Charter Schools in New York City: good or bad?

EDITORIAL

Better Charter Schools in New York City

Published: February 22, 2013, The New York Times

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From a national standpoint, the 20-year-old charter school movement has been a disappointment. More than a third of these independently run, publicly funded schools are actually worse than the traditional public schools they were meant to replace. Abysmal charter schools remain open for years, even though the original deal was that they would be shut down when they failed to perform. New York City’s experience, however, continues to be an exception.

For the second time in three years, a rigorous study by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes shows that the typical New York City charter school student learns more in a year in reading and math than his or her peers in their neighborhood district schools. The difference, over a typical year, amounts to about a month’s more learning in reading — and a whopping five months’ more learning in math.

That is good news, especially given the fact that about three-quarters of the city’s charter school children come from poor families. But a mixed picture emerged when the Stanford researchers measured charter schools on students’ learning growth (year-to-year improvement) as well as their overall achievement, as compared with the city as whole.

The data show that not all charter schools shared equally in the gains in reading. Nearly half, in fact, turned out to be slow-growth schools that may not be helping low-achieving students improve their reading skills quickly enough. This could lead to those students falling further and further behind.

The Stanford center rocked the education world in 2009 with a nationalstudy finding that only 17 percent of charter schools offered students a better education, as measured by test scores, and that an astounding 37 percent offered a worse one. Against this standard, New York is doing well, according to the new study, especially in math, where 63 percent of the charter schools studied outperformed their traditional district schools and only 14 percent performed worse. In reading, however, only 22 percent of the charter schools outpaced their public school counterparts, while 25 percent lagged behind their peer district schools.

The new Stanford study, which covers charter school performance from 2006 to 2011, does not explain New York’s overall success. But the city has some clear advantages over other places. It has a rigorous process for licensing charters and strong oversight. It gives charter operators free school space and provides administrative support so that they can more easily comply with state and federal laws. The city is also a magnet for education talent, drawing successful charter school management organizations, like Kipp and Uncommon Schools, that can replicate good instructional techniques. According to the Stanford researchers, 30 percent of New York’s children in charters are enrolled in schools run by management organizations, as opposed to about 20 percent nationally.

The difference in educational quality between affiliated schools and independent charters is striking. In reading, for example, children in schools operated by management organizations learned significantly more than their traditional public school peers, while students in unaffiliated charters learned significantly less.

Currently only about 5 percent of city children are enrolled in charters. This new study offers clear guidance on how the city should build on a strong charter school record. It should be shutting down charters that perform poorly, and when making decisions about awarding new charters it should give preference to groups that already run high-performing schools.