New Charter School Info Out *drumroll*...

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Several studies have shown that students at private schools perform no better than those at public schools once you adjust for socioeconomic differences of the students, so it's not a big surprise that charter school students don't perform better than those at traditional public schools.

I have read otherwise.
Gerard Lassibile and Lucia Navarro Gomez,
"Organization and Efficiency of Educational Systems: some empirical findings"
Comparative Education, Vol. 36 #1

Material deleted...

Joshua Angrist
"Randomized Trials and Quasi-Experiments in Education Research"
NBER Reporter, summer, 2003

Material deleted...

Herman Brutsaert compared student performance in government and parochial schools in Belgium (which subsidizes parents' choice of school) and found (a) higher mean scores in parochial schools and (b) a lower correlation between parent income and performance in parochial schools (i.e., government schools exacerbate inequality).
Multi-country comparisons of independent and government schools consistently find a private school advantage both in performance and cost.

I'd like to see how they controlled for confounding factors. I see this argument sometimes with how prevalent 'private education' is in Japan, ignoring the fact that much of that is in the form of extra education and high-end schools from high competition and social emphasis on one.

Neither condition describes the work I reference above. The random-assignment voucher lottery is as close to a double-blind trial as you'll get in education research.

In short I'm questioning the applicability of your citations here as they have been so misapplied in the past.

You can see for yourself that these studies address the question. In any case. I gave the references to two (Lassibile and Gomez, Angrist. et. al) so you can check. I mention also Herman Brutsaert, but you'll have to search with that name, since I don't recall the publication. See also Lockheed and Jiminez (referenced above) and various studies of the Chilean voucher policy. Andrew Coulson pointed out a defect of studies that "control" for parent income: they use "free and reduced lunch" as a proxy for "poor". Government schools use this classification. If a parochial school does not offer government-subsidized lunch and charges one price, it will have no use for the classification. All such a school's students will be classified as "non-free/reduced price lunch", whatever their parents' income. Caroline Hoxby has pointed out a second difficulty with studies that compare charter schools to the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's schools (the "public" schools): the proper comparison is to the schools that charter kids would otherwise attend, not to all government-operated schools.

After some digging I did find them. The first you linked to referred to is far to narrow a focus and isn't even attempting to address what you claimed, and thus I would call it not applicable when coupled with the age of the research. Your second is highly criticized, but that doesn't make it invalid. However, I'm certainly not going to at this point trust a study whose very methodology is under fierce debate at least until that's ironed out. At any rate, neither invalidates the more recent data.

What "more recent data"? Link=___?

The OP.

Doesn't work.
1. The OP has links to news articles about charters. To say that the NBER and World Bank comparisons of private and government schools don't "invalidate more recent data" is like saying that decades-old measurements of Dead Sea salinity don't invalidate more recent studies of fertility in wild populations of howler monkeys. Duh! However, to the extent that statistics on private schools relate to charter schools, they provide support for two generalizations:
a) As institutions displace individual parents in the power to determine for those parents' children the choice of curriculum and the pace and method of instruction, overall system performance falls.
b) Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents.
2. You call news articles "data" and question peer-reviewed random-assignment studies? Interesting preference.

 

[tyr_13]

The "enemy" are people who want from government services which government (the largest dealer in interpersonal violence in a locality) is ill-suited to deliver. Many of my friends are "the enemy" in this sense. We disagree, here. Charter schools are corporate contractors to the State. The difference between Individual contractors who supply services to the State and State employees is principally a matter of who is responsible for taxes and other paperwork. Employees are contractors to their employer. State-monopoly enterprises lurch from fad to fad because they are State-monopoly enterprises. Federalism and markets institutionalize humility on the part of State actors. If a policy dispute turns on a matter of taste, numerous local policy regimes or a competitive market in goods and services allow for the expression of varied tastes, while the contest for control over a State-monopoly provider must inevitably create unhappy losers (who may comprise the vast majority; imagine the outcome of a State-wide vote on the one size shoes we all must wear). If a policy dispute turns on a matter of fact, where "What works?" is an empirical question, numerous local policy regimes or a competitive market in goods and services will generate more information than will a State-monopoly enterprise. Furthermore, competitive markets align rewards for successful experiments with the stakes involved.

