Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

NAACP members call for ban on privately managed charter schools

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 66 posts

Re: NAACP members call for ban on privately managed charter schools

#41

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #39
tptacek wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... because?

My pet theory is that schools are so dysfunctional because of a massive agency problem. The principals--the kids--lack capacity, so the agents run amok. Actually serving kids' needs becomes a side-show to cosmic debates over the social condition. Publicly-run schools can't even make basic operational decisions (hiring and firing, closing down unnecessary facilities, etc) without dealing with the last stand of the lab…

So, to boil it down, your assessment is that public schools are structurally less capable of spending money wisely because they're isolated from the market?

Re: NAACP members call for ban on privately managed charter schools

#42

Post by noobermin »

bsder wrote: post #22
rayiner wrote: post #4

Lesser of two evils. Black communities in the U.S. are in a tough situation: one party is openly hostile and racist, and the other props up teachers' unions and failing school districts (not to mention "think of the children" tough-on-crime policies) that do tremendous real damage too. In D.C.--a city where student performance continues to be abysmal despite nearly double the per-capita funding of surrounding "rich"…

> Indeed, D.C. charters educate about 45% of the students and are outperforming the district schools, despite having poorer students and less funding This is a common theme that charter schools seem to do "better" than the standard public schools in urban areas while they do worse in suburban areas. The problem is that this means that the charter schools aren't doing better because of education reasons but are instea…

> The single biggest improvement in school performance (charter or public) comes from switching to year-round school--especially among minorities.

Why is this? This sounds like "keeping them busy"...

Re: NAACP members call for ban on privately managed charter schools

#43

Post by rayiner »

tptacek wrote: post #41
rayiner wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My pet theory is that schools are so dysfunctional because of a massive agency problem. The principals--the kids--lack capacity, so the agents run amok. Actually serving kids' needs becomes a side-show to cosmic debates over the social condition. Publicly-run schools can't even make basic operational decisions (hiring and firing, closing down unnecessary facilities, etc) without dealing with the last stand of the lab…

So, to boil it down, your assessment is that public schools are structurally less capable of spending money wisely because they're isolated from the market?

They're isolated from the market and also must bear burdens--beyond those directly implicated by their core service of educating kids--that ordinary market participants do not have to bear.[1] And their status as highly-politicized publicly-run organizations does not allow them to operate any other way. Indeed, much of the negative reaction to charter schools is based on the fact we do not impose on them the burdens that make publicly-run schools so inefficient.

[1] I mean, the article is actually a prime example of this. None of the criticisms of charters are substantive. After all, few people could say with a straight face that we should pass a moratorium on the expansion of Starbucks because, as a company led by a white-male CEO, it is unable to meet the needs of black communities.

Re: NAACP members call for ban on privately managed charter schools

#44

Post by tux1968 »

erichocean wrote: post #37
tux1968 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't there likely a selection bias with the best students more likely to be in a charter school, thus making the school's performance metrics better than district schools?

Of course, but that's a feature, not a bug. People seem to believe that "the best" students will have identical achievement no matter who their surrounding students are. This is (at best) unproven and seems to defy common sense.

But the point is that if you sent all the under-performing students to the charter schools instead, in order to remove the burden they represent to the gifted students, we would then say.. look.. district schools are outperforming charter schools.

Thus, the results don't show that charter schools have some secret sauce that is unavailable to district schools. What you're saying is, separate the winners from the losers and the winners will do better than they would otherwise.

That's a defensible position perhaps, but it undermines any argument that privately managed schools are somehow inherently better than district schools.

Re: NAACP members call for ban on privately managed charter schools

#45

Post by gozur88 »

rayiner wrote: post #4

Lesser of two evils. Black communities in the U.S. are in a tough situation: one party is openly hostile and racist, and the other props up teachers' unions and failing school districts (not to mention "think of the children" tough-on-crime policies) that do tremendous real damage too. In D.C.--a city where student performance continues to be abysmal despite nearly double the per-capita funding of surrounding "rich"…

>Black communities in the U.S. are in a tough situation: one party is openly hostile and racist, and the other props up teachers' unions and failing school districts (not to mention "think of the children" tough-on-crime policies) that do tremendous real damage too.

I don't understand. The Republicans certainly don't prop up teachers' unions.

Re: NAACP members call for ban on privately managed charter schools

#46

Post by jessaustin »

tux1968 wrote: post #44
erichocean wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, but that's a feature, not a bug. People seem to believe that "the best" students will have identical achievement no matter who their surrounding students are. This is (at best) unproven and seems to defy common sense.

