Re: Charter Schools: A Marketplace for Profits or Ideas?

Some blog followers might be interested in a discussion list post “Re: Charter Schools: A Marketplace for Profits or Ideas?” [Hake (2014)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: In a discussion “Charter Schools: A Marketplace for Profits or Ideas?” Bill Moyers http://bit.ly/1feQ5iw interviewed Diane Ravitch, who stated:

“The lure of getting federal money made many states change their laws to open the door to many, many more charter schools. . . . . . . Public education is becoming big business as bankers, hedge fund managers, and private equity investors are entering what they consider to be an ‘emerging market.’ As Rupert Murdoch put it http://bit.ly/1pAwGMh after purchasing an education technology company, ‘When it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the US alone’ . . . . . . I think what’s at stake is the future of American public education. I believe it is one of the foundation stones of our democracy: So an attack on public education is an attack on democracy.”

See also “Here is the Bill Moyers Interview in Full” [Ravitch (2014)] at http://bit.ly/1mFTAmo.

Over 4 decades ago economist Albert O. Hirschman (1970) in Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States http://bit.ly/11QKoRB, made a case against charter-schools similar to that made by Ravitch. He first quoted the conservative economist Milton Friedman who argued that SCHOOL VOUCHERS SHOULD REPLACE THE CURRENT PUBLIC-SCHOOL SYSTEM, writing “Parents could express their views about schools directly, by withdrawing their children from one school and sending them to another.”

Hirschman then countered (my italics): “[Friedman's opinion] is a near perfect example of the ECONOMIST'S BIAS IN FAVOR OF EXIT AND AGAINST VOICE: In the first place, Friedman considers withdrawal or exit as the ‘direct’ way of expressing one's unfavorable views of an organization. A person less well trained in economics might naively suggest that the direct way of expressing views is to express them! Secondly, the decision to voice one’s views and efforts to make them prevail are contemptuously referred to by Friedman as a resort to ‘cumbrous political channels.’ But what else is the political, and indeed the democratic, process than the digging, the use, and hopefully the slow improvement of these very channels?"
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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University; Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands; President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References which Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII); LINKS TO: Academia http://bit.ly/a8ixxm; Articles http://bit.ly/a6M5y0; Blog http://bit.ly/9yGsXh; Facebook http://on.fb.me/XI7EKm; GooglePlus http://bit.ly/KwZ6mE; Google Scholar http://bit.ly/Wz2FP3; Linked In http://linkd.in/14uycpW; Research Gate http://bit.ly/1fJiSwB; Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) Labs http://bit.ly/9nGd3M; Twitter http://bit.ly/juvd52.

REFERENCES [URL shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 31 March 2014.]
Hake, R.R. 2014. “Re: Charter Schools: A Marketplace for Profits or Ideas?” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/1hcMHkF. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

The Contentious Controversy Over School Choice

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post “The Contentious Controversy Over School Choice” [Hake (2013)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: Contentious controversies over school choice are exhibited in e.g.:
a. Eighty-one comments (as of 13 Feb 2013 08:15-0800) on Diane Ravitch's (2013) blog entry “An Economist Explains the Problem with Choice” at http://bit.ly/11r9xCJ.

b. Two long threads initiated by my post “Economist Kern Alexander Explains the Problem with School Choice” [Hake (2013a) at http://bit.ly/WIdRH5. On 13 Feb 2013 08:15-0800 the threads had grown to (a) over 40 posts on Phys-L list with OPEN archives at http://bit.ly/Ve9Sof; and (b) 26 posts on the Physoc list at http://bit.ly/Y7k7rg (to gain access you may need to obtain a password by typing your email address into a slot).

c. Andrew Maul’s (2013) “Review of Charter School Performance in Michigan” at http://bit.ly/WHiO6R. The abstract reads in part: “The Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University conducted an analysis of the differences in student performance at charter schools and traditional public schools in the state of Michigan. In contrast to the majority of prior evidence regarding charter effects in the U.S. which tends to show no impact, the study finds an overall small positive effect of being in a charter school. . . . . . . . even setting aside issues with the study’s methods, the actual magnitudes of the effects reported are extremely small.”

d. Gene Glass’s (2011) “Charter Schools: Making Public Schools Private” at http://bit.ly/YXwZmO. Glass ends with: “It is difficult to see that anything other than the White voting public's desire to simultaneously cheapen public education and create quasi-private schooling for their children is driving, in its larger part, the charter school movement.”

e. Linda Darling-Hammond's (2010b) “Restoring Our Schools” at http://bit.ly/VSI9fy. Darling-Hammond writes: “Race to the Top requires that states expand charters but fails to assure quality and ensure access, despite evidence from the largest national study to date (conducted at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution) that charter schools more frequently underperform than outperform their counterparts serving similar students; evidence from a UCLA study indicating that charters exacerbate segregation; and evidence from many studies that charters serve significantly fewer special education students and English-language learners.”
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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Academia: http://bit.ly/a8ixxm
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
GooglePlus: http://bit.ly/KwZ6mE
Twitter: http://bit.ly/juvd52
Facebook: http://on.fb.me/XI7EKm