We get it, you're a libertarian. Don't mistake tiring of arguing the same points over and over with the lack of a refutation.

Doesn't work.
1. The OP has links to news articles about charters. To say that the NBER and World Bank comparisons of private and government schools don't "invalidate more recent data" is like saying that decades-old measurements of Dead Sea salinity don't invalidate more recent studies of fertility in wild populations of howler monkeys. Duh! However, to the extent that statistics on private schools relate to charter schools, they provide support for two generalizations:
a) As institutions displace individual parents in the power to determine for those parents' children the choice of curriculum and the pace and method of instruction, overall system performance falls.
b) Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents.
2. You call news articles "data" and question peer-reviewed random-assignment studies? Interesting preference.

You do use an awful heap of words to mischaracterize things. No, the data is not the news article, but the test results it was discussing. And yes, the evidence you presented wasn't applicable. Argument ad verbosium might turn heads some places, but I think you'll find that most posters on the JREF forums are well acquainted with script both flowery and scientifically painted.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

We get it, you're a libertarian. Don't mistake tiring of arguing the same points over and over with the lack of a refutation.

You do use an awful heap of words to mischaracterize things. I'm neither a libertarian nor a Libertarian. Just ask the proprietor of the Bizzy blog or Perry DeHaviland of Samizdata. I part company with many libertarians on environmental policy (including immigration and population control) and with many on foreign policy. I disagree with those libertarians who suggest that "rights" have priority over effective policy. I believe that morality and "rights" evolve, while many libertarians seem to believe that these poured into our universe through a crack from the 7th and 8th dimensions, or something.

... No, the data is not the news article, but the test results it was discussing. And yes, the evidence you presented wasn't applicable.

We disagree. Charter schools fall on a continuum of parent control: more than in a State-wide monopoly school district like Hawaii, less than universal vouchers (Netherlands, Belgium, Chile) or subsidized homeschooling (Alaska).

 

[tyr_13]

You do use an awful heap of words to mischaracterize things.

That's actually pretty funny, because you quoted two sentences and called them 'an awful heap of words'.

I'm neither a libertarian nor a Libertarian. Just ask the proprietor of the Bizzy blog or Perry DeHaviland of Samizdata. I part company with many libertarians on environmental policy (including immigration and population control) and with many on foreign policy. I disagree with those libertarians who suggest that "rights" have priority over effective policy. I believe that morality and "rights" evolve, while many libertarians seem to believe that these poured into our universe through a crack from the 7th and 8th dimensions, or something.

Thanks for clarifying your position, but if you're for effective policy, why are you ignoring evidence that schools here in the US, not Chile, are not always best served by privatization? You seem to just skip it over, and go off on a long tangent bringing in different points that don't actually refute the first. You know, red herrings.

We disagree. Charter schools fall on a continuum of parent control: more than in a State-wide monopoly school district like Hawaii, less than universal vouchers (Netherlands, Belgium, Chile) or subsidized homeschooling (Alaska).

It's true we disagree, it's false that those different school systems fall on a continuum of parent control, besides homeschooling obviously. In some cases, state run will have the most parent control, in some vouchers, and in some mixed public and private without vouchers. This is controlled by other factors that aren't intrinsic to the system an vary by location to location. And besides all that, it isn't a given that stronger parent control is advantageous. Parents tend to choose to teach things they believe, rather than those best supported by evidence. This does a disservice to society.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

That's actually pretty funny, because you quoted two sentences and called them 'an awful heap of words'.

I quoted two sentences out of an awful heap of words.

Thanks for clarifying your position, but if you're for effective policy, why are you ignoring evidence that schools here in the US, not Chile, are not always best served by privatization? You seem to just skip it over, and go off on a long tangent bringing in different points that don't actually refute the first. You know, red herrings.

