Roslindale Mom Investigates School Options

A newish blog called Braving the BPS Lottery, written by a Roslindale mom, is tackling the drama of figuring out how to pick a public school in Boston for her little one. Geeky Mom, as she refers to herself, is exploring different options, including, it seems, charter schools. The writing is solid, and I'm guessing it will be interesting to follow the process from the perspective of a parent. She also does a nice job of keeping a calendar of upcoming events for those parents starting to investigate and enroll kids in schools. You can find the blog here.

RadioBoston Talks Charters

RadioBoston, the weekly WBUR show, featured the charter school debate as their main piece yesterday (with a nice piece on Camp Harbor View, where a number of my studens went this summer, to wrap up the hour). Not much new for those in the know, but a good overview of the arguments on both sides for newbies. A couple of quick thoughts:

No appearance by BTU president Richard Stutman. He declined to appear, which is odd since he normally takes any chance to attack charter schools. I'm curious if anyone knows why he would have sat this one out.

While there was lots of support from Paul Grogan of the Boston Foundation, and Mitchell Chester from the DESE, there was very thin coverage of actual charter schools. There was a small bit on Edward W. Brooke Charter School in Roslindale, including a short interview with guestblogger Kimberly Steadman, and a teacher. However, there was no appearance by Jim Peyser, who is leading the ballot initiative to lift the cap, Marc Kenan, from the Charter School Association, or any other actual charter schools.

Candidate Analysis

The September 22nd primary is coming up fast, so it seems like a good time to see where the candidates for Mayor and City Councillor sit in regards to charter schools.

Mayoral Race

The incumbent, Mayor Tom Menino, is proposing an expansion of charter schools that would be run by the Boston Schools Committee. His plan allows the BSC to take over the lowest performing schools in the district and convert them to charter schools with new leadership and no unionized teachers.

Sam Yoon supports lifting the cap under a proposal that he refers to as a "smart cap." This model, which he pushed before Gov. Deval Patrick picked up the idea, would only allow high achieving schools to replicate.

Michael Flaherty supports lifting the charter school cap, among many other school reform ideas. Flaherty references the Harvard charter/pilot school study in this campaign literature.

Kevin McCrea does not support lifting the cap on charter schools.

City Councillor At Large

There are a lot of candidates, so I'll group them by their positions, or lack thereof:

Supports Expansion
John Connolly (Incumbent)
Robert Fortes
Sean Ryan - also supports vouchers

Supports
Ego Ezedi
Hiep Nguyen

No Comment
Felix G. Arroyo
Doug Bennett
Tomas Gonzalez
Tito Jackson
Andrew Kenneally
Stephen Murphy
Ayanna Pressley
Jean-Claude Sanon
Bill Trabucco
Scotland Willis

Kennedy to be Honored (Perhaps)

Health Careers Academy, a Boston Horace Mann charter school, will be renamed after Senator Kennedy, pending approval by the state Board of Ed.

Coming Soon...

An article coming out in this week's Globe magazine examines the high pressure world of 21st century kindergarten. The article briefly mentions Edward W. Brooke Charter School. I think it's important to make a distinction between wealthy suburbs and urban schools. In wealthy suburbs, most kids who start school have important literacy skills before starting kindergarten. In low-income, urban schools like Edward Brooke, many kids start kindergarten not even knowing how to hold a book correctly, let alone knowing their alphabet or numbers. While suburban parents are striving to get their kids into Harvard, charter schools like Edward Brooke are trying to reverse an achievement gap that arose before the kids even got to school. This, to me, seems like a more important goal, and one which might warrant giving up some playtime for a greater focus on math and literacy.

And on the wireless, RadioBoston was supposed to do a piece on charter schools this week, but it was bumped for special on Ted Kennedy. The charter school piece should air a week from today on WBUR.

Finally, I appreciate the love that I got from MATCH's Mike Goldstein, who was guest blogging over at Eduwonk. I'd love to hear from the Eduwonk crowd if you're out there reading...

Is Boston Latin School "High-Performing?"

In an op-ed in today's Globe that supports teachers unions and attacks efforts by Mayor Menino and Governor Patrick to expand the reach of charter schools, Ed Doherty refers to Boston Latin School as a "high-performing school." What does it mean for a school to be high performing? I would argue that it has more to do with the amount of growth children make in said schools over their time there, than with the absolute levels of achievement (although those would ideally be high as well). Schools can and should be transformative in students' lives.

Let's take a look at BLS: while I know that some BLS students do impressive things in and after high school, it's important to remember that every child at the school had to have high grades and excellent test scores to get in. This implies that they should have a head start on the road to academic success and college admission at the beginning of 9th grade.

At BLS student demographics (in terms of race, income status, etc.) are not at all representative of the district as a whole. For example, here is the race data for BPS in aggregate:

African-American: 38%
Asian: 9%
Hispanic: 38%
White: 13%

And here is the profile for BLS:

African-American: 12%
Asian: 28%
Hispanic: 8%
White: 50%

Looking at low-income status (free and reduced lunch), the disparities are also apparent:

BPS: 74%
BLS: 31%

In those areas that charter schools have recently taken so much heat recently, special education students and English language learners are also underrepresented:

LEP Status
BPS: 19%
BLS: 1%

Special Education:
BPS: 21%
BLS:1%

And finally, many students do not finish their high school careers at BLS after starting there. The numbers decline from about 440 9th graders to about 380 12th graders. A school filled with academically prepared students should not lose 15% of their students over 4 years. I know of a number of students who excelled in middle school and did not make it through BLS because they did not feel supported there.

Boston Latin and high performing charter schools both achieve excellent end-game results with their students. BLS is held up a paragon of excellence by the teachers' union, while charter schools are accused of "creaming" the best students. But who is really "creaming?" BLS has a academically-based admissions policy; charter schools use a lottery that allows in a random sampling of the student population, most of whom are many grade levels behind. BLS enrolls a student body that is drastically different than the district as a whole, and skewed towards White, Asian and less disadvantaged kids; charter schools enroll student bodies that often have higher levels of African-American and/or Hispanic students, and similar percentages of low-income kids relative to BPS as a whole.

Which type of school is more "high-performing?" If schools are supposed to be transformative, I would have to say high-performing charter schools.

Teach for America in Boston Charter Schools

Teach for America is placing corps member in Boston this year for the first time. Placement sites among charter schools include Boston Collegiate and Excel Academy.

The Experiment

The Amherst College alumni magazine featured a piece on Excel Academy and its founder Yutaka Tamura '93 in its spring 2009 issue. You can find the article here. The article lays out many of the challenges inherent in starting up an excellent new school. The article highlights how the school overcame many of its early struggles to become of the preeminent charter schools in Massachusetts.

Good Schools Remove Labels from Students

For the first time ever, Charter School Independent has a pair of guest bloggers. Jon Clark and Kimberly Steadman, principals of the Edward W. Brooke Charter School, have crafted a thorough and well-thought out response to the most recent charter school article in the Globe. Since their piece was too long for publication in the Globe, I'm giving them the floor here:

Jamie Vaznis’s recent article about charter schools (Charter schools lag in serving the neediest - Aug. 12) raises interesting questions about whether schools should be praised for serving a high number of ELL and Special Education students or questioned why they have created or preserved these labels for so many students instead of working to remove those labels.

