After listening to new Governor Charlie Baker's inauguration address in which he reported there were 45,000 children on a waiting list for a charter school in Massachusetts and a similar reference by Ralph Carrero, the vice president of the Massachusetts Charter School Council. So I ask, why is it that there are 0 students on a waiting list for a Public School in Massachusetts.  Well the answer to that question is that public schools in Massachusetts are required by law to accept any student that comes to them, without exception ( except maybe a felony charge of a violent crime).  Charter schools can choose their students and limit their class sizes now there is an advantage.

The first in a number of posts focused on charter schools and Educational Reform

     The debate over charter schools is no different than other debates in it’s predictable process of presentation with The Globe and other publications limiting their long winded reports to what amounts to the lobbyists for both sides.  The union president wants to preserve jobs for his electorate and the Charter school representatives defends their livelihood.  The problem I see as an educator for thirty-six years in a city on the edge of Boston, is that the public ends up viewing the issue from the top down rather that the bottom up. What very few people except those who wish to know is that, as opposed to charter schools who can determine the limits on their enrollment and choose their students, each public school must, by law, accept every student who crosses the threshold, as long as they satisfy residency requirements.  This condition alone presents a challenge that few in this debate consider. Charter schools will say that they select their students by lottery.  But consider that a parent must be aware of the lottery in order to apply, and if they do not have access to media that would report such an opportunity or on the other hand are unable to read what is presented to them, a whole group of likely under privileged potential students will be left out of the process which begins after the parent fills out an application which, for some, provides an additional impediment. So even if charter schools, as an entity were generally more successful at educating students than public schools, which they are often not, what would happen to that success if those charter schools were required to, as the public schools to which they are being compared, accept any student who crossed their threshold?  And what if charter schools were not allowed to send student back to the public schools, which they too often do?  What if charter schools were required by law to supply comprehensive special education services utilizing the per pupil expenditure they are given, which they are not?  What would the landscape look like then?

     So what we seem to be looking at are two different educational systems.  One that can choose it’s students or at least have a somewhat advantaged pool from which to choose, and one that can, by design, limit the number of students they service, providing an additional advantage.   Who is left in the public school system?  Are these students more or less advantaged than those chosen for charter schools?  I also wonder how many people are aware that many charter schools are run by private, for profit, corporations.  Do people realize that shareholders of Kipp are enjoying profit from tax dollars.  Is this an opportunity for entrepreneurs to make profit from what has, for over 100 years, been a public service meant to educate all children with equity?  The horse is out of the barn.  It seems impossible to go back to a system that served all equally, but we can close the barn door to prevent a stampede that will end up trampling what the United States of America stands for.

The mere fact that students wishing to attend a charter school have to submit an application is the first sign of discrimination in admission policies. The requirement of a written application assumes that the parent or guardian of a child can read and or write. It also assumes the parent has access to the information that applications are both available and necessary. That means that those children whose parents lack the skills necessary to access the application will likely not be considered for attendance at a charter school. It also means that families with more skills and resources are more likely to have access to the charter school. Is it too much to assume that a child whose family lacks the skills or resources to submit an application might also have more difficulty with school or conversely the child with the support of a family that has the resources and access to the application process might better prepared for school and thus be more successful? What do you think?

The Fallacy of High Stakes Testing

High stakes testing is any assessment program used by government agency, such as the state, to assess student achievement.  These scores are often used in the aggregate to assess schools and school systems and their effectiveness in educating students.  In Massachusetts we have the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System or MCAS for short.  Tests administered under the umbrella of MCAS are given to different grade levels  at different times of the year and consist of assessments of knowledge in several areas of curriculum.  In order to graduate high school with a diploma, students are expected to pass MCAS tests in the areas of Reading and Math during grade ten.  Students who are unable to pass the test in these areas before the end of grade 12 may receive a certificate of attendance.  Students are generally allowed to retake tests they fail at different times during grades eleven or twelve and may or may not be offered remedial services.  Tests these students may take to pass the requirements increase in difficulty with each administration.

The fallacy of such an assessment is not in the value of assessing student performance but in the question of whether or not such an assessment actually evaluates what it is expected to evaluate.  In other words do the questions given as a part of the assessment actually measure knowledge of the subject area and with what level of accuracy does it do so.  In the realm of assessment these issues are known as Validity and Reliability.  Anyone involved in research will tell you that test data is only as good as the test given and assuring the validity and reliability of a test is complicated and time consuming.  Millions of dollars are spent each year to determine the effectiveness of various education programs. These measurements have not been applied to the testing given in Massachusetts and it is unlikely that companies that states pay millions to have done so in other areas.  If we are going to insist and high stakes testing as an evaluation of our students as well as our education system we should make sure that we know what exactly we are testing and that the tests we give and rely on for information are valid and reliable.

As President Obama's "Race to the Top" grant program, funded by The Economic Stimulus package, has brought several issues to the forefront.  Issues related to student assessment, the capstone of most education reform programs.  High stakes testing such as Massachusetts MCAS program has provided a window into the complexities of student assessment and the use of these assessments as a tool in determining the effectiveness of programs and teaching methods.  The impulse is to view this information in the simplest of terms that being comparing aggregate scores from school to school in communities and from community to community on the state level.  This simplistic method of analyzing a large set of complex data points to the weaknesses of these assessment programs and the danger of their use in determining what is assumed to be the quality of education being provided.  Any aid program that mandates large scale assessment without addressing these issues does not produce the information that the authorities state as important but does fuel the debate that public schools as they now exist struggle to meet the needs of their students and consequently failing their mission.  If one is looking to denigrate public schools and public school teachers and their unions these methods will accomplish their purpose but a level of ignorance and denial exists beyond the surface that educators know and government officials should come to understand.

Education reform has become a popular topic in politics, in education, in the press, and in the blogosphere. There are lots of opinions stated by lots of people, most of whom have no experience in education except as a student, administrator, or politician. The opinion of the educator, at least this educator, is different. It is based in reality, based on experience, and, most importantly, based on an understanding of the needs of our children, our students, our families, our communities and the schools that serve them all. Stand by for a view from a teacher, from a clinician, from a parent, from a tax payer, and from a point of view that considers the child on whom all this attention is focused.