We disagree that the considerations which I introduce do not relate to the issue.
In general, I make less of the public/private distinction and less of the for-profit/non-profit distinction than most. As I wrote above, numerous lines of evidence support the following generalizations:...

a) As institutions displace individual parents in the power to determine for those parents' children the choice of curriculum and the pace and method of instruction, overall system performance falls.
b) Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents.

I reason axiomatically here:
1. Most parents love their children and want their children to outlive them.
2. If you live among people there are basically three ways you can make a living: (a) you can beg, (b) you can steal, (c) you can trade goods and services for other people's goods and services.
3. Most parents accept proposition #2 and prefer 2(c) for their children.
4. Therefore, most parents want for their children what taxpayers want from schools, that children be able to take a productive place in society.
5. System insiders differ systematically from parents in general and taxpayers in general and so have systematically different interests from parents and taxpayers.

It's true we disagree, it's false that those different school systems fall on a continuum of parent control, besides homeschooling obviously. In some cases, state run will have the most parent control, in some vouchers, and in some mixed public and private without vouchers.

In some cases, true. The exceptions are instructive. For example, North Dakota was at one time the only US State with a State-level TIMSS performance to match Singapore, and North Dakota did not then have a substantial number of independent or charter schools. What North Dakota had at that time was the smallest mean district size in the US (under 500 students, and no districts over 15,000 enrollment) and an age (start) of compulsory attendance of 7 (since lowered).

This is controlled by other factors that aren't intrinsic to the system an vary by location to location. And besides all that, it isn't a given that stronger parent control is advantageous. Parents tend to choose to teach things they believe, rather than those best supported by evidence. This does a disservice to society.

Preferences are never seldom "supported by evidence". If parents want more music education and bureaucrats want more P.E., de gustibus non est disputandum. Parent control is supported by evidence.

 

[tyr_13]

I quoted two sentences out of an awful heap of words.

Two sentences out of six. If you are incapable of realize that, 'nuh-uh, you!' is a poor argument made even more poor by it being completely untrue on something as simple as word count, and what constitutes a 'heap', things aren't going to be very productive.

We disagree that the considerations which I introduce do not relate to the issue.
In general, I make less of the public/private distinction and less of the for-profit/non-profit distinction than most. As I wrote above, numerous lines of evidence support the following generalizations:...I reason axiomatically here:
1. Most parents love their children and want their children to outlive them.
2. If you live among people there are basically three ways you can make a living: (a) you can beg, (b) you can steal, (c) you can trade goods and services for other people's goods and services.
3. Most parents accept proposition #2 and prefer 2(c) for their children.
4. Therefore, most parents want for their children what taxpayers want from schools, that children be able to take a productive place in society.
5. System insiders differ systematically from parents in general and taxpayers in general and so have systematically different interests from parents and taxpayers.

I'm not going to address the flaws in this stream of red herrings, but it's pretty obvious that in the real world, that reasoning doesn't hold up because people aren't rational enough for such reasoning to be relied on. It would be the same as saying that no company would dump poison into the water because they need the water too. For not being a libertarian you sure do repeat the most obvious flaw in their thinking pretty well.

In some cases, true. The exceptions are instructive. For example, North Dakota was at one time the only US State with a State-level TIMSS performance to match Singapore, and North Dakota did not then have a substantial number of independent or charter schools. What North Dakota had at that time was the smallest mean district size in the US (under 500 students, and no districts over 15,000 enrollment) and an age (start) of compulsory attendance of 7 (since lowered).

Thank you for agreeing on one level, but not actually supporting that charter schools are therefor the only or best way to achieve the goal.

Preferences are never "supported by evidence. If parents want more music education and bureaucrats want more P.E., de gustibus non est disputandum. Parent control is supported by evidence.

More red herring. I said 'advantageous' and nothing about the preference for more music and less PE. Many parents prefer that creationism be taught, that the racial inferiority of blacks be advocated, that the US Constitution enshrines Christianity as the basis for our government and gratuitous Latin phrases. The evidence does not support these things, no matter how much parents might prefer them. Education isn't useful when it's simply a popularity contest, but useful to society when it teaches things that are demonstrably true.