Consider these two recent headlines and excerpts from other Globe articles. “Boston Students Struggle With English Only Rule” (4/7/09) states "Students not fluent in English have floundered in Boston schools since voters approved a law change six years ago requiring school districts to teach them all subjects in English rather than their native tongue, according to a report being released tomorrow." Our school works relentlessly to build student proficiency in English as quickly as possible so that we can remove them from this category; we were able to reclassify 7 of our 11 ELL students as Fully English Proficient. At other schools, many students who are identified ELL retain that status for years – perhaps because the schools are incapable of building English proficiency or perhaps because they value these labels for their financial benefit. Students who are labeled ELL receive 25% more state funding; this means that an ELL carries a $2,600 reward for each student labeled.

And an article entitled “Changes Urged In Special Ed” (7/9/09) asserted that "The Boston public schools are keeping too many students with disabilities out of regular classrooms and may be wrongfully identifying some students for special services because of shortcomings in teaching literacy or dealing with behavior problems, according to a report released last night at a School Committee meeting." We wholeheartedly agree. We recognize that because charter schools do not serve students with the most severe educational needs, the percentage of special education students at district schools should be slightly higher than in Boston Public Schools. But the vast difference between our school and district schools is attributable to the failure of many schools to intervene early, respond to children’s educational needs within the regular classroom, and remove them from their special education plans. We pride ourselves on the fact that the number of special education students at our school has decreased, not because we are losing our special education kids, but because we are allowing them to lose their special education labels.

When comparing students in Boston Public Schools and Boston area charter schools, we urge people to consider demographics that schools do not control: race and low income status. Looking at statistics that rely on subjective labeling by districts isn't a valid analysis. It is backwards to criticize urban charters for not "serving the neediest" because they resist placing children into these categories when they enroll many more African American and similar numbers of low-income students and have closed the achievement gap between them and their suburban counterparts.

- Guest bloggers Jon Clark and Kimberly Steadman, Edward W. Brooke Charter School

Want a Label for Your Child? Go To BPS!

Today's Globe article argues that charter schools serve less students with special needs and less English language learners than their sending districts. By the numbers, this is irrefutable. However, it's important to ask the next question: why?

The general argument from the teachers unions and school districts is that charter schools intentionally recruit so as to avoid students that are "hard to educate." If that were the case, wouldn't the logical solution be to recruit the parents of the "easiest to teach" (according to popular conventions)? Shouldn't they be recruiting middle and upper middle class white kids in West Roxbury and JP like this mom's kids? However, if you look at the numbers, most charter schools in Boston (with a couple of exceptions) serve predominantly low income, minority students who come in to their schools way below grade level.

Perhaps the problem is on the other side. Perhaps BPS is over-labeling ELL and special education students. According to this piece:

"Some 20 percent of Boston’s 56,000 students received special education services last year, about 3 percentage points higher than the state average and notably higher than other cities nationwide."

Maybe Boston Public is labeling students as special education because they are frustrated because they are not able to get them to learn. On the other hand, as today's article mentions, the charter schools with which I am familar work really hard to get them OFF of unnecessary special education plans. They also label fewer students.

The same may be true for English Language Learners. Districts have a financial incentive to label students as Limited English Proficient. Why? Because then they get an extra $3,000 per LEP student in state funding. In Boston, 50% of all students whose first language isn't English are labeled as LEP. In most charter schools, that number significantly lower. Why aren't they labeling a similarly high percentage of their kids? Even in Lawrence, where 80% of students don't speak English as their first language, only 20% are labeled LEP. It seems as if BPS has caught onto the fact that if they label more of their non-English speakers as having the most severe needs, they will get more money.

I'm sure charter schools need to do more to recruit special education and ELL students; the Patrick proposal that would get the district mailing lists into their hands will help with targeting these efforts. However, someone needs to take a closer look at the district to see if they are over-labeling their students to make them seem needier than they actually are...

Ed vs. Op-Ed

The Globe editorial board today writes in support of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's efforts to to improve low-performing schools by challenging teachers unions and teacher work rules. His support of charter schools is their primary piece of evidence. Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

• “Test scores alone should never drive evaluation, compensation, or tenure decisions,’’ Duncan told the group. “But to remove student achievement entirely from evaluation is illogical and indefensible.’’

• "...union leaders still have 'grave concerns’' about any efforts to undo collective bargaining contracts. Much graver, however, is the condition of the state’s poorest-performing schools."

Across the editorial page, an op-ed by two researchers from Harvard Law School's Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice challenge the expansion of charter schools on the grounds that charter schools are often more racial and economically segregated than traditional public schools.

The authors propose researching ways to develop charter schools that are more integrated than current charter schools. For example, they say:

"Across the nation, elected leaders are exploring regional solutions for vast
and growing unequal opportunities. Employing a regional vision for charter
schools, Massachusetts could take the lead in providing high-quality education
in settings that approximate the larger, increasingly diverse democratic society
our students will join as adults. Incentives to create charter schools that
enroll students from several demographically distinct school districts - for
example, one city and several suburbs - could bring us good schools that could
reduce inequalities. Why not take what we have learned from the well-functioning
charter schools and replicate it in diverse settings that look like the real
world?"

Let's take the author's opinions and flesh them out. They are basically arguing that urban kids (read: poor blacks and Latinos) would do better if they went to school with suburban kids (read: wealthier whites). Sounds like a good idea to me. At my charter school, we try to get our almost 100% black and Latino kids into high schools where they would have opportunities to learn with wealthier peers (exam schools, private schools, etc.)

If this is such a good idea, why don't the authors suggest this for the district schools that serve most urban kids? History and reality. Forced integration by race and class clearly failed in the 1970's. Forced mixing of races drove white families from the cities to the suburbs or to private schools. If the suburbs had been forced to integrate with the cities at the same time, maybe we wouldn't be having these discussions now. Sadly, whites and wealthier minorities were able to escape the trouble of the cities behind the insurmountable walls of the suburban border line, while lower-income blacks and Latinos languished in schools that continued to get progressively worse. While it would be lovely mandate integration across the racial, ethnic and socioeconomic classes in a metropolitan area, clearly there is not the political will to make this happen at this point in time.

Urban charter schools (or at least the ones I'm familiar with) were created explicitly to provide better educational opportunities in the face of these political realities. Charter school teachers and leaders are working for the kids who need an education right now and can't wait for a pie in the sky change in society. I would make the same argument to Jim Horn over Schools Matter who likes to argue that charter schools are trying to make our society more segregated. Not true; they work within the current reality.

(By the way, interesting to note that most people who attack charter schools say that they don't serve enough "hard to educate" (their phrase, not mine) kids. This group is proposing they serve less of those same kids!)

Front Page News!

The lead article in today's Globe announces that Governor Patrick is filing legislation today to raise the cap on charter schools in the 30 lowest performing districts in the state. Definitely a turn-around from previous incarnations of his school reform plan.

Highlights:

• In said districts, the cap will rise from 9% of students to 18% of students.
• Boston stands to gain more than 5,000 additional seats, which could go to either new charter schools or expansions of existing schools.
• Across the state, 27,000 additional seats will be available.
• Patrick has abandoned attempts to tie a rise in the cap to a change in the charter school funding formula. Also abandoned: the proposal that would have required charter schools to use a modification of the lottery-based admission system to admit quotas of low-income, special needs, and ELL students.
• Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will be on hand at the formal press conference.
• As expected, district public school advocates are up in arms about losing funding.

Can't wait to see the details of the legislation, but it seems like a step in the right direction.

Ice Cream vs. Fro-Yo

Interesting post over at the Fordham Foundation blog site.

Keller on Charter Schools in WSJ

The Boston charter school debate garners another look by the Wall Street Journal today, courtesy of an op-Ed by WBZ's Jon Keller. He breaks down the lay of the land after Menino's speech a couple of weeks back, and semi-confirms the Boston Collegiate rumor (without naming schools).

