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But we're starting to see evidence that charter schools (see the RAND 2009 study) and vouchers (see the recent DC study) dramatically increase graduation rates. So if more people are happy enough to finish school, why does it matter that their test scores didn't also dramatically rise?

I wish that public schools would stop feeling so threatened by anything other than public school (private, charter, etc.). While they have reason to be defensive, the response should be "what are successful charters successfully doing/trying that we can't (because of size, funding, etc)and how can we implement similar changes/get similar results?" There is no one answer. It doesn't have to be public OR private. Public OR charter. I know kids with ADHD who were VERY well served by small charter schools with curricula that served their needs. My kids have attended public, private, and charter schools--all of which had issues FOR MY KIDS despite their popularity. There is no one educational system or model that is the be all and end all because kids are different, learn differently, and society and technology are rapidly changing. Instead of looking for "the answer" and squabbling over which is better, we should be working together to provide a wide variety of educational options so that ALL children may be served--and served well. Instead of trying to cut down people (charters) for trying new things, let's look at ways we can change all education for the better.

"There is only change, resistance to change, and more change." --Meryl Streep

Anonymous, did you even read this blog? I don't see how it "cuts down people who try new things." It's making a point about the hype around charters, and I agree. Just as you say, charters aren't *the* answer, but the blog advocates for learning from everything that's good regardless of where it happens. That seems similar to your point. Right now, charters are being described as "the end all and be all" in a lot of school reform arguments, and this blog is just calling for caution. Change is important but not for its own sake!

And Stuart, since when don't test scores matter? Sure it's good news when more kids graduate, but I'm reading a lot about kids needing remediation and dropping out of college.

I have a question about a very small point in this post: "Reading remains the toughest nut to crack." Why are we not having a national discussion about the validity of reading tests?

We just received my middle school's test scores today here in Florida (a couple months overdue, but that's another story). Our reading scores were not what we'd hoped, but there were very interesting discrepancies. Some students who had perfect scores in 7th grade missed one or two questions in 8th and plummeted a whole test-level. Several students scored at the very highest level on writing (a 6), yet had a 2 on a scale of 5 in Reading. If good writing comes from reading a lot, shouldn't there be more of a correlation? Nearly all of these students were successful reading difficult texts in their Reading and Language Arts classes, and nearly all of them read often on their own. Yet several of them are liable to end up in remedial reading next year, or at the very least shut out of honors.

Do reading tests really represent what a student's reading skills are-- or merely their test taking acumen? I know this is a minor point in the blog, but I think it deserves to be examined. If there is not always a correlation between real reading and reading for test purposes, is the test really valid?

Stuart--The RAND results were indeed suggestive, but they were a bit limited. If I remember correctly they focused only on Florida and Chicago. And it can be difficult to get around the selection bias issue. Still, the issue of engagement and its effects beyond test scores is very important--and we should keep an eye on it. I still think it's a bit much to suggest that the test scores don't matter. Surely they do.

Bob--I agree that the studies showing no effect on average have been stacking up, but there are some interesting studies that point to what kinds of charters seem to be serving their populations especially well. I object to the notion that charters are some kind of magic pill, or that we should simply let 1000 flowers bloom. Some media, PR folk and documentarians are pushing that simplistic view of things. There is little research to support that strategy--and a lot to suggest that it could be downright damaging. But I don't think the existing research proves that charters are bad. We can learn a lot from what works in charters and-I hope--adopt some of it in the public schools. That was the early promise of charters 20 years ago.

Anonymous--I'm not sure we disagree on the issue that lots of different schools can serve lots of different people, and that you can find wonderful exemplars in the traditional public, charter and private sectors. But I don't think someone who hazards a sober assessment of what charters as a whole are or aren't delivering right now is necessarily threatened by charter schools or change. Charters are at the center of a lot of big policy changes right now, and it seems pretty clear that it isn't wise simply to open the doors wide without having some sense of what kinds of regulation will best separate wheat from chaff. We want to be informed by the evidence.

David--You raise an interesting question--one I'm unfortunately not really equipped to answer. 

One of the key points of the IES study is that it could not find any correlation between different charter policies and student achievement. This is disappointing because an original idea behind charters was providing space for experimentation.

In the post-industrial, global marketplace, we must teach kids so they can work smarter, worker harder, or tighten their belts after the borrowing runs out. Unfortunately, we've chosen to work harder and cut back our neighbors' real income and benefits. Data-driven reform has basically become a leap into the early 20th century, trying to speed up the educational assembly line.

We need to really commit to working smarter, to trusting in our creativity, to investing in imagination, and get away from this beggar they neighbor, coerce people to work faster and harder with less dignity, blame game.

Charters should have been such an opportunity for innovation. Change our goals from creating a culture of accountability to creating a respectful learning culture, and I'd expect innovation to take off.

"Stuart--The RAND results were indeed suggestive, but they were a bit limited. If I remember correctly they focused only on Florida and Chicago. And it can be difficult to get around the selection bias issue. Still, the issue of engagement and its effects beyond test scores is very important--and we should keep an eye on it. I still think it's a bit much to suggest that the test scores don't matter. Surely they do."

The RAND study tried to handle the selection bias issue by looking only at students who had begun 8th grade in a charter school -- which means that if there's some unmeasurable level of motivation or other qualities that caused a family to choose a charter school at any point in time, all of the students presumably had those qualities. They studied Florida and Chicago because those, I think, were the only places with enough data to track high school graduation.

In any event, graduation does seem much more important than test scores, right? If you drop out of high school, as close to 50% of students do in some inner cities, no employer is going to care that you had good test scores in the 4th grade. Conversely, if you graduate and go on to college, no one ever looks back at your 4th grade scores.

It's with graduation that school choice (as of now) seems to have a huge advantage -- which is no surprise, since giving people a chance to find a better fit makes it more likely that they'll stay in school.