And what about parent control is supported by evidence? That it exists? That it's advantageous? That it causes better outcomes or that it's correlated with better outcomes?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Two sentences out of six. If you are incapable of realize that, 'nuh-uh, you!' is a poor argument made even more poor by it being completely untrue on something as simple as word count, and what constitutes a 'heap', things aren't going to be very productive.

So it's a question of how many grains of sand make a pile, huh? I agree. Not productive. How about an argument that addresses the issues?

I'm not going to address the flaws in this stream of red herrings

I guess not.

but it's pretty obvious that in the real world, that reasoning doesn't hold up because people aren't rational enough for such reasoning to be relied on.

So, the argument's rational but people are not? Or what?

It would be the same as saying that no company would dump poison into the water because they need the water too. For not being a libertarian you sure do repeat the most obvious flaw in their thinking pretty well².

Silent participants may note that I uses "most", not "all" or "none". Tyr stuffs a strawman, here. As Milton Friedman once observed, you have to compare something to something. We compare policies that give to parents varying degrees of control over the choice of curriculum and the pace and method of instruction. For each child, the educational options are not (a) processes selected by parents and (b) paradise, but (a) processes selected by parents and (b) processes selected by somebody or some body other than that child's parents. Or, more accurately, a range of policies that distribute varying degrees of control between parents and politically-designated authorities.

Thank you for agreeing on one level, but not actually supporting that charter schools are therefor the only or best way to achieve the goal.

Charters are better than the prevailing State-mononopoly school system, which gives to the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel an exclusive position in receipt of the taxpayers' age 6-18 educaation subsidy. For several reasons, I prefer a policy I call Parent Performance Contracting.
E..G. West
"Education Without the State"

What is needed is choice in education. School choice has not and will not lead to more productive education because the obsolete technology called ʺschool” is inherently inelastic. As long as ʺschoolʺ refers to the traditional structure of buildings and grounds with services delivered in boxes called classrooms to which customers must be transported by car or bus, ʺschool choiceʺ will be unable to meaningfully alter the quality or efficiency of education.

More red herring. I said 'advantageous' and nothing about the preference for more music and less PE. Many parents prefer that creationism be taught, that the racial inferiority of blacks be advocated, that the US Constitution enshrines Christianity as the basis for our government and gratuitous Latin phrases. The evidence does not support these things, no matter how much parents might prefer them. Education isn't useful when it's simply a popularity contest, but useful to society when it teaches things that are demonstrably true.

How does one determine "advantage"? Who gets to decide? The location of notes on a piano is "demonstrably true". "Skill at throwing a football improves with practice" is demonstrably true. Who is to select the truths that children learn?
George Orwell
Review of 'Russia under Soviet Rule' by N. de Basily"
__Essays__,(Knopf, 2002).

The terrifying thing about modern dictatorships is that they are something entirely unprecedented. Their end cannot be foreseen. In the past, every tyranny was sooner or later overthrown, or at least resisted because of "human nature," which as a matter of course desired liberty. But we cannot be at all certain that human nature is constant. It may be just as possible to produce a breed of men who do not wish for liberty as to produce a breed of hornless cows. The Inquisition failed, but then the Inquisition had not the resources of the nodern state. The radio, press censorship, standardized education and the secret police have alterted everything. Mass suggestion is a science of the last twenty years, and we do not know how successful it will be.

And
George Orwell
Review of Power; A New Social Analysis by Bertrand Russell

One has only to to think of the sinister possibilities of the radio, State-controlled education, and so forth, to realize that 'the truth is great and will prevail' is a prayer rather than an axiom.

And what about parent control is supported by evidence? That it exists? That it's advantageous? That it causes better outcomes or that it's correlated with better outcomes?

All these things, usually and by normal definition.
Roland Meighan
"Home-based Education Effectiveness Research and Some of its Implications"
Educational Review, Vol. 47, No.3, 1995.