HGSE on MA Charter School Cap

Professor Tom Kane posts here on Mayor Menino's charter school proposal, and Katherine Merseth (HGSE) and Marc Kenan (Mass Charter School Association), respond. As a poster at Universal Hub commented, it looks like there is some support from the HGSE folks for Sam Yoon's proposal, while MCSA is worried about limiting charter school entepreneurs.

Patrick on "Smart Caps"

Looks like Governor Patrick is going to be filing legislation on a "smart cap lifting" for charter school, or so says Secretary Reville in last month's DOE "Board in Brief." Also in there, mention of his Readiness Schools, although the names, Advantage, Alliance and Acceleration, do say much about what they're going to be...I'll do some digging to see if I can find out.

Rotherham and Whitmire on Duncan Charter Proposal

Eduwonk Andrew Rotherham and Richard Whitmire have a piece in US News that praises Arne Duncan's call to expand good charter schools and close the lousy ones. MATCH and Roxbury Prep are held up as examples of schools at the top of the charter school ranks and the Massachusetts logjam is also mentioned in passing.

Massachusetts Gets a C

The pro-charter schools Center for Education Reform has ranked all the state charter laws. Massachusetts gets a C.

Maybe that will change with all the proposals floating around...

Lehigh on Charters, Menino, BTU

Scot Lehigh comments on the "paradigm shift" in his Globe column today. He makes a couple of noteworthy points.

He mentions that the Patrick administration is retooling their charter school proposal. The new plan, while not solidified, would only lift the cap for underperforming districts. However, it would no longer require front end demographic jiggering that runs counter to the open lottery enrollment structure that is currently in place.

He also focuses on the Boston Teachers Union's role in Mayor Menino's shift on charter schools. He writes:

"TALK ABOUT barriers lifting and paradigms shifting.

Suddenly, support for charter schools, once the lonely province of public-policy entrepreneurs and intrepid, union-defying pols, has become positively mainstream.

For that, you can credit a pro-charter Democratic president, recent Boston Foundation-sponsored research demonstrating their educational efficacy, persistent pressure from both Boston dailies, a developing mayoral race in the Hub - and, oh yes, the myopic resistance to change displayed by the leadership of the Boston Teachers Union."

Later, he goes on to say:

"Further, the macro message is clear: After years of trying to nudge the existing system along, only to be thwarted by the BTU, the mayor has concluded he can't get the changes he needs by working solely within that system.

Menino acknowledges as much, noting the BTU has filed grievances over pilot schools - designed to be the city's in-district alternative to charter schools - and over a plan for performance pay for advanced-placement teachers.

"I have been out there working with them, and now we are in arbitration on two simple matters," says Menino. "When is it going to be about the kids?"

Finally, Lehigh points out that none of this will matter if the state legislature doesn't jump on the lift the cap bandwagon. Hopefully the momentum that's built up over the past week will start to have an impact.

Bulletin Weighs In

The local free newspaper chain, the Bulletin, has weighed in on the mayor's new education proposal. The editorial can be found here. There's also an article on the charter school proposals of mayoral candidates Flaherty and Yoon here.

A Witness to Tragedy

In a piece of sad news, MATCH students (and students from other Massachusetts schools) witnessed the murder at the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. yesterday, the Herald reports.

Boston Phoenix Comments Too

The Phoenix also has an editorial on the mayoral campaign debate that's been raging this week over charter schools and BPS. The big takeaway from the perspective of the Phoenix?

"The three-way emphasis on charter schools demonstrates two things.

First, it shows how competition can spur political change. It took pressure from Flaherty and Yoon for Menino to become more welcoming to the idea of more
charter schools.

Second, the fact that three of the mayoral candidates embrace the charter concept is an unspoken criticism of the politically powerful teachers union. Even more than the punishing fiscal realities of today, the union is the biggest single obstacle to making Boston Public Schools better."

Boston Globe: Raise the Cap!

The Globe editorialized today that the state should lift the cap on charter schools to get kids off the waiting lists and to get access to the federal "Race to the Top" funding.

While the Globe doesn't take a specific position on how the cap should be lifted, they do call Mayor Menino and Governor Patrick to task for their timid support for this issue. They seem more supportive of Michael Flaherty and Sam Yoon's proposals.

Seems like there is some momentum building on this issue. Hopefully, Beacon Hill will get the picture and get moving.

Mayoral Candidate Kevin McCrea

In the comments section of one of the Globe articles on Menino's charter school position, Kevin McCrea (or someone posting has him) posted a response:

"All three of my opponents have now jumped on the Charter School movement.
Charter schools are doing some fantastic work around the country and in this
City. A kid who was on my baseball team who lives on Geneva Ave. in Dorchester
just got accepted to a Charter School and his family tells me that they know
that is the only way he will get a good education.

But that is the problem, even when we lift the cap on charters we are tacitly admitting that there are other schools which are failing. Why is that none of the candidates say that they will not tolerate bad schools anywhere in the City? Why have all three of these candidates tolerated these bad schools for all the 40 years or so combined that they have been in office?

The two elephants in the room are busing and failing schools. Raising the cap on charters only slightly addresses getting more kids out of the regular schools and into better charter schools. In addition, there is no guarantee that the kids who need it most will get into those charter schools, instead it could be that many of these favored seats will go to favored people.

President Obama has been impressive in his desire to tackle the big problems. I think we here in Boston can tackle big problems, which is why I want to put good schools in every neighborhood, and then eliminate the busing system which currently wastes about 10% of our resources that could otherwise go towards better
schools, supplies and teacher salaries."

Update: You can find the same post at McCrea's blog, so it seems like it is him.

From Failure to Success

Here's an inspiring article from the Globe about a senior at Prospect Hill Academy who turned her life around and is going to Boston College next year.

Menino Speaks!

Here's a YouTube clip of yesterday's Menino speech on charter schools and performance pay from his website.

OK, I Think I Got It

So now that I've had some time to digest the Menino move more carefully, this is how I understand it:

Menino was frustrated that many BPS schools were seriously underperforming, so a couple of years ago he brokered a deal to increase the number of pilot schools. The BTU balked and stonewalled and new pilots didn't emerge quickly enough as a result. Menino is trying to go around them. (Why now? Seems like politics.)

Menino's new plan would allow him and Carol Johnson to take over BPS schools, turn them into "in-district" charter schools and try to turn them around in that format. The benefit would be that the school would not be governed by union rules so that the Boston School Committee could have more flexibility around using longer days and years. Then, the teachers could choose to reunionize or not at some later date.

Menino does not seem interested in opening new charter schools, just reconsituting old schools as charter schools. However, instead of having other entities (read: CMO's) run these new schools (a la Green Dot's takeover of Locke High School in LA), Menino would like the BSC to run them. This seems like a direct slap at the BTU, implying that the union is the primary problem. Bold statement to attack the union during an election campaign...

Am I missing anything?

More on Menino and Charters

From CommonWealth Online:

Will Menino campaign against the teachers' union?

For many, the phrase "charter school" conjures up images of parental choice and innovation, of passionate young educators taking the place of frowsy, lazy clock-watchers in sensible shoes. So it makes sense to attach the word "charter" to any new educational beast -- and that's exactly what Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, who is running for a fifth term, did today before a meeting of the Boston College CEO Club.

Menino announced he will file legislation to create something known as an "in-district charter school" -- and, if this effort fails, he'll support lifting the current statewide cap on charter schools. Charter schools are privately run, and they are exempt from many of the work rules found in traditional public schools. (The new MassINC research report Incomplete Grade: Massachusetts Education Reform at 15 cites "consistently positive effects for the city's charter schools" and recommends a lifting of the state cap on such schools.)

