Carolina Journal, Volume 13, Number 10, October 2004
http://216.27.16.14/cjprint/display_cjprint.html?id=45

Charter Schools Meeting Students’ Needs: Study Promoted by Teachers Union, New York Times, Called ‘Junk Research’

By CAROLINA JOURNAL STAFF

RALEIGH—Two reports released in mid-September by the North Carolina Education Alliance (NCEA) provide compelling new findings about the state’s diverse and growing charter school movement, suggesting that charter schools are meeting a previously unmet need in the state for educational options.

Charter Schools in North Carolina: Innovation in Education describes the progress of the charter school movement in North Carolina since 1996, and provides a thorough and relevant analysis of the issues and obstacles facing these schools.

It also profiles individual charter schools around the state, including Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy in western North Carolina, John H. Baker Charter School in Raleigh, and Gaston College Preparatory and Haliwa-Saponi Tribal School in eastern North Carolina.

"While charter schools have experienced some of the struggles common to any new reform, this report shows that they are excelling at providing choices for students and families, many of whom have been failed by traditional public schools," said Lindalyn Kakadelis, director of the N.C. Education Alliance and a former teacher and school-board member in Charlotte.

Key highlights of the Innovation in Education report include:

. Charter schools have been shown to lift the performance of other public schools, nationally and in North Carolina, by injecting competition into the local educational market.

. Charter schools serve a heterogeneous group of more than 21,000 North Carolina students, including at-risk pupils, regular students, and poor children.

. Charter schools are by far the most comprehensive example of public school choice in North Carolina, yet they still comprise only about 4 percent of public schools in the state.

. The imposition of rigid state regulations is the foremost obstacle encountered by charter schools, and could severely restrict the long-term growth of the movement.

In addition to the policy report, NCEA simultaneously released a parents’ guide to charter schools. A Choice for Children provides parents with facts and information explaining charter school basics, and shows parents how to get involved in the movement to support charter schools.

Education Reform Leader Speaks

Both reports were released Sept. 14 at an event in Raleigh that helped to launch NCEA’s 2004 fall tour. Jeanne Allen, president of the Washington-based Center for Education Reform, spoke to an audience of school leaders, education reformers, and interested citizens at North Carolina State University’s McKimmon Center about the national charter-school movement and prospects for reform in North Carolina.

Allen informed attendees that education reform stumbled in the early 1990s because of what she called a “top-down error,” because efforts to improve public schools were addressed through administrators, not parents. She said that after 10 years of stagnancy, it became more of a grassroots effort.

"[Public] schools weren't doing a great job in a lot of places in this country," Allen said in Raleigh about the inception of the school reform movement.

She said that because changes were initiated from the education bureaucracy instead of from activist parents, crucial elements were not addressed. “Standards weren’t anywhere on the table,” Allen said. “Testing wasn’t on the table.”

Allen said that despite those “top down” reform efforts, in the early 1990s similar numbers of children and college students still needed remedial education assistance. She said parental involvement in children’s education made the difference.

"Charter schools became the most catalytic reform effort in the early 1990s," she said. She said now 41 states have charter school laws. "It's a pretty amazing turn of events in 13 years," Allen said.

Teachers Union Study Debunked

She also reserved some harsh criticism for the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which released a highly publicized report (on the front page of the New York Times, for starters) that showed charter schools performing poorly on National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores.

According to three Harvard researchers writing in the Wall Street Journal on Aug. 18, NAEP data “show students in charter schools doing less well than the nationwide public-school average, which includes middle-class students from well-heeled suburbs.”

But the researchers—William G. Howell, Paul E. Peterson, and Martin R. West—reported that AFT’s study wasn’t rigorous enough in its analysis. “Big deal,” wrote the researchers. “These results could easily indicate nothing other than the simple fact that charter schools are typically asked to serve problematic students in low-performing districts with many poor, minority children.”

U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige said the study did not compare students’ prior math and reading performance to their proficiency after attending charter schools.

Allen, at the Raleigh event, said the AFT data captured only “one snapshot in time” with a small sampling. But she said that the publicity gained for the study was “a huge challenge to fight. In [charter schools'] entirety," Allen said, "we have a much more positive picture of who we are serving."

Harvard Study Takes Broader Look

Those sentiments were captured in another study by Harvard economics professor Caroline M. Hoxby, who compared the math and reading proficiency of almost all the nation’s charter school students to the test results of those at their nearest public school with similar racial composition.

"Compared to students in the nearest regular public school, charter students are 4 percent more likely to be proficient in reading and 2 percent more likely to be proficient in math, on their state's exams," Hoxby wrote in her study published in September. "Compared to students in the nearest regular public school with a similar racial composition, charter students are 5 percent more likely to be proficient in reading and 3 percent more likely to be proficient in math. "In states where charter schools are well-established, charter school students' proficiency 'advantage' tends to be greater."

In a Sept. 18 article in the Washington Times, Hoxby called the AFT study “junk research” and “misleading.” “A state’s charter school policy cannot be evaluated using the equivalent of one or two classrooms of students,” Hoxby said in the Times about the AFT study.

Still, because charter schools are still relatively new, research is thin and a few more years are needed to properly evaluate their performance. “Although it is too early to draw sweeping conclusions,” Hoxby said, “the initial indications are that the average student attending a charter school has higher achievement than he or she otherwise would.”

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