A Response to the Stanford Study on Charter School Performance

1. Half of the cyber charter schools in PA were started by school districts - mostly to keep students from leaving the district. These districts do not have the same motivation as independent cyber charters. This is evidenced by the recent graduation rates for four year students. Of the bottom 6 (out of 12) cyber charter schools, five were started and are run by school districts.

2. School districts are actively encouraging their least successful students to enroll in cyber charter schools. They even tell them that if they do not enroll in a cyber charter school, they will begin expulsion procedures.

3. Most students do not have the option of a brick and mortar charter school because the charter schools are full or are non-existent in their geographic area. Cyber Charter Schools have generally not limited their enrollments, thus many underperforming students find this as their only option.

4. Cyber Charter Schools are a significantly different paradigm. Many students do not catch on fast enough to succeed.

5. Cyber Charter Schools are treated as entire school districts for the purposes of AYP. For example, PALCS must meet 24 separate categories in AYP in order to make AYP. Over the years, we have seen significant gains in most categories. We are not given the designation of making AYP, though, unless we make it in all categories. This is different from school districts which might have on underperforming school but can still make AYP for the district.

6. Cyber Charter Schools are a new concept. There are few models to learn from. Five of PA's cyber charter schools are in their 7th year of operation. During that time, we have spent over $2 million developing software to coordinate with the open source software, MOODLE and are investing 1/2 million dollars each year to continue to develop our delivery system. Compare that to the traditional school district that has had over 100 years to get it right.

7. We have been told by the PDE that we are not allowed to help other charter or traditional public schools. The legal rationale is that "our money must be used for our students only." This stricture on collaboration keeps us from helping each other with best practices.

8. Half of all school districts have never paid for their students in cyber charter schools. This shortfall is made up by the PA Department of Education. The PDE payments may be delayed from 2 months to 8 months. For example, we are currently owed nearly $4 million of our $16 million (to date) budget. We have been able to borrow against our receivables but even then, we are millions behind monthly. Compare this to the traditional brick and mortar school which has its entire budget in the bank before school starts in September.

9. Cyber Charter Schools, like all charters, receive only about 75% of the money used by the home school district to educate their students. Cyber Charter Schools may not even receive the transportation money set aside for each student, even though the home school district has no transportation costs for the student.

10. Testing for cyber school students is unique. After a year of being tested from home - mostly through electronic means - the student must drive to a strange location and sit for hours with people the student has never met to take a pencil and paper test that they are not familiar with. The first year, PALCS failed to meet AYP because we had 93% participation on the tests. The target for AYP is 95%. Each year our school spends several hundred thousand dollars sending our teachers all over the state to 40 different locations. The only way we have been able to meet the 95% participation goals is to ultimately send teachers into selected student's homes.

11. Cyber Charter Schools can, and many do, admit students throughout the grade spectrum. It is not unusual for an "11th grader" to enter our school reading on a fifth grade level. It is not possible for us to make up six grades in one year. Thus, PALCS is graded down when this student does not register proficient at his or her grade level. This could be corrected by focusing only on lower grades and by not enrolling throughout the year. We choose not to do this, though, because we then would be limiting parent's school choice.

12. Cyber Charter Schools require the participation of the parent in the schooling of their child because they must take responsibility daily to keep them connected and motivated. This is a new way of thinking for many parents and some do not make the transition.

13. The current way of assessing students does not take into account how far they have come while enrolled in a Cyber Charter School. It assesses only where the student is at a particular time of testing (Spring / PSSA's). It could be argued that the eight years of neglect before coming the Cyber Charter Schools is the real reason for poor performance - not the one year that the student is enrolled in the Cyber Charter School.

14. If Cyber Charter Schools were graded on 1. teacher turnover 2. parent satisfaction 3. graduation rate as compared to the same student in his or her home district 4. growth while in the Cyber Charter School or 5. mastery of technology, PA Cyber Charter Schools would shine as the best schools in the world. As an example, the number of proficient students in various tested categories are 100% higher when comparing students who have been in PALCS for two years or longer verses students who have been in the school one year or less.

