Liberace found gold in them there trills. Charter schools are now finding gold in them there hills of online (aka distance) education. California Virtual Academies (CVAs) operates 11 charter schools in California. To find out why, keep reading.
Last week in the Orange County Register, Lisa Snell proclaimed, albeit falsely, that charter schools are more effective than traditional public schools: “California’s charter schools have proven more effective than traditional public schools at educating children who aren’t native English speakers.” In her haste to glorify charter schools, however, she neglected to disclose a few remarkable facts.
Snell has been serving as President of the Governing Board of the California Virtual Academy @ Los Angeles. She reportedly is also a member of the charter school accreditation team of the American Academy for Liberal Education. The parent company of California Virtual Academies charter schools is K12 Inc., whose reported revenues during 2014 were $948,300,000. The total revenues for California Virtual Academy@ Los Angeles during 2014 was $26,104,249. (Assembly Bill 787, if enacted into law, would ban for-profit corporations from operating charter schools.)
Snell’s assertion that “California’s charter schools have proven more effective than traditional public schools at educating children who aren’t native English speakers” is unfounded—and misconstrues the actual conclusion in the study she cited by the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA): “On average charter schools have been more successful at improving EL [English language] performance than traditional public schools” (p. 57).”
First, there is no evidence in the CCSA study about proving anything. Second, CCSA referred to improving only English language performance. Third, the conclusion does not specify that English fluency among non-native English speakers improves more in charter schools than in regular public schools.
With only a few exceptions, during 2010–2013, API scores at Palm Lane Elementary School exceeded the API scores of all CVAs. Moreover, API scores at four academies declined steadily during this same period. (Data were not available for all CVA schools.)
Snell’s statement regarding school performance among non-native English speakers is ludicrous. On average, approximately 20% of students at California Virtual Academies were Latino. At Palm Lane, the same minority population is 84%. Now reread Snell’s nonsense: “California’s charter schools have proven more effective than traditional public schools at educating children who aren’t native English speakers.”
Snell, Romero, and groups with vested interests in charter schools have lambasted Palm Lane Elementary School for months, citing API scores as evidence of long-term failure. Palm Lane been singled out unabatedly as the model “failing” school, despite that many other elementary schools in the Anaheim City School District have received similar API scores, scores less than 800, the state’s arbitrarily set minimum “passing” score. In my recent posting regarding Snell’s false assertions, I pointed out that API scores have been virtually the same for public schools and charter schools.
Snell bemoaned, “Sadly, however, Orange County has not been supportive of charter schools. Of the 1,200 charter schools in California, Orange County has only 16, or just over 1 percent of the state’s total.”
It’s easy to understand Snell’s sadness and sniffles: She is crying all the way to the bank.
Hugh, you’ve written in the past criticizing the misleading manipulation of statistics. Aren’t you guilty of that sin here? You seek to disprove the contention that charter schools aren’t any better than conventional public schools at educating English-learners by cherry picking a mere handful of the hundreds of charter schools in California.
You are relentless in your attacks on charter schools. Where is the evidence that the conventional public school system is delivering what it is obligated to provide: a quality education to everyone? Where is the argument and/or evidence that the current system is doing the job, or can ever be expected to do it? From my perspective, all I have ever heard during the past quarter-century from the special interests that dominate the public education system – first and foremost being the California Teachers Association — is to blame the children, the parents and allege insufficient funding and taxation. Meanwhile, these same special interests fight reform and accountability measures that might reduce their power.
Charter schools are not the enemy. They are one of the few education tools in California that provide an avenue for reform, innovation and improvement without being squashed by the public school unions (not individual teachers, mind you) that value money, power and control more than providing children with a quality education.
Carl Sigman, where do I begin?
I have never tried to disprove anything, which you know is impossible. It is possible only to present an assertion and support it with evidence. Lacking any substantive evidence, however, you continue to contend that charter schools provide a better education than traditional public schools.
You cite nothing specific in my piece, offering only generalizations and addressing factors I never mentioned. In fact, my writings have never attacked charter schools. I have pointed out that changing the name of a traditional school to a charter school does not provide a different education or a different instructional program. Because instructional programs are more alike than different, student performance does not usually change. In the case of Palm Lane, the mantra has been change for its own sake. To date, I remain unaware of any vision for real reform, innovation, or improvement for a Palm Lane charter school.
Your comments ignore the focus of my article. Within a week you twice published the same content written by Snell, neglecting to include her vested interest in establishing charter schools and the hundreds of millions of dollars received by the company she represents. Moreover, as much as you have characterized Palm Lane as a failing school, you ignored the far greater failure of Snell’s schools to improve student performance–or to mention that API scores of California Virtual Academies were far below the API scores of Palm Lane.