[ryanx435]

> Charter schools have inflated performance metrics. Often charter schools don't serve special needs students. More than that, charter schools bias towards engaged and interested parents. Because of policies like No Child Left Behind, it is really bad for local neighborhood schools to have all of their high performing students leave for charter schools.

Thats an interesting way of saying that charter schools get better results.

[jahnu]

It doesn't say that at all.

"better results" should mean given a similar set of students. If you cherry-pick the inputs don't expect comparing outputs to be the same.

[JoeAltmaier]

Given the set of high-ability students, it does seem that charter schools have better results.

There's an attitude that everybody should do poorly together, and that's better than anybody succeeding. Like a bucket of crabs, each clawing at the others trying to get out and pulling them back in that keeps the poor, doing poorly. And well-meaning ivory-tower types fuel the culture with idealistic 'fairness' arguments.

[Retric]

The data does not back this up.

Charter schools like elite colleges gain 90% of their reputation from rejecting average or below students. There is variation among school quality adjusting for incoming students, however that exists for both normal and charter schools with many charter schools preforming worse than expected and many public schools preforming far above expectations.

However, if you want to support the value of some institution or approach it's really easy to ignore this fact and create biased research.

[JoeAltmaier]

Citation? Its not about reputation (irrelevant) but accomplishment. And in the OP case, we're talking about one school helping one demographic. I wish this new school all the best luck in helping these kids.

[Retric]

the predominance of such studies in the United States does not show positive impacts on average for the charter school sector. https://www.brookings.edu/research/on-negative-effects-of-vo...

Recent research on statewide voucher programs in Louisiana and Indiana has found that public school students that received vouchers to attend private schools subsequently scored lower on reading and math tests compared to similar students that remained in public schools. https://www.brookings.edu/research/on-negative-effects-of-vo...

Or do you want the actual research papers?

[JoeAltmaier]

And are charter schools about reading and math? Cherry picking results is easy to show whatever you like.

Charter schools are about - whatever each is constituted to be about. Like you can't go to a hardware store and grab a random tool and rate it on how well it drills holes. You shouldn't rate charter schools on your favorite metric. Some are about upper-class folk raising their kids with better music and art appreciation. Others are about escaping backward school boards. Sometimes they are in areas so backward, that the charter school still underperforms the national average. But if its an improvement for that area, its an improvement.

[cdman]

Yes, due to an unfair advantage. As per the text you quoted:

> charter schools don't serve special needs students. More than that, charter schools bias towards engaged and interested parents. Because of policies like No Child Left Behind, it is really bad for local neighborhood schools to have all of their high performing students leave for charter schools.

[ryanx435]

so if I'm an engaged and interested parent, and I want my child to succeed, looks like charter schools are the correct answer about where to send my kids.

[scilro]

Could be in many cases.

But the question of "where should I send _my_ kids" should be considered separately from "how should education in this country as a whole be structured."

You have to distinguish between the macro and micro. Another example is college. If my nephew asked me whether he should go to college, I'd say, definitely do that, if you can afford it. But on a macro level, college in the US has kind of become scam and we have to do something about it.

[gremlinsinc]

I'm afraid college won't matter at all when my 1yr old graduates.

Automation will have decimated many industries, what will be left is up in the air, and when he graduates will those jobs still be there?

Unless in the future college is more of an extra-curricular boredom thing because post-scarcity society and all (wishful thinking).

[thedufer]

Not necessarily. Charter schools do much better if you measure just output, but are frequently quite average once you control for their advantageous population.

[mkaziz]

So if I want my kids to be surrounded by other, smart(er) kids / kids with engaged parents, I should send them to charter schools?

[SolaceQuantum]

It depends how much you weigh “Does the charter school actually teach my child better than a public school”(statistically, no, and they might even teach worse!) and also “do I care about exposing my child to people they’re different from”(ie. Avoiding them being stuck in a bubble) and also “am I unable to find another environment for intellectual pursuits”(clubs, extracurriculars, etc. when I was young there were definitely after-school schooling available for smart kids, and at school you can stay late for science teachers to teach you more science).

[mercutio2]

An individual parent’s incentives do tend to point in this direction, if their metric for success as a parent doesn’t include being exposed to children whose family’s aren’t as successful.

But when taken to an extreme, this leads to exclusive areas and excluded people.

[toasterlovin]

But they get better results because they get better students.

[abakker]

The real question is whether they get results that are as much better as they should be, since they are selecting students up front. I suspect that picking your inputs at a very young age is more about marketing and capturing money than it is about true ability to perform.

Either that, or it is simply a follow on of the fact that parents with money, free time, and high levels of education tend to have students that do well in school. The school may make no difference at all if the kids learn a lot at home.