Traditional Vs. Traditional Vs. NontraditionalNontraditionalTraditional Vs. Traditional Vs. NontraditionalNontraditional

By: Caitlin Haney and Myleea By: Caitlin Haney and Myleea HamiltonHamilton

Step 1: Question• Are charter schools more

conducive to learning than traditional schools?

What is a charter school

• “are independent public schools designed and operated by educators, parents, community leaders, educational entrepreneurs, and others. They are sponsored by local or state educational organizations who monitor their quality and effectiveness but allow them to operate outside of the traditional system of public schools.”

Video Clip • KIPP on Making Schools Work (part

1 of 2)

Knowledge is Power Program:

KIPP Charter Schools

KIPP Schools:

KIPP:

Step 2: Our Hypothesis• Charter schools produce students

who are active learners, test higher on standardized test and are more invested in their education.

Step 3: Testing the Hypothesis

Article 1:Chasing the Blues Away

• Summary: Majority of charter schools are in large cities. Chicago has the third largest public school system and has made great effort to develop charter schools. In 1987 the US Education secretary declared it the worst school system in the country. Since that time Chicago has been striving to improve their status.

• A few years’ later Illinois passed a law that allowing school districts to create public charter schools that would have freedom from typical regulation in

exchange for heightened accountability.

• Through the creation of charter schools they aimed to create “a new high-quality school that would free from bureaucratic constraints, but still accountable for high results.

• Since then Chicago has become an example for the entire country.

• They have opened as many charter schools as allowed by law because of the success they have had.

• According to this article they have been successful because:

• “Proactive: Unlike most other Illinois school districts, CPS is not a passive charter authorizer. Instead of waiting for groups to propose new schools, CPS actively seeks out potential operators and clearly describes its vision of a successful school through its request for proposal (RFP) process.

• Selective: Between 80 percent and 85 percent of the charter applications CPS reviews have been denied.

• Stringent: The CPS annual audit process closely monitors schools' financial management and compliance with legal regulations.

• Transparent: The RFPs and accountability contracts for CPS include extensive guidelines and evaluation criteria. These details help charter applicants understand the school district's expectations and let school operators know what they must do to have their charters renewed.

• Protective: Often, CPS shields charter schools from central office bureaucrats looking to extend their reach “

As a result, Chicago charter schools are demonstrating impressive results. The most noteworthy outcomes are:

• strong graduation rates

• very popular with families, with waiting lists of as much as 10 times the number of seats available;

• higher attendance rates, in all but one charter school, compared to the schools charter students would otherwise have attended

• Other schools replicating these charter schools

Even a cautious analysis of students' test

scores shows that: • since 2001, seven of 10 Chicago charter elementary schools

improved faster than CPS as a whole;

• all Chicago charter high schools outperformed the average scores of public schools that charter students would have otherwise attended; and

• two studies by Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby show impressive results in one of Chicago's multicampus charter schools, as well as among charter schools all across Illinois. “

• Renaissance 2010 initiative: This acts aims to replace the 70 low performing tradition public schools with 100 new charter schools.”

Chicago charter schools demographics are consistent to the demographics of public

schools:

Success in Charter Schools vs. Traditional Schools:

Article 2:Do Charter Schools DO It

Differently? Summery:• -Charter schools are only a decade old and most

charter schools just in their second or third year.• -This accounts for many “start up problems” that could

be expected from any school. However when charter schools are concerned people are more critical.

• -Charter schools are allowed by law a cretin amount of freedom in hiring innovative teachers and personnel.

• - One principal interviewed for this article said “What I look for are people who are highly intelligent, prestigious college background, articulate they like kids. They know what it means to work on a team. They are visionaries of a sort…Certification is a guarantee of nothing to me. “

• -Charter schools do not have to heir teachers with certification.

• - Another principal said that there are a lot of great teachers in the public school system but because of harsh laws they are not given any autonomy and really able to thrive as a teachers.

• -This principals interviewed all agreed that the reason why they feel their school is successful is because they, rather than district officials unrelated from their specific school are in charge of selecting teachers who will be a good match with their school.

Article 3: An Analysis of Charter vs.

Traditional public schools in Utah

Summery- This article was an evaluation done by the Utah state Charter board. They concluded that students in elementary charter schools score better than traditional students in the area of Science, Math, and Language Arts on state assessments. However in grade ten traditional students show higher test scores.

• “Currently 29 charter schools serve over 5,000 students in Utah. This evaluation conducted for the state's Charter Board finds that elementary charter students (in grades 3, 5, and 7) scored better than traditional school students on the Science, Math, and Language Arts portions of the state's assessments. In grade 10, however, traditional school students exhibited higher scores.”

Article 4: Charter vs. Traditional

Two Types of D.C. Public School Are Not Easy To Compare

• Summary: This article compared a traditional public school and a charter school in D.C, Washington D.C. has more students currently attending charter school then any other city, about 20 % of all students in D.C. have chosen a nontraditional environment. The two schools compared were Meridian Public Charter School and Garrison Elementary School. Although Garrison Elementary has high test scores, many attribute this to the fact it is an older school. Even with the lower test scores, many have strong beliefs that Meridian has a lot to offer, such as invested teachers, and involved parents.

