Detroit Charter High Schools Underperform Public Counterparts, Analysis Shows

The majority of the Motor City's charter high schools underperform the city's traditional public schools, according to an analysis published Thursday by Detroit News.

The report found that just six of 25 Detroit charter schools had higher math or science proficiency rates on the Michigan Merit Exam than those in Detroit's traditional public schools. The analysis notes that charter schools only surpassed Detroit Public School performance in social studies.

"We were not surprised in that we have consistently believed and said that there are both excellent charter schools and low-performing charter schools as there are both excellent and low-performing public schools," Steve Wasko, a spokesman for Detroit Public Schools, told The Huffington Post.

Charter schools, which are publicly funded but can be privately run, have gained momentum around the country. A surge of laws passed this legislative session expanded the number of charter schools that allowed to open. According to data from the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, 1.8 million students attended 5,277 charter schools in the 2010-2011 school year -- an increase of 11.8 percent over the previous year.

Supporters laud charter schools' flexibility and the proliferation of options for parents, while critics condemn them for sucking resources out of public schools and underserving high-need populations. Beyond those objections, the overall efficacy of charter schools is in question. The most authoritative study on the issue -- out of Stanford University in 2009 -- found that only 17 percent of the charter schools studied outperform public schools and that 37 percent "deliver results that are significantly worse" than those expected of traditional public schools.

Studying charter schools in Detroit is particularly important as the city faces a massive enrollment crisis and uses charters as a key component of its "Renaissance 2012" reform plan. Gov. Rick Snyder's recently announced plan to have Detroit's lowest-performing schools answer to a special state-run authority (run by emergency manager Roy Roberts) is still thin on details, but it is known that the new structure will have the authority to charter new schools.

"I think it raises a red flag for the district as they move toward turning over traditional public schools into charter schools," said Marytza Gawlik, who taught at Detroit's Wayne State University until this summer.

And, outside the city, it matters because U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has called Detroit -- with its low literacy rate, low performance and mounting debt -- a "ground zero" for education reform, signaling that if performance can increase there, it can happen anywhere.

Wasko, though, said drawing a connection between the charter school analysis and the district's reform plans would be a "flawed" attempt. He said the Renaissance 2012 plan "has quality as its middle name at every level."

"We've carried through that at every step to bring us the highest quality partners who know how to evaluate charter proposals," he added.

Wasko also noted the News analysis considers Detroit charter high schools, whereas the new charters opened as part of the Renaissance plan will not be high schools. When asked whether the district plans to expand them into high schools -- many charter schools add a new grade every year -- he said it had yet to be determined.

But state Sen. Bert Johnson (D-Detroit) said "it's completely fair to compare them."

"There ought to be a standard whether it's pre-K, K-8, high school, or after," he added. "There ought to be a standard that's established for every grade and then met."

The former emergency manager Robert Bobb planned to convert as many as 45 of Detroit's public schools into charter schools, but Roberts scaled back the plan to only eight for the next school year.

"Mr. Roberts wanted to make sure that the process slows down sufficiently so the correct decisions can be made," Wasko said. "A bunch applied and didn't make initial and other cuts."

As for the role charters will play in the new authority, "We have ways to go," Wasko said. "Where charters fit in has not been determined aside from saying both organizations are authorized to grant charters and in all likelihood will."

Comments

[stopnlisten]

07:02 PM on 07/10/2011

This is absolutely nothing new. Charter schools are a way to fly under the testing radar and a way to privatize education so another big business can dip into government monies. They can also shore up their clientele by making sure they parental commitment through contracts, drop students who have low test scores and become magnets for the "right type" of student. Public school can't do that and they shouldn't do that. Work with the hand you are dealt unless you are a private school and then it falls under the umbrella of "none of your business" because we fund ourselves.

[Ottis Reid]

10:38 AM on 07/10/2011

I find it funny that all the post in the articles about teacher and their unions in the past mostly blamed the teachers for the performance or underperformance of the students in the past by stating that teachers did not care about their students, only a paycheck. Now this article comes out about charters performing below public school levels and you hear comments like parents need to get involved, etc.... These are some of the same comments that public school teachers were making a point of trying to explain when they were being attacked in the past. The fact is as someone who lives in the city of Detroit and has a relative who is a teacher in the public school system, there are a lot of parents here who use schools and activities as a babysitter and who are not actively involved in their childs school, activity, or education other than to drop them off in the morning and pick them up.

