Should Charter Schools Be Allowed to Push Out Difficult Kids?

Q&A with Robert Pondiscio on Success Academy and the 'Got-to-Go' controversy.

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Should Charter Schools Be Allowed to Push Out Difficult Kids?

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Do charter schools—publicly funded schools that are freed from many state-and-local regulations—routinely push out difficult kids? Does this undermine their overall mission and purpose? Or is it a legitimate way to ensure a better education for more students?

In October, The New York Times broke the story that a principal at Success Academy, which is New York City's largest and most successful charter network, targeted a group of students to be pushed out of his school, maintaining a so-called Got-to-Go list. Success Academy's founder and CEO, Eva Moskowitz, responded that the episode was a one-time mistake. As soon as the Got-to-Go list came to her attention, Moskowitz says, she put a stop to the practice and disciplined the principal.

Last week, a group of parents filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, accusing the school of edging out students with disabilities and denying them accommodations. Moskowitz disputed the charges, stating that Success only suspends students when they engage in violent behavior.

But let's say the allegations are broadly true—that the Success network does suspend kids with the intention of getting the most difficult or hard-to-serve to go back to the traditional public school system. What's wrong with this practice?

"I have no problem at all with charters functioning as a poor man's private school," says Robert Pondiscio, who's a vice president at the education think tank the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, who adds that private schools boot kids all the time. "Are we saying that if you're a poor black or brown kid, it's a problem that you should have a disruption-free, studious, high-quality school? Why is that unfair?"

For more on Pondiscio's take on the Got-to-Go controversy, read his November 6 story in U.S. News & World Report, "Uncomfortable Questions."

For the past several years, Reason has been a media sponsor of National School Choice Week, which seeks to raise public awareness about the need to give kids and parents more options when it comes to K-12 education. National School Choice Week 2016, which is held from January 24-30, features over 16,000 events in all 50 states. Click here to read more.

Produced, shot, and edited by Jim Epstein. Interview by Nick Gillespie. Additional camera by Joshua Swain.

About 9:30 long.

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Comments

[Eric Bana]

How is it a problem if charter schools boot unruly students back to public schools? Assuming public schools get the "bad" kids, wouldn't it be easier to manage with smaller classes if other students go to charter schools?

[AD-RtR/OS!]

Should they?
Yes!
If someone has no interest in learning, and cannot discipline them-self so as not to disrupt the learning atmosphere for others, they should find their learning elsewhere.

[Homple]

"Should Charter Schools Be Allowed to Push Out Difficult Kids?"

Yes, and ordinary public schools should be as well.

[ranrod]

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[Sanjuro Tsubaki]

Yes.

[bud]

Here's an idea why don't we EXPAND the charter school network to include additional resources to address special need kids so the "traditional" public school system isn't burdened with them either.. so the mediocre school system will just have to concentrate on mediocre students being taught by mediocre teachers.. sounds like a solution..

[Walter Clark]

Jeeze, that's a lot of talking but not much philosophy. How's this...
In a libertarian world where there is no free lunch, if a child is not wanted because he's disruptive, the child is thrown out. But because there's a market in schools the rejected child (parents really) is still free to apply to another school. (Or not go at all.) A market in education allows for the possibility that the discretion used by the first school was prejudicial or just plane mistaken. Contrast that with socialized education. They can't throw anyone out; why? Because they have a monopoly, their charter must include a rule that they cannot have discretion in who they leave out. If they had discretion a prejudice or mistake would be tragic. There's nowhere else the kid can go. Because they do not have discretion... it doesn't take long for a student to figure that out.
We always talk about freedom of choice of the customer, but notice the consequence of freedom on the part of the provider (allowed by the fact that they are not the only provider). It means the customer is now the one that might be not chosen. In this environment, a student who might be disruptive (parent of one, actually) knows that it is possible to be thrown out. They also, cannot help but know, there is the possibility of no one else letting them in. In this environment, the attitude a possibly disruptive student doesn't have, is one of entitlement.

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[Jake_Al]

If discipline is the problem and it starts at home, why isn't anyone trying to come up with a solution? Rather than just getting rid of the kid so they grow up to be a loser on welfare and/or drugs, why not come up with a solution that teaches them to be a healthy individual with healthy reactions to the world around them? If they aren't learning discipline at home then there should be a path at school that teaches them the value of discipline instead of whatever behavior is being enabled. Kicking them out s no different than sending unhealthy individuals to jail to make the problem go away. What good is that?

[Cloudbuster]

We need a new amendment: separation of school and state.

Then the right to kick out disruptive students won't be controversial.

State propaganda masquerading as education would cease.

Schools would probably become tremendously better, almost overnight.

