Friday, February 20, 2009

Study This

Here's a study I would like to see done that might help us all get a better perspective on the attrition rates and causes at various charter schools. For every student who enters a charter school, get the following information:
  1. Basic info - including LEP, SPED, SES, etc
  2. Previous school(s) attended.
  3. Interviews with parents, teachers re: students skill levels, performance levels, behavior, parental motivation, reasons that parent chose to leave previous school and enroll in the charter schools.
  4. Previous assessment data.
  5. Entering skill level - given by a neutral party. Say the DRA for reading and Stanford 10 for math.
  6. Follow students during time at school - gather data on homework completion, grades, behavior (detentions, suspensions), MCAS scores over time.
  7. When kids leave or graduate, record reason from perspective of administrators, teachers, and parents.
Obviously the methodology is ridiculously intensive, but the study might help us to understand where kids are going and why. Of course, charter schools could collect much of this data themselves.
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 22, 2009 at 1:43 AM

    Two independent research studies on Chicago schools were released 2/17/09.
    http://www.uic.edu/educ/ceje/resources.html
    Both point out that Chicago public schools is using flawed data resulting in bad decisions. One compares charter and neighborhood high school performance on ACT, as well as student enrollment and teacher factors (not so great for charters). The other on Chicago's current proposal to close or "turnaround" 22 school which data show are primarily in communities of color experiencing gentrification or rapidly changing demographics. This study proposes a new method to measure utilization rates – a common reason cited for closing schools.
    These studies deserve your attention.

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  2. ShannonMarch 2, 2009 at 2:39 PM

    Wouldn't that be amazing? For now, it's wonderful that bloggers and journalists are keeping researchers honest. The Chicago studies noted above are enough to really irk me, especially when they use purely descriptive data to make recommendations such as putting a moratorium on all charters! If sound experimental studies said the same thing, I could give it some thought, but as is... There are some good studies that use lottery methods to watch charter school performance, but they are few and far between.

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