AAAARGHHH This article and the intro comment make me (a charter high school teacher) sooo mad. FIRST, wanting good education is not a matter of left or right. SECOND, a snapshot comparison of all the schools in the country is so broad as to be near meaningless, THIRD, the fact that many charter schools struggle is not surprising given that many public schools use charter schools as a dump for all their problem kids. To be sure, many charter schools, like their counterparts in the P.S. system, are simply a holding bin for society's rejects, the kids that we seem to overlook when proclaiming "a college education for all". So now small-scale charter schools hide these rejects instead of having them fester in large pub schools. I know some charter schools that essentially provide day care and maybe some job training, and mainly seek to keep new kids coming in the door to keep the check from the government as big as possibe.

But I, (not to toot my own horn) a former lawyer and Amherst grad, work with 8 other very motivated and gifted individuals in an organic learning community that takes "at-risk" kids and has a proven track record of turning these kids around, giving them some confidence and self-esteem (the real grade-killer) and even sending most on to 2 or 4 year college programs. Sorry wonks, but you cannot legislate the success of our school!!!

Like public schools, charter schools will only be as good as the vision, passion and competency of the admin and teachers, but when the right team is assembled, being free from retarded U.S.D. bureaucratic oversight is a breath of fresh air. If one can generalize at all about primary education, one can say pretty emphatically that big does NOT equal better (unless you are really into football.) Charter schools recognize the massive failure of the unified school model, and have tried to initiate a return to the one-room schoolhouse with a focus on individual growth and communal responsibility.

None of this changes the fact that a kid with alcohol fetal-syndrome with his dad on death row is unlikely to score highly on a standardized math or english test. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Oh, by the way, with a major in philosophy from a top liberal arts school and a law degree and 3 years practice at a top litigation firm in d.c., I apparantly was not qualified to teach in the public school system. In addition to an 85% pay cut, they wanted me to pay several thousand dollars to spend a semester doing unpaid teaching and take a year of intro to pedagogy classes to get "certified". I dont give a flip about left-wing and right-wing. I care about what works. In education, bureaucracy and unionization (gasp, he suggested that teachers' unions don't always act with the students' best interest in mind) are hindering the education of our children.

Are you saying that the public schools dump their problems into free-standing charter schools? Those not part of the public system. According to the study those are the ones doing the worst. I'll take the results of the study flawed as it may be over anecdotal evidence of one teacher in I'm assuming a charter school. We do agree on one thing, good teachers are the key. That are society is willing to pay them so little is a disgrace. It's my opinion that the rich want to lower their support for public schools so they can educate their own children at private schools for less. Let me add that practicing law and having a degree in philosophy are no guarantee of teaching skills, though they certainly are useful particularly the philosophy. Requiring pedagogy classes seems to me to be a good idea. Having knowledge of a subject and being able to share that knowledge effectively are not the same thing and require different skills.

I don't think the politicians will be concerned about student performance in charter schools. The purpose of the schools is to ensure children are taught good Christian values...like obey your divine leaders and evolution is bullshit. In those respects, the charters schools are a big win.

"Are you saying that the public schools dump their problems into free-standing charter schools?"

Yes. That is why we have 9th graders at my school who have "graduated" from public middle schools and yet are functionally illiterate and do cannot do basic math. I am not familiar with the "affiliated" charter school
thing. It is not here in Arizona, but if that addresses the problem of opportunistic charter school "day care centers" then perhaps that is a good thing. I certainly agree that opening up education to the for-profit private business sector is not without risks.

I am not asking you to believe my anecdotal evidence, I am asking you to recognize the fundamental flaw in the NYT findings. It looks like the study cited in the article compares ALL public school 4th graders, including those from the highest performing schools in upperclass locations, against ALL charter schools.

The quality of charter schools does vary greatly, largely due to faculty and vision. As I mentioned, I know several that are essentially just for-profit day care centers.

But, almost by definition, charter schools serve students who have been failed by the P.S. system. When we first started up our district did swamp us, in my opinion, with the "undesirables". After all, NCLB makes it darn attractive to make these kids "disappear" from the system. But, even today, charter schools almost universally deal with "at-risk" or "difficult" students. There are very few (no?) "magnet" charter schools. So I just think that comparing test scores of all P.S. kids versus all charter school kids tells us nothing. Lets see how those same fourth graders (even the ones that get shuffled to new schools) test as fifth graders. Now that could be interesting.

Teacher pay: well I agree that i am underpaid. It's actually quite comical when I consider my pay:work ratio as a corporate lawyer versus teaching. But i still oppose union muscle because they lock in high pay and guaranteed jobs for all teachers. We need pay linked to ability and results. The simple fact is that underperforming schools & teachers need to be held accountable. Don't let the teachers unions and bureaucrats get your knee-jerk support by turning the demand for accountability and reform into a right-wing conspiracy!

