Report’s claims find little support in evidence
Contact:
William J. Mathis, (802) 383-0058, wmathis@sover.net
Arnold Danzig, (408) 924-3722, arnold.danzig@sjsu.edu
URL for this press release: http://tinyurl.com/ownofj8
BOULDER, CO (September 1, 2015) – Program diversity has long been touted as an advantage of charter schooling. In a recent American Enterprise Institute report, authors Michael McShane and Jenn Hatfield advocate for the expansion and deregulation of charter schools on the basis that they provide greater variety and are more responsive to parental desires. The report, however, comes up short in providing evidence of greater program diversity or of over-regulation.
Arnold Danzig and William J. Mathis reviewed Measuring Diversity in Charter School Offerings for the Think Twice think tank review project at the National Education Policy Center, housed at the University of Colorado Boulder’s School of Education.
By examining charter school websites, the report finds schools evenly split between Specialized (e.g., “no excuses” or STEM) and General. It finds small to moderate correlations between city demographics and certain types of charters but also finds that specialized schools tend to morph into homogenized general schools. In relying on the schools’ own websites, the authors admit that coding schools in this manner can be error-prone, yet no accuracy check of the data is used.
The reviewers found several additional weaknesses with the report. It claims the superior program diversity of charters but fails to empirically compare charter offerings with those of traditional public schools. It claims that charter schools are hampered by red tape, but again offers no evidence.
The correlations between charters and city demographics are based on only a sample of 17 cities, which provide a weak base for supporting the report’s conclusions. There are minimal citations, mostly to charter school advocacy organizations.
The reviewers conclude that the report is an advocacy piece with methodology problems that “render the report of little validity or utility.”
Find Danzig and Mathis’s review on the NEPC website at:
http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-charter-diversity
Find Measuring Diversity in Charter School Offerings, by Michael Q. McShane and Jenn Hatfield, on the web at:
http://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Measuring-Diversity-in-Charter-School-Offerings.pdf
The Think Twice think tank review project (http://thinktankreview.org) of the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) provides the public, policymakers, and the press with timely, academically sound reviews of selected publications. NEPC is housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education. The Think Twice think tank review project is made possible in part by support provided by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.
The mission of the National Education Policy Center is to produce and disseminate high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. We are guided by the belief that the democratic governance of public education is strengthened when policies are based on sound evidence. For more information on the NEPC, please visit http://nepc.colorado.edu/.
This review is also found on the GLC website at http://www.greatlakescenter.org/.