Giving Compass' Take:

• A new report on charter schools in California published faulty information denouncing charter schools and blaming them for California's financial problems. The author suggests four ways that the report fails to produce the most logical arguments for their conclusions. 

• Why is it dangerous for the public to read reports like these? Especially about charter schools? 

• Read about a study of KIPP charter schools that boasted successful results in evaluating achievement and replicability. 

A new report from In the Public Interest, a think tank based in Oakland, California, is getting some attention right now for purporting to show how three districts in the state are “bearing the cost of the unchecked expansion of privately managed charter schools.”

But Breaking Point: The Cost of Charter Schools for Public School Districts recommends that local and state agencies take said fiscal impact into account when deciding whether to authorize a new charter school. These findings have gained traction in local media and among local officials — but there are a number of egregious problems with the analysis. Here are four of them:

Tortured logic is used about defining “fiscal impact" 

Because districts aren’t always able to reduce their costs in immediate response to enrollment loss, it’s reasonable to ask, as we have, what challenges the fast growth of charter schools might create.

Larger enrollment trends are ignored.

This study would like to pretend that charter schools are the only cause of enrollment decline in districts, ignoring the fact that districts have always faced ebbs and flows in student population, depending on demographic shifts and, importantly, moves to surrounding districts.

Structural and management problems in districts are overlooked

There are reasons districts have trouble reducing costs in proportion to loss of enrollment, but many they bring on themselves and many are dictated by state law. The blame does not lie with families choosing to go elsewhere for quality public schools.

Institutions are not entitled to public education dollars. Students are.

Accountability matters. Equity matters. Performance matters. In many cities, charter and district schools both have much work to do on all three fronts. But we will get nowhere if we spend our energy focused on protecting institutions rather than student interests.

Read the full article about misleading charter school finances by Taylor Swaak at The 74