A new study from the U.S. Department of Education indicates that charter schools perform no better than traditional public schools. Newsweek has more:
A new report from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) finds that charter school and public school students have the same academic performance in testing conducted at the fourth- and eighth-grade level.
“In 2017, at grades 4 and 8, no measurable differences in average reading and mathematics scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) were observed between students in traditional public and public charter schools,” the “School Choice in the United States: 2019” report found.
Despite these findings, Governor Bill Lee continues to make expanding charter schools a top policy priority. He increased funding for a charter school building fund this year and also successfully pushed legislation to create a new charter authorizing commission.
While policymakers like Lee hype non-solutions, evidence from actual schools suggests an urgent need to address poverty:
Districts with concentrated poverty face two challenges: Students with significant economic needs AND the inability of the district to generate the revenue necessary to adequately invest in schools.
Nevertheless, it seems Bill Lee and his allies will remain content to chase the latest shiny object and avoid a serious examination of policies that have the potential to change lives.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
Your support — $5 or more today — helps make publishing education news possible.
Well all you have to do is look at who Lee brought in as his Policy Director and Commissioner of Education. The research on Penny Schwinn, if anyone is interesting, should scare the pants off most people but no one seems to care. Just the mere fact that she comes from TFA and is a Broad Superintendent Academy graduate should be all anyone needs to know to steer clear of her but again no on seems to care. Before coming to TN she had 6 jobs in 3 states in 10 years and she also was under consideration for a few others that she didn’t get. She is friends with all the likely suspects. Kevin Huffman, Michele Rhee, Kevin Johnson, Betsy DeVos and all the usual privatization crew. Schwinn’s husband is also VP of IDEA Public Schools (Charters). Gee no conflict of interest there now is there. Charter schools must teach the same thing traditional public schools teach because they are publicly funded but they also hire the most TFA non-certified teachers than traditional public schools. So what makes them so attractive. Well I will tell you it isn’t about education. It is all about the BENJAMINS. The agenda is to eliminate traditional public schools and especially elected school boards. The choice parents want is not going to be the choice they will get. There will be no choice and parents will have no voice. I am so sick of educating people that refuse to do anything. Facts don’t lie and today they don’t mean much either. This also have nothing to do with the poor. We have been pushing these lies and schemes for decades and always on the backs of the poor. They use the poor to push their agenda and the poor stay poor and they stay under educated. I would think by now someone with half a brain would figure it out.