The issue of social skills. One edition of Home School Researcher, Volume 8, Number 3, contains two research reports on the issue of social skills. The first finding of the study by Larry Shyers (1992) was that home-schooled students received significantly lower problem behavior scores than schooled children. His next finding was that home-schooled children are socially well adjusted, but schooled children are not so well adjusted. Shyers concludes that we are asking the wrong question when we ask about the social adjustment of home-schooled children. The real question is why is the social; adjustment of schooled children of such poor quality?...
The second study, by Thomas Smedley (1992), used different test instruments but comes to the same conclusion, that home-educated children are more mature and better socialized than those attending school...
So-called 'school phobia' is actually more likely to be a sign of mental health, whereas school dependancy is a largely unrecognized mental health problem....

 

[leftysergeant]

a) As institutions displace individual parents in the power to determine for those parents' children the choice of curriculum and the pace and method of instruction, overall system performance falls.

Got evidence?

b) Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents.

Sounds like a republcion or a Libertarian whining about his blather noit being taught in the schools.

2. You call news articles "data" and question peer-reviewed random-assignment studies? Interesting preference.

Sure. Most of the "studies" that your side cite are conducted by houses of intellectual prostitution like the Heritage Foundation.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

You do use an awful heap of words to mischaracterize things.

I establish that the immediate topic was Bri's assertion: "Several studies have shown that students at private schools perform no better than those at public schools". Lassibile and Gomez, Lockheed and Jiminez, Angrist, et. al. support the contrary position. The "more recent data" in the OP relate to charter school performance. Abundant evidence supports an advantage with charter schools.

No, the data is not the news article, but the test results it was discussing. And yes, the evidence you presented wasn't applicable.

If anything, the evidence I supplied is more applicable to the question of relative State-school versus independent school performance than is the evidence from the OP, on charters (which are government schools). "More Recent data" (broad charter school research) support expanded parent control, in the form of options outside the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel.

 

[leftysergeant]

The "more recent data" in the OP relate to charter school performance. Abundant evidence supports an advantage with charter schools. If anything, the evidence I supplied is more applicable to the question of relative State-school versus independent school performance than is the evidence from the OP, on charters (which are government schools). "More Recent data" (broad charter school research) support expanded parent control, in the form of options outside the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel.

Jay P. Greene is Scaife's meat puppet. Hardly a credible source, dude.

Truth be told, I would far rather see my grandkids taught by a labor union than by an academic prostitute like Greene.

 

[Bri]

I don't know if anyone has posted these yet, but these are generally considered the most comprehensive studies on private vs. public school performance in the United States when controlling for socioeconomic factors:

Comparing Private Schools and Public Schools Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling, National Assessment of Educational Progress, National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, July 2006.

Charter, Private, Public Schools and Academic Achievement: New Evidence from NAEP Mathematics Data, Christopher Lubienski and Sarah Theule Lubienski, University of Illinois, January 2006.

Are Private High Schools Better Academically Than Public High Schools?, Center on Education Policy, October 2007.​

Malcolm Kirkpatrick has cited articles from sources that are advocates of charter schools and may be biased. A more neutral article from Education Week outlines some of the most comprehensive research on charter schools. The research on charter schools seems to be mixed due to the complexities of comparison and wide performance differences among charters:

More recent studies are also split. A 2010 study by Mathematica Policy Research, of Princeton, N.J., found students’ gains in mathematics after three years in a charter school run by the Knowledge Is Power Program , or KIPP, are large enough in about half of the 22 schools studies to significantly narrow race- and income-based achievement gaps among students. Another 2010 study, commissioned by the federal government and also conducted by Mathematica, found that students who won lotteries to attend 36 charter middle schools across the country performed, on average, no better in mathematics and reading than their peers who lost out in the random admissions process and enrolled in nearby regular public schools.​

-Bri

 

[tyr_13]

So it's a question of how many grains of sand make a pile, huh? I agree. Not productive. How about an argument that addresses the issues?I guess not.

Because they don't need to be addressed, not actually being relevant to the points.

So, the argument's rational but people are not? Or what?

The people not being rational leaves it with the same problem as other systems with fewer protections, so the argument is not rational because of the omission that it doesn't work in reality.

Silent participants may note that I uses "most", not "all" or "none". Tyr stuffs a strawman, here.

