The National Education Policy Center regularly reviews reports from think tanks and advocacy groups. In this report, its scholars review an effort by charter school advocates to defend charter schools against critics. The conclusion: charters promote privatization and segregation.

“National Charter School Report Misleading and Superficial, Review Finds”

Contact:
Gary Miron, (269) 599-7965, gary.miron@wmich.edu
Daniel Quinn, (517) 203-2940, dquinn@greatlakescenter.org

EAST LANSING, Mich. (Feb. 23, 2015) — A report from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) attempted to “separate fact from fiction” about charter schools. The report addressed 21 “myths” regarding charter schools, which were quickly rejected. However, an academic review of the report finds that it perpetuated its own myths and fictions about charter schools rather than adding to the discourse surrounding school choice.

The report, Separating Fact and Fiction: What You Need to Know about Charter Schools, was assembled by NAPCS with no author identified. Gary Miron, Western Michigan University, William J. Mathis, University of Colorado Boulder, and Kevin G. Welner, University of Colorado Boulder, reviewed the report for the Think Twice think tank review project of the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) with funding from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.

Succinctly, the original report addressed various claims about charter schools in such areas as financial equality of charter schools, lower teacher qualifications, student selection demographics, academic outcomes, segregation, and innovation.

Yet, the reviewers found that the report’s main purpose appears to be the “repetition or ‘spinning’ of claims voiced by advocacy groups and think tanks that promote privatization and school choice.” Furthermore, the reviewers found that it relied almost exclusively on advocacy documents rather than more careful and balanced empirical research, and provides only a superficial examination of any “criticisms” regarding charter schools.l

The review is organized in a format that lists each of the criticisms identified, and then provides a short commentary based on the extant research literature. Where the original document overlooked research evidence, the reviewers provide readers with a valuable tool to examine charter school criticisms.

Additionally, the reviewers find that the report fails to redirect the sector toward its original ideals, “Charter schools were originally designed to be a new form of public school. They were supposed to be small, locally run, innovative and highly accountable. They were supposed to be open to all and were expected to provide new freedoms to teachers to creatively innovate and serve their communities.”

Instead, the reviewers point out the most disappointing non-myth that comes out of the research: “In reality, the main outcomes of charter schools have been to promote privatization and accelerated the stratification and re-segregation of schools.”

The reviewers conclude, this report is unlikely to be of any use to “the discerning policy-maker” and fails to engage the important underlying issues.

Read the full review at:
http://www.greatlakescenter.org

Find Separating Fact and Fiction on the web:
http://www.publiccharters.org/publications/separating-fact-fiction-public-charter-schools/

Think Twice, a project of the National Education Policy Center, provides the public, policymakers and the press with timely, academically sound reviews of selected publications. The project is made possible by funding from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.

The review can also be found on the NEPC website:
http://nepc.colorado.edu