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The NYC report isn't even remotely social science. It's just presenting overall city-wide averages.

Are you familiar with the reason why social scientists "control" for different independent variables that affect school performance?

John Doe (IF that is your real name),

You're quite right. The NYC report is presenting city-wide averages. And it does not boast the methodology of the Hoxby report, which compared students who lotteried in with those who were not accepted from charter school lotteries--I guess that's about as close you can get to random assignment in this kind of study. (Yes, I'm familiar with reasons for controlling for independent variables that influence school performance. Thanks for asking. Many of the strongest proponents of choice haven't always been so keen on this standard practice.)

One of those variables, it seems, would be enrollment of ELL and special education students. If we are to believe the NYC report, charters tend to enroll much lower percentages of such students. Do they enroll much larger shares of economically disadvantaged students? Students with other sorts of disadvantages? Perhaps. How does that stack up?

Were all NYC charters involved in the Hoxby study? Were all oversubscribed--or just the best schools?

The biggest problem I have with the media's reception of Hoxby's study is its (that is, the media's) complete neglect of peer effects. The WSJ, Post, and Times all proclaimed that Hoxby had forever silenced the "creaming" argument. Not so. Charter schools that consist entirely of students whose parents enrolled them in lotteries are more likely that traditional public schools to have motivated students. Motivated students may well do better when surrounded by other motivated students. The research on peer effects in education can in fact be quite compelling.

Is that in itself a reason to shut down or even criticize high performing charter schools? No! But I do worry when the media present charters as THE answer to all that ails urban public schools. Just in the past two weeks, I've spoken with two very intelligent people--people I know well--who have told me with some confidence that the solution to our problems in public education is to turn every school into a charter school. I'm sorry, but even reports boasting excellent social science credentials do not bear out that point. At all. So why are people getting this impression? Because the media are overpromising, overhyping.

If I've seemed particularly harsh on charter schools recently, it's because I'm growing tired of the hype. I truly admire charter schools that have done marvelous things for their kids. Let there be more of them! But I also admire traditional public schools that beat the odds--and believe they deserve much more national attention. It's what the schools do to support excellent, and not just their governance structures, that makes them great.

I forgot to add.... Though the New York City data haven't been interpreted in a manner consistent with the standards of social science, those data on student growth are being used to make accountability decisions--and to celebrate some schools over others--through the city's report card systems. The strongest proponents of performance pay advocate for using data on student growth to determine teacher compensation or even dismissal. Those who cite the impact of outside variables that affect student performance are often brushed off as apologists for poor performance or enemies of accountability.

So the data have limits. That's one of the reasons why different report cards or acountability systems can offer the same schools wildly different grades, often confusing parents. This stuff is hard.

Growth models were supposed to be the great equalizer. They are very promising and getting better, but as the National Research Council recently suggested, they have a ways to go before we can confidently use them for accountability purposes.

So your comment is a useful reminder to me and to others to remember the limits of the information we encounter.

maybe the charter school idea is sound and it simply comes down to hiring qualified personnel to teach the students