[shhehebehdh]

I didn’t see anything about this in the article, so I ask here in the hopes that someone more knowledgeable can comment: how are they controlling for selection bias? Is there any way to select into or out of this school, or is it purely the standard districting system? Even if it’s the latter in many other places it’s still possible to move into the area. Do we know to what extent that has been happening?

Edit: Oops, I was tricked by an advert. The article continued to say that the students were admitted by lottery. The only question I’m immediately left with then is whether they had to enter the lottery, or whether it was automatic? And was their admission contingent on their parents’ willingness to participate in these extra classes?

https://fredrikdeboer.com/2017/03/29/why-selection-bias-is-t...

[icelancer]

There is selection bias for sure; except it works in the opposite way regarding successful outcomes. IPS takes low-performing individuals and puts them in a lottery system.

This differs from a charter school or other alternative schools that skirt responsibility of special needs kids... but it should bear mention that IPS is not without controversy. The lottery system causes a lot of strife in eligible-but-unpicked individuals and also costs the taxpayers a substantial sum; LeBron does not cover 100% of the costs, or even a majority of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Promise_School

[Consultant32452]

At least in my state charter schools must accept any student that can attend a regular public school, and there's a lottery for everyone.

Conversely, there's some charter schools specifically for kids with special needs. There's one in my city specifically for autistic kids.

[aisengard]

It's nominally the law in my state too, but apparently it's fine to weed out the "non-performers" i.e. whoever you want. Public schools then have to take on the extra burden of the "undesirables".

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/nyregion/at-a-success-aca...

[Consultant32452]

In my county my understanding is that public school teachers are de facto not allowed to give failing grades if the student turned in literally anything. Like just put your name at the top and you will get passed. Charter schools have no such rule, so that is at least one way 'undesirables' are weeded out. I'm not sure the public school policy of passing out passing grades for free is providing a better education though.

[tracker1]

I went to a HS that strongly encouraged under-performers to go to the "alternative" vocational high school. (#1 in the nation my ass).

[reidjs]

If there were actually vocational trade schools I would support this kind of thing. I know that in this context it just means the shittier school.

[mac01021]

How do you know that? I toured the local vocational high school when I was in seventh grade and, at least from my naive point if view it seemed legit, with students spending something like a third of their time studying HVAC or whatever.

[peteretep]

Notably this is _not_ a charter school, per the article

[ehsankia]

Are the costs of these schools similar to that of a normal school, per student?

[peteretep]

This is in the article, but the budget is $2m from the state, which is standard, plus $600k from LeBron, which is not

[robbiemitchell]

That $600k is where a well-funded PTA steps in for many schools in well-off areas and is a big difference between seemingly similar schools.

Wealthier parents can afford to donate, which turns into a bunch of benefits.

[jtuente]

Just want to jump in here and mention that it doesn't even have to be a PTA, it could be any community organization focused on local student welfare and community building. The extracurricular programs at my school were/are heavily supported by the community and focus on student welfare.

[dctoedt]

> Wealthier parents can afford to donate, which turns into a bunch of benefits.

I live in (what has turned into) one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in my city. The elementary school has long been the envy of many. Not long ago I asked a long-time teacher from a nearby city, with whom I serve on a nonprofit board, what it was about that school that made young teachers want to work there — was it the additional funds from parents? Her response was no: it wasn't the extra funding, it was the parents themselves — educated, cooperative, involved.

[bsanr]

You say that like two of the three aren't privileges afforded more consistently to the wealthy. In either case, the operative function is the wealth-hoarding behavior of the parents.

[peteretep]

Seems like the benefits being provided wouldn’t show up so often in a well-off area: free food and clothing bank for the parents, for example.

[microcolonel]

> This differs from a charter school or other alternative schools that skirt responsibility of special needs kids

This is illegal in a lot of places, and I doubt it is common.

[jonhohle]

That’s one of the issues with Phoenix area charter schools. They may say they offer the services, but other criteria to enter or stay in the school have resulted in them services far fewer special needs kids than public schools.

Add on top of that that that one of the larger charter chains has moved to a model where effectively all money is laundered through a private company which the school then outsourced _all_ of its expenses to, and you get a situation where it appears the owners are intentionally fleecing the taxpayer and their buddies in the state government are making sure it’s legal for them to do it. It seems like corruption, which would be bad enough in itself, but they’re doing it at the expense of an already underfunded public education system.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/03/...

[monocasa]

It was very common in my charter high school. For whatever reason they weren't concerned with the drop out rate, so they openly encouraged special needs kids to drop out.

They had previously encouraged them to go to the alternative school, but budget cuts shut that school down.

[microcolonel]

> For whatever reason they weren't concerned with the drop out rate

Maybe this is related to the incentive system (at that time) in your region.

[germinalphrase]

It may be illegal ina lot of places, but not everywhere. In many states charter schools are not obligated to fullfill the same legal requirements for special education, standardized testing, or English as a second language placement.

[microcolonel]

It's not necessarily a bad thing. If the state or council can figure out how to set the incentives correctly it could work out better.

It really is a matter of opinion as to how to solve this issue, and the best answer may differ from place to place.

[dashundchen]

It is a bad thing if you want to have strong universal public education.

Public schools in the US are already strongly segregated by income and race since schools are typically a municipal government concern.

Charter schools add an additional layer of segregation. Now you have schools that can divert public funds, but don't have to meet the same standards, services and accessibility standards as public schools. They can play games with expulsions, special ed classifications and lottery admissions to get the student population they want.

