OAKLAND — The charter school versus public school debate has raged for years. The concrete data to support which type of school is outperforming the other, and in what areas, has always been sparse.
But the 4th annual education progress report produced by the Oakland Achieves Partnership for the first time compares the performance of public charter and district-run schools in a variety of ways, from pre-school to high school academic performance, as well comparative rates of graduation, university eligibility, college enrollment and suspensions, based on data collected from charter schools and Oakland Unified for the 2014-2015 school year.
“We set up to provide the first complete picture of Oakland schools…,” said Ash Solar, executive director of GO Public Schools Oakland, a nonprofit education advocacy group, during a Wednesday news conference. “The data is at a high level to spark collaborative learning, not to pit school types against each other and draw tentative conclusions. We hope it’s a starting point to talk about the bright points in our schools and to learn what we’re doing well to apply it to all schools and all students.”
Among the report’s most significant findings was that district-run schools fare better at preparing elementary students in 3rd through 5th grades in English compared to the city’s charter schools. But those advantages start to flip in the middle to high school years in a number of areas, said Steve Spiker, research and technology director of the Urban Strategies Council, a social justice advocacy organization, one about nine organizations, including Go Public School Oakland and Educate 78, that collected the data or helped prepared the report.
About 56 percent of 3rd through 5th grade students at district schools met or exceeded standards in English, compared to 45 percent at the city’s charter schools, according to the report. About 68 percent of 7th and 8th graders met or exceeded math standards at Oakland’s charter schools, compared to 41 percent at traditional public schools. And in high school, English language earners at charter schools have an 81 percent graduation rate, but only 64 percent graduate at district-run schools.
The Oakland Achieves coalition had been frustrated in the past with the lack of data from charter schools, so this year the partners worked with every charter school in the city to gather information, which is especially important because about a quarter of the city’s students attend charters.
“It was a brand new thing to do that — to gather that data — and we were able to gather almost everything,” said Sarah Marxer, senior research associate for Urban Strategies. About 20 percent of the data they had hoped to get didn’t come through, she said, but they were as transparent as possible about what was missing and what wasn’t in the report.
“We see places where it seems the district can learn from charters,” Spiker said. “But also we see places where the charter schools can learn from the district.”
For instance, about 93 percent of the students in charter schools graduated with courses needed to make them eligible to enroll in California State University and the University of California system, compared to 56 percent of students graduating from district-run schools.
But the district has done a better job of reducing its suspension rate for African-American and Latino students. About 11 percent of African-American students at charter schools have been suspended, versus 8 percent in traditional public schools, according to the report.
“It does highlight positive trends in education…and it underscores the need for all students to have access to quality education, said Patrick Walsh, regional director of Alameda County for the California Charter Schools Association, a charter advocacy group. “And it flags some areas for attention.”
Walsh said he was appreciative of the report, and to see that charters on the whole did better in preparing kids for college in the middle and high school years in Oakland. But he felt the special education results masked the fact that a number of the city’s charters are serving higher percentages of such students than indicated in the report. He also said the findings on the district’s improved suspension rates were worth taking a deeper look at and learning from.
“We need to analyze the data and we’re going to partner with OUSD to share best practices,” he said.
Oakland Unified spokeswoman Valerie Goode called the report “a conversation starter and an opportunity to address equity of access to high quality education throughout the city.”
“It is great to see areas where the district has made progress,” she said. “Through the work of the Equity Pledge, we are already beginning to grow relationships with charter-run public schools and many education stakeholders to ensure all Oakland students are set up for academic success regardless of where they live or go to school in the city. There are so many ways for us to learn from each other.”
To read the report, go to www.oaklandachieves.org.