Loud applause accompanied Menino's promise to support lifting the charter cap, which marks a reversal for the mayor. But puzzled glances followed Menino's mention of in-district charters. "What is that?" one reporter asked another as the mayor made his way off the podium and was joined by Boston Public School Superintendent Carol Johnson.

When speaking to the press afterward, Johnson and Menino acknowledged that creating in-district charters isn't exactly about creating new schools. The idea, instead, is to re-organize low-performing traditional schools under the charter school mantle, and thereby take them out of the hands of the Boston Teachers Union's seniority and length-of-schoolday rules. "We need more flexibility," said Johnson. "We need to put our best teachers and leaders in the places where our students are not doing as well as they need to." She added that the term "in-district charter" doesn't exist elsewhere in the country, at least to her knowledge.
"In-district charters," then, sounds like code for a school department takeover of the lowest-performing schools. After all, the mayor essentially will be asking the Legislature's permission to ignore the contract rules he negotiated with the teachers' union -- not in all schools, but in some of them.

He's also following the money. Menino said today's call for in-district charters and for "performance pay" are both designed to help Boston compete for $5 billion in federal education grants, to be awarded beginning in early fall.

"President Obama and Secretary [of Education Arne] Duncan have told me they want to invest in reforms that turn around low-performing schools," said Menino. "We have been pursuing these reforms and will seek these federal resources." With $5 billion in grants (and a fifth term in City Hall) up for grabs, expect to hear more about charters and performance pay, whether in-district or out.

The Equity Project

The New York Times recently profiled the new hires of The Equity Project, the Washington Heights (NYC) charter school that's opening next year with teachers making $125K plus bonuses.

Most of the discussions of this school in the press and on the web has been about the salary and "all-star" quality of the teachers. I certainly don't begrudge the teachers for making the salaries they do; I think all of us wish we could make money like that as teachers. Here are the questions that I'll be interested is seeing answered as the school gets off the ground next year.

• Will these teachers, some of whom aren't currently teaching in urban schools, be ready for the different challenges that they will face in this school? I think even the best teachers may not be ready to face the challenge of entire classes of kids way behind grade level if they haven't done it before. I hope, for their sake and the sake of the kids, that they're up for it.
• Will a staffing model that requires teachers to take on additional adminstrative burdens during or after their teaching day be successful? Can amazing teachers continue to be amazing when not fully focused on their classes? Will they be able to do everything that's being asked of them? Just paying them more doesn't give these teachers more hours in their already busy days. How many balls will be dropped as teachers try to balance their teaching and administrative duties (and personal lives)? I like that the administrators in my school make sure that we don't have too many extra burdens that take away from our teaching and work with kids.

I hope this school is successful ; I'd love to visit in a few years to see some amazing teaching.

Newsweek Rankings

The Newsweek ranking of top high schools is out, for what it's worth.

The top three Massachusetts schools (and the only 3 in the top 100) are all charter schools:

• #23 Sturgis Charter High School
• #84 MATCH Charter School
• #93 Mystic Valley Regional Charter School

Response to Menino Charter School Shift

The intial internet reponse to Mayor Menino's shift on charter schools is pretty harsh, but not from the usual sources. Typically, calls for more charter schools get out a fair mix of charter supporters and naysayers. This time, though, the response has been mainly anti-mayor, with only a little serious discussion of the merits of his proposal.

Here are the major lines of attack I'm seeing after perusing the web:

1. The mayor is doing this purely for political reasons. He's responding to positions taken by Yoon and Flaherty earlier in the week.
2. The mayor is a flip-flopper.
3. This isn't a serious proposal; he has no power to change state law and has no intention of actually pushing this idea. We're supposed to forget about this by 2010.
4. Why would new schools under the Boston School Committee do any better than the schools currently under their jurisdiction?
5. If the mayor is the incumbent and he's all about education, how come he's only taking this position after 16 year?

I think his biggest mistake is this quote: “The status quo doesn’t work in education.” The mayor's going to be regretting that one for a long time. Flaherty and Yoon will surely jump all over it, since they're campaigning on the fact that Menino has been around too long. Now, it seems like he's admitting that his tenure has not done enough for the schools.

I'm not sure who the mayor is trying to reach with a proposal that seems like either a more restrictive form of charter schools or a less restrictive form of pilot schools. It seems a little like Governor Patrick's Readiness Schools: a political calculation that admits the need for school choice but doesn't run the risk of losing teachers unions support by supporting existing, non-unionized charter schools.

In this case, it seems like none of the vested interest groups are particularly impressed. It's clear from Richard Stutman's quote in the Herald that the BTU is opposed. Supporters of lifting the charter school cap will be unimpressed by the "in-district" limitations.

From my point of view, it seems silly to try another type of school choice when we have a well-tested model just itching to expand and a copy-cat model that's been less successful.

UPDATE: The Globe article, an update on the orginal boston.com posting, includes quotes that echo some of the comments above. I find it interesting that Menino wants to allow the lowest performing schools in BPS to be turned into charter schools. I wonder which schools will be tapped for this program if it ever happens? A charter school in the building that currently houses Mildred Avenue Middle School would be awesome, though you know that will never happen. To echo Jim Stergios in the Globe article, why doesn't Menino move ahead with a plan to turn low perfoming school in BPS into Horace Mann charter schools?

Mayoral Candidate Tom Menino

In a shocker, Mayor Menino reversed his long-standing opposition to charter schools in a speech today. You can find coverage at the Globe and at bostonherald.com.

Some choice bits are reprinted below.

From The Globe:

Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who has for years expressed deep reservations about charter schools, abruptly shifted course today and said he is eager to open new ones in Boston to help transform the city's poorly performing schools.

In a speech to hundreds of chief executives, Menino said he would file state legislation that would allow the city to create "in-district" charter schools.

Unlike traditional charter schools, which Menino has argued drain money from traditional public schools, these charter schools would be established and controlled solely by the Boston School Committee. In a point sure to spark opposition from organized labor, the schools would not need to be unionized,
although the teachers could vote to form a union. Menino said the schools would
also have more flexible work hours and rules, in an attempt to attract better
teachers and tailor the school day to students' needs.

If the bill does not pass by the end of this legislative session -- July 31, 2010 -- Menino said he would call for lifting the overall cap on charter schools.

"The status quo won't work," Menino told a luncheon at the Boston Harbor Hotel of the Boston College Chief Executives' Club. "We've got to make real changes."

Observers said Menino's position represents a sharp reversal.

"I thought the ideas were good and a bit surprising," said former Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham, who helped write the 1993 Education Reform Act that paved the way for the state’s first charter schools. "The mayor has been a long-time, major opponent of charter schools and I think this is an exciting propositon -- both the in-district charters and the affirmative commitment, if he can't get that legislation through, to eliminate the cap."

Menino's embrace of charter schools comes after his rivals in the mayor's race, City Councilors Michael F. Flaherty and Sam Yoon, released plans earlier this week that expressed support for more charter schools in Boston.

"Politically, it's extraordinary for the mayor of the city of Boston to come out for charter schools like this," Birmingham said.

From the Herald:

Mayor Thomas M. Menino proposed merit pay for teachers and in-district charter schools to boost student performance, but the teacher’s union is skeptical.

“The status quo doesn’t work in education,” Menino said following a speech to a group of business leaders at a Boston College Citizen Seminar today. “We want to raise underperforming schools, but we can’t get it done on pilot schools and advanced placement because of arbitration. Give me a break.”

