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Rahm Emanuel caught a break when his probable opponent for the Chicago mayoral race was diagnosed with brain cancer

Sure, "diagnosed".

Also out this week, an independent study of Emanuel's new privately run charter schools in the city found that they lag behind the publicly administered schools in testing scores.

Wow, what were the chances of that? Every other time charter schools have been tried they've failed miserably.

Clearly this time was totally going to be different.

Try enough times there will a statistical outlier for true believers to cling to.

If by "every other time" you mean "a statistically average number of times". Even the most critical study of charter schools shows them doing better than similar public schools 17% of the time. On average, charter schools will produce a worse education outcome more often than a better one, but that's not the same as saying that every single charter school will.

Given the incredibly broad definition of "charter school", and the difficulty of actually measuring their relative success, this is not surprising really. And yeah, it's not surprising that a charter system run by Emanuel would suck though.

Edited, Oct 15th 2014 6:00pm by gbaji

#Baitersgate

There's always gonna be haters. PETA maybe?

There's always gonna be haters. PETA maybe?

Confused bearded gey fellows, probably.

So ... bears?

Well, I know I'm sold...

The best part is in almost every study that's shown them being an improvement, it was later discovered the schools were cheating on tests. Because, you know, profit motive is the ideal mechanism for teaching children.

I just wonder what other "free market" concept that thinking applies to.

"On average, this car model will break down more often than your car but that doesn't mean every one will. Buy our cars!"
"On average, these eggs will give you food poisoning more often than your eggs but that doesn't mean every egg will. Buy our eggs!"
"On average, this flash drive will erase itself more often than your flash drive but that doesn't mean every flash drive will. Buy our flash drives!"
"On average, this school will produce a worse education than your school but that doesn't mean every school will. Support charter schools!"

I like those odds!

I'm not trying to sell charter schools. Just challenging Smash's claim that every time a charter school has been tried it has failed miserably. Some of them do succeed.

Other than the fact that charter schools are still public schools and don't charge tuition, and other than the fact that charter schools tend to cost less money to run per student than regular public schools, you have an excellent point.

And that, folks, is classic projection. Have you *ever* provided a source for anything you've written?

Frequently. This study is in no way related to what you posted, nor does it contain the data point you referenced.

It is, however, where you end up if you Google "charter school study" and press "I'm feeling lucky" Do you really have a peer group of fucking slack jawed companions this level of idiocy every works on?

Jesus, you are amazingly stupid.

That, folks, is what we call QED.

HAHAHAHA. Ahhh. Thanks for the laugh.

Edited, Oct 16th 2014 4:08pm by Smasharoo

Part of the point of charter schools is that they are more flexible though. Many of them fail precisely because they're trying different things. Some don't work. But the key difference is that when they don't work, parents stop sending their kids to them, and the schools close (usually because the city or state doesn't renew the charter and the funding dries up). So you have to take the stats on overall performance of "all charter schools" with that in mind.

Um... But when they succeed, they tend to succeed pretty amazingly well. There's a reason why some charter schools have waiting lists and lotteries. Dismissing the successes because other charter schools (which may be run entirely differently) suck is really unfair. Also, charter schools have very little in common (other than being flexible). Your earlier comparisons were funny, but not at all accurate. A closer comparison would be to say that since only 17% of socks that cost less than the ones you normally buy are better than the ones you buy, there's no point in buying those socks. Um... Yeah, there is. Go buy the ones that are better and cost less and don't buy the ones that are worse.

That's the option that charter schools present. The primary objective is cost reduction, so it shouldn't be too surprising that a majority of the charter schools result in lower education quality than the more expensive standard schools. But the ones that do succeed should not be ignored. They should be copied where possible.