FYI, this has many implications
for higher education of most people of color
Know Justice,
Know Peace,
Rev. Dr. E-K.
Daufin, Professor of Communication
National Media
Weight Discrimination Expert
AEJMC MAC
Divison Membership Chair
ASU
Faculty/Staff Alliance - AFT/AFL-CIO, Co VP for Faculty
Alabama State
University
915 South
Jackson St.
Montgomery, AL
36101-0271
334-229-6885
[log in to unmask]
Thanks in
advance for your research and creative activity referrals:
www.loveyourbodyloveyourself.vox.com
With all my
heart I want fulfilling work, for abundant pay, in a beautiful, functional
environment, working with and for only talented, loving, cooperative, generous
people who appreciate and respect me and I they. Ashe!
OP-ED: Why Charter Schools Fail the Test - NYTimes.com
Posted: 10 May 2010 05:58 PM
PDT
Op-Ed Contributor
§
By CHARLES MURRAY
Published: May 4,
2010
Eric Hanson
Readers shared
their thoughts on this article.
THE latest evaluation of the
Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, the oldest and most extensive system of
vouchers and charter schools in America, came out last month, and most
advocates of school choice were disheartened by the results.
The evaluation by the School Choice
Demonstration Project, a national research group that matched more than 3,000
students from the choice program and from regular public schools, found that
pupils in the choice program generally had “achievement growth rates that are comparable”
to similar Milwaukee public-school students. This is just one of several
evaluations of school choice programs that have failed to show major
improvements in test scores, but the size and age of the Milwaukee program,
combined with the rigor of the study, make these results hard to explain away.
So let’s not try to explain them
away. Why not instead finally acknowledge that standardized test scores are a
terrible way to decide whether one school is better than another? This is true
whether the reform in question is vouchers, charter schools, increased school
accountability, smaller class sizes, better pay for all teachers, bonuses for
good teachers, firing of bad teachers — measured by changes in test scores,
each has failed to live up to its hype.
It should come as no surprise. We’ve
known since the landmark Coleman Report of 1966, which was based on a study of
more than 570,000 American students, that the measurable differences in schools
explain little about differences in test scores. The reason for the perpetual
disappointment is simple: Schools control only a small part of what goes into
test scores.
Cognitive ability, personality and
motivation come mostly from home. What happens in the classroom can have some
effect, but smart and motivated children will tend to learn to read and do math
even with poor instruction, while not-so-smart or unmotivated children will
often have trouble with those subjects despite excellent instruction. If test
scores in reading and math are the measure, a good school just doesn’t have
that much room to prove it is better than a lesser school.
As an advocate of school choice, all
I can say is thank heavens for the Milwaukee results. Here’s why: If my
fellow supporters of charter schools and vouchers can finally be pushed off
their obsession with test scores, maybe we can focus on the real reason that
school choice is a good idea. Schools differ in what they teach and how they
teach it, and parents care deeply about both, regardless of whether test scores
rise (EKD- Or graduate from college in 4 years?).
Here’s an illustration. The day
after the Milwaukee results were released, I learned that parents in the
Maryland county where I live are trying to start a charter school that will
offer a highly traditional curriculum long on history, science, foreign
languages, classic literature, mathematics and English composition, taught with
structure and discipline. This would give parents a choice radically different
from the progressive curriculum used in the county’s other public schools.
I suppose that test scores might
prove that such a charter school is “better” than ordinary public schools, if
the test were filled with questions about things like gerunds and subjunctive
clauses, the three most important events of 1776, and what Occam’s razor means.
But those subjects aren’t covered by standardized reading and math tests. For
this reason, I fully expect that students at such a charter school would do
little better on Maryland’s standardized tests than comparably smart students
in the ordinary public schools.
And yet, knowing that, I would still
send my own children to that charter school in a heartbeat. They would be taught
the content that I think they need to learn, in a manner that I consider
appropriate.
This personal calculation is
familiar to just about every parent reading these words. Our children’s
education is extremely important to us, and the greater good doesn’t much enter
into it — hence all the politicians who oppose vouchers but send their own
children to private schools. The supporters of school choice need to make their
case on the basis of that shared parental calculation, not on the red herring
of test scores.
There are millions of parents out
there who don’t have enough money for private school but who have thought just
as sensibly and care just as much about their children’s education as affluent
people do. Let’s use the money we are already spending on education in a way
that gives those parents the same kind of choice that wealthy people, liberal
and conservative alike, exercise right now. That should
be the beginning and the end of the argument for school choice.
Charles Murray, a scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute, is the author of “Real Education: Four Simple Truths for
Bringing America’s Schools Back to Reality.”
via nytimes.com
Know Justice, Know Peace,
Rev. Dr. E-K. Daufin,
Professor of Communication
National Media Weight
Discrimination Expert
AEJMC MAC Divison Membership
Chair
ASU Faculty/Staff Alliance -
AFT/AFL-CIO, Co VP for Faculty
Alabama State University
915 South Jackson St.
Montgomery, AL 36101-0271
334-229-6885
[log in to unmask]
Thanks in advance for your
research and creative activity referrals: www.loveyourbodyloveyourself.vox.com
With all my heart I want
fulfilling work, for abundant pay, in a beautiful, functional environment,
working with and for only talented, loving, cooperative, generous people who
appreciate and respect me and I they. Ashe!