Talk:Charter school

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Semi-protected edit request on 3 November 2016
The term charter school should be linked to this external link: charterschoolcenter.org This is the National Charter School Resource Center and can provide even more information on what a charter school is, how to start a charter school, and access to reports, webinars, case studies, etc.

Mmryanks9 (talk) 21:41, 3 November 2016 (UTC)


 * ❌ External links do not belong in the bodies of articles, only in external links sections and limited other places. This link also doesn't appear to be a reliable source, as it's produced by a consulting company with no indication of having a reputation for accuracy and fact-checking, which is required by guidelines. What, exactly, is the NCSRC? What is it, who is it, and what is its mission? I couldn't find anything on that site. The lack of info on that website is suspicious, and the Jumbo US Dept. of Education logo over a tiny disclaimer message doesn't help matters. Grayfell (talk) 22:23, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

This article is propaganda
I don't want to get into edit wars, but this article is pure propaganda.

Take something like this quote about the Massachusetts charter school model: "This funding scheme, and others like it across the United States ensure the profitability of these businesses, which is further enhanced by the fact that the service they provide does not follow the law of supply and demand.[16] This is because the demand for k-12 education, in the current funding scheme, is dependent solely on population growth and relatively disconnected to price.[16] Profitability is high and investment in charter schools is highly recommended by several investors interviewed for a Washington Post article.[17]"

Massachusetts requires charter schools to be not-for-profits.

Or take this quote:

"Despite the favorable public perception of charter schools their benefits are disputable. According to Stanford University studies the difference in performance between public and private schools is not conclusively significant.[18]"

The citation links to CREDO, which says nothing of the sort, and indeed, a top link there is a Snope's style article from CREDO debunking such claims: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/margaret-raymond/a-rebuttal-of-weingarten-_b_9701622.html

The article, like every such article from Harvard, Columbia, MIT, Berkeley, and every other credible research institution concludes charter schools have an undisputable and positive impact on student outcomes

Is there a way to fix this and lock it down? This is an issue with powerful political players and lots of astroturf. I suspect any edit would get reverted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.31.40.89 (talk) 02:24, 25 November 2016 (UTC)


 * You can edit the article, and looking at the history, I wouldn't assume it's going to get reverted. Either way, it's not going to be preemptively locked down, so you will need some specific signs of political high-jinks for that to happen. There's a lot going on here. The article is a mess, and that section on Mass. was particularly bad for a couple of reasons, so I've removed it. You're going to find a lot of people who dispute the positive outcomes, though, and not all of them are astroturf, so "indisputable" is the wrong word. The way to deal with this is through reliable sources explaining the different positions. Credo might be a reliable outlet, but just linking to the main page, as the article unfortunately did, is unhelpful. Whatever is at the top of that site's homepage is unlikely to stay for very long, and it's hard to know which study was being indicated. Huffington Post's "The Blog" is not generally considered reliable by Wikipedia's standards, by the way. Grayfell (talk) 10:28, 25 November 2016 (UTC)


