WHEN RESULTS DON'T MATTER TO CONSERVATIVES:

Tellingly, the word "magnet" appears only once in "Charter Schools and Their Enemies," and it's a passing reference. In September, Assistant Secretary of Education Scott Stump visited the highly rated University High School, a magnet school in Tucson, Ariz., and mistakenly identified it as a charter. Even when corrected at a post-visit news conference, he insisted, "University High School is a charter school."

Whether applying to a magnet or a charter, pursuit of a school of choice is powerful evidence of a student's and family's commitment to education. Parents understand how important this selection effect is -- a recent study of New York City's public high school system found parents were more concerned about the quality of a school's students than the quality of the school itself.

Longtime charter advocate David Osborne acknowledges this. "Families have to choose charter schools, so kids with disengaged families are more likely to remain in district schools," he has written. "This gives charters an advantage."  

Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, amplifies this point:

"There's a level of institutional hypocrisy here," he wrote. "Charter advocates say, 'No, no, no, we don't believe in (selective admissions),' but when you see a successful charter school, it's filled with families who are a good fit and who want to be there, and that's not possible when you have a random assortment of kids."

There is also a darker side to charters' test scores that Sowell ignores. According to Gordon Lafer, Ph.D., of the University of Oregon, who conducted an extensive study of charter schools, charters also benefit because they "exercise recruitment, admission, and expulsion policies that often screen out the students who would be the neediest and most expensive to serve -- who then turn to district schools."

An American Civil Liberties Union study of California charters and a nationwide Reuters investigation found admission policies helping charters exclude low-performing students to be widespread.

The most challenging students are often left for traditional public schools to educate. A study cited by Ravitch shows that "while 11 percent of students in the nation have disabilities, charters school enroll only eight percent." Sowell dismisses this as a difference of "three percentage points," and numerous charter supporters have echoed him. Actually, this data shows that public schools accept 38% more students with disabilities than charters.

Lafer found that while 28% of students in Oakland, Calif., go to charters, only 19% of its special needs students, 8% of its autistic students, and 2% of its students with multiple disabilities attend charters. The more troubled the students, the less likely they'll be in a charter school. Similarly, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, traditional public schools have 73% more English Language Learners than charters do. Moreover, charters are even less likely to have the lowest level ELL students.

As prominent charter supporter Robin Lake acknowledges, "In some cities, districts also face an increasing concentration of the students hardest and most costly to educate, those with severe special needs, those who speak little to no English, those with the most severe behavior and mental health challenges and the least parental support."

University of Colorado education professor Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center, explains, "The greatest determinants of [a school's] success are the raw materials - the students who enroll." Welner identified a dozen methods charters use to get the "raw material" they want - and avoid or discard what they don't.

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