According to an article in today's Times, charter schools are failing to live up their promise.
The data shows fourth graders attending charter schools performing about half a year behind students in other public schools in both reading and math. Put another way, only 25 percent of the fourth graders attending charters were proficient in reading and math, against 30 percent who were proficient in reading, and 32 percent in math, at traditional public schools.
Because charter schools are concentrated in cities, often in poor neighborhoods, the researchers also compared urban charters to traditional schools in cities. They looked at low-income children in both settings, and broke down the results by race and ethnicity as well. In virtually all instances, the charter students did worse than their counterparts in regular public schools.
I am disappointed. I could easily imagine that alternative schools would attract some talented, younger teachers. What is going wrong? Are these alternative schools just attracting faculty who don't like supervision?
Of course, the 30% proficient rate in 4th grade reading in public schools is hardly something to crow about. Perhaps what this data suggests more than anything is that educational reforms don't make much difference at all. It's all environmental. In a sidebar in the Times article they break down the data by ethnicity, location, and income. This is where the real differences lie.
UPDATE: Mickey Kaus (and Wendy to the rescue). In today's entry, Kaus points out that the differences between public and charter schools are not statistically significant. The UFT hesitated to make unqualified judgments about the differences between the two types of schools, but the Times had no problem with it.