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[Tripon]

A first-of-its-kind, sector-wide parent satisfaction survey revealed that private and charter school parents report being more satisfied with their children’s schooling than parents whose children attend district schools.

Panelists on Tuesday discussing the results speculated that parents’ ability to choose their child’s school resulted in greater satisfaction.
“I think that’s what this data is telling me. If you have a school where you’re paying the money, and that school is going to lose money unless you continue to send your children there, they’re going to pay attention to your children,” said Paul Peterson, professor of government and director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard Kennedy School.

One survey asked parents how satisfied they were with teacher quality, discipline, expectations for student achievement, safety and instruction in character and values. Private school parents were on average 12 points more satisfied in these areas than charter school parents, who in turn were 13 points more satisfied than district parents.

Peterson drew a similar conclusion with the charter school satisfaction rates even though parents do not pay tuition for their children to attend charters. The schools still rely on — and have a greater stake in maintaining — parental satisfaction because that drives parental choice in enrolling their children, he said.

The second set of data came from the U.S. Department of Education and was gathered from four groups of parents: charter, private, assigned-district and chosen-district sectors. Because the sample size was much larger — 17,000 respondents — researchers could analyze the results by subgroup.

Here researchers also found that private school parents were most satisfied with their schools, followed by charter school parents and parents who chose their district school.
They also identified that in every sector except private, parents of elementary school children were more satisfied than parents whose children were in high school.

https://www.the74million.org/articl...s-more-satisfied-than-district-school-parents

The survey itself:

http://educationnext.org/what-do-parents-think-of-childrens-schools-ednext-private-district-charter/

 

[soco]

The differences look surprisingly small, and satisfaction isn't a particularly useful metric for actually evaluating the quality.

The private school, and to some extent charter school approval rating aren't really surprising. People have a tendency to believe choices that they make, where they feel fortunate or lucky, lead to better results.

 

[Lazy vs Crazy]

Smells like confirmation bias.

 

[PantherLotus]

The Weeds podcast was talking about this an episode or several ago, and the conclusion is that satisfaction is up despite no real evidence of better outcomes.

Shorter: the illusion of choice makes people feel better

 

[USC-fan]

A lot of charter schools and private school kids cannot ride the bus to school in most places. So just by default you have more engage parents.

 

[nel e nel]

This just in, parents of kids that have been creamed to get special attention on the taxpayers tab are extremely satisfied.

 

[JoeyJungle]

The Weeds podcast was talking about this an episode or several ago, and the conclusion is that satisfaction is up despite no real evidence of better outcomes.

Shorter: the illusion of choice makes people feel better

Yep, iirc basically with proper oversight, charter school can perform better than public schools, but without oversight they perform worse, and apparently regardless of the actual performance the parents feel more satisfied.

also NYT had a couple good summaries of charter vs voucher:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/opinion/vouchers-charters-and-devoss-blind-spot.html

“People often confuse charters and vouchers, but they are very different,” wrote Parag Pathak of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the Louisiana authors. Vouchers are essentially coupons that allow parents to spend their tax money at private schools, while charters are public schools that operate outside of the normal bureaucracy. Voucher-financed schools often have little oversight or accountability, while many charters must demonstrate that their students are learning.

“The larger theme,” notes Douglas Harris, a Tulane professor who co-wrote the New Orleans paper, “is that not all school reform is created equal. The charter system here has significant accountability: Low-performing schools are closed. Students are assigned by lottery, and system leaders limit mid year transfers and discipline policies to prevent schools from cherry-picking students.”

The best charters combine flexibility and accountability — and have thrived. The record of vouchers is less impressive.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/opinion/betsy-devos-and-the-wrong-way-to-fix-schools.html

In contrast, consider the case of New Orleans, where virtually all the schools are charters. Here, the state has taken over about a third of charter schools because of poor results since the system was revamped in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Also, while the system initially had limited oversight and worked poorly, local leaders now take extensive steps to facilitate a fair process of school choice, help prevent schools from cherry-picking students and manage a centralized student expulsion system. In other words, the system provides some oversight to help ensure that families have good schools to choose from.

The New Orleans results have been impressive. In the decade after the reforms, the city’s standardized test scores have increased by eight to 15 percentile points and moved the district from the bottom to almost the state average on many measures. High school graduation and college entry rates also seem to have improved significantly, even while suspensions, expulsions and the rate of students switching schools have all dropped. Detroit and New Orleans represent radically different versions of school choice — and the one that seems to work is the one that uses the state oversight that Ms. DeVos opposes.

New Orleans is also important because it is the only city in the country where we can compare the results for charter schools with the approach Ms. DeVos prefers even more — school vouchers. In a study my center released this year, researchers found that the statewide Louisiana voucher program had exactly the opposite result as the New Orleans charter reforms. Students who participated in the voucher program had declines in achievement tests scores of eight to 16 percentile points. Since many of these students received vouchers through a lottery, these results are especially telling.

Louisiana is one of two states where statewide voucher programs have been studied. In Ohio, the results were also negative (though less so). These statewide programs provide the best point of comparison for any national program that the new administration might propose.

 

[Tripon]

Yep, iirc basically with proper oversight, charter school can perform better than public schools, but without oversight they perform worse, and apparently regardless of the actual performance the parents feel more satisfied.

also NYT had a couple good summaries of charter vs voucher:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/opinion/vouchers-charters-and-devoss-blind-spot.html



http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/opinion/betsy-devos-and-the-wrong-way-to-fix-schools.html

Pretty much, I wish more people would read this kind of stuff when they say that charters have little to no accountability. At least in California, charter schools have to answer to their local authorizer, WASC, and to the state of California. That's at least 3 different bodies that try to shut you down if they feel like it.