[zSpin2001]

12:27 AM on 07/11/2011

In the era of the ownership society, we seem to want to own something for free. I see that you picked up on the inability of the conservative movement to actually make a prudent case for holding teachers responsible for poor societal behavior. F&F

[eceresa]

08:35 PM on 07/09/2011

Great. We've looked at the numbers and the system we're moving toward is clearly worse than the system we've got now (not that that's any surprise to anybody who's looked at the research on charters), but we're still going in that direction. More charters, full steam ahead, even though they'll mostly be worse than the DPS schools they replace.

It's almost as if they're trying to make Detroit's problems worse.

[TINA ANDRES]

07:24 PM on 07/09/2011

My son's charter school in California is doing significantly better than the majority of the schools in the district. From my perspective the one and only cause for this is their autonomy and ability to make their own choices. The teachers collaborate and evaluate, they change and adapt their curriculum and lessons as a team and they are treated as professionals by the administration. I teach in the same district in a regular school where teachers are told exactly what they will teach and when, they are given a massive amount of district benchmark tests and have no real input into the curriculum or the decisions being made for them.

[suds mcduff]

01:02 PM on 07/10/2011

So, why aren't you teaching in a charter?

[TINA ANDRES]

01:21 PM on 07/10/2011

We don't have any charters at the intermediate level in my district, in fact, there aren't that many intermediate school charters at all anywhere near me. If the opportunity was right, I would definitely consider it.

[suds mcduff]

01:34 PM on 07/10/2011

I've read charters have high teacher turnover rates....why is that?

[TINA ANDRES]

01:51 PM on 07/10/2011

I think it is because the pay is usually a bit lower and there is no job security. The administration does not have a contract to follow and many times the teachers are not treated respectfully. My son's charter has very little turnover but I think it is really dependent on the administration. There are inherent problems with charters but the autonomy is the appealing part of charters, if only regular schools could have the same autonomy that charters receive, we wouldn't need charters. I wish the public realized that regular schools are being told what to do while the charters that are being touted to them do not have to follow the rules. Charters shouldn't be necessary. At my school we spend most of our time fighting the district and this takes away from our energy to do the things we know would be great for our kids.

[RevMetheus]

10:53 AM on 07/09/2011

I wrote this as a response in another thread, but it works just as well here:

The real thing you are missing is that most parents who pay to put their kids in a private school care about their kid's education enough to be an involved parent. They make sure the homework is done and understood­, or they hire a tutor to make sure the kid gets it. They involve their kids in extracurri­cular activities besides just a sport, and are involved themselves­.

If you just hand someone a voucher and say "This private school is the answer to your problem. Your kids will get a good education" then you have just ruined the private schools for everyone.

Parents who dont have the time or interest or education or money to make sure that school is a priority for their kids are the underlying problem. If you dont care about education, or project that to your kids, then they wont care about education.

School is what you, and your parents, put into it, public or private (I've done both,) and just saying that something is better because it is private and the wealthy do it is just wrongheade­d.

[mlaiuppa]

03:33 AM on 07/09/2011

This is not a surprise to teachers.

Charters are not the holy grail, no matter what the Republicans, deformers or the planet Krypton want you to believe.

[detroitblkmale30]

10:49 PM on 07/08/2011

As bad as Detroit's public schools are that is quite an accomplishment.

Maybe its actually the students and the conditions of their home studying environment that is playing a role here. Traditionally charter schools do at least as good if not somewhat better than urban public schools. Detroit though its its own animal considering half its adults are illiterate. That doesnt bode well for their children.

[Thorncrest]

08:10 AM on 07/09/2011

Traditionally (Stanford!?) they do not....it is early in the article, I suggest you go back and reread. Their funding should be reduced until they correct this. Isn't that how NCLB is suppose to operate?
(They can't compete and they get to CHOOSE their students)

[detroitblkmale30]

09:44 AM on 07/09/2011

Well one study says they perform the same or worse another says they perform better or at least the same.(both from stanford academics) Between the two they perform at least as well as public schools which is what I said.

[eceresa]

08:31 PM on 07/09/2011

Studies have shown that charters outperformed public schools, but the ones that have shown that have typically been small studies that cherry-picked schools to compare. In general, in the more reliable studies that have looked at more schools, the public schools have done better.

You're right about the home environment. That's the number one determining factor. But charters, generally speaking, aren't as good as public schools (though there are outliers-excellent charters and horrible publics; they're just relatively rare).

[detroitblkmale30]

10:09 PM on 07/09/2011

I've seen it go both ways. I've seen some high performing charter schools and low performing public schools and vice versa. The Washington Post had an interesting article showing the ambivalence of the studies out currently on comparing the two. They're basically even particularly in poor urban school districts, that's usually because neither environment addresses what we both agree on, the home.

