The Los Angeles Times has a remarkably balanced piece by Jeam Merl on two analyses of charter school performance — one statewide and one for the LAUSD:

… Within the Los Angeles Unified School District, charter middle and high schools — independently run but publicly funded campuses — scored higher than district campuses, according to separate evaluations of public school performance.

… (statewide) In secondary schools, where gains in student achievement have remained well below those in the earlier grades, charters outdistanced district schools, 742 to 717 (on California’s API test — ed.) for middle schools and 633 to 622 for high schools.

In Los Angeles Unified, charters exceeded district schools, 715 to 677; their scores grew by 30 points overall, while district schools grew by 20.

… In a less affluent part of town, View Park Preparatory, a charter high school in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles, earned 774 on the performance index. Nearby Los Angeles Unified schools, Crenshaw and Dorsey high schools, scored 511 and 501, respectively.

What headline does the LAT give this chronicle of success?

“Charters Get Better but Lag Traditional Schools, Study Says”

In fact, the only area where ‘traditional’ schools outpace charters is in the statewide elementary school analysis, where they averaged 753 versus the charter’s 743.

But that’s not what people browsing the paper will take away.

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 23rd, 2005 at 2:04 pm by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under Los Angeles Times, (Un)education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.