WAVE 3 catches the charter school ‘wave’

WAVE 3 TV in Louisville has an excellent, two-part video series on charter schools. You get both the great positives, including a look at two concrete charter school examples from Indianapolis, and the shots thrown at charters by the naysayers.

Here’s the link to the WAVE 3 text article. The links to the two videos are on the same page, near the top.

There are some great interviews with Shelbyville Rep. Brad Montell, Louisville Pastor Jerry Stephenson, Tony Bennett, Indiana superintendent of education, and others. These people have seen what happens in charter schools and want Kentucky children to experience the same.

The lead naysayer you will hear is Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Sheldon Berman, Ph.D. He relies in part on a recent study by the CREDO group at Stanford to put down charters, conveniently overlooking some important findings in that study.

As I reported when that CREDO report came out, the report says, “Relative to their TPS (typical public school) peers, the average performance of charter students in reading was significantly positive in Arkansas, California, Colorado (Denver), Louisiana, Missouri, and North Carolina.”

This indicates that not all charter school legislation is created equal – something we will want to watch for as our 2010 legislature convenes.

Also, the CREDO report found in general that charter school students do outperform once they have been in a charter school for more than a year or two.

If you think about it, that makes sense. Many charters are in inner city systems, and they often take in kids who are several grade levels behind. You cannot wave a magic wand and change that deficit in a day or two, or even in one school term. And Berman knows that.