The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools • Hacker News Board

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#61

Post by Lawtonfogle » Wed, Oct 28, 2015, 5:58 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #42

nmrm2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 is crucially important -- and the religion thing is really unimportant compared to the larger problem. Charter schools, in many states, occupy the absurd position of being able to claim that they out-perform local schools while selecting or quasi-selecting their student population and still not actually participating -- at all -- in the standardized testing that justified their existence in the first place.

Again this is simply wrong. Success Academy one of the best performing schools have a lottery so there is no way to get your kids into that school otherwise. Also public schools in NY are zoned so you have to live the right place to get your kid into the right school.

The lottery still has a selection bias, just less of one than outright cherry picking the best students.

That being said, I'm not sure either of these are a problem. The real problem (one of them at least) is that a school's performance is measured by the student's scores on standardized testing.

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#62

Post by ThomPete » Wed, Oct 28, 2015, 6:31 PM UTC

dalke wrote: post #55

ThomPete wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No fake contrast. I am responding to the OP who seem to want charter schools to go away based on a claim that they are somehow bad. Success Academy was started because the public school system failed to educate kids in Harlem. The philosophy have since then been copied at other schools with success my son is in Williamsburg. This isn't only about the curriculum but about the very approach to teaching the kids AND the…

Which OP is that? You responded to comments from two accounts, which said: galby: "there are some truly awful charters out there" exelius: "To be fair, not all charter schools are for-profit, and there are good charter schools and bad ones. But the entire system stinks; it cuts funding to struggling districts, leaving them in a perpetual budget crisis." Neither say charter schools are categorically bad. Exelius's poi…

Exelius claim was that charter schools in general are bad but there are exceptions. He wasn't just attacking the funding system. Read his post again. You are ignoring his actual critique of the charter system.

Galby and I agree, again I would urge you to actually read the exchange rather than cherry picking what you think they basically said.

With regards to the past. No one is glorifying anything. But if you want to launch an attack on charter schools and claiming that budgets and teacher salaries are the reason why public schools are doing bad and that charter schools are stealing things then you aren't being true to the discussion. The reason why charter schools work when they work is that they are putting a lot of the effort onto the parents. That bad schools existed before is no secret but it's now almost the rule more than the exception in the public school system.

All I can see is that a Charter School like SA changed things for the better in very socially challenged areas while still functioning by the budgetary constraints as a normal public school and that by it's lottery actually is a much more fair way than ex. the zoned principles in NY.

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#63

Post by ThomPete » Wed, Oct 28, 2015, 6:32 PM UTC

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #61

ThomPete wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again this is simply wrong. Success Academy one of the best performing schools have a lottery so there is no way to get your kids into that school otherwise. Also public schools in NY are zoned so you have to live the right place to get your kid into the right school.

The lottery still has a selection bias, just less of one than outright cherry picking the best students. That being said, I'm not sure either of these are a problem. The real problem (one of them at least) is that a school's performance is measured by the student's scores on standardized testing.

The selection bias is those who want to sign up for the lottery vs. those who can afford to move into the area where their kids get zoned to the good schools.

The selection bias of SA pales in comparison both purely by principle and in practice by the diversity of it's students.

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#64

Post by nmrm2 » Wed, Oct 28, 2015, 6:33 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #42

nmrm2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 is crucially important -- and the religion thing is really unimportant compared to the larger problem. Charter schools, in many states, occupy the absurd position of being able to claim that they out-perform local schools while selecting or quasi-selecting their student population and still not actually participating -- at all -- in the standardized testing that justified their existence in the first place.

Again this is simply wrong. Success Academy one of the best performing schools have a lottery so there is no way to get your kids into that school otherwise. Also public schools in NY are zoned so you have to live the right place to get your kid into the right school.

> a lottery

This is exactly what I meany by quasi-selection. The dat are absolutely clear on this question -- lotteries create a very nearly insurmountable selection bias.

> public schools in NY are zoned so you have to live the right place to get your kid into the right school

This is immaterial to the question of whether charter schools are more effective than public schools for reasons that are essential to their organization (rather than incidental).

Furthermore, I don't think this (or any) anecdata gets to the heart of my criticisms, which I'll explain further below.

The core of the claim you made above -- that a charter is one of the best performing schools -- is not even a reasonable claim in most states because Charters aren't subject to the same testing and reporting requirements as public schools!

In many areas, Charters are not required to report at all, or are allowed to self-report. Guess what? Public schools also do totally fanstically when they are allowed to sefl-report! Comparing self-reported data to data obtained through a standardized process is meaningless.

Again, I'm not saying this is necessarily the case in NY. Just that it is a real problem nationally.

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#65

Post by ceades » Wed, Oct 28, 2015, 6:39 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #60

ThomPete wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy the premise that they are somehow stressing an already broken system. Again 32 to students in every class. We aren't talking about small classes here we aren't talking luxurious schools. And then on top of that the positive influence it has one socially challenged areas. There is a world of difference between a public school in Tribecca and one in Harlem. To be able to attend the one in Tribecca you need…

Let's say a public school has grades K-5 with 2 classrooms of 32 students per grade. That's 12 classrooms, for a total of 384 students. Let's also assume that school gets $6000 per year, per student (total of $2.3 million). The budget is already threadbare, so there aren't many places left to cut. Now let's say you take away 10% of the students from that school, such that you now have 29 students in each class. The s…

I also take issue with your characterization of charter schools as all being run as for-profit corporations. The charter school environment and laws vary from state to state. California as one example has 1,198 charter schools. Only six of them are incorporated as LLCs, the rest are all either non-profit organizations or run by school districts. There certainly are for-profit charter schools, and in some states they have been an issue, but the majority of charter schools are run as non-profits.