In a plan short on details, Menino said he will seek legislative approval to authorize city-run charter schools free from union rules on hiring, budgeting and length of the school day. While the staff can unionize, he said, union approval will not be required to create the schools. If the legislation is not adopted on Beacon Hill, the mayor said will lift the cap on charter schools.

Menino did not know how much the schools would cost, or how many would be
created. But he said the Obama administration is making $5 billion available under a competitive grant program through the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act that could fund the idea.

(Richard) Stutman (BTU President) also noted that the union continues to oppose charter schools. “We already have well-functioning schools in the city of Boston and we are not against talking about improving those schools,” he said. “But we oppose charter schools.”

Mayoral Candidate Sam Yoon

Last week, the Roslindale Transcript carried a column from Sam Yoon blasting the BPS five-zone proposal and Mayor Menino, and laying out his position on education. He's supporting a number of positions, including one on charter schools:

"Create “Smart Caps” on charter schools. If we’re going to be innovative about education in Boston, we need to encourage the innovators who have a proven record of success. We have some of the country’s best model charter schools. Keeping a lid on them makes no sense. We should lift the cap for successful pilot and charter schools."

Later this week, Yoon going to run with this "Smart Cap" proposal as seen in this press release on his campaign website:

Yoon Proposes “Smart Caps” on Charter Schools
Calls for Increase in Funding Limits for Effective Schools
June 8, 2009

BOSTON- City Councilor-at-Large and mayoral candidate Sam Yoon will propose legislation on Wednesday that would lift the funding cap on high-performing charter schools in Boston.

“We need fresh and innovative thinking for our public schools, which is why I’m calling for ‘smart caps,’” said Yoon. “We have a faltering education system, but many of our charter schools have a proven record of success in closing the achievement gap. By increasing funding for our top charter schools, we can substantially improve the quality of Boston’s public education.”

Yoon’s proposal calls for a “smart cap,” which raises the spending limits on those charter schools that have a proven, multi-year record of high achievement. The state currently limits spending on charter schools to 9% of a school district’s budget. At Wednesday’s City Council meeting, Yoon will submit a home-rule petition that calls on the state legislature to increase limits on high-performing schools to 20%.

A smart cap would allow successful charter schools to accommodate more students by expanding their campuses and hiring additional teachers. Certain schools are already inundated with more applicants than they have seats. Last year, the Edward W. Brooke Charter School in Roslindale received 1,100 student applications for only 100 openings.

Yoon said the popularity and success of some charter schools should send a message to lawmakers.

“The need for more quality choice is clear,” said Yoon. “If charter schools are successful we should allow them to replicate their success.”

Update:
You can watch Yoon discuss his position on a Smart Cap with Jon Keller of WBZ here. The part on charter schools is about 6 minutes into the 8 minute piece.

Mayoral Candidate Michael Flaherty

Mayoral candidates are starting to take positions on education, in general, and charter schools, specifically.

Michael Flaherty's position was outlined in the Globe today. He also opposes the five-zone proposal and supports charter school expansion.

On charter schools, the article says,

"Flaherty's support for more charter schools also runs counter to the position of Menino, who has long argued that the funding formula for charters is unfair. For each student who attends a charter school, a portion of state aid gets redirected from the city school system to the charter school. Boston is near the state's maximum limit of allowed in the city, and Flaherty said the city needs to convince the Legislature that it should raise the limit."*

More from Flaherty can be found at his campaign website in his education policy paper. The charter school position is copied below in it's entirety.

"Certainly, there are conflicting opinions as to what is the best strategy to ensure that our children receive a strong and quality education. But we all lose if we can’t come together to agree that no one approach works for every student. While the idea of school choice is often talked about, we shortchange that discussion when we can’t commit ourselves to the belief that real school choice can only happen when we allow money to follow the child. Michael supports continued investment in our city’s charter schools because he recognizes the valuable learning opportunities they provide to Boston’s students.

Many critics of charter schools have charged that the success in charter schools has more to do with demographics than curriculum design and implementation. However, a breakthrough January 2009 study by The Boston Foundation debunked the myth that high student performanceat charter schools is a result of student “pedigree” and not innovative teaching practices. The study controlled for the intangible factors of parent involvement and student motivation by tracking the MCAS scores over time of two groups of charter school applicants who either enrolled at a charter or attended BPS. The results revealed that the charter school students outperformed the BPS students, particularly in middle school math. Advocates for charter schools believe this study highlights that the curriculums and policies of charter schools – not student demographics – are the reason for high student performance at charters.

Many charter schools, including our own MATCH, the Neighborhood House Charter School and the national KIPPS schools have strong records of success. Ignoring the successes of these charter schools handicaps our ability to improve the quality of education available to Boston students. The city of Boston must work with the State Legislature to raise the current cap on charter schools so that underperforming districts such as BPS have the opportunity to expand parents’ choice of quality public schools."

The Globe's Scott Lehigh was high on Flaherty's education position (and not much else) in his column last week.

"Flaherty's support for more charter schools also runs counter to the position of Menino, who has long argued that the funding formula for charters is unfair. For each student who attends a charter school, a portion of state aid gets redirected from the city school system to the charter school.

Boston is near the state's maximum limit of allowed in the city, and Flaherty said the city needs to convince the Legislature that it should raise the limit."

*Note: The portion of aid that is redirected is the per pupil allotment that is attached to every student. Since BPS no longer is educating charter school students, their funding no longer goes to BPS. In fact, BPS gets partially "reimbursed" for 3 years after a student leaves the district and moved to a charter school."

Valedictorians

Congrats to the graduates of 2009! The valedictorians of the Boston charter schools were listed in the Globe on Sunday.

• Academy of the Pacific Rim: Sabrina Hansen, Tufts University
• Boston Collegiate: Laura Saniuk-Heinig, Cornell University
• City on a Hill: Tiffany Egbuonu, Bryn Mawr College
• Health Career Academy: Melissa Rocha, University of Rochester
• MATCH: Sabbanie Montfleury, Boston College

Codman Academy was noticeably absent from the list. If anyone knows why, I'd love to hear about it.

More Cap Support

The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce is on board for lifting the cap.

MCAS Scaled Scores

Over at Gotham Schools, Skoolboy, the resident educational researcher and statistician, has been talking a lot about how the most statistically valid way of comparing test data is to look at average scaled scores, instead of proficiency rates. He argues that proficiency rates can be misleading because they don't tell you if kids are near the top or bottom of each category range. In New York, they publish both proficiency rates and average scaled scores for each test in each grade.

In Massachusetts, the DOE publishes the percentage and numbers of students at each score range, which they also compile into a number called the CPI. I've been looking around on the DOE website to see if I can find scaled score data with no luck. If someone knows how to find this data, it would be great if you could post it below.

Update: From Bob Lee, who is MCAS Chief Analyst at the MAESE, responded on the comments page:

"We don't have an interval scale in Massachusetts. In other words the difference between a 216 and a 218 is larger than the difference between a 222 and a 224 so our Technical Advisory Committee (and I agree) doesn't want us to compute average scaled scores. Use the CPI, it has 5 intervals that are equal. Otherwise you have to use medians or the scaled score equivalent of the average scaled score."

Update II: My understanding of CPI is that is separates kids into 5 groups (Advanced and Proficient, High Needs Improvement, Low Needs Improvement, High Warning and Warning). The problem that I see is that it does a good job of accounting of sorting the kids and schools on the low end of the spectrum but does not allow for differentiating schools on the top end. Here's an example: School A has 80% of kids scoring proficient and 20% advanced on the 8th grade math test. School B has 20% of kids scoring proficient and 80% advanced on the same test. Which school and kids are performing better at math? CPI says they are equal; I say they're not. CPI sets an important, but low bar. As a teacher, I want all my kids to be proficient or advanced, but I want the advanced section as high as possible, too.