15. The CREDO research is based on an analysis that "looks at student achievement growth on state achievement tests in both reading and math with controls for student demographics and eligibility for program support such as free or reduced-price lunch and special education." Using the state achievement tests as the basis for the test reveals the basic weakness of applying this to Cyber Charter Schools (see 13 above). This also assumes that all Cyber Charter Schools have done a good job of identifying "free or reduced-price lunch" students. Only in the last two years did we learn that our identification process was incomplete. After applying additional guidelines provided by the PDE, our free and reduced lunch numbers doubled.

16. On CREDO's own site, it posted (below) that there are serious flaws to its own testing process:

http://credo.stanford.edu/

This concern (below) is consistent with the analysis of this author.
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A SERIOUS STATISTICAL MISTAKE IN THE
CREDO STUDY OF CHARTER SCHOOLS

Caroline M. Hoxby
Stanford University and NBER
August 2009
Abstract

"A recent study of charter schools' effect on student achievement has been published by CREDO (2009). It contains a serious statistical mistake that causes a negative bias in its estimate of how charter schools affect achievement. This paper explains that mistake. Essentially, the achievement of charter school students is measured with much more error than the achievement of the controls, which are not individual students but are group averages of students in the traditional public schools. By using the achievement data as both the dependent variable and (lagged) an independent variable, the CREDO study forces the estimated effect of charter schools to be more negative than it actually is. This paper notes that the CREDO study violates four rules for the empirically sound use of matching methods to evaluate charter schools' effects. The main conclusion is that the CREDO study is not reliable, most obviously because the statistical mistake means that its estimates of the charter school effect are substantially biased downwards from the truth." (emphasis added)
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17. Also on CREDO's site, it states: "The report found that achievement results varied by states that reported individual data. States with reading and math gains that were significantly higher for charter school students than would have occurred in traditional schools included: Arkansas, California, Colorado (Denver), Illinois (Chicago), Louisiana and Missouri."

California was the second state to create charter schools - 1992. Pennsylvania created charter schools in 1996. The current PA Cyber Charter School legislation was passed in 2002.

According to the Center for Education Reform, a pro-charter group, in 2008 California was one of the states that had the "strongest" laws in the nation.

The CREDO study has results for several states on its website. The study for California concludes:

"CHARTER SCHOOLS IN CALIFORNIA PERFORM SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER THAN THEIR TRADITIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOL PEERS IN READING

"A supplemental report, with an in-depth examination of the results for charter schools in California found mixed results between charter school and traditional public school performance. Reading gains were significantly higher and math gains significantly lower in charter school students compared to their traditional public school peers. African-American students attending charter schools performed significantly better in reading, and Hispanic charter school students performed significantly worse in math. For students that are low income, charter schools had a larger and more positive effect on both reading and math compared to their traditional public school peers. English Language Learner students attending charter schools also had a larger and more positive effect on both reading and math than their counterparts in traditional public schools. Special Education charter school students reported significantly higher gains in math than their traditional public school peers."

In Reading, low income, English Language Learner students and Special Education, charter schools reported "significantly higher gain," with the "significantly lower" scores with Hispanic charter school students.

Might this demonstrate that given time, charter schools can show "significantly higher" gains and might this also demonstrate that in a highly transient population, gains are hard to obtain?

18. Also on CREDO's site, it states:

"The report also found that students do better in charter schools over time. While first year charter school students on average experienced a decline in learning, students in their second and third years in charter schools saw a significant reversal, experiencing positive achievement gains."

Student enrolment in Pennsylvania Cyber Charter Schools grew from 24,000 last year to 34,000 this year (est.). Because of the large turnover in the cyber environment, it is fair to say that less than half of all current Cyber Charter School students are in their third year of schooling at their respective Cyber Charter School. Thus, it is unfair to evaluate the entire school. The evaluation should be with those students who are in their "second and third year" in the cyber school.

