Comments on: How many students leave charter schools, and why do they go?

By: Two decades later, ‘Pump Up the Volume’ looks unexpectedly and unfortunately ahead of its time | Hotspyer – Breaking News from around the web

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 03:09:47 +0000

[...] Chicago. And “Massachusetts revised its charter regulations to require new charters to replace [...]

By: Charter Schools and Student Attrition: Not a Myth | Edwize

Charter Schools and Student Attrition: Not a Myth | Edwize — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 19:49:12 +0000

[...] WBEZ Public Radio and Catalyst Chicago magazine just co-released two excellent stories about the disturbingly high rates of student attrition and pushouts in Chicago charter schools. [...]

By: Kevin Fitton

Kevin Fitton — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 06:43:11 +0000

Having worked at a high expectation private school for high performing kids and having worked at multiple schools with all the problems of low socio-economic kids, I find it easy to believe that charters are hiding this information from the general public. Selectivity completely changes how to look at a school. Of course a high performing school is going to be high performing if all the students they retain are already performing at that level.

Something to see would be a school that can help the lowest performing students. It may not be strictly in academics, but to help them find a productive outlet and address many of the causes of poverty. I think that Mr. Heverly in the comments is dead on accurate as to some of the problems we face: Americans want a perfect school system that transforms everyone and reality shows us otherwise. Kids aren’t widgets and we can’t simply apply the same process over and over and expect results.

By: Jerry Heverly

Jerry Heverly — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 17:46:08 +0000

David Labaree, the Stanford prof, has a new book out (Someone Has to Fail) that says–correctly, I think–that US/Canadian schools have an inherent, unresolvable conflict: citizens want the schools to support individualism AND social equality. We want to create new Edisons while also ensuring that every student has a chance to succeed. The choice movement makes us uncomfortable because it highlights this contradiction. No child should be left behind; but every child should be pushed to do extraordinary things. Half of us are outraged at how ‘dumbed down’ the curriculum is in the public schools(low expectations), the other half are angry at how heartless the charter schools are with their high expectations.

By: Jimmy Kilpatrick

Jimmy Kilpatrick — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 11:46:54 +0000

Just another cheap hit piece on charter schools.

By: Remainders: The world reacts to a “small tectonic shift” | GothamSchools

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 03:41:52 +0000

[...] Some Chicago charter schools have very high student attrition rates. (Hechinger/WBEZ/Catalyst) [...]