Opinion
Education Letter to the Editor

Did N.Y.C. Charter Study Have a Selection Bias?

October 13, 2009 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

To the Editor:

Your Sept. 30, 2009, article “N.Y.C. Study Finds Gains for Charters” begs an important question about the recent study on New York City charter schools’ academic outcomes: What about the background variable of students’ English-language proficiency?

In New York, current English-language learners, or ELLs, make up 14 percent of the city’s public school population, but only 4 percent of its charter school enrollment. Former ELLs make up another 14 percent of the overall public school enrollment. But the study conducted by Stanford University researcher Caroline M. Hoxby and her colleagues compares the academic outcomes of only those students who applied to New York’s oversubscribed charter schools: those who gained admission vs. those who did not.

What if parents of ELL students do not apply for charter lotteries because of lack of knowledge regarding the options, poor outreach by charter operators to ELL/immigrant parents, lack of information in native languages for parents of ELLs, lack of ELL-instruction-program services in most charters schools, and low numbers of qualified (read certified) ELL teachers in charter schools? These are conditions I am acutely aware of as a longtime New York City-based policy analyst and ELL advocate.

If these conditions apply, then the comparison regarding the relative success of students in charter schools vs. those in traditional public schools is biased. Again, a relevant question to ask is: Do the study’s authors take into account this selection bias in their research on charter school students’ academic outcomes?

Luis O. Reyes

Research Associate

Center for Puerto Rican Studies

Hunter College

City University of New York

New York, N.Y.

A version of this article appeared in the October 14, 2009 edition of Education Week as Did N.Y.C. Charter Study Have a Selection Bias?

Events

Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Privacy & Security Webinar
Navigating Cybersecurity: Securing District Documents and Data
Learn how K-12 districts are addressing the challenges of maintaining a secure tech environment, managing documents and data, automating critical processes, and doing it all with limited resources.
Content provided by Softdocs

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Education Briefly Stated: March 13, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
9 min read
Education Briefly Stated: February 21, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
8 min read
Education Briefly Stated: February 7, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
8 min read
Education Briefly Stated: January 31, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
9 min read