19. The bottom line is that students come and go in Cyber Charter Schools in much greater numbers than brick and mortar charter schools. This is in part because the cyber environment is not suited for some students, some student's needs are temporary and are for a period of time met by the cyber environment and because struggling students are drawn in larger numbers to the cyber school as a last resort. The fact that the entire cyber school body grew from 24,000 last year to 34,000 this year (est.), is a testament to the fact that cyber schools are meeting needs - especially when word of mouth is the biggest factor for seeking a cyber school. Many students are excelling in the cyber environment and a number do not. There are various factors that make it hard to effectively evaluate a cyber school environment. In PA, most cyber schools are only in their seventh year of operation. Until a more fair evaluation system can be developed, parents should be given the choice to send their children to Cyber Charter Schools and should be given the opportunity to be the final arbiter of the effectiveness of the school(s) with the power of their school choice.

Stanford Report on Charter School Performance

To read the entire report, CLICK HERE.

On April 6 2011, a press released issued by Stanford on the report findings led to many newspaper articles on the topic.

An analysis of the credo will follow in the next post.

A Response to Dr. Zahorchak's Testimony

Testimony of Dr. Gerald Zahorchak

Secretary of Education

Senate Education Committee

March 12, 2009

Good afternoon, Chairman Piccola, Chairman Dinniman, and members of the Senate Education Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today on charter and cyber charter schools. Read more.

HB 940 Analysis

Summary: House Bill 940, introduced to the Pennsylvania House Education Committee in 2009 by House Representative Karen Beyer, was drafted in concert with the Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA) and the Pennsylvania teachers union (PSEA) without any input from the cyber charter school community or the public. This bill will effectively destroy the growing movement of Pennsylvania cyber charter schools. Read more.

Legislative Alert 03-26-09

Cyber charter schools are the only tuition-free public schools of choice available to all students in the Commonwealth. There are currently eleven cyber charter schools educating upwards of 20,000 students.

Governor Rendell is seeking to change the funding formula for Pennsylvania Cyber Charter Schools. If his effort is successful, the new proposed formula could reduce cyber funding by as much as 20-30%. This is just the first step in reducing funding for all charter schools.

Governor Rendell’s appointed Secretary of Education, Dr. Gerald Zahorchak, at the Senate Education Committee on March 12, 2009 in York, stated:

“Our legislation establishes statewide regular and special education tuition rates for cyber charter schools based on the most efficient and effective cyber charters. In future years, the actual cyber charter tuition rate used to calculate school district payments would increase by the rate of inflation. School districts would save an estimated nearly $15 million a year from this change.”

Who could be against efficiency and effectiveness? Upon first glance, this seems like a fiscally conservative proposal. Upon closer examination, it becomes apparent that this is a blatant attempt to cut cyber charter funding and thereby handicap school choice in Pennsylvania.

Cyber charter schools are already doing more with less. Under the current funding formula, cyber schools receive 75% of the local district’s tuition allocated for each student. The local district keeps the remaining 25% and the state reimburses them another 30%. In other words, the school districts get to keep approximately 50% of the money with none of the costs of educating the student.

It is also important to understand that cyber charter schools cannot simply raise taxes to meet increased expenses. They are restricted to the funding from the local districts and therefore must operate in a more fiscally conservative manner. If the Secretary is so anxious to save money, why not cut the 30% reimbursement to the local districts?

The bottom line is that this issue is rooted in a fight for dollars when the discussion should be about our children and how the public education system can offer more parents school choice. Please write your State Legislator and State Senator to support true public school parental choice.

Charter School Hearing 03-12-09

Click Here for the complete testimony provided to the Senate Education Committee at the Hearing on 3/12/09 at Lincoln Edison Elementary Charter School.

Publish Post

Action point for all cyber charter school supporters:

"Needed are individuals who will call their Pennsylvania State Legislators and PA Senators to invite them to either visit their school or to visit their home to see how cyber charter schooling works"... Read more.