New York City’s Independent Budget Office (IBO) has released an updated Schools Brief which makes a few important tweaks to an earlier analysis of attrition rates for charters and traditional public schools. The original study followed students from kindergarten through third grade, ending in 2012–13; the additional data is for 2013–14, when most of the students were in fourth grade. Two of the major findings in the original report have not changed significantly: 1) On average, charter school students remain at their schools at a higher rate than their traditional school counterparts (64 percent vs. 56 percent after four years); and 2) students at charters and traditional schools leave the New York City public school system at the same rate. The first finding is good news to charter school advocates in New York, since recent research suggests that student retention is one factor in overall charter improvement. But the second finding should worry public-education supporters and city officials alike. Between transient populations whose needs (both educational and otherwise) are not being met and families leaving the city’s public schools entirely for parts unknown, it is clear that many students are simply not staying in New York City public schools. It could even be argued that the “retention rate” numbers IBO reports are simply those students who haven’t left yet. As we discovered here in Ohio not too long ago, the causes of student mobility often have little to do with education, but its consequences affect the quality of the education received by students and offered by the system. Perhaps more interesting is the updated finding on attrition of students with special needs. The IBO tweaked their definition to more closely align with NYDOE’s reporting of special-needs students and found far more such students in charter schools than they had previously noted, gainsaying arguments that charter schools push out students with special needs. Sadly, while students with special needs remained in their charter schools at a higher rate than they did in their traditional district schools, the retention rates of both are still very low after four years of data (53 percent vs. 49 percent). Overall, there’s very little positive news here for anyone interested in keeping urban families in the city and in public schools, although we can hope that those students moving out of the system entirely are at least finding good fits elsewhere.
SOURCE: New York City Independent Budget Office, “Comparing Student Attrition Rates at Charter Schools and Nearby Traditional Public Schools” (January 2015).
