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The creaming argument is getting very shopworn. This new study, like Hoxby's study in new York, show that charters do a much better job than public schools. The lottery makes all the difference for those kids who do or don't make it in. You don't have the evidence to prove that charters are creaming, and the study proves that they aren't.

Regardless of whether this is "legal" or not (and considering some of the heinous things that are legal, I can't see why this wouldn't be), it's an unethical collection of "data." It's nobody's business how children score on a test relative to whether they got into this or that school or program, and they sure shouldn't be "tracking" children like this. I don't care if the names are redacted.

Who do these people think they are?? Do the schools own the children and their scores now that they are used so? I'm kinda doubting each parent involved gave such a blanket permission.

Very maddening, Claus.

PS "Gifted" programs are also a form of creaming... all kinds of things like this happen in public education and much of it is even self-selected by more affluent parents when they purchase real estate to begin with! That part shouldn't bother us unless we're committed to making all public schools and programs exactly equal... :)

What I have never seen, and would expect to see, if it were true that charter schools are siphoning off the motivated or talented students, is a drop in the scores of the schools these students would otherwise have attended. I assume that if the evidence showed such drops, charter opponents would point out that evidence, but I've never heard of it. If there isn't such an effect, then it's not a zero sum game, as some like to suggest.

Count me in the unrepetant creamer camp. I believe, as Claus put it, "motivated families deserve the best possible choice for their children, full stop." I also tend to think that it's not the creaming, per se, but the tight control that's the real difference maker. The cancer in inner city schools is disruption. Charter schools have the ability to counsel out students who are persistent behavior problems or otherwise interfere with teaching and learning (and I don't have a problem with that either). The argument is often made that high achieving charters don't expel many students. This too misses the point. The real threat of expulsion (combined with parents who want their kid to remain in the school) helps create a more serious academic environment. To use an inelegant analogy, you don't call the man with the gun "sir" after he shoots you. You call him "sir" so he won't shoot you in the first place.

Anonymous--I concede the points you offer, but you don't address my point. Excellent charter schools may concentrate students from motivated families in one place. Those who don't win in the lottery remain dispersed through regular public schools. The data from this most recent study suggest (and I use that word advisedly) that the students in the lottery might be more predisposed to succeed. Get students like that together, and they can benefit from one another--according the theories about peer effects. Please note that I do not mean to suggest that the school itself isn't contributing a great deal to their success, or that other schools wouldn't do well to pay close attention to what HSA is doing.

Mrs. C--As I'm sure you know, I just don't agree with you about the use of test scores in that way. If we're not going to follow students' progress and compare progress among different schools and students from different groups, then we're basically crossing our fingers and hoping everything will be OK. That's education policy on a wing and a prayer, which won't stand us in very good stead in a much more competitive international environment.

As for your argument about gifted/talented--That's similar to the argument of choice advocates who say it's OK to cream. That's one argument for choice. But that argument is distinctly different from the argument that a broad and expansive charter approach can close all of our gaps. I'm just arguing that we shouldn't forget the students who don't go into the lotteries.

James--I really don't think the kind of study you envision has been conducted. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) I imagine that such a study would be extraordinarily difficult to do. The children attending charters represent relatively small numbers drawn away from the traditional public schools, so effects would, I imagine, be hard to measure. If test scores in those schools go up or down, moreover, it would be very, very hard to control for all the variables that could cause those changes. So I'm not terribly surprised that no one has cited the data you imagine to prove or shake the case for creaming or peer effects.

My own posting is very speculative, by the way. I don't mean to suggest that the data I offer here--small numbers from one relatively small study--are in anyway ironclad. I just think it makes sense to acknowledge the possibility.

I'm in the unrepentant creamer camp, too--if only for the reason that it's honest. Of course, parents with the means (and I don't mean financial resources) to locate a better publicly funded charter school for their child, and the willingness to agree to whatever conditions and expectations the school demands, should do so. No parent should ever sacrifice their child's education on principle.

Do I worry that siphoning off intellectual and community resources into charters weakens public schools? Yes. And I think the results of this study are pretty predictable: take kids out of a demonstrably dysfunctional school and put them in a school their parents believe in, and have chosen to support, and individual outcomes are likely to be better. Research on peer effects supports this prediction.

For parents, this is a question of what to do now, with their precious children. For society, the question is what to do about the most impoverished and underserved children in the nation, and the nearly-defunct concept of the American common school. I've seen too many thriving public schools in the midst of utter poverty and chaos to give up on that idea--but I would never blame parents for making the best possible choices for their kids.

Robert P - Of course, it's hard to argue that motivated and well-behaved children should not have the benefit of being in classrooms with others like themselves. But what above the unmotivated and ill-behaved? If we follow this line to the end, public schools are turning into one big tracking system, with charters taking the high track and, backstopping the charters, traditional public schools taking the low -- and somehow that's OK.

And I guess in the gritty real world where the best must somehow be made of a bad situation, I suppose it is. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking the situation is not bad.

Wouldn't be great if every kid could find a comparable school, especially with a poverty rate of 70% that has done just the right amount of creaming? If all magnets could tithe by just taking 10% of of the most challenging kids, we could reduce the critical mass of extreme challenges faced by neighborhood schools.