To Lift the Cap or Not?

Last week, MassINC published a report on the impact of the last 15 years of education reform in Massachusetts. You can find the full report here. While the primary focus was not charter schools, the report pushes for lifting the cap for a number of reasons. The full comment is below:

"Closer to home, there has also been a recent and influential study that compares the performance of students at Boston’s charter, pilot, and traditional schools.25 This research finds consistently positive effects for the city’s charter schools on student achievement in all MCAS subjects at both the middle and high school levels. Currently, the state places several limits on the number and location of charter schools. Nationally, the Secretary of Education is targeting federal stimulus money toward states that embrace education reform, including removing the cap on charter schools. If Massachusetts raises or eliminates the cap on charter schools, this change could lead to new charter schools in a dozen communities, such as Boston, Holyoke, and Fall River, that are currently at the limit. In addition, the state should consider allowing effective charter schools serving high-poverty students to operate additional schools and thus allow for greater efficiencies and economies of scale. At the same time, the state should also be more aggressive about closing charter schools that are not working."

A couple of days later, Scott Lehigh followed up with praise in his Globe column.

I also commented at Gotham Schools supporting lifting the cap. My comment is copied below:

"Lift the cap with the following caveats:

1) Charter schools that are underperforming in relationship to their home district should be closed at the end of their charter. Not enough weak charter schools are closed down. Weak charter schools are a financial drain on the system and they hurt kids.

2) Charter schools that are significantly outperforming their home districts should be allowed to replicate. If your school has 70% low income kids and is outperforming the wealthiest districts in the state, you’re doing something right and should give more kids the opportunity.

3) Charter schools with new ideas or models should be allowed; new schools that mooch off older models (especially unsuccessful ones) should not be authorized. This promotes innovation.

4) Districts that don’t want more charter schools can minimize expansion of new charters (though not the replicas), by adopting the practices of charter schools that work. That forces failing schools to try to learn from their neighborhood charter schools that are currently kicking their rears. I still can’t figure out why district schools aren’t visiting my school to learn from what we do here…and why they won’t let us visit their schools that are successful.

5) The cap should be lifted with priority in districts with the greatest need.

Just some random thoughts…"

#4 is my personal addition to the current dialogue that's going on in the charter school community about how to get the cap lifted.

To Bus or Not?

Boston Public Schools wants to save money by reducing the amount of busing that happens. To do this, they plan to have more, smaller school zones and remove the city-wide status of two of their most popular schools (Hernandez K-8 and Timility Middle). As part of this plan, they are proposing to stop busing charter school students outside of their BPS zones. This would effectively limit the reach of Boston charter elementary and middle schools by taking away transportation to those students that live outside the zone in which the school exists. There's a piece in today's Globe that discusses the pros and cons of this proposal.

Menino Grands at Boston Collegiate?

This website purports to have information that Mayor Menino's grandchildren received a lottery spots for Boston Collegiate. I have no idea how reliable this information is, especially given the anti-Menino slant of the site, but it's interesting that they chose a non-BPS option for their kids after having them in BPS for elementary school. It'll be interesting to see if they use BCCS as a bridge to the exam schools.

Codman College Speed Dating

Almost 2 months since Codman Academy's last flashy piece in the Globe, they're back. This time the article is about an event in which colleges and Codman juniors try to learn more about one another using the principles of speed dating. It's an interesting concept.

This is Codman's fourth Globe article of the year. You can check out their PR record here.

KIPP Wants In

In an op-ed in Friday's Globe, Scott Lehigh reported on an event at the Boston Foundation at which KIPP CEO Richard Barth was the keynote speaker. Barth discussed KIPP's interest in expanding to Boston and its inability to do so because of the 9% charter cap. Lehigh posited that the potential of Boston KIPP schools should motivate local politicos to lift the cap. I doubt this is how our local pols think.

Lehigh's overall view is that the cap should be lifted and KIPP should be welcome here in Boston. I wholeheartedly agree. But he sets KIPP up as saviors for both charter school expansion and for the kids of Boston. It's a shame that he doesn't include in his argument the successful charter schools here in Boston that are itching to serve more kids and can't because of the cap. You would think that Bostonian politicians would be more inspired by local kids' exceptional success at schools like Excel or Roxbury Prep than the results of kids in other states.

Michael Goldstein "Goes Wild" of MATCH says that the risk of losing federal "Rae to the Top" money is a much better motivator and that changing the cap will allow local success stories to expand. He's probably right. Money trumps all.

Charter School Day on Beacon Hill

Today, charter school supporters assembled on Beacon Hill to lobby legislators to lift the charter school cap. There was TV coverage here.

Charter School Hiring Practices: A Limit to Growth?

Jay Mathews, the Washington Post education columnist and charter school supporter, writes in today's column about an American Enterprise Institute paper by Stephen F. Wilson that examined the hiring practices at No Excuses charter schools in Boston. The paper specifically looks that the selectivity of the colleges that charter school staffers attended. It argues that since there is a limit to the number of Ivy League and comparable school alumni who will work in urban schools, the growth of No Excuses charter schools will be limited. Mathews thinks that Wilson is onto something when he suggests that these schools turn to "innovative curriculum models of years ago" like SRA, Direct Instruction and Core Knowlege. I think Mathews didn't quite think through his logic here, and I was going to write a whole response about it, but the first comment on the WaPo website (by researcher2) summed it up the point perfectly for me:

"A couple of comments.I see a major contradiction. Wilson says one reason they do so well is "They want staffers to produce their own lesson plans and, through trial and error and consultation with other teachers, figure out what works best in raising the achievement of students who are often two or three years below grade level when they enroll."
And then says public schools need not fear because they could/should do this "If teachers were provided a powerful instructional system -- placement tests and guides for class formation; a sequential, content-rich curriculum tightly linked to state standards and taught to mastery; frequent electronic assessments; detailed pacing charts, and so on -- then skilled career educators of varying backgrounds might be able to achieve results similar to those posted by the No Excuses schools,”

The reason public school teachers get dismayed and burned out is because they are doing exactly what he suggests just above, and are not often given permission to do what the charter schools want their teachers to do: create their own lesson plans and see what is working/not working with THEIR students.

I think the key is the independence the charter schools have, and the collaboration that exists within the school (between principals and teachers) and the collaboration between the school and the community. In public schools teachers find out what the new fad is when they are told to go to a training i.e. their input is not asked for, collaboration is a foreign concept. And in the community, how many stories do you have to come across to realize that often in public schools the parents are the last to know of a major change, again no collaboration.

While the Ivy League teachers aspect is certainly interesting, I firmly believe the majority of public school teachers, whether from a level 5 school or a level 1, if they felt connected to the school in the fashion I gather the charter school teachers feel connected, if they felt valued as a professional, like the charter school teachers feel, you would see the same results in students' achievement."

Thanks researcher2.

BTW, the study looked at the following schools: Academy of the Pacific Rim, Edward Brooke, Boston Collegiate, Excel Academy, Boston Prep, MATCH, Roxbury Prep and the KIPP Academy Lynn.

Edward Brooke Charter School in WSJ

There's a piece in today's Wall Street Journal about charter schools, the high demand for them, and the political challenges in expanding them. Two Boston charter schools are mentioned: Edward W. Brooke and Uphams Corner. Edward Brooke principals Jon Clark and Kimberly Steadman are quoted discussing the heartbreak of parents, including Mr. Clark, whose children are not picked in the lottery.