Replacing any of those words with another doesn't change the veracity of what I said, so your objection is pointless. The analogy (not strawman) still fits.

As Milton Friedman once observed, you have to compare something to something. We compare policies that give to parents varying degrees of control over the choice of curriculum and the pace and method of instruction. For each child, the educational options are not (a) processes selected by parents and (b) paradise, but (a) processes selected by parents and (b) processes selected by somebody or some body other than that child's parents. Or, more accurately, a range of policies that distribute varying degrees of control between parents and politically-designated authorities.

The comparisons you are making are ill-selected, not applicable, and at best correlation/causation conflations. You seem to believe that making your writing more labyrinthine puffs it up to appear more supported, instead of filled with fluff.

Charters are better than the prevailing State-mononopoly school system, which gives to the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel an exclusive position in receipt of the taxpayers' age 6-18 educaation subsidy. For several reasons, I prefer a policy I call Parent Performance Contracting.
E..G. West
"

Cherry picked fluff.

Education Without the State

"How does one determine "advantage"? Who gets to decide? The location of notes on a piano is "demonstrably true". "Skill at throwing a football improves with practice" is demonstrably true. Who is to select the truths that children learn?

Experts in the relevant fields along with experts in education. This argument is a spectacular fail to critical thinkers, and thus I've highlighted it. I'll remind everyone that this is his response to the idea of teaching children the racial inferiority of blacks, and the enshrining of Christianity as the US basis of government. Such an inartful dodge to one of the most major problems of your argument speaks volumes. That which is best supported by evidence should be selected.

George Orwell
Review of 'Russia under Soviet Rule' by N. de Basily"
__Essays__,(Knopf, 2002).
And
George Orwell
Review of Power; A New Social Analysis by Bertrand Russell

All these things, usually and by normal definition.
Roland Meighan
"Home-based Education Effectiveness Research and Some of its Implications"
Educational Review, Vol. 47, No.3, 1995.

Absurd poisoning the well and red herring bordering on non-sequiter.


___________________________________________________

Argumentu ad verbosium using red herrings and poisoning the well. The only reason this appears more reasonable that traditional CT use of these techniques is that there are many more confounding factors to deal with.

A red herring is something that appears to address the argument, but actually doesn't. One can use these to build a wall of text that seems to be a well thought out and supported argument, but most of the pieces of which don't actually support it.

This is a lot like when organic proponents claim that organic farming is better for the land as fewer, safer pesticides/fertilizers are used. Fewer pesticides do tend to be used, but they are just as dangerous and the reason fewer are used is not that they are organic, but that they are more expensive. One could easily achieve the same gains with synthetic fertilizer by using less. Privatization of schools is the same situation. Yes, it tends to work when parents are more involved with the schooling of their children. But so does traditional schooling. Parents already have a lot of choice if they take it, and when they do that's correlated with them caring about their children's education, and that too helps the children's education. Privatization doesn't actually help with any of that, the same results being achievable without the change, and opens up an entire host of other problems that aren't addressed.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

(Malcolm): "We disagree that the considerations which I introduce do not relate to the issue.
In general, I make less of the public/private distinction and less of the for-profit/non-profit distinction than most. As I wrote above, numerous lines of evidence support the following generalizations:...I reason axiomatically here
1. Most parents love their children and want their children to outlive them.
2. If you live among people there are basically three ways you can make a living: (a) you can beg, (b) you can steal, (c) you can trade goods and services for other people's goods and services.
3. Most parents accept proposition #2 and prefer 2(c) for their children.
4. Therefore, most parents want for their children what taxpayers want from schools, that children be able to take a productive place in society.
5. System insiders differ systematically from parents in general and taxpayers in general and so have systematically different interests from parents and taxpayers.
(Tyr): "I'm not going to address the flaws in this stream of red herrings, but it's pretty obvious that in the real world, that reasoning doesn't hold up because people aren't rational enough for such reasoning to be relied on. It would be the same as saying that no company would dump poison into the water because they need the water too. For not being a libertarian you sure do repeat the most obvious flaw in their thinking pretty well."
(Malcolm):"How about an argument that addresses the issues?...I guess not."

