Do New York City charter schools have a higher percentage of better teachers than public schools?

That’s what the Daily News headline said. They backed it up with an infographic that showed 12% of charter school teachers get a “high” rating, while only 5% of public school teachers get the “high” rating.

There are, however, problems with the data:

  • Only 32 of 67 charters chose to participate in the rating (all public schools were required to participate). Probably those that chose not to, knew that their numbers were low.
  • With only 32 charters participating, the margin of error is very high. The margin of error for the public schools, with 100% participation, is virtually 0.

The Daily News article misses the fact that the median teacher for the public schools gets an “average” rating. And the median teacher for the charters gets . . . an “average” rating. And the article ignores the fact that 27% of charter teachers are rated “low” or “below average” while only 25% of public school teachers are “low” or “below average.”

For shoddy analysis, the Daily News can Bite Me.

So how is it possible for charter schools — which have notoriously high teacher turnover — to get ratings that are the equal of their public school counterparts? It’s easy when you know what Bloomberg knows: let the poor-performing schools opt out of the rankings.

Bloomberg is quoted in the article as saying, “The arrogance of some people to say that the parents don’t have the ability to look at numbers and put them in context and make decisions is just astounding to me.” But when it comes to analyzing the statistics that he throws around, the parents are no match for Bloomberg and his Harvard MBA. Nice try, Mike, but you can Bite Me.

New York City charter schools have a higher percentage of better teachers than public schools – NY Daily News.

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