Traditional Vs.
Nontraditional
By: Caitlin Haney and Myleea
Hamilton
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 selfcontained 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 highperforming teachers or teachers in shortage fields.
Interpretation: An Analysis of
Charter vs. Traditional Public
Schools in Utah
This 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.