Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Flawed Charter Attrition Comparisons from WNYC

I used to love public radio's WYNC.  When I lived in New York, I listened all the time that I was driving around Long Island looking for schools where I was supervising interns.  I found careful reporting and insightful hosts talking about important issues.  

That is why WYNC's most recent research raises such an alarm.  Could they be so careless as to compare attrition rates at NY charter schools and regular public schools, while leaving out grade 5 in their data collection?  After all, the Kipp Model middle school charters are grades 5-8, and that is where of the attrition happens as many low performers and troubled students are jettisoned.  And since there are more charter middle schools than any other level, what does do to skew the numbers in favor of charters??  

Is it any surprise, then, that WNYC finds attrition rates are lower for charters than public schools of New York??

This is such an awful example of skewed research it makes me wonder how much money WNYC is collecting from the corporate foundations, who have chosen No Excuses charter schools as the educational "choice" for parents trapped in malignantly neglected public schools.  

Hmm, here is the list of grants through 2013 from the Gates Foundation:


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