From Education Week - April 30, 2012 - Click Here
Study finds high dropout rates for black males in KIPP schools
Researcher Gary J. Miron of Western Michigan University says
attrition rates for black males in the KIPP charter middle schools he
studied were "shockingly high." But other researchers say it's unclear
whether the high numbers of those students disappearing from KIPP's
grade rolls are dropping out or repeating a grade.
—Charles Borst/Education Week
"KIPP charter middle schools enroll a significantly higher proportion
of African-American students than the local school districts they draw
from,
but 40 percent of the black males they enroll leave between grades
6 and 8, says a
new nationwide study
by researchers at Western Michigan University.
“The dropout rate for African-American males is really shocking,” said
Gary J. Miron, a professor of evaluation, measurement, and research at
Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo, and the lead researcher for
the study. “KIPP is doing a great job of educating students who persist,
but not all who come.”
MORE HERE
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A new UT study shows black high school students in Texas are three times more likely to drop out from a charter system
"Think charter schools help minority students? Think again.
A new
University of Texas study shows that the state's African-American high
school students are three times more likely to drop out from a charter
system than from a regular public school. Unsurprisingly, charter groups
are not happy about this research.
Julian Vasquez Heilig, assistant professor in the UT College
of Education's Department of Educational Administration, sought to
answer two very simple questions:
Are these schools serving
African-American kids, and are they effective at it? While many studies
have looked at academic achievement, Heilig wanted to examine a
different conundrum:
Do these students stay? Do they feel welcome,
relative to public schools? The resulting paper, titled
"Is Choice a
Panacea?: An Analysis of Black Secondary School Attrition from KIPP,
Other Privately Operated Charters, and Urban Districts," was presented
April 15 at the
American Educational Research Association's annual
conference in Vancouver.
Its findings about African-American high school
students are alarming. Compared to large urban districts in Texas, said
Heilig,
"on average, charter schools have triple the dropout rates."
The study compares Texas charter districts with the state's large
urban school districts –
Austin, Houston, and Dallas – from
1998 to
2008. On average, a regular public school in Texas records a worrying 4%
dropout rate for black high school students, but that soars to 13% for
charter districts. There are similar patterns for leavers (students who
transfer to another state, start homeschooling, or are expelled): 5% for
large urban districts becomes 15% for charters. Those numbers are much
worse for charter districts with fewer than 100 black students: 22%
dropped out and 18% left.
In some charter districts, 90% of all
African-American students have dropped out."
