[BobaFloutist]

Charter schools deliver results the same way that private schools deliver results: selection bias.

It's really easy to have good outcomes when you have the ability to curate your student population. And though charter schools are regulated to make it harder for them to curate their student population, the statistical evidence is pretty unequivocal: they serve different populations than public schools, and their "better outcomes" immediately vanish when you control for that.

So, what is the issue with redirecting funding from sucky* schools towards ones that deliver results**?

* Schools that teach the general population

** Schools that teach a subset of the general population that always does better

[dnautics]

> Charter schools deliver results the same way that private schools deliver results: selection bias.

Wasn't there a failing neighborhood school in LA that got turned into four charter schools that basically rescued the district, without removing any students?

[bsder]

The other LA (Louisiana) had lots of evidence to the contrary. If you force charter schools to participate in a lottery, they almost always come up worse than the public schools (there was a single exception).

We saw this happen in Houston. Many of the worst public schools suddenly "improved". It's a miracle! Oh, they did this by encouraging the lowest performers to drop out. Whoops.

And this is before we start talking about all the high GPA students who now all magically need IEPs (Individualized Education Plans) because it gets them an extra 50% of time on their tests. So, now you have your best students loudly (because these parents are active) soaking up lots of resources genuinely meant for your worst students.

[BobaFloutist]

I'm not saying that charter schools can never be an improvement, there's probably very few changes to anything for which that can be confidently said, since sometimes systems and organizations get so mired in dysfunction that even a change that's, on paper, for the worse provides the needed stimulus to improve things.

I'm saying that people make claims about the systemic superiority of charter schools that, under examination, don't hold up, and it doesn't make sense to direct extra funding to schools that are already getting better results by making their own job easier. For that matter, many (certainly not all) of the "best" public schools are benefiting from a similar phenomenon, which is exactly why California has its complicated redistribution funding scheme, to avoid rewarding schools with an easy job and punishing schools with a harder job.

And people love to come into a system that they don't understand, regurgitate the most naive, obvious approach that we have specifically moved on from because these systems aren't actually that simple, and think they solved the problem: "What if we rewarded success?" Wow, what a genius, nobody's ever thought of rewarding success, let's call the NYT, let's call the Nobel committee, you've finally solved education, thank god we have you since nobody has ever thought of giving more funding to schools that are already doing well by taking it away from schools with struggling populations. Thank god we have someone here to tell us that we should financially incentivize good metrics, maybe you can solve American health care next, and possibly, if you can find the time, you could address world peace after that.

[delecti]

I don't know, was there? Do you have a link?

[dnautics]

Alain Leroy Locke high school. So I don't know if there was any academic improvement, but they was certainly a safety improvement.

Ed (looked it up): there was academic improvement, LAUSD claims it's not enough, LAUSD is comparing against neighboring districts, which were not as distressed at the outset, "18 years to improve should have been enough". Safety is considerably improved. Alumni and district residents seem to want to keep the school. Locke high school is currently going through a charter renewal challenge.

[Bratmon]

Unpopular opinion: If we have evidence that shows that keeping all the smart kids in one group creates massively better outcomes for that group, then that's something we should be doing everywhere, not something we should ban.

[SamoyedFurFluff]

I believe the evidence claimed is that there aren’t better outcomes for smart kids. Schools that claim they have better outcomes just selected for kids that would always have better outcomes. Like if I claimed my basketball team has better outcomes because I got to make sure all my players were above 6 foot. These 6 foot players don’t necessarily benefit from being in a team with other 6 foot players, but I’m saying people should apply for my team because I’m doing so much better than the team that can’t make those weeding out decisions. I’m intentionally conflating the success of my capacity to select for success with my capacity to coach a team.

[Bratmon]

But surely if having the best possible basketball team is important for national success, then it makes sense to pour more resources into the players with more talent

[BobaFloutist]

Yes, but in schools we're trying to get the best overall result, not optimize for one amazing school and a bunch of bad ones.

[ajam1507]

National success is about creating a nation of basketball players, not just a single all-star team.

[borski]

It’s not actually that unpopular; there are plenty of gifted programs, though the tide has turned to controversy around them more in recent years.

I continue to believe that gifted kids are special needs kids, and that they shouldn’t be in the same classroom as those who are struggling for all of their classes.

People don’t like to talk about gifted kids, except to imply that being “too smart” is somehow bad or unfair, and I think it does them a disservice.

Gifted kids get very, very bored, and lose interest quickly, when they aren’t challenged.