Once again, I must apologize for the long delay in posting a new blog entry. As usual, there is too much to do and not enough time in which to do it! At any rate, a personal update on Toa Nafasi to come shortly, but until then, please have a look at this Diane Ravitch piece that ran on The Huffington Post just last week.
It is in regard to charter schools versus public schools in New York City, and it's interesting to me because I literally JUST had a convo with my friend Trevor, an ESL teacher with experience both here in NYC and abroad (Palestine!!) about what exactly charter schools are, their pros and cons.
Since I spend so much time outside of the U.S., it's also interesting to see just how similar the education systems in various countries around the world are - eastern, western, developing, developed, non-English-speaking and English-speaking - and how similar the failings in these systems can be despite the vast differences in, say, a country's socio-economic status....
After reading this article, I suppose I am suspicious of charter schools as this weird middle ground between public and private. Maybe I don't quite get it, but a comment left by one reader resonated with me: "Private
schools are held accountable by the parents, who can always remove their
kids, and their money, if they are dissatisfied. Public schools are
held accountable by duly elected school boards and if parents aren't
satisfied, they can vote in a new board that can make the changes they
want."
So, who holds these charter schools accountable? Especially when it comes to the issue of weeding out underperformers??
If charter schools are meant to show better results than public schools, then what means are the administrators using to get them? And is Ravitch right in that they "teach to test" with their success rate "built on
a deliberate policy of winnowing out low-performing and nonconformist
students"??
Sounds very familiar....and very unfair....
(Of course, the second sentence in the first para starts the whole damn thing off on the wrong foot, so I guess I should just acknowledge that life is unfair and call the whole thing off....!)
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The New York Times Magazine has a long article about Eva Moskowitz and her chain of charter schools in New York City. The charter chain was originally called Harlem Success Academy, but
Moskowitz dropped the word "Harlem" when she decided to open new schools
in gentrifying neighborhoods and wanted to attract white and
middle-class families.
I spent a lot of time on the phone with
the author, Daniel Bergner. When he asked why I was critical of
Moskowitz, I said that what she does to get high test scores is not a
model for public education or even for other charters. The high scores
of her students is due to intensive test prep and attrition. She gets
her initial group of students by holding a lottery, which in itself is a
selection process because the least functional families don't apply. She enrolls small proportions of students with disabilities and English
language learners as compared to the neighborhood public school. And as
time goes by, many students leave.
The only Success Academy school that has fully grown to grades 3-8
tested 116 third graders but only 32 eighth graders. Three other Success
Academy schools have grown to sixth grade. One tested 121 third graders
but only 55 sixth graders; another 106 third graders but only 68 six
graders; and the last 83 third graders but only 54 sixth graders. Why
the shrinking student body? When students left the school, they were not
replaced by other incoming students. When the eighth grade students who
scored well on the state test took the admissions test for the
specialized high schools like Stuyvesant and Bronx Science, not one of them passed the test.
I also told Bergner that Success Academy charters have among the highest rates of teacher turnover every year, which would not happen if teachers enjoyed the work. Helen Zelon wrote in City Limits:
In Harlem Success Academies 1-4, the only schools for which the state
posted turnover data, more than half of all teachers left the schools
ahead of the 2013-14 school year. In one school, three out of four
teachers departed.
I also told Bergner about a website called Glass Door, where many former teachers at SA charters expressed their candid views
about an "oppressive" work climate at the school. As more of these
negative reviews were posted, a new crop of favorable reviews were
added, echoing the chain's happy talk but not shedding light on why
teachers don't last long there.
Bergner
argued every issue with me. He reiterated Success Academy's talking
points. He said that public schools lose as many students every year as
SA charters; I replied that public schools don't close their enrollment
to new students. Again, defending SA, he said that closing new
enrollments made sense because Moskowitz was "trying to build a
culture," and the culture would be disrupted by accepting new students
after a certain grade. I responded that public schools might want to
"build a culture" too, but they are not allowed to refuse new students
who want to enroll in fourth grade or fifth grade or sixth grade, or
even in the middle of the year.