Article 5: Small School’s Ripple Effect Debated

As NYC and Chicago Close Failing High Schools, District Officials Encounter Criticism Boom in Small Schools Set

off Ripples in Chicago and NYC

• Summary: This article debates the recent shift to open new smaller schools in NYC and Chicago. New York is the nations largest school district, and Chicago is the third largest school district. Both of these school districts have chosen to close schools which were failing and open smaller schools. Due to this decision there has been much debate about the shift as far as quality, violence and resources for special educational students. There have been several difficulties involved in this choice, such as space and overcrowding.

• The grant for the smalls schools gives the school a two year temporary waiver from accepting students who require a self-contained classroom. Because of the waiver many feel that this has caused there to be a disproportional amount of students with disabilities and English-language learners in the regular high schools.

• 10.7 percent of high school students citywide were special education students, with 7.5% in the new small school

• English-language learners made up 11.5% of the citywide average, compared with 10% at the small schools

• Mr. Garth Harries, who is the head of the city’s office of new schools argues that over time the new small schools will be able to serve comparable portions of students with special needs, and will be able to serve them better due to the schools small size.

• This article took an interesting look at other issues which face nontrational schools.

Step 4: Interpretation of Data

Interpretation: Chasing the Blues Away

• This is an extremely well done article supporting charter schools and what they have done for the Chicago public school system. There are many reasons why they believe that charter schools are able to give children a better education.

• They are selective in hiring teachers.• The University of Chicago School of Education works

with Charter schools and future teachers learn about the philosophies of charter schools.

• This is beneficial because new teachers are excited and motivated to make a difference in education. Also they have never thought before and are not already influenced by traditional education and thus less resultant to change.

• Their sole goal is to improve student performance.

• These schools, because they are new are said to be under a microscope and their performance is carefully tracked.

• This article was honest but did not ignore the trouble they had the first year with low test scores. And also admitted that different data collections are capable of skewing data to express the outcome they desire.

Interpretation: Do Charter

Schools Do It Differently? The sole point of this article is proving the charter schools are a

better learning environment for children because of the differences in hiring. They are given more freedom and principals work hard to only heir teachers who believe in charter schools ideals. The main data collection from this

article revolved around a survey they sent out to 200 charter schools. They received 66% back and the results were very

interesting:1. Charter schools have fewer students per teacher than traditional schools, but their teachers are less experienced.2. Charter schools are much more likely than traditional public schools to employ who lack regular state certification.3. Charters have huge freedom in deciding which teachers to retain.4. When it comes to pay, many charters pay a premium for high-performing teachers or teachers in shortage fields.

Interpretation: An Analysis of Charter vs. Traditional Public

Schools in UtahThis was an extremely back and forth

statistical analysis. They was no opinion given or read reasoning behind the conclusions they made, only numerical results. Readers were only able to draw real conclusions from very specific areas, such as Language Arts exams in grades 9-11 improvement scores. As apposed to overall scores. This seamed a little unrealistic because is a parent wants to get the best education for their child they are not going to have them in traditional schools for math and then art in a charter school.

Interpretation: Charter vs. Traditional

• Charter schools have grown dramatically in the District over the years, with many people on waiting lists to get in.

• Because of better benefits and job security many teachers prefer traditional schools to charter schools

• Garrison has met “adequate yearly progress” on standardized tests, which puts it in a small group of D.C. schools that have met the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act

• Although the research is inconclusive, many agree that the school choice debate is really about parent’s preferences and the quality of the teachers and principle.

Interpretation :Small School’s Ripple Effect Debated• This article examined issues that two particular school

districts are facing as they move away from traditional schools to smaller schools. This article had little discussion of test scores and focused more on problems such as violence, resources for special education students, space issues, and overcrowding. It was determined that although many working in the schools felt that violence had increased since moving students to new smaller schools, in fact according to the chief executive officer of the Chicago School system incidents of violence has decreased by 5%. There are concerns not only about the students in the new small schools, but about those who remain in the traditional schools. Garth Harris, who is the head of NYC office of new schools, said that in fact the new schools are helping overcrowding by adding 5,000 seats to the system.

Step 5: Conclusion • After analyzing the articles regarding charter schools

versus traditional schools we have come to the conclusion that there is not enough data scientifically support our hypothesis that charter schools are better. However our interpretation has led us to believe a charter schools have potential to be more beneficial to students. Some charters schools have already proven this through higher test scores, and higher graduation rates. Our prediction is that those charter schools that are currently performing at a lower standard given time will prove to produce students who are active learners, test higher and are more invested in their education. We believe this to be true because of the freedoms charter schools are given over traditional school, including principal selectivity, community involvement, teacher motivation.

Bibliography: • Dobbs, Michael. (2004) Charter vs. Traditional. The Washington Post,

Page B01. Retrieved Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 from Washington Post database.

• Finn, C. & Kanstroroom, M. (2002) Do Charter Schools Do It Differently?. Phi Delta Kappan, 84(1), 59-62. Retrieved Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 from the ERIC database.

• Kristjansson, S. & Was, C. An Analysis of Charter vs. Traditional Public Schools in Utah. Performance Assesments/2004 CRT. Retrieved Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 from the ERIC database.

• Lake, R.J. & Rainey, L. (2005). Chasing the Blues Away. Washing D.C.: Progressive Policy Institute.

• Robelen, E. (2006) KIPP Schools Shift Strategy for Scaling Up. Education Week, 25 (31), 1. Retrieved Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 from the ERIC database.