Charter school students do not out perform public school studen...

Charters have been fought by LAUSD. Some charters do under perform and fail. Charters that are run by competent people seem to do well. Just because you "have a dream" to open a charter and are currently an "educator"; means nothing in terms of success. There must be a vision and follow thru. I support charters as the only respite form LAUSD. Vouchers!!!!

Charters that are like the rascist latino / aztec orientted downtown area school that fails every year, must be closed down! Charters like Renaisance in Pacific Palisades should never have been granted in the first place. The folks running that one had no clue whatsoever, financially speaking. Fenton Charter is a great example as are many others in the LAUSD area.

The last paragraph quoting the person from USC is a clue right there. "WE don't know what techniques they are using at successful schools". Huh? You are supposed to be an expert at education? When you folks get your heads out of your academic b_utts, then maybe you'll see it all for what it is...... excellence is no longer the goal. The goal is to capture funding to support the unions and lock up the system against the parents and students that know how to apply critical thinking and question the system. No talk about the personal responsibility are parental support the better perfoming students get at home. Why, because we are led to believe that poverty or gang pressures or whatever, limits other students. It is the social promoting, low expectations, political correctness, teachers dressing like their students wanting to appear cool. Lame admins and unionistas have ruined public education in LA. No one leads in LA, they just shuffle along like sheep; imagining they are doing well.

It's important to remember that schools that are doing well typically don't become charter schools. Most often charter schools are formed at schools performing so badly that a major intervention was required.

This study compares schools that had been among the worst performing to national averages, and they now apparently compare pretty well.

It would also have been interesting if the study would have adjusted for demographics.

The real question is how much did schools improve by becoming charter schools. If charter school students are now "roughly on par with their traditionally schooled peers", I suspect that represents a significant improvement.

It’s important to remember that schools that are doing well typically don’t become charter schools. Most often charter schools are formed at schools performing so badly that a major intervention was required.

This study compares schools that had been among the worst performing to national averages, and they now apparently compare pretty well.

It would also have been interesting if the study would have adjusted for demographics.

The real question is how much did schools improve by becoming charter schools. If charter school students are now “roughly on par with their traditionally schooled peers”, I suspect that represents a significant improvement.

Did Charters' account for truancies in LA for the reseach team hanlding this report?

And,when will the School Districts in LA County, starting with Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) begin to assist the City and County to reduce truancies, with the Gang Reduction Youth Development (GRTD) failed gang program, as did San Bernardino County by sixty percent; and begin to have automation of the student attendance tracking systems, by sending letters to parents and others and then data share the information with the City and County agencies/departments as appropriate?

Or asked differently, why was there no accountability at LAUSD, for approximately 11000 notices not mailed per State Education Code Section 48260.5 and the number in LA County was in excess of three truancies in the year ended June 30, 2008, for a loss of revenue of approximately $40 per day per student?

Yours truly,
Thomas D. Carter, CPA
Sherman Oaks

LET the finger pointing begin

Looks like Broad's and Gates' millions combined with Barr's idiotic idea to apply failed "free market principles" to pedagogy have so far resulted in an epic fail! Steve Barr, Marco Petruzzi, and Ben Austin were saying before the charter take over of Locke that they would turn the school around in a matter of months. Over a year later and Locke scores are still 150 points below an acceptable API. So much for the vision of charter schools.
The Locke experience demonstratively proves what UTLA has been saying all along. Smaller class sizes, parent involvement, and more money spent per class room changes everything. While neoliberal Green Dot and other charter schools are able to tap the vast fortunes of predatory monopoly capitalists like William Gates, and neoliberal billionaires like Eli Broad for now, what will happen after privatization of all our schools? Doubtful that the Wall-Mart model of education would attract any more right wing donations after that.
We need to fight to keep the public in public schools. We need to fight these massively funded, racist, right wing charter institutions that would ossify segregation in our schools. We need to organize our communities and support UTLA and other teachers' unions against the onslaught of those that would turn the honorable profession of teaching into a minimum wage job.

How about all of the reports I have been reading extolling these "Charter" and other independent schools. I would not believe this report because it is one report and I smell an agenda here to protest the Unions and Public Education officials who have a significant interest in maintaining the status quo of public education. Furthermore if we accept the test results particularly for the LAUSD how could a school perform much worse than they do.

Never accept one report or study like this or any other for that matter; look at other data and facts and then make a determination for yourself.

In my previous I meant PROTECT and my fingers slipped and it came out PROTEST. Entirely opposite of my thoughts.

Norman, Fraud and Freud are kissing cousins on my family tree that both should have their fingers and toes sent to IRAQ to end the games there; and thus your silp of the finger is accepted.

Why isn't anyone wondering WHY charters are not doing better? After all, parents SELECT the school, must provide transportation and children are not forced to stay if it doesn't "work out". Also, classes are usually small in comparison to LAUSD and money from all kinds of foundations pour in to many charters. Could it be that there is a profit motive underlying charters? Does anyone know how much money CEOs and administrators rake in? Maybe money and resources are not being used appropriately!!! Teachers are frequently fresh out of college, so high teacher salaries are not the cause. As the report states, accountability is a serious issue, and will eventually have to be dealt with. I only hope that our public schools can stay afloat. A true financial accounting of charter school expenditures by the State is way overdue.

Cost of charters? Does anyone want to discuss the fact that charters get money(50% I believe) back from the state to help pay for rent or mortgage payments? If charters were helping to ease the overcrowding of a school district, then maybe it would make sense to pay for their facilities instead of building new schools. But, in LAUSD, our student population is decreasing, not all due to charters, while at the same time new schools are being built one after the other. Hmmmm.....makes you wonder what's going on here!!!

One of them is lying.

Public School Supporter wrote:

while at the same time new schools are being built one after the other.

Taxpayers keep approving education bond measures because they want money spent on education. Unfortunately, at the same time we proceed with teacher layoffs and class size increases. Does anybody really think taxpayers want more and more school buildings with fewer and fewer teachers inside?