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CALIFORNIA: Charter schools outperform regular schools in middle grades
by Nanette Asimov
Praised by some and scorned by others, charter schools have long been hailed as the savior or spoiler of public education in America.
Now, a study by California researchers trying to learn at last which kind of public school works better -- charter or traditional -- has reached this Zenlike conclusion: It all depends.
For elementary schools, forget the charter. Go with traditional.
For middle schools, head to the charter.
For high schools, well, it's a toss-up.
And for those who are dead-set on sending their children to a charter, the ones managed by a company or a nonprofit organization generally outperformed the ones run by local groups.
"Certain types of charters fare very well," said Brian Edwards, a co-author of the study by EdSource, an independent, nonpartisan education research group in Mountain View.
But Edwards said the researchers don't know why one group of schools outperforms another group at any given time.
"Further research is needed," he said.
EdSource has been studying charter performance for three years with a grant from Reed Hastings, founder of Netflix and former president of the state Board of Education in California.
The latest study reached a different conclusion from two done earlier, but the researchers say the new one is best.
That's because they've taken into account 14 different demographic characteristics that can skew school-to-school comparisons -- such as family income, ethnicity, parent education, English learners -- and more accurately compared the performance results, they said.
They found, on average:
-- Despite having more disadvantaged students, 4,965 regular elementary schools outperformed 183 charter elementaries.
-- Despite having fewer experienced teachers, 54 charter middle schools strongly outperformed 1,211 regular middle schools.
-- Charter high schools were all over the map. After adjusting for demographic characteristics, the 119 charter high schools outperformed 946 traditional high schools on English tests, for example, but they fell behind on math tests.
The study also compared 287 independently run charter schools against 59 charters operated by 15 different management organizations. As a group, the charters that were run by management organizations outperformed the independents, the study found.
"I don't know for sure," Edwards said, "but I would theorize that some of these organizations provide the kind of support that strong school districts provide for traditional schools."
The management organizations included the for-profit Edison Corp., the Bay Area's Leadership Schools, and Aspire, whose CEO, Don Shalvey, is on the board of directors of EdSource.
Trish Williams, executive director of EdSource, said Shalvey's connection to EdSource had no influence on the study.
To see the full report, visit http://www.edsource.org.
— Nanette Asimov
San Francisco Chronicle
2007-06-13
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