Because they don't need to be addressed, not actually being relevant to the points.

We disagree. Bri asserted "Several studies have shown that students at private schools perform no better than those at public schools once you adjust for socioeconomic differences of the students, so it's not a big surprise that charter school students don't perform better than those at traditional public schools", so international comparisons at the country level, which relate performance to policies that empower parents (lassibile and Gomez), trans-national studies which compare student performance, by sector (Lockheed and Jiminez), random-assignment lotteries which compare student performance by sector (Brutsaert), and the abstract argument for parent control (above) look relevant to me. If Tyr disagrees, here, I don't see how we can carry this argument further.

The people not being rational leaves it with the same problem as other systems with fewer protections, so the argument is not rational because of the omission that it doesn't work in reality.

If adults, as parents, are not capable of choosing their children's schools, how can adults, as voters, choose the politicians who choose the bureaucrats, who choose teachers and schools?

Replacing any of those words with another doesn't change the veracity of what I said, so your objection is pointless. The analogy (not strawman) still fits.

There's no logical difference between "some" and "all" or "none"? we disagree.

(Malcolm): "As Milton Friedman once observed, you have to compare something to something. We compare policies that give to parents varying degrees of control over the choice of curriculum and the pace and method of instruction. For each child, the educational options are not (a) processes selected by parents and (b) paradise, but (a) processes selected by parents and (b) processes selected by somebody or some body other than that child's parents. Or, more accurately, a range of policies that distribute varying degrees of control between parents and politically-designated authorities."

The comparisons you are making are ill-selected, not applicable, and at best correlation/causation conflations.

Why do these comparisons not relate to Bri's assertion? How else would anyone test it?

Discussion deleted (strenuous disagreement).

Parents already have a lot of choice if they take it, and when they do that's correlated with them caring about their children's education, and that too helps the children's education. Privatization doesn't actually help with any of that, the same results being achievable without the change, and opens up an entire host of other problems that aren't addressed.

We agree aboiut parent involvement. We disagree about the power of school choice as an expression of parent involvement.

 

[leftysergeant]

Would one of the people who believe that charter schools are actually better please explain what the charter schools do differently and why the same thing could not be done in public schools?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Sorry. "Random-assignment lotteries which compare student performance by sector (Brutsaert)" should be attributed to Angrist.

 

[tyr_13]

(Malcolm): "We disagree that the considerations which I introduce do not relate to the issue.
In general, I make less of the public/private distinction and less of the for-profit/non-profit distinction than most. As I wrote above, numerous lines of evidence support the following generalizations:...I reason axiomatically here
1. Most parents love their children and want their children to outlive them.
2. If you live among people there are basically three ways you can make a living: (a) you can beg, (b) you can steal, (c) you can trade goods and services for other people's goods and services.
3. Most parents accept proposition #2 and prefer 2(c) for their children.
4. Therefore, most parents want for their children what taxpayers want from schools, that children be able to take a productive place in society.
5. System insiders differ systematically from parents in general and taxpayers in general and so have systematically different interests from parents and taxpayers.
(Tyr): "I'm not going to address the flaws in this stream of red herrings, but it's pretty obvious that in the real world, that reasoning doesn't hold up because people aren't rational enough for such reasoning to be relied on. It would be the same as saying that no company would dump poison into the water because they need the water too. For not being a libertarian you sure do repeat the most obvious flaw in their thinking pretty well."
(Malcolm):"How about an argument that addresses the issues?...I guess not."

Did you think repeating this as a wall of text means anything? Do you believe this is a paper with a page goal that you have to hit? Those 'issues' are simply red herrings. It's also blatantly fallacious reasoning. 'Parents want best, therefore they will make the best choices' is fallacious reasoning that also is irrelevant. Other parents want what is best for their children and society that their children live in, and thus want exactly the opposite. It's an appeal to mommy instinct, and just as fallacious here as when anti-vaccers do it.

