In 2009, Caroline Hoxby published her report on charter school performance for the "New York City Charter Schools Evaluation Project". While Hoxby looked at many variables in her report, I am going to focus on two. The first is the population a charter school in New York City serves; Hoxby found that schools are more likely to serve African American students than either Asian or Caucasian students. The second finding in the 85 page report is that student continuously enrolled in a charter school are out performing students who either left the school, or were not accepted in the lottery.
The first is important because it addresses the the accusation placed on charter schools for separating African American and Hispanic students from Asian and Caucasian students. Hoxby finds this trend in New York City, based upon the location of the charter school, and is not an intentional result of the lottery process.
The second topic is important because, the lottery (which Hoxby finds to be truly random), works. Furthermore, if the lottery works then charter schools in New York City are performing their role be increasing student achievement for continuously enrolled students.
This finally begs the question: If charter schools are to co-exist with public schools, yet out perform public schools, what are the charters doing that the city can emulate?
To read this publication in full: How New York City's Charter Schools Affect Achievemnt
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ReplyDeleteA major concern the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) points to on the issue of charter schools is that charter schools do not enroll percentages of English language learners or special education students comparable to those of non-charter public schools. (An article by New York City Charter School Center (http://nyccharterschools.org/) notes that the UFT’s charter school itself also experiences this trend.)
ReplyDeletePerhaps a way to have charter schools reflect the populations that non-charters enroll, is to have the lottery “entries” be put into different pots, so to speak. Comparable percentages from each subgroup (ELLs, students with IEPs/special education students) would then be chosen. For example, if a neighborhood enrolls 25% special education students, and 20% ELLs and there are 100 slots for the charter school, then 25 students would be pulled from the “students with IEPs” pot and 20 students would be pulled from the “ELLs” pot. The other 55% (55 spots) would then be filled by other students (non-ELLs and non-IEP students). I am not sure if students who are ELLs and have IEPs would then have two lottery entries, one for each subgroup pot. I am not addressing an ethnicity or race pot, since many charters are already concentrated in highly minority communities. Of 99 charter schools in New York City, 23 of them have been opened in Harlem alone, for example.