REFERENCES [URL shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 13 Feb 2013.]
Hake, R.R. 2013. “The Contentious Controversy Over School Choice,” online on the OPEN! AERA-H archives at http://bit.ly/YdSVsX. Post of 13 Feb 2013 11:23:04-0800 to AERA-H and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Is Kern Alexander an Economist? (was An Economist Explains the Problem with Choice)

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post “Is Kern Alexander an Economist? (was An Economist Explains the Problem with Choice)” [Hake (2013)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: In response to my post “Economist Explains the Problem with School Choice” at http://bit.ly/WIdRH5, MathEdCC’s “Haim” at http://bit.ly/UlsV2a, after quoting information from Alexander’s faculty profile http://bit.ly/TBlx14 which indicated that Alexander had no academic degree in economics, stated “KERN ALEXANDER IS NOT AN ECONOMIST.” [My CAPS.]

But according to my online dictionary an economist is “an expert in economics,” and economics is “the branch of knowledge concerned with the production, consumption, and transfer of wealth.” Among Alexander’s books as listed at http://amzn.to/11ikQ0V are: Public School Finance, Education and Economic Growth, and Economic Sanctions. Therefore I think that designating Alexander as an economist, as did Diane Ravitch and myself, is justified.
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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Academia: http://bit.ly/a8ixxm
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
GooglePlus: http://bit.ly/KwZ6mE
Twitter: http://bit.ly/juvd52

REFERENCES [URL shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 05 Feb 2013.]
Hake, R.R. 2013. “Is Kern Alexander an Economist? (was An Economist Explains the Problem with Choice)” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/YRPjl0. Post of 05 Feb 2013 13:34:47-0800 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Economist Kern Alexander Explains the Problem with School Choice

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ABSTRACT: Diane Ravitch (2013) in her blog entry “An Economist Explains the Problem with Choice” at http://bit.ly/11r9xCJ has pointed to Kern Alexander’s Asymmetric Information, Parental Choice, Vouchers, Charter Schools and Stiglitz at http://bit.ly/XuBB2u. Alexander wrote:

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The story goes that tuition voucher schools and charter schools are creatures of the spirit of capitalism and that public funding of them will increase competition, making all schools more efficient and academically better, especially public schools. For that theory to work it is hypothesized that parents as “rational people will make choices as to the education of their children in perfect markets.” In the realm of economics, this reasoning is called the “rational expectations hypothesis” or the “efficient markets hypothesis” - see The Myth of the Rational Market [Fox (2011, p. 178)] at http://amzn.to/Wd4ukl.

The “efficient markets” notion applied to schools via parental choice means that parents will, in their wisdom, utilize public money to send their children to private schools and that ipso facto the education level of the nation rises commensurate with the level and intensity of competition among parents in choosing private, clerical, and/or corporate charter schools. . . . . unfortunately, experience indicates that parental choices are ensnared and limited by the parents’ own limited experiences, level of learning, ignorance, biases, and mythology on which they depend to make educational choices for their children and is, thus, in most cases, highly suspect. . . .

Today institutions of higher education, public and private, remain largely segregated by race, religion, and economic condition. White colleges and universities remain primarily white, Black institutions remain primarily black, and denominational institutions remain even more religiously identifiable. . . . . . Such segregation is sanctified with tons of federal and state money in the forms of tuition vouchers, tax credits and government subsidized loans. The Obama administration has been largely foreclosed from remedying the situation for fear of offending powerful political forces representing the investors and private institutions.

The higher education voucher/loan dilemma portends a probable scenario for the future of tuition vouchers and charter schools at the primary and secondary levels. . . . . . School tuition vouchers and charter schools are the operational models for implementation of the “narrow self-interest.” It is easy to recognize, but difficult to justify.
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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Academia: http://bit.ly/a8ixxm
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
GooglePlus: http://bit.ly/KwZ6mE
Twitter: http://bit.ly/juvd52
Facebook: http://on.fb.me/XI7EKm

REFERENCES [URL shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 02 Feb 2013.]
Hake, R.R. 2013. "Economist Kern Alexander Explains the Problem with School Choice," online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/WIdRH5. Post of 02 Feb 2013 13:00:30-0800 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

The Injurious School Culture Enforced by High-Stakes Testing

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post “The Injurious School Culture Enforced by High-Stakes Testing” [Hake (2012)]. The abstract reads:

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Abstract: Richard Flarend of the Physoc list relayed an AP press release “Fourth-graders who flunk reading have faces marked” at http://usat.ly/QTRkd8 and concluded that an injurious school culture led to this mistake. More generally, an injurious culture with consequences more serious than face marking is currently being forced upon most U.S. schools by the high-stakes testing mandated by NCLB.

