Tracy Press

Press Editorial

Which is best for California: charter or regular public schools It appears either, neither and both.

An extensive and comprehensive study by the nonprofit EdSource of standardized public school test scores in 2006 concludes that regular elementary schools score better than charter elementary schools, charter middle schools outperform regular middle schools and the results for both at high school are mixed, with charter students scoring better in English, but worse in math.

The results of the study appear to be a wash for proponents and opponents of charter schools. Yet, we are left with a lingering question: If regular public schools start out educating our children well, why do they lose their achievement edge with young teenagers

To find out, we asked an expert. Virginia Stewart, executive director of Tracy Learning Center and former Poet Christian School principal, has guided young Tracy teenagers to some of the highest standardized test scores.

Her answer: It’s the learning and teaching environment.

“Charter schools can invent solutions they identify as problems for students,” said Stewart, a big advocate of this educational alternative. “This gives the staff ownership and an investment in the vision.”

However, the advantage of charter school learning goes beyond grades six through eight, Stewart explained.

“Charters are doing well because they are allowed to design their programs around the needs of students,” she said. “In our case, we have a longer day and a longer year and a full-day kindergarten, something not yet considered by ‘regular schools’ as they pile on more requirements and cut back on science, art, music and so forth. There are many solutions being bantered about at the state and county levels that we have already addressed.”

We foresee the freedoms enjoyed by charter schools being compromised by public school politicians who seek to save face and money from the state.

Stewart warns: “My worry is, that as charters are dependent on (school) districts that sponsor them for facilities and oversight, that at times the push to reform charters to the status quo is a hard push to resist.”

In doing so, what began as revolutionary educational reform to provide California public-school parents a choice will be reshaped by such variables as a shorter school calendar, fewer instructional hours, inflexible instructional standards and more union rules into a teaching model that must fit the regular classroom.

Before the mold is set, however, public schools must satisfactorily solve their middle school question. We suggest following the charter school path of more personal teaching and counseling.

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written by charter schools are publicly paid for private schools , June 21, 2007

Instead of funding charter schools (private schools funded by the state essentially) we need to fix the public schools! Charter schools are nothing more than a way for parents to get a free private school education!! If they don't like the public schools, they should pay for their kids to go to private school.

If you suppport charter schools, ask yourself, why are there 2 different schools systems funded by the state? It makes no sense.

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written by Rob T. , June 21, 2007

Our schools would do much better if we had people in charge who knew what they were doing.Why is it there are all of these "Learning Centers" that can do wonders for your child. If they have way's to do a better job of teaching why isn't public schools adopting these methods????

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written by shirley c , June 21, 2007

parents who's children do attend charter schools also pay property tax which essentially pays for all public schools. Charters are just a choice given to taxpayers.

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written by ilegal , June 21, 2007

tu schul profesor;
i kin bei profesora eef yu ned sumon. ihav degrai en mexico.shud alow
ilegal tu com ceetizon an tech los ninos.I im vety educat en espanol
spacking. sum da mabi yu se me bipprfessora.Tank yu comentator.
ilegal.

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written by Know The Facts , June 21, 2007

A few things to consider:

Charter schools don't have an "automatic" population delineated by a particular neighborhood. INVOLVED parents who participate in their child's education are the ones who put their students in charter schools. Some of the added success attributed to those schools might be owed to the fact that these students have parents who are actually involved in their education and participate in overseeing homework and projects and commit to the requirements set forth by these public "private" schools.

Additionally, you don't have the same student mix as you'd find in the regular public school system. The regular public schools educate every facet of the community, English language learners and special education learners in greater volumes per capita than the charter schools do. These students' test scores are also included in the overall school score.

The charter school's "charter" may include some restrictions not allowed in your regular charter school. One example would be the requirement of parent involvement (number of hours) on campus, should your student attend.

I applaud the efforts of every school, student, parent to ensure a quality education. But please, let's make sure we get all the pieces of the story.

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written by charter schools are publicly paid for private schools , June 21, 2007

Private school parents pay property taxes too. But they don't get money to pay for their kids to go to private school. I fail to understand how a group of parents, unhappy with public school can start their own school, not run by the state funded school district, but their charter school is funded by the state?! Livermore is going through a huge scandal right now because the man hired to run the charter school was a stocks guy who had his license taken away because of shady investments. And who is accountable for this?! The state had nothing to do with it, but paid this man $140K a year to run a school that he had no education to do so. This is what charter schools are about. Private people making decisions about state tax dollars that have no right to do so!

There are 2 public school systems out there. Those that want private school educations but don't want to pay for it so they finagle a 'charter school' and those that go to the regular public school. Charter schools are private schools funded by state tax dollars. How can this be???!!!!!!

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written by go charters , June 21, 2007

Ok so I am a firm believer in the support of charter schools. They are designed for the individual learner, which we all know each child learns differentlt and at a different pace. Yes its true we more than need to better develope our public schools(where the children are often lost in the shuffle)but that is probably a long ways off. In the meantime, charter schools are the only way for some of these kids to catch up to graduate or learn at their own pace. You recieve communication from the school often if not daily whereas with public schools, you are lucky to meet with your counselors once a year. Also to those comments on a "cheating" the private school system, not all of us can afford a private school but yet we ARE paying taxes.So I guess in actuality we are paying for the school. If you can get your child in, I highly reccomend it. These programs teach them education, responsibilty, self respect and trustworthiness. I will continue enrolling my child into the charter system because we were let down by the public system.

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written by Study co-author , June 22, 2007

I am writing in response to comments by "Know the Facts." I found your comments very thoughtful and relevant, but I want to point out a couple of very important facts.

It is true that many charter schools do not have the same proportion of students from traditionally lower scoring groups (e.g., English Learners) as noncharter public schools do. However, many charter schools also have fewer experienced and fully credentialed teachers. In addition, the charter middle and high schools included in our analyses tended to have higher levels of overall challenge with respect to success on standardized tests (perhaps because of the teacher factors) as compared to noncharters.

More importantly, our study statistically controlled for differences in the level of challenge that schools faced when we compared differences in performance. Although we cannot say definitively that the performance differential that remained after those controls had been applied were not due to factors such as parental involvement, we can say that the performance differentials were not due to differences in student background characteristics and teacher experience and credential levels.