That's my spin on this story.The NYCDOE commissions a study that shows how bad the schools they manage are doing relative to charter schools. We must be stuck in the TV show "The Prisoner."
Subject: Media Advisory: New Stanford Study Finds Success at NYC Charter Schools
Dear Norman:
A new report by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University commissioned by the New York City Department of Education found that charter schools in New York City are demonstrating significantly better results for their students in reading and in math than their traditional public school counterparts. New York City charter schools are demonstrating better results for students overall, and for several key groups, including Blacks and Hispanics in both reading and math, for students who had not previously done well in traditional public schools, for students in poverty in reading, for students enrolled for at least two years or more in reading, and for all students in math regardless of how long they were enrolled.
CREDO director Dr. Macke Raymond will be participating in a conference call on January 5 to discuss the specifics of the report and what their results mean for policymakers considering changes in education policy.
Below is information about the call. Please take a moment to respond to this email or call me at (916) 273-9559 if you have questions or plan on participating on the call.
Best regards,
Chris Bertelli
Media Advisory
NEW STANFORD STUDY FINDS NEW YORK CITY CHARTER SCHOOLS PROVIDING SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER RESULTS IN READING, MATH
WHAT: A new report by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University found that charter schools in New York City are demonstrating significantly better results for their students in reading and in math than their traditional public school counterparts.
The CREDO at Stanford report was commissioned at the request of the New York City Department of Education in July, 2009, following CREDO’s national report released in June, 2009, entitled, “Multiple Choice: Charter School Performance in 16 States.” That report was the first detailed national assessment of charter school impacts.
CREDO and NYC Department of Education officials will discuss the report on a conference call for media.
WHO: Dr. Macke Raymond – Director, CREDO at Stanford
WHERE: Via conference call, 888-645-4404 or 201-604-0169, no password required
7 comments:
Where can I get my hands on the study? The CREDO web site doesn't seem to have it. In their national study NY was not included. So, there must have been a seperate study. No?
John
I see that as usual the Chancellor went to an unbiased source to issue a report - it turns out that Dr. Raymond is a research fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford - they obviously are the funding source for Credo.
Hoover definately has an agenda. I guess we shouldn't be surprised. However, their national study concluded that charters were slightly less effective than traditional public schools at improving student achievement.
This is pretty mysterious. Just from following these issues from the West Coast for some years, I can clarify:
The Hoover Institution is Ground Zero for promoting education privatization.
However, CREDO was not previously connected with the Hoover Institution, and did a well-publicized study a few months ago showing that charters overall on average perform poorly compared with traditional public schools.
Larson Communications exists specifically to do PR for the charter school industry. Its principal, Gary Larson, has been a very active spokesman and lobbyist for charter schools in California for years.
So this is all quite strange.
Also, the link IN the Larson Communications press release to the CREDO website leads you to material about the CREDO study that I mentioned, which showed charter schools performing worse than public schools.
After that study, Stanford's Caroline Hoxby, a longtime, outspoken advocate of charter schools and privatization, performed a so-called study of New York charter schools that purported to show that NYC charter schools outperformed public schools. The study was tainted by Hoxby's longtime advocacy of charter schools -- it was an advocacy paper, not a study-- and also had not been peer-reviewed when it was released. When it was later peer-reviewed, it was heavily discredited. Hoxby's so-called study purported to challenge the CREDO study (the one that had shown charters performing worse than public schools). On the CREDO website (as linked to in the Larson Communications release), you can see links to debate between Hoxby and CREDO about the two studies.
So the notion that CREDO has now done ANOTHER study on NYC charters and one that now shows charters to be superior is really weird. Could Larson Communications (again, a charter PR and lobbying organization) have put out a false press release? I guess we'll know on Jan. 5.
Correcting myself. CREDO WAS connected with Hoover previously. It's unusual that it was not identifying itself as part of Hoover. However, it did produce that study showing that charters perform less well than public schools, and it did engage in debate with charter/privatization advocate Caroline Hoxby about it. So its new study and new connection with a charter industry PR/lobbying firm is interesting, if all that is accurate.
Yes, it seems strange that they go against charters in the naitonal report, then for charters in NY (which was NOT studied in the national survey). That would mean we are doing something here unique, which should be trumpted loudly in the new report.
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