Center for Reinventing Public Education

The Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) is an education research and policy analysis think tank at the University of Washington, Bothell. The organization’s research finds statistical support for charter schools and for reforming the way public education is operated and funded.

Back in August, CRPE released a working paper on the impact of charter schools on student achievement. Its meta-analysis of high-quality studies found charters tend to have a small but positive impact on student achievement in math, but no additional impact in reading.

By the end of September, the National Education Policy Center released a review of CRPE’s analysis, calling CRPE’s conclusion “overstated” and “exaggerated” and concluding the report offers “little value for informing policy and practice.” (Readers of this blog may already be familiar with NEPC’s reflexive bias against charter school and school choice studies).

Well, get out your popcorn because CRPE just released a devastating counter-critique. CRPE accuses NEPC of quoting selectively, implying arguments not present, inaccurately presenting the research and several serious technical errors. In total, CRPE counts 26 errors within NEPC’s 9-page analysis.

Grade: Satisfactory

 

School Choice Movement

Yogi Berra once quipped, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially ones about the future.” While true, it doesn’t stop political pundits from attempting to predict the future based on (sometimes unreliable) exit poll data. Following the drubbing Democrats (and the once powerful education unions) received in the mid-terms, many of those pundits began wondering if education choice would lead minorities, especially African Americans, over to the Republican camp.

Just check out some of the speculation (Exhibit 1, Exhibit 2, and Exhibit 3) about how the school choice issue hurt Democrats and helped Republicans (at least in Florida).

But whether Republicans can use education and school choice to win over black voters isn’t the right question. The better, and more important, question is whether the school choice movement can finally win over more Democrats…

Grade: Satisfactory

 

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In one Florida city, the push for a charter school came from parents and teachers. In another, from a Democratic mayor. And in yet another, from the commander of one of the nation’s best-known military bases.

Over the past six months alone, at least a half-dozen examples show Florida charter schools picking up enthusiastic support from places that may seem unexpected. In many cases, school boards and teacher unions still oppose charter schools, and there’s no doubt the privatization narrative continues to dog them. But the recent examples suggest parents, local governments and other stakeholders in public education aren’t fazed.

“I definitely think there is a trend,’’ said Kara Kerwin, president of the Center for Education Reform, a Washington, D.C.-based think-tank that is strongly pro school choice. “And I think it’s an eye-opener for local public schools.’’

Florida is a leader in both charter school growth and charter school controversy. It boasts among the highest numbers of charter schools in the nation (more than 600), with the number of students in them nearly doubling in the past five years (to more than 200,000). The rapid growth has fueled constant clashes with school districts, and all the edgy publicity that comes with it.

And yet, the recent examples show no let-up in charter school proposals, and consideration if not support from an increasingly wide array of entities:

• In North Miami Beach, city leaders want to open a charter school focused on public safety that, eventually, would accommodate 1,300 students. Students could get their college degrees faster through a partnership with the local community college. The local school board voted down the application last month, but the city has appealed the denial.
• In West Palm Beach, Democratic Mayor Jeri Muoio successfully lobbied her city to open a charter elementary school next August after publicly criticizing the local district’s reading scores. After admitting she surprised herself by suggesting the concept, Muoio told redefinED: “I believe we just aren’t doing the job we should be doing.’’
• In Tampa, the same sentiment is leading military families and leaders from MacDill Air Force Base to push for a K-12 charter school. The local district runs an elementary school on base, but there is no middle school option. In addition, supporters said, a charter school provides an opportunity to create programs and services specific to children whose parents are serving their country. The district denied the application in December, but proponents, who have partnered with an education foundation and Charter Schools USA, recently appealed to the state.
• In Bradenton, parent, teachers and administrators at Rowlett Elementary, a public magnet school in Manatee County, came together last summer in a successful campaign to convert their school into a charter next school year. The move will allow Rowlett to keep special art and music classes as well as beloved teachers despite a district wide budget shortfall.
• In the most recent examples, the city commission in Tamarac and city council in Bonita Springs both directed city staff this week to check into the possibility of building charter high schools within city limits. In Tamarac, the city doesn’t have a public high school and according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the city manager said the city had unsuccessfully petitioned the district for a high school in the past.

Florida’s growing diversity in learning options of all stripes may be fueling further momentum for charter schools, Kerwin said. (more…)

Give Sean Cavanagh at Education Week credit for a relatively balanced report on tax credit scholarship issues that have been raised in several states, though not all of his sources displayed a similar rigor. The story offers us a snapshot into how one noted academic researcher draws financial conclusions, and the picture is not pretty.

In 2008, in fact, Welner raised a legitimate question about a state agency report that concluded the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship saved taxpayers $38.9 million in 2007-08. He criticized the agency, called the Office of Public Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA), for using what amounted to an educated guess that 90 percent of low-income students who chose the scholarship would have otherwise attended public schools. This is one among many factors that are critical to the evaluation because students who would otherwise have attended a private school save the state no money. Welner focused on this 90 percent figure and went so far as describe it as a form of “smoke and mirrors.”

Fast forward four years. Four different independent organizations, including highly regarded OPPAGA and the nonpartisan Florida Consensus Revenue Estimating Conference, have now issued seven different reports that all conclude the program saves money. In both the second OPPAGA report, issued in 2010, and an estimating conference projection issued in March (page 36), fiscal analysts turned to the U.S. Census for some answers. OPPAGA used the 2000 U.S. Census, the year before scholarships were enacted, and analyzed the Public Use Microdata Sample to determine that the 90 percent estimate was actually too low. The actual percentage of families in the relevant income category who attended public schools that year was 94.6 percent. The estimating conference went even further, combining American Community Survey data from 2005-09 with private school enrollment data to make projections about the actual number of low-income students enrolled in each grade level in private schools in 2012.

The results: The second OPPAGA reported found savings of $34.6 million in 2008-09, and the estimating conference projected a savings of $57.9 million for 2012-13.

Asked to respond to this new analytical consensus in Florida, though, and Dr. Welner largely reprised his 2008 remarks. (more…)