In “Public Defender: Diane Ravitch takes on a movement," David Denby at http://nyr.kr/RPfOkF wrote (paraphrasing; supplemented by references to Ravitch's critiques in The New York Review of Books; bracketed by lines "#####. . . . "):

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Diane Ravitch has emerged as one of the leading opponents of the education-reform movement. She has:

1. Written a series of scathing rebuttals of reform measures in The New York Review of Books:
a. "The Myth of Charter Schools" http://bit.ly/h0Lx8Q;
b. "School 'Reform': A Failing Grade" http://bit.ly/TclFCY;
c. "Schools We Can Envy" http://bit.ly/QqtdTi;
d. "How, and How Not, to Improve the Schools" http://bit.ly/RPBDAO;
e. "Do Our Public Schools Threaten National Security?" http://bit.ly/10hxmth;
f. "In Mitt Romney's Schoolroom" http://bit.ly/TcmHxS; and
g. "Two Visions for Chicago's Schools" http://bit.ly/SKjkeA.

2. Written some two thousand posts on a blog http://dianeravitch.net/ she started in April, which has received almost a million and a half page views.

3. Published The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education [Ravitch (2010a)] at http://amzn.to/pAjeZU.

4. Barnstormed across the country giving speeches berating the reform movement, which, in addition to test-based “accountability,” also supports school choice and charter schools (public institutions that often receive substantial private funding and are free from many regulations, such as hiring union teachers in states that require it), and which she calls a “privatization” movement. The reform movement has the support of President Obama and his Education Secretary, Arne Duncan; it is also championed by the Republican Party; by many governors, mayors, and schools chancellors; and by a variety of wealthy entrepreneurs and fund managers, including Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Whitney Tilson. It has changed educational thinking in states such as Florida, Wisconsin, and Louisiana, and in cities such as Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

5. Argued that the reform movement is driven by an exaggerated negative critique of the schools, and that it is mistakenly imposing a free-market ethos of competition on an institution that, if it is to function well, requires cooperation, sharing, and mentoring.
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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Academia: http://bit.ly/a8ixxm
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
GooglePlus: http://bit.ly/KwZ6mE
Twitter: http://bit.ly/juvd52


REFERENCES [URL shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 19 Nov 2012.]
Hake, R.R. 2012. “The Injurious School Culture Enforced by High-Stakes Testing,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/SaQB3W. Post of 19 Nov 2012 17:25:15-0800 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Is the ‘Teacher Effect’ the Dominant Factor in Students' Academic Gain? #3

Some blog followers might be interested in discussion-list post “Is the ‘Teacher Effect’the Dominant Factor in Students’ Academic Gain? #3” [Hake (2011b)].

The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: In a previous post titled “Is the ‘Teacher Effect’ the Dominant Factor in Students' Academic Gain?” I pointed to the analyses of physicists Michael Marder and Dhruv Bansal (2009) at http://bit.ly/hYbbLe, which suggested that “educational outcomes for students from wealthy and poor families are very different in Texas.”

More recently Reeve Hamilton (2011) in a recent report in the Texas Tribune titled “Is Poverty the Key Factor in Student Outcomes?” http://bit.ly/mpkki0 did an excellent job of showcasing Marder's (2011) work by means of an interview and video clips of Marder explaining his graphs of mathematics achievement vs poverty concentration in Texas.

Hamilton wrote: “[Marder] sat down with the Tribune to talk about the role of poverty in educational outcomes, why he thinks charter schools are not necessarily the answer, and why he likes to think of the public education system as a Boeing airplane. . . . .[[more accurately, the dysfunctional British de Havilland Comet whose malfunction, like the malfunction of the U.S. K-12 educational system, was continually misdiagnosed - see Marder (2011) at http://bit.ly/fjUquC.]]. . . .

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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University

Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands

President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References which

Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)

rrhake@earthlink.net

http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake

http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi

http://HakesEdStuff.blogspot.com

http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake

“For the short term, preparing teachers in mathematics and science is a wise and useful step toward improving schools. . . . . .[But]. . . As quickly as possible, we must understand the link between poverty and educational outcomes in the US, devise solutions, and test and implement them. Britain briefly tried to substitute public relations for aircraft safety and paid with the loss of its commercial aviation sector. I hope the United States can avoid a similar error, that proponents of teacher quality and charter schools will recognize the weakness of the evidence before it is too late, that we will not damage public education, let down our most vulnerable students, and lose technical leadership we take for granted.”

Michael Marder (2011)

REFERENCES [All URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 3 May 2011.]

Hake, R.R. 2011a. “Is the 'Teacher Effect' the Dominant Factor in Students’ Academic Gain?” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/g6UWUZ. Post of 7 Apr 2011 17:51:59-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post were transmitted to various discussion lists and are also on my blog “Hake'sEdStuff” at http://bit.ly/ifvkSz.

Hake, R.R. 2011b. “Is the 'Teacher Effect' the Dominant Factor in Students’ Academic Gain?” #3” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/jy61UB. Post of 3 May 2011 13:02:37-0700. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to various discussion lists.

Marder, M. 2011. “Failure of U.S. Public Secondary Schools in Mathematics: Poverty is a More Important Cause than Teacher Quality,” to be submitted, online as a 3.3 MB pdf at http://bit.ly/fjUquC. See also Marder & Bansal (2009).