Waiting for Superman admits only one in five charter schools produce results

CREDO study:

Green Dot LA charter schools seen as a success for raising test scores and becoming green

$15 million of private funding Students proficiency in English—13.7

percent in 2009 to 14.9 percent in 2010

Math—4 percent to 6.7 percent. 

Stanford University Center for Research on Education Outcomes—huge variance in charter school quality.

National Education Association president Dennis Van Roekel: charter schools should no longer be considered universally innovative.

"The charter movement is putting itself at risk by allowing too many second-rate and even third-rate schools to continue to exist. Your goal should always be quality, not quantity.”

-Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education

Katie Couric notebook

SEED school in DC, a boarding facility, spends $35,000 on each student yearly

Average public school: 1/3 that amount

KIPP schools spend $1,100-1,500 extra per student

Money comes mostly from state, but also foundations and donors

A hero from Superman, Canada makes $400,000 yearly for running Harlem Children’s Zone.

His organization has assets of more than $200 million.

When his first class at HCZ did not receive scores that satisfied his board of trustees, he kicked the entire class out.

“The corruption and the politicization are the Achilles’ heel of the movement.”

-Senator Bill Perkins of Harlem

One Buffalo charter school listed expenses in “broad brushstrokes” on tax return.

$1.3 million in rent (while the company owned the building)

$976,000 for executive administration $361,000 in professional fees While these cases are few and far

between, privately running a school can facilitate corruption.

State ordered them to close after allegations of over-reporting attendance and keeping shady financial records

Owes the state $8 million Prosecutors claim that they

granted class credits in exchange for $150

Students who may have found a home there were uprooted

Lagging English and Math scores Evaluators visited to find disengaged

and rowdy students Many location changes Revolving door for staff and students

Once again, students were uprooted.

There is some debate over whether or not these self-selecting students have abnormally supportive parents.

Many can’t join unions KIPP controversy in Baltimore and

NYC Can work 12-14 hour days Sometimes merit pay

Diane Ravitch:“Many people react to the scene with their own tears, sad for the children who lose. I had a different reaction. First, I thought to myself that the charter operators were cynically using children as political pawns in their own campaign to promote their cause. (Gail Collins in The New York Times had a similar reaction and wondered why they couldn’t just send the families a letter in the mail instead of subjecting them to public rejection.) Second, I felt an immense sense of gratitude to the much-maligned American public education system, where no one has to win a lottery to gain admission.”