 * If you'd like citations:
 * Florida study: https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2016/04/07/charter-school-grads-stay-in-college-earn-more-money-study/
 * Harvard Graduate School of Education review of studies (this is nice since it goes over many, and shows either a positive effect or no effect, depending on measure): https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=DsjuY0h7mVU
 * MIT/Columbia/Berkeley/etc.: https://seii.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Stand-and-Deliver-January-2016.pdf
 * People would dispute it. People also dispute climate change, and that the Earth is more than 6000 years old. Science suggests the opposite, with varying levels of evidence -- more for benefits of charter schools than for age of the Earth, ironically, although both fall well into the "indisputable" zone at this point. There are a few studies that show bad charter schools underperform and then disappear (Texas study is a good example), but the data shows a similar conclusion, only with a longer timescale. In that one, no-excuses charter schools do well, while other forms do badly, making it a wash overall. But other forms also disappear pretty quickly. And Stanford's CREDO does publish in sources other than Huffington Post, with much the same conclusions as the HP article, only with peer review. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.31.40.89 (talk) 02:56, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The idea that the academic consensus on the age of the Earth is weaker than the academic consensus on the benefit of charter schools is, I'm hoping, hyperbole, as the age of the Earth is absolutely central to multiple scientific disciplines and is very widely documented and discussed. For charter schools, on the other hand, there is dispute among reputable academics, so this is not just a WP:FRINGE perspective like creationism. School choice also needs a lot of work (putting it mildly) but it includes several sourced explanations for why charter schools are legitimately controversial, even acknowledging that there are demonstrated benefits. And there are benefits, but it's too simplistic to stop there without going deeper. This is not just about individual outcomes, this is also about scalability, impact on non-charter schools, financial issues, institutional racism, and much, much more. The article doesn't have to try and cover all of those, but we shouldn't actively ignore them.
 * "No excuses" is especially controversial for its own set of reasons, -again, not just among the fringes, but by reputable academics.[etc] Studies on individual outcomes have their place, but even if they are top-notch they don't necessarily address these issues. Grayfell (talk) 05:52, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
 * As Grayfell stated, this article can be edited. Instead of labeling it propaganda, please make the necessary changes especially seeing that you have the wherewithal to do so. I have added some information myself and I won't have any problem if an editor does some modifications with better-sourced information. We always expect a page to get better if more editors contribute. Darwin Naz (talk) 13:16, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
 * "No excuses" is especially controversial for its own set of reasons, -again, not just among the fringes, but by reputable academics.[etc] Studies on individual outcomes have their place, but even if they are top-notch they don't necessarily address these issues. Grayfell (talk) 05:52, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
 * As Grayfell stated, this article can be edited. Instead of labeling it propaganda, please make the necessary changes especially seeing that you have the wherewithal to do so. I have added some information myself and I won't have any problem if an editor does some modifications with better-sourced information. We always expect a page to get better if more editors contribute. Darwin Naz (talk) 13:16, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Why is the criticism section blank?
I noticed that there is a criticism section in this article that is now blank. Was that the subject of some vandalism, or has this just not be fleshed out yet? — Preceding unsigned comment added by JollyGreenJesus (talk • contribs) 17:42, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Definition
I just happened upon this page in an effort to learn more about charter schools. Generally, a good article begins with a neutral definition, but any definition of "charter school" that cites as a reference "Charter schools and the attack on public education" " would seem to be short of neutral. Why not use a definition from one of the online dictionaries, such as Merriam-Webster's definition of charter school: "a tax-supported school established by a charter between a granting body (as a school board) and an outside group (as of teachers and parents) which operates the school without most local and state educational regulations so as to achieve set goals".  I would do this myself but do not have the time and interest to sustain a prolonged dialogue concerning charter schools. James809 (talk) 14:17, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

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Public vs. Private
Copied from User talk:Charterwonk

Hello. I have (again) reverted your changes to Charter school. I did this for a couple of reasons. First, I moved your additions to the section about the United States (Charter school#United States), since the source has specific strong ties to the US system. Articles are intended to be for an international audience, and since the article covers multiple countries, the overview should be broad enough to cover those countries.

The other reason I restored the previous lede is because it is a lengthy quote with many specific details. Since Wikipedia is a tertiary source, it's almost always better to summarize sources than to quote them, especially for the lede. Additionally, I fear this would be too much "wonk" too soon, making it unnecessarily difficult for a general audience to understand. We should define concepts when needed, and jargon should be avoided.

I should also mention that lengthy quotes can, potentially, raise copyright violation concerns. I don't think this is a clear example of that yet, but it's another good reason to summarize instead of directly quote, whenever possible.

I recommend discussing this further at Talk:Charter school. Thanks. Grayfell (talk) 22:21, 20 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi, Grayfell. I don't want to enter an editing war. But I do want to protect Wikipedia's reputation. The previous definition of charter school under this article, international or not, is biased and misleading. Charter schools in the US are NOT privately owned and are actually based on progressive principles. If you look at state statute you will see a clear pattern: charter schools only exist because state law allows them to exist. That is in contrast to private schools which have existed with or without statutory authority.