@Melody "But what above the unmotivated and ill-behaved? If we follow this line to the end, public schools are turning into one big tracking system..."

This is where research and philosophy yield to personal experience. Every year in my school, I saw capable, hard-working children of diligent parents damaged by close and persistent exposure to the unmotivated and ill-behaved. Peer effects work both ways. Look, I don't like the idea of school as a sorting mechanism either, but surely no one wins when our good intentions insure that no one wins.

I remember being amused -- and then upset -- when a colleague of mine was upset that we had to vacate the fifth floor of our school to make room for a charter. She was opposed to charters, period, and said "Unless we can do it for every child, we shouldn't do it for any child." This is like the captain of the the Titanic saying, "Unless there are lifeboats for every passenger, no one is getting in one."

We have to start somewhere folks. Let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good.

I think the major finding of this study is being overlooked by those who seek to make this a "charter or not to charter" argument.

The bottom line is that HSA got significantly better results from kids with similar backgrounds and motivations.

Claus makes argument that there may be some "peer effect" that caused this.

Apply Occam's Razor.

HSA used a KIPP-like approach that had kids put in tons of extra time, provided them tons of additional supports, and held unwaveringly high expectations.

The answer is right in front of us. Disadvantaged kids need more resources and expectations to succeed. HSA got them more resources and expectations.

Rather than try and deflect and distract from what this study means, why aren't we going about the business of providing this approach to the students who could benefit from it?

Jason Glass
Eagle, CO

This study has not been peer reviewed. Neither was the Hoxby study. When the latter eventually peer reviewed by Sean Reardon of Stanford, it was faulted for methodological errors. And Hoxby is also a known advocate of vouchers and charters.
The Harlem Success Academy has resources that regular public schools can only dream of. It has small classes, unlike the regular public schools. The kids who lost the lottery were not in schools with the resources of HSA.
Maybe it was those resources that made a difference, not the program of HSA.
The NY Times said (March 9) that Moskowitz has a marketing budget of $325,000, compared to the public school budget of $500 or less.
Why not do a real experiment where the kids who lost the lottery go to public schools with the same resources as HSA?

Ah, the "we can't do anything because we aren't funded well enough" argument.

There is absolutely nothing that would keep any public school from reallocating funds to reduce class sizes (read Achilles study on this, advocating for the reassignment of "specialists" like Title 1 and Reading teachers to reduce class sizes), freezing step and lane increases and instead using the money to hire more staff and reduce class sizes (yes, this is an option), or eliminating any number of programs or approaches to reduce class size and increase the length of the school day. All of these could be done cost neutral.

Its much more a matter of priorities, and much less a matter of cash. Make a decision do do something different rather than marching, zombie-like, into the future.

Further, there is absolutely nothing that would prohibit any public school from either raising the money through a foundation, or going after any number of philanthropic or government grant programs to get additional cash to pull off what HSA or KIPP does. This is the old "swim out to your ship, instead of waiting for it to come in" thing.

I work in a public school system that is doing these things and we compete with private and charter school options. It can be done - its a matter of will and commitment.

We've got to stop the whining and start thinking about what we can do instead of all the reasons why we can't.

Charter schools aren't the enemy. Fear of doing something tremendous because its hard or its different is the enemy.

Charter schools aren't the enemy. Charter schools have one thing that every school should have - the power to enforce their policies. They can because they have alternative slots, known as neighborhood schools. Neighborhood schools need the same alternative backup, but that would cost money. The alternative slots must be of high enough quality to reduce stigma and end any hint of warehousing.

But it will take more than money. We need to first recognize reality and make policies accordingly, not through ideology.

Claus von Zastrow says, “My posting is very speculative. I just think it makes sense to acknowledge the possibility.” Just cool it. It’s speculation. It was speculation when I began teaching a few decades ago. The only difference, it was not educators accusing charter schools of creaming; it was Catholic schools that were creaming. I heard it over and over. The Catholic schools creamed off the better students; they can kick out the students who do not behave; and they do not take special ed students. Years later, I heard the same excuse when pilot schools (remember them), magnet schools, small schools, Montessori and Waldorf Schools, pull-out schools, gifted schools, alternative schools, and virtual schools came along. And other renditions of schools will come along in the future and the same people will whine about them too of creaming.

The point is that the people in some public schools keep pointing their fingers at what others are doing “wrong” – the victim mentality - and I never hear a word about what they are doing “right” to their schools to improve student learning and achieving. I want to read posts of people who are doing things to help children learn and improve so that I can learn from them, not a bunch of people whining about other people and their schools so that the status quo can be maintained.

The word “creaming” no longer exists in the real world. Milk no longer comes with cream at the top. Milk is homogenized. Our schools are homogenized. Some charter schools succeed; others fail. Some public schools succeed; others fail. We are all the same. Excellent teachers do well no matter what kind of school they teach in. Don’t degrade the good teachers and the good schools by implying that charter schools are creaming off our better students. We don’t need your speculation and excuses.

When rich families flee urban public schools for private schools or the suburbs, no one blinks an eye. But give low-income families a way to get their kids out of failing schools by offering charters like HSA, KIPP, or MATCH in Boston and all of a sudden here come the cries of "creaming!"

Why should the lifeboats only be made available to students from wealthy families?

I just signed up to your blogs rss feed. Will you post more on this subject?