One difference - you can close the failing charters. Failing public schools are virtually immortal.
Another difference - choice is also valuable.
> * Finland, the movie's model school system, is entirely unionized, has much lower poverty, and has a stronger social safety net than the US.
Finland is less populous than LA, almost all interactions involve relatives and long-term acquaintances, and it's all proto-Scandanavians.
The last point is important - anything works if you just have to deal with Scandanavians (or Mormons).
> * While the movie points out that only 0.04% of teachers ever lose their certificate, it omits the fact that 50% of new teachers leave the profession within 5 years, mostly because of working conditions.
Apples and Oranges. Bad working conditions drive out both good and bad teachers. (Conditions might be more of a issue for folks who have other options, which might be disproportionatly the good teachers.) Certificate revocation is likely to be dominated by bad teachers.
You've restated the article author's point regarding Finland.
You also may have restated the author's point about the 50% of new teachers who don't stick it out 5 years.
Actually, it's not routine. It's a long drawn out struggle. Charters get closed much faster.
> You've restated the article author's point regarding Finland.
The person whom I was responding to seemed to be suggesting that Finland's experience tells us something important about the US. My point is that it doesn't.
> You also may have restated the author's point about the 50% of new teachers who don't stick it out 5 years.
Again, the person to whom I was responding suggested that certificate loss rates and the percentage of teachers leaving the profession because of work conditions have something to do with one another. They don't.
Not true. The school systems in Sweden and Norway are far behind Finland in terms of results.
In essence it seems that charter schools either perform at the median or only slightly better than similar public schools.
These issues are cultural, and until we recognize that for large swaths of America the culture is fundamentally broken, nothing will change.
That's a huge oversimplification. Canada's intention was always to use his baby college as a pipeline to feed into his school system. He tried accepting older kids who hadn't gone through the baby college, but found that many had severe discipline problems and IIRC he was also having some major staffing problems. So he decided to kill off the grade while he reorganized his staff, mainly on the theory that he needed to start with younger kids in order for the program to work. Anyway I'm in no way defending KIPP or Canada as a whole, but I also think this critique isn't entirely intellectually honest.
But contrary to the myth that Guggenheim propounds about “amazing results,” even Geoffrey Canada’s schools have many students who are not proficient. On the 2010 state tests, 60 percent of the fourth-grade students in one of his charter schools were not proficient in reading, nor were 50 percent in the other. It should be noted—and Guggenheim didn’t note it—that Canada kicked out his entire first class of middle school students when they didn’t get good enough test scores to satisfy his board of trustees. This sad event was documented by Paul Tough in his laudatory account of Canada’s Har- lem Children’s Zone, Whatever It Takes (2009). Contrary to Guggenheim’s mythology, even the best-funded charters, with the finest services, can’t completely negate the effects of poverty.
One might salvage the author's point by saying that it's simply arguing that charters aren't a cure-all; that the disciplinary problems that sabotaged that middle school class are going to exist for any charter, &c.
Here are (I believe all) of the factual arguments presented in the article:
* The film admits only 20% of charter schools gets "amazing results". In reality, the huge study that stat comes from says only 17% of charters beat public schools, 46% generate comparable results, and 37% are worse.
* The film higlights successes but ignores chains of charters with newsworthy mismanagement scandals (real estate scams, embezzlement, religious indoctrination, $300-400k salaries to teach small student bodies).
* Since test scores are what determines the perceived value of a charter, some charters expel students just before testing days or have high student turnover, particularly with low-performing students.
* The NAEP test the movie relies on for the claim that 70% of 8th graders can't read at grade level says nothing of the sort; the movie distorts the results so that any student scoring less than a B is "below grade level", when in fact only 25% are below C, not 70%. The author of the article was a member of the NAEP governing board.
* One of the film's heroes, Geoffrey Canada, runs a organization managing two (2) charter schools that is funded to the tune of $200MM, and is paid $400,000; the author of the article is an admirer, but implies that no public school system is similarly well equipped.
* In 2010 state tests, 60% of Canada's 4th graders were below "proficient". Canada also expelled his entire first middle school class because their scores were too low, which the movie didn't note.
* Another charter the movie celebrates, Green Dot's Locke High, took $15MM in funding and got only tiny improvements; only 15% of its students are now proficient in English, up from 13.7%; math rose from 4 to 6.7%.
* Another charter, SEED in DC, is successful, but spends 3 times what the average public school spends ($35,000 per student).
* Studies appear to show that teacher quality --- while the most important factor within a school --- accounts for only 10-20% of outcomes, while non-school factors account for almost 60% of the outcome.
* Americans are dissatisfied with the quality of schools in general, but 77% of them rate their own school A or B.
* Finland, the movie's model school system, is entirely unionized, has much lower poverty, and has a stronger social safety net than the US.
* While the movie points out that only 0.04% of teachers ever lose their certificate, it omits the fact that 50% of new teachers leave the profession within 5 years, mostly because of working conditions.