Model by example: close failing charter schools
Russlynn Ali, one of several California expats in key positions in the U.S. Department of Education, praised and chided charter school reformers in a talk in San Jose.
She said that school districts should be partnering with charters as “labs of innovation we all can learn from.” What distinguishes effective charter schools are commonsense strategies – “more time on task, more parental involvement, strong leadership,” she said Saturday. But Ali, the assistant secretary of education for civil rights, also called for authorizers of charter school to be more resolute in shutting down schools that aren’t showing academic success.
Bad schools stay open because school boards don’t like to shut down a school – even one that’s failing its children, she said. “Parents feel a sense of loss; there is a visceral reaction when a school is shut down for poor achievement.” But it’s even harder to shut down a failing traditional school, so not renewing the charter of poor performers must serve as the example, she said.
Last month, as part of its Race to the Top legislation, the state Assembly and Senate failed to agree on revising criteria for revoking charters. However, the state state Board of Education is expected to adopt regulations sometime this spring.
Ali also said that civil rights division of the Education Department would monitor charter schools to ensure they are not discriminating against handicapped children. Charter schools generally serve proportionally fewer special education students, although it’s not clear that schools are deliberately excluding them.
Before heading to Washington a year ago, Ali was the former executive director of Oakland based-Education Trust-West, which advocates for minority children. She was the keynote speaker at a Santa Clara County Charter Summit, an unusual all-day forum, organized by trustees of the county Office of Education, to explore ways for districts and charter schools to work together and share best practices.
The Obama administration is assuming that charter schools will be a key player in reconstituting 5 percent of the nation’s lowest achieving schools – hundreds of as yet unidentified schools. Ali called on charter school sponsors to step and reconstitute failing schools – and not just start new schools, often beginning with one or two grades and then building out by adding one grade each year.
But Eric Premack, director of the Charter Schools Development Center in Sacramento, questions that assumption. There have been “one-off” instances where charters have successfully taken over an existing failing school, such as Green Dot Public Schools’ transformation of Locke High School in Los Angeles into small academies. But there is no proven model, Premack said during a breakout at the forum. (Perhaps a sign what’s ahead, only one charter school has applied to take over one of 12 failing schools that Los Angeles Unified has opened up to outside bidders, but a number are competing to operate 18 new schools that will open in September.)
Statewide, 858 charters statewide enroll 4.8 percent of the state’s students. In Santa Clara County, 34 charters comprise 6 percent of students. About a third of those are CHINOs (charters in name only), traditional district schools that were converted to charter status to gain some flexibility form the state ed code. But the bulk are independent charters serving low-income minority children in San Jose. They include two whose API scors are among the top for schools serving minority children: KIPP Heartwood Academy in East San Jose and Rocketship Mateo Sheedy Elementary in downtown San Jose.
I love Green Dot, but saying that Locke has been a successful turnaround is just not true. They may well figure out how to do it over the next few years, but early results have not been great. Compare that with a number of Green Dot’s new starts which are successful right away. If an organization as strong as Green Dot has that hard a time on a single turnaround, let’s be realistic, restarts are the way this needs to happen.
And putting one in for the authorizers, inability to close failing schools is not an authorizer problem, it’s politically next to impossible to close even bad schools. Until the state has clear laws that require closure of charters and traditional public schools with similar schools ranks below a certain point (4 in my opinion), then we should stop blaming elected boards for not doing what the state legislature has not been able to do.
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John: There has been marked improvement at Locke in attendance and some other indicators of a change but you’re right, no improvement in scores and other measures of academic progress. I picked an imperfect — or premature — example. It can take years to transform a bad school, as opposed to surrounding it and starting a new charter to compete with it.
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Actually, Green Dot schools have mediocre academic results overall.
In Los Angeles, the astroturf (fake grassroots) organization Parent Revolution has been working to get petitions signed to dismantle five schools. (Parent Revolution is actually a group of charter operators.) Parent Revolution organizer Ben Austin (a paid employee) told me, in a private e-mail, that Parent Revolution was only targeting “failing schools.”
Well, by Parent Revolution’s definition, 14 out of 15 Green Dot Schools are failing.
Since I’m not sure if there’s a length limit on these posts, I’ll put test scores to back this up on the next post.