We disagree. Bri asserted "Several studies have shown that students at private schools perform no better than those at public schools once you adjust for socioeconomic differences of the students, so it's not a big surprise that charter school students don't perform better than those at traditional public schools", so international comparisons at the country level, which relate performance to policies that empower parents (lassibile and Gomez), trans-national studies which compare student performance, by sector (Lockheed and Jiminez), random-assignment lotteries which compare student performance by sector (Brutsaert), and the abstract argument for parent control (above) look relevant to me. If Tyr disagrees, here, I don't see how we can carry this argument further.

You have to show how they are relevant to the argument you are making, but your mischaracterization of what several of the studies you cited actually were measuring more than a decade ago in one case speaks against that.

If adults, as parents, are not capable of choosing their children's schools, how can adults, as voters, choose the politicians who choose the bureaucrats, who choose teachers and schools?

You want me to explain the merits of representative democracy to you? People can't be experts on everything, and many realize this. They elect people to positions who's entire job is to find out who are the relevant experts and the best knowledge to make policy reflecting that best knowledge for a desirable outcome.

There's no logical difference between "some" and "all" or "none"? we disagree.

That's not what I said. You are aware of this, and aware that my analogy fits too well for your argument to endure, so you attempt deflections.

(Malcolm): "As Milton Friedman once observed, you have to compare something to something. We compare policies that give to parents varying degrees of control over the choice of curriculum and the pace and method of instruction. For each child, the educational options are not (a) processes selected by parents and (b) paradise, but (a) processes selected by parents and (b) processes selected by somebody or some body other than that child's parents. Or, more accurately, a range of policies that distribute varying degrees of control between parents and politically-designated authorities."

Look, more fluff that just restating what you've already said.

Why do these comparisons not relate to Bri's assertion? How else would anyone test it?

Maybe they would, so look into it.

Discussion deleted (strenuous disagreement).We agree aboiut parent involvement. We disagree about the power of school choice as an expression of parent involvement.

You can disagree all you like, but if you don't have an argument to present as to why, then I'm not especially interested in your disagreement.

 

[IchabodPlain]

Linky.

I read a comment about this that strikes me as correct: charter schools are about reforming labour, not education.

And what makes this "Noble" chain different? As with most private schools, it seems like simple biased samples:



Linky.

As always, Democratic connections seem to underlay a lot of these schools:



Linky.



Linky.

And, shockingly:



Linky.

Someone call the ******* Mayor! This is such a shocking revelation!

Definitely true - Union wages and benefits can be awfully costly. The Illinois union thread is proof of that. If they don't produce the best education for their relative costs, or even their costs are too expensive regardless of quality, reforms should be (and would have to be in the latter case) made. Too expensive meaning whatever costs voters will not bear at the ballot box, and best education meaning scoring at or above a given mean on empirically-based set of criteria among all schools in a given area, state, etc.

If private and charter schools ≥ public schools in quality, win. If parents want to make that decision and the costs are ≤ public schools, win. Private and charter schools who 'fail' (do poorly in a proper given set of criteria) loose accreditation, minimizing would-be wasteful spending on bad schools. I really don't see the problem in that scenario.

If, in either the case of more expensive or less quality, then we should reject the private or charter school model. If the reverse, then opposite. I don't see any way to disagree

 

[leftysergeant]

I still want to know why charter schools are supposed to be able to do something that public schools cannot do. What methods are different that make them such a freaking magic bullet? Why can't the public schools do the same thing?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

You can disagree all you like, but if you don't have an argument to present as to why, then I'm not especially interested in your disagreement.

I have lots of arguments. There's not much room for discussion with someone who dismisses facts and reason with "red herring" and "irrelevant" when these facts and arguments bear directly on the issue at hand.
Tata.

 

[leftysergeant]

I have lots of arguments.

No, you have talking points that sound like you got them from the Rushblob while he was rushing on Oxy. None of them make any sense because they do not link to external phenomena.

There's not much room for discussion with someone who dismisses facts and reason with "red herring" and "irrelevant" when these facts and arguments bear directly on the issue at hand.

THere is also not much room for arguments inside a mini-reality created only in the minds of a few sociopaths.