[changing]

07:41 PM on 07/08/2011

So why is Arne threatening to cause chaos in our schools with NCLB with more charters? If you want your blood money from the DOE, you have have charters. Enough already.

[wwwTHENOIREFFECTcom]

05:18 PM on 07/08/2011

All public schools need to operate on similar systems of educating students. The problem is from state to state there are too many different methods of educating children. State academic testing varies as well. There should be a model system created and a network for teachers from coast to coast, Washington state to Washington D.C., to work together, exchange ideas and methods so that we're on par with other countries. Like many other things with government hands on them, the system is just too big, too varied, and too disorganized.

[Thorncrest]

08:17 AM on 07/09/2011

There are comparisons in place---one only needs to look at ACT and SAT scores in order to see who does well....who does not. Although one indicator from those scores would be the need to Unionize Teachers as those students always perform significantly better. If you want to look Globally use the PISA. Their last recomendation to the U.S. was to raise up the status of Teachers.
Hmmmmmmmmm

[zSpin2001]

12:36 AM on 07/11/2011

Children aren't widgets and districts aren't America. Each student and district requires subtle nuance to achieve the most efficient means of education. One size fits all has failed and will continue to fail. We always seemed focused on the how of education rather than the why of education. We produce mediocre managers of people rather than leaders with vision under the one size fits all mantra.

[Gregory Gull]

03:35 PM on 07/08/2011

Charter schools aren't the solution, improvement of the system of public education is. You can't run away from the problem and expect it to solve itself or just fade away. Shifting the burden will never improve the system.

http://www.forprogressnotgrowth.com/2011/07/06/privatize-society/
http://www.forprogressnotgrowth.com/2011/06/18/why-educate/

http://www.forprogressnotgrowth.com/2011/03/07/want-to-improve-quality-listen-up/

[corwin]

03:20 PM on 07/08/2011

I don't know why you thiunk your comment is profound.But,here's a reply.Charter's are surviving because poor parents feel their kids are doomed to a life of failure in places like DPS.If DPS is doing a better job,the students will go there.There.That's not so hard,is it?

[Hlynn]

03:38 PM on 07/08/2011

StJames is right. And the reason charter schools are "surviving" is because parents believe the false rhetoric about them--that they are automatically better than public schools. Now that they have been around for a while, people are realizing that some are better, some are the same, and some are worse.

It comes down to what the school can offer, the relationship between the people involved (students-parents-teachers-administrators), and individual effort of each. It's nearly impossible to say which schools are "doing a better job" because there are too many variables which make accurate comparisons invalid.

[LordByron13]

04:08 PM on 07/08/2011

Charters are surviving because parents with money are spending to send kids there, and not getting their moneys worth.

The money you 'save' by taking your kid out of a public school for a charter NEVER is enough to cover the cost of the charter school...so the parents pay more to get the same and often LESS quality of a public school.

The answer is make the classes smaller, by building more public schools, and giving incentives to get more people to become teachers. Not by giving the money to charter schools who across the board, aren't showing the gains they promised.

Charter schools are the bunk and yet another LIE of the 'free market economy' being foisted on parents. I'm a capitalist...but that doesn't mean EVERYTHING must be 'capitalized'. Spend the money on a public school, where the governments influence can keep costs low, and maintain standards of learning...NOT let in crap like 'intelligent design' or any other anti-evolution anti-science garbage--and believe me I say that as a Christian.

Down with charter schools and privatizing education...get that trash OUTTA here already.

[StJames]

03:12 PM on 07/08/2011

Schools can't perform any better than the students enrolled in them.  I wonder why no one is willing to just say it?

[GlennWatson]

10:19 PM on 07/08/2011

It racist to say that I guess.

[StJames]

12:11 AM on 07/09/2011

I guess so...but until we address that issue we will never improve education in this country.  Besides, I've known plenty of white kids who were total failures in school...so we shouldn't consider it an issue solely of race...;-)

[detroitblkmale30]

10:52 PM on 07/08/2011

Yep you are right. Not necessarily because of the students themsevles and their ability to learn but if they are disciplinary problems, if their home environments are counterproductive to learning, none will take place.

[StJames]

12:09 AM on 07/09/2011

Exactly...We need to find a way to reach these children to nurture them when they are not in school.  We need a concerted effort to mentor them.  I can remember having to read letters sent home by the school to grandparents who called me because they couldn't read them.