BCT “news” article – 12/24/11

As you read BCT articles on the topic of charter schools (and school vouchers), keep in mind the BCT has a pretty large body of work opposing K-12 education alternatives to the traditional one-size-fits-all, brick-and-mortar public school system.  To my knowledge, the only exception was “Death watch” (6/10/04) in which the BCT said, “Have Aliquippa declared a school choice community and find pro-voucher backers to provide the needed funding.  This is no reflection on the job being done by the school district.  Its teachers, administration and school board are working as hard as they can to improve the district.  However, the sad reality is that many people won’t buy homes in the city because of its schools.  Decoupling the two would eliminate that concern.”

There are only a couple of items in the article I want to comment on.  Both involve claims made by proponents of each school.

According to the article, “Carla Council, spokeswoman for the [Hope Academy] charter school’s founding committee” said, “We’ll deliver them [grade school students] to you, and they’ll be better students.”  Ms. Council may believe her assertion, but no one can make that claim.  You’ll see what I mean below.

Later the article said, “[Aliquippa School District (ASD) Superintendent David] Wytiaz also said that the district’s experience with cyber charter schools has been the creation of a ‘transient’ group of students.  ‘(After a year or two in a charter school), they come back to us and, quite frankly, they’re behind,’ Wytiaz said.  ‘And as a public school, we’re held accountable for them by the state.’”  If Mr. Wytiaz presented data to support his assertion, the reporter didn’t mention it.  There’s also no mention of the BCT reporter asking if such data existed.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume Mr. Wytiaz’s assertion is correct.  Though it appeared Mr. Wytiaz painted with a broad brush, it would be surprising if his comment weren’t true for at least some students.  Here’s why.  Though some parents may be looking for something their current school can’t/doesn’t offer, I suspect most parents would not go to the trouble of switching their child to another school if he were doing well in the ASD system.  Therefore, some (most?) of the students to whom Mr. Wytiaz referred likely were underperforming when they left the ASD system.  As much as we’d like to think otherwise, some kids will “underperform” no matter what we do and that would explain some of the students Mr. Wytiaz mentioned.  Another reason for no improvement or decline can be incompatibility of the student and the learning environment.  That is, while a child may respond positively to a change to a different brick-and-mortar school, he may not be suited to a cyber school or vice versa.  These situations are what I meant above when I wrote no one could make the claim allegedly made by Ms. Council.