In the recent New York Times article, "Message from a Charter School: Thrive or Transfer," author, Michael Winerip, uses a situation with one New York family to ruminate on an issue that is especially prevalent with charter schools in the Baltimore area. As he says, " do [charter schools] cherry-pick students, if not by gaming the admissions process, then by counseling out children who might be more expensive or difficult to educate — and who could bring down their test scores, graduation rates and safety records." In this case, the student in question was admitted to the school and then dismissed from the school to P.S. 75, all with the child's best interests in mind according to the charter school's officials. Now, it is worth noting that the child is now thriving in his new environment, and in this case, the decision may very well have been the correct one.
However, I do not believe, simply from my own experience that this is always the case here in Baltimore. Working at a traditional PK-8 school, we often receive transfer students out of charter schools. As might be expected, the number one reason for a student's transfer is a dismissal from the charter school for behavior problems. As a result, my school becomes a dumping ground for those that the charter school has deemed too difficult to manage. Is this fair? When students are deemed too difficult to manage in a normal environment within normal K-8s, they are sent to alternative programs for smaller class sizes, not away from charters for often bigger class sizes. Should charters function outside of this system, inherently assuming that they are “above” traditional schools in the pecking chain?
3 comments:
Aaron,
You bring up an interesting point. Charter schools can, more or less, "choose" the students they educate, whereas over here in public school land, we take any and every child, regardless of prior test scores or behavior problems. Are charters cherry-picking on a large scale? I have no way of knowing. I do know, though, that I had students with behavior problems who had traveled from school to school -- whether some were charters or not, I don't know. Principals seem to be passing off these kids to get rid of their headaches (and rightfully so: in many cases, these kids really need an alternative education setting). It's incredibly disruptive as a teacher, which just makes it harder to reach the NCLB goals that are supposed to be completely within our reach. So even if charters are cherry-picking, public schools are also doing their own little musical chair dance with the "bad" kids.
Steph - I think you're right about public schools also working to get the most disruptive students into alternative settings or other schools. I recall a few times this year our IEP team and administrators giving each other high-fives when we finally got certain students "out" of the school. While this seems like a major injustice for these students, schools often have no other choice. Our school, for example, has a very limited number of special educators and very little support or training for teachers regarding ED students or general behavior management. For our five most difficult students this year, we realized they were unable to succeed given the environment at our school and we hoped they would be more successful in an alternative setting. As Moskowitz says in the article, we were "acting in the student's best interest" by working to get them out of our school. But how can we really say that if we aren't sure what the alternative setting will actually provide the student?
It seems to me that charter schools do the same thing, but on a larger scale, because...well, because they can. As a result, charter schools earn higher scores and can more easily create a culture of achievement - which, when reported by the media (without acknowledging the fact of their closed admission) make charter schools seem like the obvious fix for education in our country.
To me the most interesting aspect of this conversation about charter "cherry-picking" is the fact that the research shows that charter schools do not necessarily outperform regular public schools. Perhaps charters have an easier time of dismissing students because of their reputation, but exactly what is that reputation standing on? Certainly not the standardized test scores that city and state officials are using as a measure of academic success. (This in itself is problematic; however, it is another conversation entirely.) I find it very interesting that so many people, parents in particular, will avidly defend choice and charter schools when there is really no clear indication that these schools are any more or less successful that their public counterparts.
In light of this, does it really matter that charter schools are very obviously screening students on the basis of behavior? Surely this is not the only barrier to student learning and success. Aren't many non-charters doing the same thing by bouncing children around from school to school in search of a setting that can better serve them as students? I'm not sure why we have been indoctrinated to believe that choice and charters are part of the solution. Doesn't privatizing public education seem rather counterintuitive?
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