[Garagefather]

Here is a different persective:
My children used to attend a charter school before we moved to a good area with excellent public schools. The charter school was a good option to avoid the miserable public schools in the area we used to live in. At first, the school was really great. The student body was good. Discipline was good.Then came the changes....
The school started to accept more "special needs" kids. We learned that these kids came with extra money attached so the school got more funding. We wondered why these "special needs" kids didn't get their own classes and why our "normal" kids had to put up with these "special needs" kids every day. We were told that they had to integrate the "special needs" kids into normal classes for their social development and self esteem.
So they screwed up a good school with good discipline and started accepting "special needs" kids, that were really just kids lacking discipline due to crappy home lives and lousy parents. The kids generally were getting expelled from the public schools for violence towards other students or staff and they ended up at the charter school as a last resort.
So it can and does work both ways. Some schools might want to protect their schools reputation by weeding out bad students who cannot be disciplined due to crappy parents and unstable homes, while other schools look at it as an opportunity to get extra cash.

[morganovich]

if one student is stopping 19 of the best and brightest from getting the education they could by being disruptive, then no sane syatem can pander to them.

these schools are like the fast lane of a highway. keep up and move with traffic, or get right and get out of the way.

it is not your right to hold up traffic.

[overandover]

To get closer to a free market in education and real competition: vouchers, not charters. Put the money and free choice in the hands of the parents, reduce cronyism, increase autonomy for school administrators.

[PhillipMarlowe]

To get even closer than what you propose, why should we be taxed to educate the result of people's behavior. If I have children, I should be prepared to educate them.

[Fairbanks]

I think you mean that you should be prepared to pay for their education. Yes, just like we expect parents to pay for feeding, clothing and sheltering their kids. But I get howls of protest when I suggest that the state shouldn't pay for education.

[Rational Exhuberance]

Charter schools shouldn't exist because they are, again, just going to be a hotbed of lobbying and political influence peddling.

If we want public financing of education at all, parents should receive school vouchers that they can use at any school, public or private, of their choice.

[Alan Vanneman]

"a so-called Got-to-Go list"? Or, as Robert Pondiscio calls it in his article, "an alleged Got-to-Go list"? No, it was a list of kids' names with the heading "Got to Go". It strikes me as scarcely libertarian to argue that schools should be able to label kids as troublemakers and then search for ways to harass them until they leave. Aren't people supposed to be judged by their actions rather than their supposed "essences"? This sounds to me like "stop and frisk" for teachers. Certainly, students who are being disruptive should be disciplined, and it sounds to me like that's what most "Success Academy" schools do. The Times' article "arguably" went out of its way to use the one "Got to Go" instance to call into question charter schools as a whole, but let's not label actual facts as "so-called" when they inconvenience our preconceptions.

[PhillipMarlowe]

So, once Success Academy fails to educate and expels a child, Mr. Pondiscio is silent on what should happen to that child.

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[Radioactive]

can you tie my shoes for me?

[MJBinAL]

THIS is the uncomfortable truth.

We are spending enormous amounts of money with higher paid "special needs" teachers, classes of 4 students per teacher, while failing to teach mainstream students to read and write. I understand the desire of parents with special needs to make their child as successful as possible, but is that the best way for the money to be spent?

There is a certain perversity in taxpayers spending $50,000/year to "educate" (mostly daycare) for "special needs" children so that their parents do not have to, or can go to work rather than care for the child themselves. When did YOUR child, become MY responsibility?

Then there are the students who do not want to be there. Especially at the high school level, we need to stop insisting they stay and destroy the learning environment for others. Yes, I am sure that this is a great shame for the ones we let go. Yes, I am sure they would have been better off with an education. But what would be best for for them does not mean they should have more rights, better rights, or higher value than those who are in school for an education.

[Radioactive]

how about flogging?

[Culchacritik]

I had the good fortune to attend an elementary school that had the same multi-tiered approach to teaching. Candidly, it was one of the best experiences of my pre-teen school years.

Our school had 4 categories; above average, average, below average, special needs. But they were not labeled as such, only as groups 1 through 4 (despite the school's attempt to hide the appellations with numbers, the students knew what they represented). My sister was placed in the "average" category while I was placed in the above average group. Mid way through the year, her good study habits (courtesy of our parents who enforced "homework first, play later" habits) boosted her to the above average group. The regroupings occurred not frequently, but often enough for students to know performance dictated placement. I had friends in the below average group who were happy remaining in that group because they didn't want the responsibility of increased academic rigor in the other groups.

While this model had many imperfections, the above average group was able to complete assignments and progress as quickly as we could, without being impeded by the other groups. The other groups received specialized teaching according to their needs.

[MJBinAL]

ok, we can flog you, but you have to ties your own shoes first.