Stephen Dyer says:
I get and am sympathetic to the argument that kids need opportunities to escape struggling schools. And I have little problem with the few really excellent school choice options that are out there that genuinely do give kids opportunities to achieve their potential.
But when the vast majority of those opportunities aren’t any better (and are usually much worse) than the struggling school, and paying for these mostly worse options means the kids who remain in the struggling public school have far fewer resources with which to achieve, or the school to improve?
Well, I’m sorry. I just don’t get that.
via http://10thperiod.blogspot.com/2014/01/ohios-school-choice-funding-scheme.html
The only Arizona schools to make this list of top high schools were charter schools. http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2014/08/27/25-best-high-schools-in-the-west.html#990563fc-f56b-4909-88cf-03779da7ba65
Not one Arizona district high school made the list. There are plenty of poor performing charter schools that need to be closed, but what this tells me is that, at least in Arizona, charter schools are providing quality choices for students.
Thanks for the comment, Steve. I always try to critically examine the data behind lists of ‘top schools.’ For example, there appears to be lots of evidence for the 3 BASIS schools on that list that their results are due to nothing other than massive weeding-out / attrition. There also are grave concerns about nepotism and profiteering due to the schools’ practice of doing business with their own board members. I would encourage you read the following articles and then see if you still agree that the BASIS schools are some of the ‘best high schools in the West.’ If so, I would be interested in knowing why you do given the concerns that have been noted…
http://blogforarizona.net/basis-charters-education-model-success-by-attrition
http://cloakinginequity.com/2013/04/19/what-basis-nepotism-and-aggrandizement-in-charters
http://arizona.typepad.com/blog/2013/04/commenter-thinks-i-have-it-wrong-about-basis-charter.html
http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2014/05/06/the-head-of-basis-tucson-north-responds
[including the comments]
It is a key point that does not get spoken about enough Scott. There are some wonderful charter schools out there, but the evidence shows that they are not the solution. In many cases, the schools themselves and the quality of education on the whole is reduced. How students perform on a standardized test is not necessarily the right indicator of success. Furthermore, the school choice movement also give schools the choice to weed out who they do not want. When you control for such factors, our public schools are doing better overall. When you control for factors such as poverty, American public schools are also some of the best in the world.