Two days ago the New York Times published this article: “Michigan Gambled on Charter Schools. Its Children Lost.” I immediately recognized it as another unfair, ideological attack on charter school families. Fortunately, parents are not easily fooled by these gross generalizations, no matter how long and wordy the article. Parents know most charter public schools are good schools.  That is why families continue to choose them, and why most charter schools have long waiting lists.

After all, it is the voluntary decisions of millions of parents that explain why student enrollment in charter schools over the last ten years has nearly tripled, to 3.1 million students, bringing the total charter school number to 6,900 schools in 43 states.  

The bias of the New York Times is revealed by the fact that the paper showed little interest in investigating charter school performance when Democrat Arne Duncan, a strong charter school supporter, was U.S. Secretary of Education.  His home state of Illinois has 148 charter schools (out of 3,735 total public schools), yet in eight years the New York Times showed little interest in critiquing them. A Republican became Education Secretary – and suddenly her state’s charters go under the journalistic microscope.

It also interesting that the Times decided that a woman Education Secretary should be subject to extra scrutiny, compared to her male predecessor.

As an education researcher, I was struck by the sloppy and incomplete analysis in this New York Times article. Here are some of the reporter’s analytical mistakes:

• He uses selection bias; that is, he cites a low-performing charter school to suggest all charter schools are low-performing. No researcher of any integrity would fall into this error, but I see reporters do it all the time. 

This is the fallacy of composition – believing that if some members of a group have a certain quality, then all members of the group have the same quality.

• He baldly claims that the growth of charter schools in Michigan have caused test scores in the state to drop since the year 2000. Let me explain how he does this. First, he says that in 2000 there were 184 charter schools in Michigan, and that in the intervening 17 years their number has doubled to 368 charter schools, and that test scores have dropped over this period of time. He does not report the total number of traditional schools in Michigan. This way he creates the impression that the number of charter schools in Michigan is a larger proportion of the total than it actually is, to justify his claim that Michigan’s 368 charter schools with 146,000 students are responsible for pulling down the test scores of 3,000 traditional schools serving 1.4 million students. This is faulty. The rise and fall of average state test scores could be the result of a host of other factors besides the growth of charter schools.

This is the post-hoc fallacy – believing that because A (charter schools opening) happened before B (a drop in overall test scores), then A must have caused B.

• He ignores Stanford studies here and here showing charter schools in Detroit and in Michigan outperform traditional schools, instead citing biased studies by teacher union-funded groups.

This is selection bias – ignoring data that may work against a pre-selected conclusion.

• He suggests that Michigan’s charter schools lack public oversight. In fact, charter schools in Michigan must account to public oversight bodies for their use of public funds, have short-term contracts subject to cancellation for non-performance, and are subject to other accountability measures traditional public schools are not required to meet. 

Selection bias again.

• He does not reveal the financial troubles of the charter school he features, George Washington Carver Academy Charter School, are caused by the fact that charter schools receive thousands of dollars less funding per student than traditional schools, and no facilities funding. By omitting this fact, the writer reveals his regressive bias against charter schools.     

Selection bias, compounded by the fallacy of false exclusion, leaving out evidence that contradicts the example.

• He ignores the reasons why Michigan families are voluntarily enrolling their children in the state’s charter schools.

Selection bias, compounded by the fallacy of authority – Michigan families are not an official or impressive source, so their views don’t count.

• He characterizes Michigan’s charter school model as “extreme” and “radical,” even though Michigan’s charter school law was passed by the duly elected representatives of the people of Michigan, the state legislature.

This is the fallacy of explanation – offering reasons that are not supported and do not increase understanding.

• He fails to report that low-performing charter schools are closed through public oversight every year, but that low-performing traditional schools never close.

Double standard, one group is held to a higher standard of performance than a similar group, instead of applying equal expectations to both.

Parents represent the frontline of public education, and they are not easily duped by false reasoning and the New York Times.  Parents want more school choice options. Parents in Michigan are well aware that over the last twenty years Michigan’s charter school model has delivered real excellence in education quality to its students. For example, on U.S. News and World Report’s 2016 high school rankings, Michigan’s top high schools were charter schools:  Wellspring Preparatory High School in Grand Rapids, Arbor Preparatory High School, Ypsilanti, and Black River Public School, Holland.

The Times is targeting its criticism at some of the most vulnerable families in public education.  Most of Michigan’s charter school students, like charter school students in other states, are low-income, minority students. These are the families who have historically been underserved by their traditional public schools.

Michigan’s expanding charter school sector gives families a choice and a way to escape failing public schools, so that all children in Michigan have a chance at learning and at achieving the American dream.