 * When someone Googles "charter school," this misleading concept (the concept that charter schools are private schools, which they are not) pops up. Does this matter? Does Wikipedia care that such a biased and misleading opinion defines such a contentious issue? I don't want to get blocked, but I do want to support accurate articles and the previous definition is not accurate. --Charterwonk (talk) 23:07, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Hello. The lede currently says that a charter school is in some cases is privately owned. This is accurate, as even in the United States, charter schools are operated by independent non-profit and for-profit companies, even if they are under more-strict regulation than fully private schools. The simplistic definition of a charter school is that it is "publicly funded but privately operated".[1] This blurs the lines between public and private, and arguably that's the entire point. I'm sure we both have strong feelings about what this means, and how significant it is to the topic, but the article's lede is intended to be a simple overview of this complicated issue. How progressive these principles are is both hotly contested and irrelevant to this particular discussion.

Internationally speaking, "public" is so ambiguous it's always going to cause confusion (see Public school (United Kingdom) and Delhi Public School Society as a couple of examples). The lede of the charter school article isn't a good place to try and explain this ambiguity. If you would like to expand on the lede to include a summary of the points added by this or other reliable source, we should discuss how to do that, but this one source doesn't over-ride other sources. The definition provided by the Education Commission of the States is not the only definition we should consider. Additionally, it's not necessarily appropriate to use a narrow definition when discussing a complicated, controversial issue. Again, I invite you to discuss your concerns on the article's talk page (Talk:Charter school), so that other editors are more likely to see this and participate. Grayfell (talk) 00:31, 21 February 2018 (UTC)


 * There is not a single case of a charter school being privately owned in the United States. Not one. Every charter school in the US is responsible to an authorizer or sponsor whose responsibilities are defined in state statute and the large majority of those sponsors are local school districts. I can see that you feel as strongly about this as I do. However, the line "in some cases is privately owned" is misleading because it does not distinguish between the international definition and the US definition. "Operated" and "owned" are not the same. Charterwonk (talk) 03:23, 21 February 2018 (UTC)


 * You're right. Operated and owned are not the same thing, but that's not answering my concerns. The lede isn't the place to make assumptions about the existential difference between public and private schools. The place to discuss this is, for the third time, the article's talk page. Grayfell (talk) 03:28, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

I'm glad that you say the led is not the place to make assumptions about the existential difference between public and private schools. Therefore, we should move the line "in some cases is privately owned" to lower in the article. As you have pointed out, such definition (given the controversial nature) should not belong in the lede. Charterwonk (talk) 03:34, 21 February 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charterwonk (talk • contribs)  Charterwonk (talk) 03:50, 21 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Per points raised on User talk:Charterwonk, I have added a paragraph to the lede on the debate between calling charter schools public (state) vs. private. This source is not ideal, but since this is a basic, defining question that readers are likely to ask, the lede really should say something about it. The previous statement "...and in some cases is privately owned" was insufficient, and was not very well sourced, even though it is accurate. As the added source specifically mentions, advocates of the charter model usually describe it as public, but not always. The counter example cited by the article is this source about managers of the Chicago Math and Science Academy emphasizing its private status to gain more favorable labor rules. This is one of several examples of why this isn't a simple black/white matter, and also an example of why this label matters a great deal in any discussion of this topic. Grayfell (talk) 03:55, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I didn't see this copy/paste when posting the above comment, although my comments work well enough as a reply. This was a good idea, but instead of placing this in a section from over a year ago, I have moved this to a new one for clarity. I have also adjusted formatting by changing indenting and similar. Help:Show preview and Talk page guidelines may be helpful in the future. Grayfell (talk) 04:02, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Grayfell! Charterwonk (talk) 04:10, 21 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Sure! I'm sorry if I was brusk. I really don't want to drive away an editor who's willing to tackle this article, as it really does need a lot of attention. As I said, I'm not sure that what I added was all that great either, but I hope it's a step in the right direction we can both agree with. As a look at the above talk posts and the article's edit history show, this topic can get prickly. If you have questions, or suggestions for reliable sources, I would be happy to discuss them with you further, and hopefully there is room for both common ground and civil disagreement. Grayfell (talk) 04:46, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Anyone think additional information should be added based on this article?
I found this link on this Reddit post. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.218.1.153 (talk) 01:27, 8 December 2019 (UTC)