An Ed Week blog post on the Brookings study:

"The inescapable conclusion is that HCZ Promise Academy is a middling charter school," the analysis concludes. "If other charter schools generate outcomes that are superior to those of the HCZ and those charter schools are not embedded in broad neighborhood improvement programs, why should we think that a neighborhood approach is superior to a schools-only approach?"

From a public policy perspective, It would be far less expensive to focus solely on making the schools themselves the best they can be, according to Whitehurst.

There are a couple of points to keep in mind here, though. One, as I mentioned earlier, is that this methodology is not quite as rigorous as a randomized study, which would have been difficult to do given this particular data set. The second point is that the competition for the Promise Academy was pretty stiff in this study. At least two studies so far have found that New York City's charters tend to outperform its regular public schools. And the mix of charter schools in this analysis includes three middle schools associated with the Knowledge Is Power Program, or KIPP, which calls for a longer school day, a longer school year, and even some Saturday classes.

These findings, of course, are counterintuitive. And my guess is that they will raise some hackles among HCZ supporters, who are legion. I invite them to share (or vent) their thoughts here.

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Study: Is Promise Academy a 'Middling' Charter?

By Debra Viadero on July 20, 2010 9:06 AM | 3 Comments | No TrackBacks

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2010/07/the_harlem_childrens_zone_prom.html