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I object to the term “failing school” to begin with – every school’s situation is more complex than that. But more to the point, what’s the definition of a “failing school”? Well, it’s time to look up some numbers (as the press and resources like Educated Guess should be doing EVERY SINGLE TIME).
Here are some numbers the recent APIs based on spring 2009 testing.
– Average API of all Green Dot’s schools (15 total, counting several small schools on one campus, Locke High in Watts): 632 (rounded up to the nearest whole)
– Average API of the “failing” schools Parent Revolution is targeting with parent trigger campaigns: 670 (rounded down to the nearest whole)
APIs for the schools Parent Revolution is targeting with parent trigger campaigns:
Garfield High School (parent trigger petition campaign successful): 594
Mark Twain Middle School (parent trigger petition campaign successful): 657
Emerson Middle School (petition campaign under way): 709
Mount Gleason Middle School (petition campaign under way): 744
Peary Middle School (petition campaign under way): 647
Well, as we can see, by Austin’s definition, an API of 744 or below constitutes a “failing” school. So that makes it a little eye-catching that only one Green Dot school, Animo Pat Brown Charter High School, achieved an API above 744 in 2009, at 753. By Parent Revolution’s own definition, Green Dot’s other 14 schools are “failing.”
* Of the schools targeted by Parent Revolution’s parent trigger campaigns, only Garfield High (API 594) has an API below Green Dot’s average (632). And six of Green Dot’s 15 schools have APIs lower than Garfield’s.
* Eight of Green Dot’s 15 schools have APIs lower than successfully targeted Mark Twain Middle School’s 657.
* Eight of Green Dot’s 15 schools have APIs lower than targeted Peary Middle School’s 647.
* Twelve of Green Dot’s 15 schools have APIs lower than targeted Emerson Middle School’s 709 (and of the three that outperform Emerson, one of them, Oscar de la Hoya Animo Charter High School, has only one point on Emerson, at 710).
* As noted, 14 of Green Dot’s 15 schools have APIs lower than targeted Mount Gleason Middle School (API 744).
I’ll share one other view Austin expressed when we discussed this by e-mail. He pointed out, in response to my citing APIs, that demographics impact test scores.
Well, yes, but that’s exactly the kind of disclaimer that education reform advocates disdain as “excuse-making” when it’s used about public schools. “No excuses” for the goose is “no excuses” for the gander.
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I’m sorry these posts come out in one long paragraph rather than the nice columns I’m trying to post, but anyway, here’s the full list of Green Dot schools’ APIs, ranked high to low.
* Animo Pat Brown Charter High School: 753 (again, this is the only Green Dot school that is not “failing,” by Parent Revolution’s standard. All the schools below on this list are “failing” by that standard.)
* Animo Venice Charter High School: 729
* Oscar de la Hoya Animo Charter High School: 710
* Animo Film and Theater Arts Charter High School: 707
* Animo Inglewood Charter High School: 703
* Animo South Los Angeles Charter High School: 692
* Animo Leadership Charter High School: 688
* Animo Jackie Robinson Charter High School: 634
* Animo Ralph Bunche Charter High School: 629
* Animo Locke Tech Charter High School: 588
* Animo Locke Charter High School #2: 572
* Animo Justice Charter High School: 556
* Animo Watts #2 Charter High School: 534
* Animo Locke Charter High School #2: 504
* Animo Locke Charter High School #1: 480
*For the uninitiated: The API is a compilation of the school’s state standardized test scores, on a 200-1000 scale, with 1000 being the highest. A score above 800 is considered excellent.
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This is just a bunch of nonsense, and I believe that the majority of the parent revolutionists are from charter schools…making trouble to gain points for their schools.
And furthermore, The goose is good for the gander….if certain areas have lower achievers and the parents aren’t helping their children, it is not always the teachers faults.
I was an art teacher for many years. I began to see that the present generation is not instilling enough discipline in their children. Creativity even requires discipline..someting that famous art teachers taught me once, when I too was a product of a family in East L.A. that neglected me.
As I got help from Chicano program to attend college even though my scores were low, I took it upon myself to finally get organized and study. I had good enough teachers. I didn’t expect them to hold my hand and sing sweet nothings.
These groups and the Board of Education and the administration all know that blaming the teachers is just a scape goat for their true agendas…yes THEY WANT TO BRING IN CERTAIN AGENDAS….WE WILL VOTE YOU OUT JUST WAIT AND SEE YOU FOOLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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