What's An Extra $10K?

Random thought: in NYC, some of the charter management organizations tout that they pay their teachers on average $10K more than teachers in DOE schools.
What is the motivation behind the pay boost? Some possible options:

1) Desperation to attract any decent teachers.
2) Direct competition with DOE.
3) Competition for teachers within the charter school landscape.
4) Attempt to gain publicity.

Any thoughts from people in the know?

From my experience and understanding, Boston charter schools generally pay less than BPS and don't pick up as much of the benefits package. Based on published and anecdotal data, Boston charter schools get plenty of applicants without offering the pay boost of some NYC charters.

Boston Charters vs. Brookline

As Aaron Pallas writes, Joel Klein has claimed that Boston charter schools are better than the Brookline schools. Pallas argues that they are not because in Brookline, a much higher percentage of kids are scoring advanced. I guess the question is how do you compare schools?

A couple of points:

1) First off, Kane did not include all of these schools in his matched study, only the ones that are oversubscribed. Second, there is a huge discrepency between the high perfoming schools and the low performing schools, as Pallas acknowledges. I think it's better to flesh out the picture, as I've done below. My guess is that Klein was using data from the study without reflecting on the fact that all charter schools in Boston were not included.





2) Pallas argues that what makes a high quality school is the percentage of kids who score advanced. As we can see in the chart above, only one charter school (Excel) in Boston matched Brookline's 44% in math last year. In ELA, a number of schools equalled or surpassed Brookline's 24%. As a teacher, I can see the validity in that point. I always want all of my students achieving at the highest level. But what about the argument that the goal of a good school is to get all of their students to be proficient or better? In that case, Brookline is matched by a number of charter schools. This is how the Boston Globe compares schools each year. I think both methods are important.

3) Note that 44% advanced on 8th grade math is 10th highest in the state. The highest percentage was 55% (Wayland). Brookline's ranking on ELA was not quite as high.

I think charter schools need to worry about performance at a number of levels:

1) Are we scoring higher than Boston? - lowest bar
2) Are we scoring higher than Massachusetts?
3) Are we one of the top schools statewide in A +P?
4) Are we pushing as many kids into Advanced as possible without slipping in #3?

Update: Thanks to Aaron Pallas for catching an error with Roxbury Prep's data on the ELA chart. The new chart should be correct.

Unions vs. Charters

A typical union line is that charter schools are evil because they take advantage of their teachers by paying them less and making them work longer hours.

Here's a question:

If charter schools are evil, why is it that there are so many young, motivated, well-educated teachers are clamoring to teach in these schools?

Are my colleagues, educated at the finest colleges and universities in the country, really a bunch of nitwits who can't think straight?

WSJ Op-Ed on Unions vs. Charters

Interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on the battle between charter schools and unions mentions the Kane study on Boston pilot vs. charter schools.

The duality of union strategy is interesting. On one hand, they're trying to get charter schools to unionize while trying to undermine their funding on the other. Will teachers really try to join a union that is trying to shut down their schools? Will the unions continue to try to undermine charters if their members teacher in charter schools? It seems like a game of chicken to me.

Reville Op-Ed

Today, Paul Reville had an op-ed in the Globe promoting Governor Patrick's education plan.

Here's the part on charters:

"We seek to build on the success of high-performing charter schools to reach a larger number of students, especially those with special needs and those who are English Language Learners. Currently, charter schools serve only 2.6 percent of the state's total public school population, and typically educate fewer special education and non-English-speaking students than their sending school districts.

However, the governor has proposed lifting the cap on charters in Massachusetts, specifically in low-performing districts that are nearing their caps, so proven charter operators can serve our most challenged student populations who have not been well served. The governor's "smart cap" proposal lifts the district spending cap from 9 percent to 12 percent in those low-performing districts when providers commit to work with the neediest students. This cap lift will ensure that successful charter school operators have the ability to expand their contributions in school districts where the need for innovation is greatest."

How do they plan to do this without corruptingthe open lottery process that is currently used by all charter schools in the state? The details are still missing on this point.

He continues:

"Further, to encourage innovation and expand access to a greater number of students, Patrick has boldly called for the creation of Readiness Schools, autonomous, in-district, charter-like schools designed to give experienced educators increased discretion to operate schools under performance contracts with school committees. Readiness Schools will attract universities to operate partnership schools and empower educators, charter providers, and others to take responsibility for not only running schools but improving student achievement. One form of Readiness School will be offered in situations where outside providers will be invited in to operate chronically under-performing schools under new rules."

1) These Readiness Schools sound a lot like pilot schools, which we just saw in the Harvard study to be not nearly as successful as charters. Why rely on this model that doesn't seem to work so well?

2) What exactly does this quote mean: "empower educators, charter providers, and others to take responsibility for not only running schools but improving student achievement." As it applies to charter providers, does it imply that they only run schools but don't currently work on improving student achievement. That's not true in the schools that I am familiar with. They are singlemindedly about improving student achievement. If that's already true for charters, why try to set up another class of schools that needs to be convinced of this goal. Since charter schools already believe it, so support their expansion first.

Of course, we all know the reason that Readiness Schools are being pushed. It's the same reason why pilot schools were pushed in the first place. It give districts that are bound by union rules a chance to try to compete with charters. We all know it's easier to start fresh with new schools than to try to turnaround a disastrous existing school.

Sing a Little Tune

Today's Globe has a nice piece on a visiting composer program at Neighborhood House Charter School.

1000 Applications, 200 Interviews, 4-6 Jobs

Roxbury Prep got a nice writeup in Education Week back in February. Uncommon Schools conveniently has a PDF posted on their website. The focus is theoretically high school placement, but it does a nice job running down the basic model of the school.

What I found most interesing was the section on hiring. They get 1000 teacher applicants for 4-6 jobs each year, which I don't find too surprising. I know from my school that we get a ton of applicants and we don't have nearly the cachet of Roxbury Prep (but really, who does?). What I think is crazy is that they claim to give first round interviews to 200 teachers . I find it strange that they claim to interview about 40 people per position. Does anyone know if that's a typical number of interviews? It seems to me that you would be able to narrow it down to 5-10 for each position just by looking at resumes.

Long Time, No Post

It's been a busy couple of weeks for me and conveniently a slow news time for charter schools.

Here's a couple of old links:

This piece from the Herald talks about charter school lottteries, which were held last week.

Scott Lehigh wrote an op-ed in support of President Obama's desire to lift the charter school cap in the Globe last week.

Six MA Charter Schools Rewarded for Achievement Gains

A short note from today's Globe.

"Six Massachusetts charter schools* were among 21 nationwide singled out for recognition yesterday by a national nonprofit that analyzes charter school achievement. The Effective Practice Incentive Community, or EPIC, grant program honored Community Day Charter Public School in Lawrence, Boston Preparatory Charter Public School in Hyde Park, Roxbury Preparatory Charter School in Roxbury, Boston Collegiate Charter School in Dorchester, MATCH Charter Public School in Boston, and Prospect Hill Academy Upper School in Cambridge. The organization will give individual principals, teachers, and instructional staff from the schools awards totaling an estimated $735,000. EPIC considered 144 schools for the award."

EPIC is a program of New Leaders for New Schools that distributes U.S. Department of Education TIF (Teacher Incentive Fund) money. TIF is the same Federal program that independently funds Edward W. Brooke Charter School's performance bonus program (which you can read more about here.)