But the point is that if you sent all the under-performing students to the charter schools instead, in order to remove the burden they represent to the gifted students, we would then say.. look.. district schools are outperforming charter schools. Thus, the results don't show that charter schools have some secret sauce that is unavailable to district schools. What you're saying is, separate the winners from the loser…

At the very least, this line of thinking seems to imply that charter schools can pick the best students. It hasn't been demonstrated that public schools can do that. The intelligent teenager whose love for knowledge is crushed by authoritarian public school bullshit is a commonplace.

Public schools are famously bad at picking (hiring, promoting, retaining) the best teachers as well.

Re: NAACP members call for ban on privately managed charter schools

#47

Post by dzdt »

rayiner wrote: post #26
bsder wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Indeed, D.C. charters educate about 45% of the students and are outperforming the district schools, despite having poorer students and less funding This is a common theme that charter schools seem to do "better" than the standard public schools in urban areas while they do worse in suburban areas. The problem is that this means that the charter schools aren't doing better because of education reasons but are instea…

> But, see, charter schools aren't about improvement. They are about blaming people without actually having to commit more money to solve the actual problem. The U.S. spends far more money on education per capita than any other OECD country besides Switzerland. D.C. spends twice as much compared to Fairfax County next door. We don't need more money, we need reform.

Some of the biggest problems with the US education system are not problems with the US education system. They are problems of poverty that most other OECD countries either don't have or deal with by a stronger social welfare system.

Kids in poverty are missing classes, not doing homework, not able to concentrate because they are missing basic neccesities of life. Like a quiet room with a bed. Enough food. A ride to school when weather is bad. Clean clothes. A place to do homework. Pencils/papers/books/etc. An educated adult to help with homework. Etc, etc.

No amount of "education reform" is going to get much better performance from kids in such circumstances without the lower level problems being addressed. But for whatever reason, US policy tends to ignore this.

Re: NAACP members call for ban on privately managed charter schools

#48

Post by tssva »

bsder wrote: post #23
milesskorpen wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charters have a lot of advantages (like they don't have to accept all students, can hire/fire more easily, can kick out bad students) but _still_ don't outperform public schools as a class. I totally agree that there are some excellent charter schools — but there are excellent public schools too, and not only in extremely wealthy neighborhoods. Our challenge is finding the best model we can that can be replicated at…

> Charters have a lot of advantages (like they don't have to accept all students, can hire/fire more easily, can kick out bad students) but _still_ don't outperform public schools as a class. That's not entirely true. In urban areas, they do better than public schools. In suburban areas, they do almost exactly the same amount worse. http://credo.stanford.edu/documents/la_report_2013_7_26_2013... The problem is that t…

The study you reference is only of charter schools in one state. Education policy is decided at the state and local level and varies greatly between states and sometimes even between localities within a state. There is no reason to believe the findings in Louisiana extend beyond it.

Re: NAACP members call for ban on privately managed charter schools

#49

Post by makomk »

rayiner wrote: post #25
krisdol wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charter schools can dismiss students without due process, can kick out or deny students with low grades, and are usually not obligated to provide special education services. They are not public schools. They are corporate-run political organizations that prop up dozens of these PACs pushing an pro-charter agenda. https://cloakinginequity.com/2016/08/01/breaking-news-aclu-f...

> Charter schools can dismiss students without due process, can kick out or deny students with low grades Those are good things. These kids almost always have serious impulse control problems, and it's better for both those kids and for everyone else to have education tailored to those kids' needs. Teachers should be teachers--they shouldn't have to do double-duty as behavioral therapists. > and are usually not oblig…

Those allow charter schools to boost their performance not by actually performing better, but by simply kicking out kids whose results would drag their average performance down. Which means that any comparison with public schools that can't do this is misleading The UK equivalent of charter schools has exactly the same problem.

Re: NAACP members call for ban on privately managed charter schools

#50

Post by QuarterReptile »

noobermin wrote: post #42
bsder wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Indeed, D.C. charters educate about 45% of the students and are outperforming the district schools, despite having poorer students and less funding This is a common theme that charter schools seem to do "better" than the standard public schools in urban areas while they do worse in suburban areas. The problem is that this means that the charter schools aren't doing better because of education reasons but are instea…

> The single biggest improvement in school performance (charter or public) comes from switching to year-round school--especially among minorities. Why is this? This sounds like "keeping them busy"...

There are other beefier posts that address this tangentially, but it's about a stable environment. Basically, testing and school performance mostly just follow parent wealth/income/education because those factors indicate stable environments. I'm not saying those household situations don't bring other huge benefits to those kids, but stability seems to be the big cliff that poorer students just can't ascend.

So, the year-round set-up gives consistency for the kids, and probably also allows school to serve as childcare year round. Once you have the stability, you can start funding bigger things and maybe seeing some returns. But until then, education is largely a square peg that's never going into the round hole.

Post reply on HN