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High Performing Charter Schools: Beating The Odds, Or Beating The Test?
The majority of the article discusses the recent findings by an investigative reporter in Minnesota. He has concentrated on one charter school operator, Eric Mahmoud, a "former engineer and a convicted mortgage fraudster", who has been highly lauded as a charter school success story. However as the reporter has discovered, his success may not be what it seems, and there are questions about management policies as well as some serious financial red flags in addition to the basic questions about the value of his educational "plan" which is teach to the test.
High Performing Charter Schools: Beating The Odds, Or Beating The Test?
By Jeff Bryant
Created 08/30/2012 - 3:02pm
[My guest blogger today is Rob Levine. Rob is a Minneapolis-based researcher whose writing focuses on the media, conservative philanthropy and education. His writing can be found at the Cucking Stool [1] blog.]
“Odds-beating charter school.” Those words are like an impenetrable shield for those who operate such places. They are also the holy grail of the education reform movement, which is constantly seeking shortcuts to radically increase measures of educational achievement, which these days is pretty much defined by increased math and language test scores.
One problem with radical test score gains, as many researchers have noted, is that miraculous improvements in test scores over short periods of time are more often the result of cheating, student skimming, or other test manipulation. We’ve seen this pattern repeated all over the nation, starting with the so-called Texas Miracle under former US education secretary Rod Paige's oversight.
Something very similar happened in New York state, where unrevealed relaxations in state testing standards led to a multi-year belief in the efficacy of reforms there. When results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests revealed the gains were illusory, New York admitted the test changes, thereby wiping out half a decade of supposed achievement gains on math and language tests.
Real improvements in test scores are more likely the result of longer-term changes that cause slow but steady rises in achievement. In fact, test results from decades of the NAEP show just such changes for the country as a whole. Scores for all US students have gone up by a full academic year over the past few decades, including breakout scores for various demographic groups including blacks and whites, and achievement gaps have actually been declining. Ironically (or, not) these gains have actually been slowing in the age of No Child Left Behind.
By Jeff Bryant
Created 08/30/2012 - 3:02pm
[My guest blogger today is Rob Levine. Rob is a Minneapolis-based researcher whose writing focuses on the media, conservative philanthropy and education. His writing can be found at the Cucking Stool [1] blog.]
“Odds-beating charter school.” Those words are like an impenetrable shield for those who operate such places. They are also the holy grail of the education reform movement, which is constantly seeking shortcuts to radically increase measures of educational achievement, which these days is pretty much defined by increased math and language test scores.
One problem with radical test score gains, as many researchers have noted, is that miraculous improvements in test scores over short periods of time are more often the result of cheating, student skimming, or other test manipulation. We’ve seen this pattern repeated all over the nation, starting with the so-called Texas Miracle under former US education secretary Rod Paige's oversight.
Something very similar happened in New York state, where unrevealed relaxations in state testing standards led to a multi-year belief in the efficacy of reforms there. When results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests revealed the gains were illusory, New York admitted the test changes, thereby wiping out half a decade of supposed achievement gains on math and language tests.
Real improvements in test scores are more likely the result of longer-term changes that cause slow but steady rises in achievement. In fact, test results from decades of the NAEP show just such changes for the country as a whole. Scores for all US students have gone up by a full academic year over the past few decades, including breakout scores for various demographic groups including blacks and whites, and achievement gaps have actually been declining. Ironically (or, not) these gains have actually been slowing in the age of No Child Left Behind.
more...
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2012083530/high-performing-charter-schools-beating-odds-or-beating-test