I came across a 104 page report on charter schools. It was published by
CREDO (Center for research on Education Outcomes). It has an excellent vision statement, published in 2013, and is supported by Stanford University. I thought I had finally found answers to several questions I had asked! To my disappointment, the information presented was just a
little overwhelming. I thought I was asking a simple question and was convinced I just wasn't finding the answer for some unknown reason (not due to my lack of trying). In this study they complicate it by breaking down the results by state, ethnicity of the child, if the children they are testing are in the same school the following year, if the child attended the same school the previous year. It's much more complicated then I thought! These were all things I had put no thought into. At the end of the long report what did I get??? The same answer I've been getting everywhere else! It really depends on the school itself. I was feeling really confident in this resource until I can across another article published by
NPR, that put these statistics in laymen terms for me. It basically told me that 1/3 of kids do better in a charter school then a public school. It ends by asking a question relatively close to mine: "Are charter school students learning more than kids in traditional public schools?" It states that National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and Harvard University will be bringing researches to Washington for the first time ever to try and answer this question. Maybe I'm just asking prematurely.
Most articles I have come across talk about the rising up of charter schools. This still leads me to believe that charter schools
have to be better. If they aren't, then why the big push for more? Furthermore, if charter schools become more popular then public schools, won't they become the 'norm'? What's going to prevent all public schools from closing and forcing kids to be assigned to charter schools? If this is the desired outcome won't charter schools eventually essentially be public schools? In my mind it seems like all we're doing is changing the 'type' of school kids go to, but in the end, is it really going to matter? Maybe at that point public schools will be perceived as the better alternative...Maybe it's not really about one being better over the other. Maybe it's more about the parents feeling like they have a say in where their child will attend school instead of being assigned to one by default of their physical address.
Do parents make a bigger deal out of this issue than is necessary?
Does it really have more to do with how the parent's handle education in the home?
As always, if anyone has an opinion on this or insight into one side or the other I would love to hear from you!
I went to public school all my life, I dropped out in 11th grade due to bulling by teachers and students. I almost had enough credits to Graduate until I was pulled out of a class I needed and put into one that I didn't. I have always wondered if I went to charter school if it would be an different, or if I went to school online like they have now. Your topic makes me wonder for my kids and if public school is right for them,
ReplyDeleteI attended public school my whole life too Josh. I find that the charter schools my kids have attended are so much better at recognizing my child as individuals. (Especially when it comes to the topic of handling bullies). Still it's easy for me to see where the grass is greener on the other side...I still just have my own doubts about how this plays out over time.
ReplyDeleteI have been starting to look into some of these questions myself. My son is 4 and will be starting school in 2015. (As he miss the cut off). I went to public school as did all my siblings. However, it wasn't a great turn out for any of us. Which has had me thinking about other options. I'm beginning to think that it really is school to school based. I think the best way is to do my research on the school and talk to parents of students. Parents are going to be a good source of information about what the school is really like. Test score and research are only going to get so much information about a school.
ReplyDeleteI went to a private christian school all the way through middle school then public for high school. I honestly hated the private school it was very restricting and just mean, kids and all. I liked public school much much more. I had friends in charter schools and I still do. Sounds like they tend to have more extra curricular activities and more funds for the school. Anyway, still sounds better than private.
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