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#66

Post by ThomPete » Wed, Oct 28, 2015, 6:39 PM UTC

specialist wrote: post #58

ThomPete wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again this is simply wrong. Success Academy one of the best performing schools have a lottery so there is no way to get your kids into that school otherwise. Also public schools in NY are zoned so you have to live the right place to get your kid into the right school.

I'm glad that Success Academy is serving your children so well. Please understand they are not the norm. I attended the best public schools in the county. Consistently listed in the top 10 nationally. My former public high school is effectively a private school. Just a few miles away are some of the worst performing schools in my state. Elsewhere, most schools are somewhere in the middle. Similarly, some charters are…

No one is claiming their overall performance is better and I deliberately didn't talk about charter schools in general. I reacted to the characterization from exelius about how charter schools somehow was worse.

All I want is for my kid to learn first of all reading, writing and math.

I don't even care about whether one school outperform another but there seem to be various studies showing different things.

My guess is that charter schools work a little better because of the Hawthorne Effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect

And studies show different things. According to this it's better in general. But to me thats less important you can probably find studies that shows other things too.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-06-25/stanford-u...

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#67

Post by ThomPete » Wed, Oct 28, 2015, 6:43 PM UTC

nmrm2 wrote: post #64

ThomPete wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again this is simply wrong. Success Academy one of the best performing schools have a lottery so there is no way to get your kids into that school otherwise. Also public schools in NY are zoned so you have to live the right place to get your kid into the right school.

> a lottery This is exactly what I meany by quasi-selection. The dat are absolutely clear on this question -- lotteries create a very nearly insurmountable selection bias. > public schools in NY are zoned so you have to live the right place to get your kid into the right school This is immaterial to the question of whether charter schools are more effective than public schools for reasons that are essential to their…

Please argue against things I have said instead of things I never said. I never said that charter schools was performing better I was saying that my SONS school was performing better despite being a lottery. If we can't at least represent each others claims properly I do not wish to partake in this discussion.

No it's not immaterial whether someone can put their kids to a public school in Tribecca vs. Harlem.

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#68

Post by ThomPete » Wed, Oct 28, 2015, 6:46 PM UTC

mratzloff wrote: post #57

ThomPete wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are Charter Schools Required to Provide Services to Students with Disabilities? Yes. The responsibility to make a free appropriate public education (FAPE) available to all students with disabilities applies to ALL public schools under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).9 Charter schools are public schools; therefore, they bear the same responsibility. Who is actually responsible for ensuring that…

Dig deeper and you will find that while this is the law, it is not necessarily reality. Hence why I structured the question the way I did rather than focusing on the legal requirement. A new government report shows that charter schools are not enrolling as high a portion of special-education students as traditional public schools, despite federal laws mandating that publicly financed schools run by private entities t…

There are many things that aren't reality when you dig deeper. Public schools are no different. Again. Trying to make charter schools the bad schools in defence of the public shools is simply absurd.

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#69

Post by ThomPete » Wed, Oct 28, 2015, 6:53 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #60

ThomPete wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy the premise that they are somehow stressing an already broken system. Again 32 to students in every class. We aren't talking about small classes here we aren't talking luxurious schools. And then on top of that the positive influence it has one socially challenged areas. There is a world of difference between a public school in Tribecca and one in Harlem. To be able to attend the one in Tribecca you need…

Let's say a public school has grades K-5 with 2 classrooms of 32 students per grade. That's 12 classrooms, for a total of 384 students. Let's also assume that school gets $6000 per year, per student (total of $2.3 million). The budget is already threadbare, so there aren't many places left to cut. Now let's say you take away 10% of the students from that school, such that you now have 29 students in each class. The s…

Again you are assuming the wrong things about what makes education work IMO.

It's NOT the budget and never have been. My sons school doesn't have anywhere near the budget of a private school. That doesn't mean that they are doing worse.

The entire idea of money being the key indication only make sense if we are talking about litterally not being able to pay for teachers.

You contradict yourself when you then claim that places like Kahn Academy provides similar education for no money at all.

It's way way cheaper budget they run by and they don't have any benefit of having in person teachers.

And yes your take would be different once you have kids for reasons not easily detectable in statistics or public research and you can't set it up in some table and start comparing it purely via non-human metrics.

None the less your characterization of charter schools in general is mostly wrong and that is what I take issue with. Not whether there are problems with some charter schools.

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#70

Post by irl_zebra » Wed, Oct 28, 2015, 7:51 PM UTC

drostie wrote: post #50

> Regulators have been cracking down on the industry’s misdeeds—most notably, lying about job-placement rates. One of the services that my company (IntegriShield) provides is collecting these placement statistics; it is one of the less-profitable things we do, the sort of grunt work that you'd usually offload to a call center, but we insist on Doing It Right. It's a messy business: usually contact information is spar…

> I guess my point is, I'm totally unsurprised that less-scrupulous employees faced with that hairball just said, eh, I'll make up that I successfully contacted them, what harm could that do? -- and if that happens, you've got across-the-board confirmation bias going on, "of course our graduates land good jobs in the field."

Well, my experience is that it's more of a selection bias than anything else. Not outright employee-not-wanting-to-do-their-job lying. When the calls go out to graduates to get employment data, the successful ones have no problems giving their data, while the unemployed ones hesitate. This can be seen where the percentage of graduates reporting data is given.

This also happens with salary data, those working temp jobs or minimum wage don't as readily give out their salary data as those who are really successful early on.

One seemingly effective way I've seen universities get more representative data has been to hold diplomas until a survey is filled out. Obviously this doesn't capture later data (like salaries/employment 9 months out), but it gives a good picture of recent graduate data with extremely high reporting percentages.