Charters filter out students and and funds from the public school system to create another tier of schools, leaving the worst performers and students with the most special needs in public schools.

Meanwhile charter schools teaching positions are frequently non-union with lower pay and worse benefits than public schools, eliminating what traditionally was a stable rung on the middle class ladder.

Throw in the businesses that smell profit in schools with less public accountability - including real estate, outsourced operations and services - and you have serious regression in public education if you ask me.

[microcolonel]

> It is a bad thing if you want to have strong universal public education.

> Public schools in the US are already strongly segregated by income and race since schools are typically a municipal government concern.

Well, you are complaining at once about students studying outside their catchment (quality of school depends on willingness to travel), and students studying inside their catchment (quality of school depends on local tax revenues).

The truth is that every system has tradeoffs, not every flaw in each system is fatal, and there is real room to explore.

> Meanwhile charter schools teaching positions are frequently non-union with lower pay and worse benefits than public schools

From some perspectives that could be a good thing, because some places would rather be able to afford to have kids in school every weekday, than index the pension fund for a vote buy. Teachers should work in a market like other professionals. Very productive teachers can scale up, as is clear from success stories regularly seen, for example, in Korea.

[icelancer]

This is extremely common. It is just not done explicitly to do that. Much like many other things that are common but not designed to exclude protected classes like ageism, sexism, and so forth in hiring funnels.

[microcolonel]

Do you know of any research on that? I haven't seen much good research on this topic in my searches.

[ThomPete]

Charter schools dont skirt special needs kids they take them in.

Whats really absurd is that a lot of people are against the lottery but totally fine with public schools zipcode method.

Edit: why the downvotes? My two sons are at a charter school they take special needs children. They have to by law.

[dashundchen]

There are plenty of reports of charter schools pushing out low-performing students to get the student population they want. Labeling students with disabilities and claiming they don't have enough services to support them is very common. Unequal punishment leading to expulsion is another.

http://gothamist.com/2015/10/30/success_academy_charter.php

Another common tactic is to play games with the lottery/application process to get the student population they want.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-charters-admissions-i...

Anecdotally the teachers I know working in a local charter tell me the administration definitely makes it known they want low performers out transferred out before testing is performed.

[sidlls]

> Labeling students with disabilities and claiming they don't have enough services to support them is very common. Unequal punishment leading to expulsion is another.

This happens at public schools, too. My family recently had a huge tussle with the public school our kids attend because one of our children there was being punished for behavior stemming from his condition (autism). They kept pushing back on our requests for resources because of how strapped they are for cash and staff and all that. The length we had to go to get a public school in a well-funded Bay Area district to just obey the law was astounding. I have the deepest sympathy for parents in districts without the means ours has.

[Someone1234]

> They kept pushing back on our requests for resources because of how strapped they are for cash and staff and all that.

May I ask: Are they IEP or 504? Because if they're IEP the school should receive funding to cover his additional needs. If he is 504, have you looked into if he'd be eligible for an IEP?

[ThomPete]

There are plenty of reports about all sorts of things. That doesn't mean they are true. In the case of Success Academy I have two boys who go there, the school have all sorts of children including special needs children.

There is so much hate around charter schools that you should be careful with what you read into these reports. Much of what is written is either blatantly false or completely out of context.

Like every other thing in this world there are good and bad charter schools just like there are good and bad public and private schools. Everything has tradeoffs. Personally I think the lottery is more fair than whether you live in a specific zone for your kids. Each to their own.

[brians]

There are huge variations in what each state requires of “charter schools”. Where I am they’re nonprofit, take all kids, and seem to work well to let invested parents get their kids out of broken districts—with little interest from functional districts.

In other states, they’re private for-profit schools, like U Phoenix for kindergarteners.

[mac01021]

I don't like the lottery because it inhibits life planning. I'm not going to move near a charter school based on a 1/2 chance that my kid will get into the school. But I can shop around different zip codes, move to a house near the school in the one I choose, and know just what I'm getting.

Obviously, this might price me out of the very best zip codes, but at least in my case it still leaves many good options on the table.

The story may be quite different for someone in the bottom 50% of income. Maybe they should prefer a lottery. Maybe they do?

[ThomPete]

That's not really how it works. People don't move to the zip code many of my sons' classmates comes from Harlem, Bronx and other places (we are in Williamsburg). You don't have to move, whereas if you want to get into a specific public school you have to be zoned for it which is much harder if you want to get into the good schools. Tribecca has great public schools because it's a rich zip code.

And that's why it's puzzling to me that so many people oppose the lottery.

Success Academy was started in Harlem exactly to try and provide better schools for children even though they were born in a poor zipcode. It's a success is mostly stems from a very hardcore curriculum and the focus on work ethics and by keeping children away from their parents (often bad influence).

You are actually arguing exactly for why the lottery is a better (but not perfect) solution than zip code, it's fairer.

[eyeinthepyramid]

From the article:

"I Promise students were among those identified by the district as performing in the 10th to 25th percentile on their second-grade assessments. They were then admitted through a lottery."

[OscarCunningham]

There will be some amount of regression to the mean then. It would be best to compare these kids to the students who "lost" the lottery rather to all students.

[patrickyeon]

Because I wasn't sure which end of the bell curve this was referring to, "10th to 25th percentile" in this article means students significantly below the median, not above it.

[ThomPete]

Charter schools use the lottery method, at least the one my two sons are on (success academy) its a great school with great success but a lot of it is obviously engaged parents (such as even entering the lottery)