"Practicing law and having a degree in philosophy are no guarantee of teaching skills." I agree 100%, but then again taking a course on classroom management theory is also no guarantee. However, when you have someone with a top-notch education and career wishing to transition into teaching I think the default assumption should be that that person can do more good than harm, especially in our toughest of schools. After all, these mid-career changers are getting snapped up by swanky private schools). Those idealists that get a quick dose of reality in the form of a desk flying towards their head will soon self-select themselves out of the teaching pool!

Again, bureaucracy is the barrier. I'm no republican, but Bloomberg has it right here. Good teachers need charisma, passion, and sensitivity and boundless energy. These attributes cannot be taught. That said, ongoing continuing ed (multiple intelligences, instructional strategies, etc.) should be a part of every teacher's life, as it is of mine.

Oh, in addition to "good" teachers, the other more concrete key to a successful learning environment is student:teacher ratio. Here in tucson, the average public high school class will push 30 kids. In my charter school we keep in capped at 22, frequently less. I can tell you (anecdotally, again) that 8 more kids makes all the difference in the world! I would also submit that school size is important, smaller generally being better. Our school is a successful community, not just a successful test center and college feeder.

Again, the charter movement is not about left vs. right. The well-to-do are not impacted in the slightest by underperforming high schools. This is about how to effectively educate and provide opportunity for the under-privileged.

Norm, just like Arab-Israeli relations, this topic is full of nuance. Posts titled "Exploding the Charter School Myth" make it seem like there is a whole part of society devilishly creating a myth, and finally one blog has come out to shine truth. It's not that simple.

Andrew, I don't know what state your school is in, but many charter schools here (Ohio) have been that day care you described, at best. At worst, some have been just grabbing the parents' tuition dollars and folding (one simply locked the doors one morning and took the phones off the hook).

I don't think anyone says that charter schools "can't" work. However, where the option has been used (by the right) to enable defunding of public schools and defacto segregation, there are few if any safeguards to ensure that the teachers/administrators are really qualified to run a school. (Not saying that public school admins or teachers are automatically better, but at least there is more direct accountability.) THAT is the problem -- the powers that be don't really care if the kids get a good education, just that the system is set up to bleed the public school system so that they can then say it is irreparably broken (the Norquist two-step).

Here, that is not just a problem with charter schools, it is also an issue with "open enrollment" where a kid can go to school outside of their residential district. The school that loses one kid loses more funding than they originally got for one kid (don't recall the factor, but at least 2-3x amount). As a result, the inner-city schools take an enormous hit on funding. And the TV ads touting suburban public schools for OE are just this side of "send your kid here and they won't have to rub elbows with the 'undesirables'" -- not to mention touting their "traditional values." (yup, public schools buy air time every June & July)

I get your frustration with public teacher qualifications, my sis has been a ps teacher for over 30 years, had to get additional degrees to get any decent pay raises, and still gets treated like a disposable commodity. But between that and a system purposely set up with little or no oversight, well, I'll take the the one with a board accountable to the public.

I agree that standardized tests are no way to measure student achievement or potential. However, if the scores reported result in the govt taking a closer look at how charter schools should be run -- that's good, so long as it doesn't begin and end with standardized test scores. It would be great if they actually did a comparison of what works (your model, apparently, and a few I have heard of around here), and what doesn't.

Also, it seems to me that No Child Left Behind (with its emphasis on standardized testing) often results in the problematic students entering charter schools in the first place. If you haven't already, read Ivins' 'Bushwhacked' on how TX schools worked to hold back kids who they knew wouldn't perform well on the tests (often talking them into dropping out to keep test scores high and maintain funding).

Again, that comes back to RW politics -- Sen Jeffords left the R party largely because the Rs refused to fully fund programs for disabled and special ed students. If those programs were funded so that schools weren't trying to mainstream kids that shouldn't be, there would be less of a drag on overall scores, and less pressure to bounce the kids who can't perform as well to maintain what little funding the public schools have now.

So, while I agree that 'wanting' a good educational system has nothing to do with politics, 'ensuring' a good educational system has everything to do with politics.

Your right the topic is full of nuance. The myth is and was that charter schools were some sort of panacea. That is the myth that is being exploded, and there is a whole part of society that has created the myth. Andrew is right quality teachers and class size are critical. The fact that there are public schools doing an effective job is evidence that simply adding charter schools is not solution. The problem in turning education over to private enterprise is that providing a good education is only incidental to making a profit.