Stanford-run charter on ‘worst’ list
Stanford University’s School of Education has a distinguished faculty, and its alumni are outstanding teachers, principals and nonprofit leaders.
But this week it acquired a dubious distinction – and a bit of a comeuppance. Stanford New School, the combined charter K-8 and high school that the graduate school of education operates in East Palo Alto, was designated among the 5 percent of persistently lowest performing schools in California. It is one of 188 schools, including eight charter schools, that face restructuring – or closure.
The latter, in fact, is the working assumption of the State Board of Education for failing charters that make the list, although it isn’t required under the new state law designating the worst performers. And Dean Deborah Stipek says her charter has no intention of shutting down.
With the Obama administration pushing conversion to a charter school as an option for failing schools, it’s become all the more important to confront what to do with failing charters. Very few have had their charters revoked and their doors closed. Their low scores have dragged down the average and hurt the reputation of the state’s 800 plus charter schools.
But two days of hearings before the state Board of Education also revealed that, because of problematic methodology, at least some of 188 schools shouldn’t have been made the list, including perhaps some of the charters.
At least a couple of them were startup charters with few years of data, including, Stipek said, her school. Stanford has run the East Palo Alto Academy High School since 2004 but three years ago added an elementary school. It’s been a learning experience, with only two years of low test scores to show.
High graduation rate, low test scores
Stipek said that 90 percent of the high school graduates, nearly all Hispanic and African-American, get into two or four-year colleges. The annual exhibitions of students’ work, which take weeks to research, present and defend before outside evaluators, more than anything else prepare students for college and beyond.
That’s no doubt true and offers further evidence for richer measures for determining a school’s success. But at the same time, the school’s scores on California Standardized Tests – and objective and universal measure on which to hold it and all schools accountable – are bad. In most subjects, including history, geometry and English language arts, few students test proficient; in some subjects, the majority are below basic or far below basic. The school’s API score of 605, well below the state target of 800, has leveled off.
Schools on the failing schools list have a choice of four strong interventions: close down, fire the principal and at least half of the staff, convert to a charter and undertake a range of changes, known as a transformation strategy, including replacing the principal.
The graduate school of education certainly has the talent and the resouces to run an effective school. Closing would mean sending students back to the Ravenswood District in East Palo Algo, a troubled district facing state sanctions with a batch of failing schools – an unpalatable option for charter families. Bringing in a proven effective charter operator is an option, but not one Stanford is considering. Stipek said that the school has already replaced a principal and will choose the transformation option. Under state law, the charter school has the right to choose it; it can’t be imposed by the charter authorizer – Ravenswood.
The State Board of Education has indicated it will propose regulations on revoking charters of poorly performing schools. The California Charter Schools Association will sponsor a bill this session to do the same. Colin Miller, vice president of policy, said that one provision will require any charter on the list of lowest performing schools to go before the State Board to justify its continued operation.
Stipek said that one reason for starting the charter was to offer faculty and future education leaders on-the-ground exposure to the challenges facing public schools. Running the school is doing that, she said.
A field trip to Sacramento, with a hearing before the State Board – the school’s existence on the line – would add to that experience.
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A veteran urban school board member told me that very small schools are exempt from the hit list. This was in response to my question about why the persistently lowest-performing San Francisco high school, June Jordan, wasn’t on the list, while higher-achieving schools were. The school board veteran also said that quite a few more charters statewide would be on the list if it included smaller schools — is that true?
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Never mind — I got the facts. It’s about that mysterious “n-size” — the interpretation is that a school needs 100 valid scores to make the list.
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Isn’t this the school Bill Evers had a hand in founding? I bet his nose is out of joint. Then again, such cast iron, self important, self-congratulatory, egos probably never feel “out of joint.” Not that the severe disruptions for children that will be caused by the SBE’s misguided actions are worth a little grovel time by Evers, but who’d have guessed there would be a chuckle somewhere in all of this. It’s like finding the pony under all of that horse dung.
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Gary: No, this is not the same charter school. Bill Evers was associated with East Palo Alto Charter School, which is operated by Aspire Public Schools. I’d recommend withholding personal attacks until you know for sure what you are talking about.
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Dear Gary, I am happy to inform you that Bill Evers definitely did not have anything to do with the Stanford East Palo Alto charter school. Bill is a past President and board member of the East Palo Alto Charter School (http://www.epacs.org/) without the “Stanford,” which I am happy to report has an API of 842. For comparison, Palo Alto High (Paly) has an API of 899. Not too shabby–I hope your own nose is still firmly in place. But there indeed is a pony under that dung. Stanford world-renown education faculty, finding itself on the bottom 5% list… yup. There’s the pony.
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Nobody should gloat, no matter who is running the school – young people are struggling. … It is still important to take note — without gloating. … 10 years ago, the buzz was about Edison Schools and other for-profits, which were expected to achieve success by bringing private-sector efficiencies to public education. Epic fail, as the teens would say. Now Stanford is learning the same lessons. … It’s time to recognize that charter schools are not the magic feather and start working on strengthening our true public schools rather than turning our backs on them.
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Yes, I am a great “gloater.” Sometimes I pay the price. This is one of those times. Doesn’t change my opinion of Mr. Evers. And, after all the unfounded attacks on teachers and their unions over the years, I have been pretty much desensitized to “personal attacks.” Re the 842 API-my guess is you look under Aspire Schools and you’ll find a herd of ponies.
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Gary: It’s OK that you don’t change your mind on Evers based on the success of the charter he helped to run. I am also sure you won’t change your mind about Stipek’s or Darling-Hammond’s education philosophies based on their charter school failure. I wouldn’t want you to be confused by the facts.
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Have you (Beuller?) ever been to East Palo Alto?
The poor performance there is just more evidence that poverty keeps students down.
The only correlate to school success is SES. East Palo Alto is barrio.
Want to help kids do well in school? Give us universal health care, early childhood education and more money for poor schools.
Oh, about teacher pay; double it and see who shows up.
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Zev;
My opinion of Mr. Evers is based on several encounters I’ve had with him over the years, not his charter school.
Let’s see, if you look at the Aspire website you find a list of donorsincluding about a dozen who gave over a million dollars and a slew of others in the $100K range and on down. That’s reading between the lines of charter school success. Often, like KIPP, success is spelled getting rid of kids who don’t perform, or it’s giving up on learning and becoming a test prep academy, or it’s getting significant extra funding above and beyond what regular schools get, or it’s a combination of all three. About those facts…
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So faced with the reality that Bill Evers is not affiliated with the failed Stanford East Palo Alto charter school, Mr. Ravani insists that Mr. Evers is still the problem, even though Mr. Evers is affiliated with a successful charter school. If obtaining a quality education is the goal, it would therefor appear to be Mr. Ravani who is the problem.
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