Recent Activity

  • The Case for Charter Schools, Part One
    James commented on the article | almost 3 years ago
    The Case for Charter Schools, Part One

    I beleive that charter schools are the best choice for our schools because they are able to provide an individualized, competitive and all inclusive education.  In the United States we are required by the law to educate every one until they reach a certain age, in most states 16 or 17 years old where many other countries around the world do not have this requirement, either because of space limitation, status in the community or the way that the schools track students progress deem them not worthy or unable to learn the required knowledge to continue with school.  The question of whether charter schools are more effective than public schools creates a spirited debate. Much research has been conducted, with mixed results. The National Charter School Research Project Center at the University of Washington, Bothell recently produced a report entitled Hopes Fears and Reality a Balanced Look at American Charter Schools in 2008. In the report they discuss the types of research that has been done on charter school's effect on student achievement. Their conclusion was that many of the past research used "snapshots" of student achievement at a single point in time, which were not accurate in assessing the effectiveness of charter schools. Since charter schools attract atypical students, often from less affluent and minority backgrounds, this type of study often produces misleading results. Using value-added comparisons might have more validity. Two methods were described. The first was to compare students who had been accepted by a particular charter school that used an entrance lottery system with the students who did not win the entrance lottery. Another approach would be to follow individual students' test scores over time and gauge whether the charter school produced more progress than a traditional public school. When the center applied their methods, they concluded that while there were a lot of differences between charter schools, they more often outperform than under perform their traditional public school counterparts. They also found that charter school students in Grades K-8 typically did better than traditional public school students.  Increasing the number of charter schools is the best choice for our schools because they are able to provide an individualized, competitive and all inclusive education.

Impact

0 Recruits