents is the issue of eliminating seat time as a requirement for a student to receive credit in a class. You don't need to be an genius to know that students who could not meet standards state standards with a teacher in the classroom will not be able to meet the standards without a teacher in the classroom. So why is the board of regents really interested in eliminating the seat time requirement?

Replacing teachers with software is cheap and makes it look as though students are learning something even if the students take the same computerized test enough times to memorize the answers rather than learning concepts.

The less obvious answer is that it opens the door to companies peddling online courses in lieu of classroom instruction. One such company, k12.com, ($384 million in sales last year) is run by Andrew Tisch, brother-in-law to NY State Board of Regents Chair Merryl Tisch. Watch K12's stock when the helpful sister-in-law eliminates the seat time requirement next month.

Recently the city has promoted the use of value added scores to evaluate teachers. It will be interesting to see the value added score for each of these online classes.

EDUWONK + School of Thought = Spokesman for the Charter School Industry

Andrew J. Rotherham writes a column for Time.com called School of Thought.  Each of his articles has a decidedly pro charter school, pro privatization slant. There is a disclosure at the bottom of each article that reads, "Andrew J. Rotherham... is a co-founder of and partner at Bellwether Education, a nonprofit working to improve educational outcomes for low-income students." But, is imporving educational outcomes Bellwether's only mission?

I decided to dig a little deeper in to Bellwether's finances to see if there was a connection to charter school operators or other entities which seek to privatize public education which Rotherham often praises. Not surprisingly privatization proponents make up a disproportionate share of Bellwether's revenue stream.

If we go a step further and look at Bellwether Education Tax filing 2009 we find that of the $1.8 million in operational expenses that Bellwether had in 2009, $585,654 went to the top two salaried employees and one contractor. Rotherham's share -$115,000. With over a 30 percent of Bellweather's revenue going to three people I think their mission statement should be clarified. They seek to improve educational outcomes for low income students and to enrich their executives. When we understand that personal financial gain is a major part of Bellwether's mission it is hard to view any of Rotherham's articles as anything other than a paid advertisements for his clients - the charter school industry.

One glaring inaccuracy came in a recent article Rotherham wrote in defense of Mayor Bloomberg (another charter school advocate.) Writing about the failed leadership of NYC public school chancellor Cathie Black. Rotherham wrote in his time.com column, “The Mayor of New York made a bad decision for the schools — and to his credit owned up to it, and addressed it.”. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. In reality Bloomberg refused to address any aspect of his appointment of Cathie Black or her tenure as chancellor. Here is what actually happened.

“At the press conference, Bloomberg emphasized that he would not answer questions about Black’s brief time as Chancellor, and repeatedly said that it was important to look forward.”

http://theforumnewsgroup.com/2...

Rotherham and his clients stand to gain hundreds of millions of dollars from Bloomberg's pro privatization and pro charter school agenda. His defense of the the mayor is an all too predictable example how Rotherham uses his position at Time.com to create financial gains for his clients, Bellwether education and ultimately himself.

Is legend helping the kids, or are the kids helping legend

Philanthropy or Advertising?

Philanthropy is great, but at what point does philanthropy become another way to advertise? John Legend is walking a fine line with the “Philanthrotisement” below.  The images above appeared on the internet radio website, Pandora.  Singer John Legend is pictured here with students from Harlem Village Academy where he is a major financial supporter and sits on the Board (with new school Chancellor Cathie Black.) 

It is commendable that Legend is taking an interest in education and making financial contributions to schools, however, philanthropy is not the first word that comes to mind when looking the image above with a caption that reads, “CLICK HERE TO ADD THE JOHN LEGEND MIXTAPE.” It looks like John Legend is using the school and its students to bolster his image, sell more records and ultimately collect more royalties. To be fair, a donation is made to his charitable organization every time you forward the mix tape to one of your friends. On the other hand, Pandora pays Legend royalties each time you play his track.

DOE Waste?

Is it really possible that the DOE is spending 30 million dollars on home instruction for 183 students?

This can't be correct, I hope someone corrects me.

The Economist: Wrong About Money

An article in the Economist states, "Education spending in America has increased to $9,000 per student today, versus $4,300 in 1971 (adjusted for inflation), yet math and reading scores in the country have both flatlined."


It interesting to cite this fact then point to the Harlem Children's Zone charter school as an example of a school that works. HCZ charter school spends far more per student than any traditional public school. There are two certified teachers in most classrooms. Class sizes are very small and students have access to an incredible network of social services through HCZ. If you are trying to make the point that money will not solve the problem's in education, this charter school actually proves the opposite.

Before you can educate poor urban youth, you need to address basic needs. Do they have food, clean clothes, health care and a safe home? School and learning doesn't happen until those basic needs are addressed. Geoffrey Canada recognizes this and provides those services to the children living in the HCZ. Its a great model, but who is going to pay for it? Goldman Sachs doesn't fund everyone's school.