Truespeak

A little over a month ago, I wrote a post entitled "So Dark the Con of NCLB." It detailed one of the many deceptions propagated by one of the Bush administration's signature programs - the misconception that private schools do a better job of educating our children than do public schools. In the diary I stated that "[t]he deceptions of the GOP are many." Well, now we can add another deception to that list.

From the AP:

Fourth-graders in traditional public schools are doing better in both reading and math than students in charter schools, the government says in a report fueling fresh debate over school choice.

Tuesday's report said fourth-graders in regular public schools scored an average of 5.2 points better in reading than students in charter schools on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress test. Students in traditional schools scored an average of 5.8 points better in math.

Charter school opponents said the findings show that the schools are a failing experiment that drains resources from traditional public schools. Charter school supporters called the report flawed and outdated and said charters improve public education by creating competition.

The Bush administration supports charter schools.

Not only does the Bush administration support charter schools, they proudly made them a part of NCLB.

Expanded Choices for Parents: Enhances options for parents with children in chronically failing schools - and makes these options available immediately in the 2002-03 school year for students in thousands of schools already identified as failing under current law.

• Public/Charter School Choice: Once a school is identified as failing, parents will be allowed to transfer their child to a better-performing public or charter school.
  
• Supplemental Services: For the first time, federal Title I funds (approximately $500 to $1,000 per child) can be used to provide supplemental educational services - including tutoring, after school services, and summer school programs - for children in failing schools. Services can be provided by faith- and community-based organizations.
  
• Charter Schools: Expands the charter school initiative, creating more opportunities for parents, educators and interested community leaders to create schools outside the education establishment.

So as with private schools, the Bush administration is wanting to offer us, as parents, the choice of leaving our public schools and going to a charter school, when the average charter school is performing worse than a comparable public school. Now help me out here, people. I'm having a little trouble with the logic on this one. Maybe this is some of that fuzzy math George W. warned us about all those years ago.

But to be fair, it's not all charter schools that are performing poorly. Let's look at the actual report (PDF). According to the executive summary:

Reading

In the first phase of the combined analysis, all charter schools were compared to all public noncharter schools. The average charter school mean was 5.2 points lower than the average public noncharter school mean. After adjusting for multiple student characteristics, the difference in means was 4.2 points. Both differences were statistically significant. The adjusted difference corresponds to an effect size of 0.11 standard deviations. (Typically, about two-thirds of scale scores fall within one standard deviation of the mean.)

In the second phase, charter schools were classified into two categories based on whether or not they were affiliated with a public school district (PSD). Each category was compared separately with public noncharter schools. On average, the mean scores for charter schools affiliated with a PSD were not significantly different from those of public noncharter schools. However, on average, the means of charter schools not affiliated with a PSD were significantly lower than the means for public noncharter schools, both with and without adjustment. The effect size of the adjusted difference was 0.17 standard deviations.

[...]

Mathematics

In the first phase of the combined analysis for mathematics, all charter schools were compared to all public noncharter schools. The average charter school mean was 5.8 points lower than the average public noncharter school mean. After adjusting for student characteristics, the difference in means was 4.7 points. Both differences were statistically significant. The adjusted difference corresponds to an effect size of 0.17 standard deviations.

In the second phase, charter schools were classified into two categories based on whether or not they were affiliated with a PSD. Each category was compared separately with public noncharter schools. On average, the mean scores for charter schools affiliated with a PSD were not significantly different from those for public noncharter schools. However, on average, the means of charter schools not affiliated with a PSD were significantly lower than the means for public noncharter schools, both with and without adjustment. The effect size of the adjusted difference was 0.23 standard deviations.

So yet again, the public schools win out.

But if we can draw one thing from the two studies concerning public schools and their performance relative to private and charter schools, it's this - certified teachers make a difference. One of the restrictions eased for charter schools is the requirement for teachers to be certified. Like many private schools, charter schools are not required to hire certified educators unless they're associated with a PSD.

So for all of the crap and blame that public schools and their teachers take in the media and from our government, it would appear that they're doing as well as any other school out there. Does this mean that there aren't poor schools? Absolutely not. But it does mean that your chances of getting a quality education from a public school are just as good as they would be any place else regardless of what our government would like you to believe.