The UFT's rebuttal to Hoxby's study; fighting The Blob
The answer actually depends on how policymakers weigh the goal of improved student achievement against other worthy goals, such as greater educational equity and meaningful diversity. And on these other objectives, nagging questions dog the charter sector.For example, Hoxby finds that 92 percent of charter students are black or Hispanic, compared to 72 percent in district schools and concludes that “the existence of charter schools in the city therefore leaves the traditional public schools less black, more white, and more Asian.” Such racial segregation is consistent with research on charter schools in other states including North Carolina, Texas and elsewhere.
Although this statistic is likely to be a function of charter schools’ location in largely black and Hispanic neighborhoods, Hoxby also reports that fewer white students are applying to the charters; although 14 percent of residents in the charter school neighborhoods are white non-Hispanic, only 4 percent are applying.
The Blob has also been very clever to embrace the children, such that any attack on it or its interests appears to be an attack on children and children’s interests. In fact, however, the interests of The Blob are often completely contradictory to the interests of children. For example, it is obviously in the best interests of children if ineffective teachers and principals can be removed quickly, yet their unions fight – generally very successfully – to make it extremely difficult to remove even the most ineffective performer. Or, among the unions favorite prescriptions to fix our schools is to reduce class size, which obviously benefits unions because it requires hiring many more teachers, yet the evidence shows that this is very costly yet does little to help students – and may even harm disadvantaged students.
Hoxby’s Other “Stubborn Facts”
Sep. 23, 2009
by Jonathan Gyurko
www.edwize.org/hoxby%E2%80%99s-other-%E2%80%9Cstubborn-facts%E2%80%9D
Stanford University economist Caroline Hoxby released yesterday an update to her 2007 study of charter schools in New York City.1 In the study, she compares the state examination results of students enrolled in the City’s charter schools (i.e. those students “lotteried-in”) to the results for those students who applied to a charter but were not selected for admission (i.e. the “lotteried-out”). In many respects, this is a good approach as it aims to account for the possibility that charters enroll more motivated families and that it is this motivation, rather than any particular charter school effect, that is the cause of stronger student achievement.
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