There is a general pattern in charter schools having higher student turnover, (http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2012/04/kipp-truth-academy-student-movement.html), a charter student dropout rate that is many times higher than ISD's, and a teacher turnover rate twice that of ISD's. The result is an average charter school teacher tenure that is less than half that of ISD's. (Verified at the blog at the last link below.)
Today I discovered that one of the more prominent charter schools systems, KIPP, also has an unusually large amount of money per student more than Dallas ISD, and KIPP is NOT spending correspondingly more on student instruction! While charter schools on average spend 5 percentage points less of their budget on Instruction, that number is usually about 40% of revenue. At KIPP that number is closer to 30%!
Texas Education Agency Snapshot data shows that the 2 KIPP schools in Dallas are both getting about 70% more per student in income (Item 73 shows $17,979 for KIPP vs $10,595 for DISD) than Dallas ISD. However, they are only spending about 25% more on instruction (Item 88 shows $6,000 for KIPP vs $4,801 for DISD. 2014 expenditures were almost equal between KIPP and DISD even though the income per students was almost as high as 2015!) It makes you wonder where the extra money goes, and wonder even more why the percentage of all students passing all tests (Item # 23) is only 2 percentage points higher for KIPP than DISD (67% vs 69%).
Given a more select student population (impossible to avoid when parents both select the school and must have resources to provide transportation to the school) KIPP should be doing much better. KIPP teacher turnover is almost double that at DISD, and average teacher tenure is only 2 years compared to 10 at DISD, so those are certainly factors. Higher teacher turnover is a very common pattern at charter schools. Look at the data at https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/perfreport/snapshot/2015/district.srch.html
Unless the charter schools are able to lessen transparency surrounding their operations, and keep parents quiet about what is happening to their children in school, the true public schools, ISD's, will win this war. Meanwhile what is the loss to students? See more data for the entire state of Texas for charter schools and ISD's, with a comparison to DISD, at http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2016/12/review-of-2014-2015-texas-education.html
Today I discovered that one of the more prominent charter schools systems, KIPP, also has an unusually large amount of money per student more than Dallas ISD, and KIPP is NOT spending correspondingly more on student instruction! While charter schools on average spend 5 percentage points less of their budget on Instruction, that number is usually about 40% of revenue. At KIPP that number is closer to 30%!
Texas Education Agency Snapshot data shows that the 2 KIPP schools in Dallas are both getting about 70% more per student in income (Item 73 shows $17,979 for KIPP vs $10,595 for DISD) than Dallas ISD. However, they are only spending about 25% more on instruction (Item 88 shows $6,000 for KIPP vs $4,801 for DISD. 2014 expenditures were almost equal between KIPP and DISD even though the income per students was almost as high as 2015!) It makes you wonder where the extra money goes, and wonder even more why the percentage of all students passing all tests (Item # 23) is only 2 percentage points higher for KIPP than DISD (67% vs 69%).
Given a more select student population (impossible to avoid when parents both select the school and must have resources to provide transportation to the school) KIPP should be doing much better. KIPP teacher turnover is almost double that at DISD, and average teacher tenure is only 2 years compared to 10 at DISD, so those are certainly factors. Higher teacher turnover is a very common pattern at charter schools. Look at the data at https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/perfreport/snapshot/2015/district.srch.html
Unless the charter schools are able to lessen transparency surrounding their operations, and keep parents quiet about what is happening to their children in school, the true public schools, ISD's, will win this war. Meanwhile what is the loss to students? See more data for the entire state of Texas for charter schools and ISD's, with a comparison to DISD, at http://schoolarchiveproject.blogspot.com/2016/12/review-of-2014-2015-texas-education.html