He did not think it mattered that
none of her successful eighth grade students was able to pass the test
for the specialized high schools, and he didn't mention it in the
article. Nor was he interested in teacher turnover or anything else that
might reflect negatively on SA charters.
Subsequently I heard from his editor, who called to check the
accuracy of the quotes by me. I had to change some of the language he
attributed to me; for example, he quoted me defending "large
government-run institutions," when what I said was "public schools." He
was using SA's framing of my views. I asked whether Bergner had included
my main point about attrition, and the editor said no. I explained it
to her and sent her supporting documentation.
This is the
paragraph that appeared in Bergner's article, which understates the
significance of selective attrition while not mentioning SA's policy of
not accepting new students after a certain grade:
On the topic of scores, the U.F.T. and Ravitch insist that Moskowitz's
numbers don't hold up under scrutiny. Success Academy (like all
charters), they say, possesses a demographic advantage over regular
public schools, by serving somewhat fewer students with special needs,
by teaching fewer students from the city's most severely dysfunctional
families and by using suspensions to push out underperforming students
(an accusation that Success Academy vehemently denies). These are a few
of the myriad factors that Mulgrew and Ravitch stress. But even taking
these differences into account probably doesn't come close to explaining
away Success Academy's results.
This minimizes the stark differences in demographics when comparing her
schools to neighborhood public schools. The Success Academy charters in
Harlem have half as many English language learners as the Harlem public
schools. The Harlem Success Academy 4 school, which has 500 students,
has zero students with the highest special needs as compared to an
average of 14.1 percent in Harlem public schools. This disparity is not
accurately described as "somewhat fewer." It is a very large disparity. Attrition rates are high, which would not be happening if the school was
meeting the needs of students. As I wrote earlier this year:
Moskowitz said [on the Morning Joe show on MSNBC], referring to
the students in her schools, "we've had these children since
kindergarten." But she forgot to mention all the students who have left
the school since kindergarten. Or the fact that Harlem Success Academy 4
suspends students at a rate 300 percent higher than the average in the
district. Last year's seventh grade class at Harlem Success Academy 1
had a 52.1 percent attrition rate since 2006-07. That's more than half
of the kindergarten students gone before they even graduate from middle
school. Last year's sixth grade class had a 45.2 percent attrition rate
since 2006-07. That's almost half of the kindergarten class gone and two
more years left in middle school. In just four years Harlem Success
Academy 4 has lost over 21 percent of its students. The pattern of
students leaving is not random. Students with low test scores, English
Language Learners, and special education students are most likely to
disappear from the school's roster. Large numbers of students disappear
beginning in third grade, but not in the earlier grades. No natural
pattern of student mobility can explain the sudden disappearance of
students at the grade when state testing just happens to begin.
I have no personal grudge against Eva Moskowitz. On the few occasions
when we have appeared together, we have had very cordial conversation. What I deeply oppose -- and this is what I stressed to Bergner and he
deliberately ignored -- is that Success Academy is not a model for
public education. No one expects that Bronx Science is a model because
it does not have open doors; it admits only those who meets its
standards, and they are high. Eva Moskowitz pretends that her schools
get superior results with exactly the same population because of her
superior methods, when in reality the success of her schools is built on
a deliberate policy of winnowing out low-performing and nonconformist
students.
Why did Bergner insist on obscuring this crucial
difference between SA charter schools and public schools? Public schools
can't remove students with low scores. They can't refuse to enroll
students with severe disabilities and students who can't read English. They can't close their enrollment after a certain grade. Unless they
have a stated policy of selective admissions, they must accept everyone
who seeks to enroll, even if they arrive in February or March. Their
doors must be open to all, without a lottery. It is not honest to
pretend that public schools can imitate Moskowitz's practice of
selective attrition. And it is not honest to overlook that difference.
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