According to the NLNS website, "EPIC award-winning schools are divided into two categories: Gold-gain schools have the highest gain; Silver-gain schools have the next highest gain. In 2009, EPIC is awarding 21 schools and distributing roughly $1.9 million in awards. Awards were based on student gains between the 2006-07 and 2007-08 school years."

2008-2009
Gold-gain schools in MA: Boston Prep and MATCH
Silver-gain schools in MA: Boston Collegiate, Community Day, Prospect Hill, Roxbury Prep

(Other MA participatants: Smith Leadership, Berkshire Arts and Tech, North Central Charter Essential, and Salem Academy)

2007-2008
Gold-gain schools in MA: Roxbury Prep and MATCH
Silver-gain schools in MA: Boston Collegiate, Community Day, Smith Leadership

(Other MA participatants: North Central Charter Essential)

*While these schools were singled out for their performance, it is important to note that only 10 out of 54 MA charter schools participate in EPIC's National Charter School Consortium.

Jack Kent Cooke Young Scholars

The Jack Kent Cooke Young Scholars program just recently notified its 75 national 2008 scholarship recipients of their selection. A young woman at Kipp Lynn has been selected. Does anyone know if any other winners hail from the Greater Boston area?

Dorchester Collegiate Academy

Will DCA be allowed to open next year? There was some talk about the state not allowing new charters to open because of the economy. Does anyone out there know what's happening with this?

By the way, why is the naming thing so challenging in this city? In NYC, you have Williamsburg Collegiate, Kings Collegiate, etc. and they're all run by Brett Peiser as the "Collegiate" network of Uncommon Schools. This makes sense. In Boston, the schools that have at least some level of connection (Pacific Rim - Boston Prep; Boston Collegiate - Edward Brooke), don't have similar names. Meanwhile, schools that have similar names (Roxbury Prep - Boston Prep; Boston Collegiate - Dorchester Collegiate Academy - Excel Academy), have no relationships with each other.

I don't know how they chose their name, but Dorchester Collegiate Academy seems to have tried to get some cachet by copying parts of their name from previously existing, successful Boston charter schools. Or maybe they just liked the name...

Shovel-Ready Projects in Massachusetts

Recently, Massachusetts requested that various entities submit "shovel-ready" proposals for federal stimulus money. Charter schools have put together a number of proposals which, conveniently, are listed on the first 7 pages of this 120 page PDF.

Massachusetts is supposed to get about $1.2B in total; all entities statewide have requested $10B+ worth of funds. The total requested by charters is about $1B+, so it's clear all projects won't be funded. The state has stated that the most important criteria for funding these projects is how much of an impact the work will have on the economy. Will any consideration be given to how successful these schools are?

Many of the projects seem to fall into the "green" category. There are many window replacement and HVAC projects waiting to be funded. I wonder if these will get special attention because of President Obama's interest in making our country more energy efficient.

I've seen some complaints out in the blogosphere complaining that district schools are not nearly as well represented in the list of proposals. Perhaps this is because districts have the ability to float bonds and access other streams of building funds from the state that charters are precluded from accessing.

A couple of major Boston charter school building developments in the works according to the project descriptions. If these come through, you can add them to Boston Collegiate's purchase of a building in January.

• Excel Academy is pursuing the acquisition and renovation of a former Catholic school building in East Boston. Total cost of purchase and renovation is estimated to be approximately $7.25 million. Renovation of the site will require replacing the electrical system and wiring, wire classrooms for internet, installing bathrooms on every floor, updating interior lighting, upgrading heating/ventilation system and insulation, installing an elevator, and upgrading security and sprinkler systems. Total renovation costs are estimated at $5.5 million.
  
• The Codman Education and Health Center project will build a 30,00 sq. ft. green addition on to the Codman Square Health Center building at 637 Washington St., Dorchester. The project will create space for Codman Academy Charter Public School and Codman Square Health Center, as well as community space. The project will allow for the expansion of the Codman Academy/Codman Square Health Center health professions training program, which introduces high school student to health profession through interships/ mentorship programs. Space created will also be used for community development purposes for art and adult education programs for residents of the community. (Cost: $11M)

• Dorchester Collegiate Academy is in the process of securing a permanent location by April 2009. Our current options will require significant facilities renovation: 1) bringing the facility intocompliance with fire, health, and safety codes and 2) modifications to make the facility ADA compliant. This includes having proper egresses, proper lighting, and proper alarm systems, compliant bathrooms and proper accessibility from the building exterior and to all internal activity spaces. (Cost: $250K)

• The Boston Renaissance Charter Public School proposes to relocate their entire K-6 grade school from their current 15 story building on Stuart Street in the Back Bay to a more spacious 6 acre site in Hyde Park, MA which will have a capacity of 880 students. The new location will enable the diverse school to provide a more appropriate campus setting with greater space and enhanced amenities, including outdoor play areas, that is more centrally located to the majority of students. (Cost: $33M)

Katherine Merseth on Uphams Corner

There's a letter to the editor in today's Globe from Professor Katherine Merseth. Professor Merseth, of Harvard's Graduate School of Education, recently performed did a study of successful Massachusetts charter schools. She discusses her research here.

Uphams Corner and the Challenge Index

I've been thinking a bit about Mike Mayo's piece in the Globe last Sunday, which is linked below.

In it, he writes: "Today, our special-education population hovers around 40 percent. Low-income families represent 93 percent of our population. These levels are far beyond what the governor has proposed, far beyond what the Boston Public Schools serves. Is this failure? Was this "brand" a mistake? We didn't set out to specialize in serving these populations; it just turned out that way."

Mr. Mayo is correct that his school has a difficult population to teach. This year, Uphams Corner has the highest Challenge Index score of any charter middle or middle/high school in Boston. (Numbers courtesy of the DOE).

And yet, it hasn't always been that way. In the early years of the school, Uphams Corner's had a high CI, but one that is comparable to other charter schools in the city. The UCCS population has been getting more and more challenging every year.



Why is that? Mike Mayo seems to think it's because his school attracted "Challege Index" parents. That's one way a percentage can increase. My guess is that it "didn't just turn out that way." My guess is that many non-"Challenge Index" parents (the ones who have a better chance of navigating school choice), fled as soon as they realized how unsuccessful UCCS was. Remember, Uphams had issues retaining teachers and kids, scoring well on tests, and maintaining orderly clasrooms. And of course, once this process started, I'm sure it became a vicious cycle.

Challenge Index

Seems like everyone in the blogosphere is always arguing about the student populations of charter schools - whether they have easier to teach or harder to teach populations than their sending districts. Problem is that there seems to be no consistency in these arguments. I figure we all need one number that combines that reflects the "hard to teach"populations. Maybe I've missed something, but I haven't seen one out there. So I thought I'd come up with something that I'm currently calling "Challenge Index."

The big arguments seems to be about 3 groups: low-income, special education and English language learners, so I thought I'd include those in the index. Here's the system, for what it's worth:

% Limited English Proficient + % Free and Reduced Lunch + % Special Education = CI

The benefit of the system is that it's simple. The flaws...well, there are a lot. But since this is the data is easy to get to on the DOE website, I'm going with it.

First post to include CI data to come soon.

Mike Mayo Responds

Mike Mayo, founder of Uphams Corner, reflected on the school in an Op-Ed in today's Globe. No time to comment now, but here's the link. More to follow later.

To Fill or Not

caroline, a blogger from San Francisco who is vocally opposed to the KIPP schools there (and the one outside commenter on my blog - thanks!), is upset that some (many?) charter schools don't replace kids who leave the school. I can see her point, especially as it affects comparisons to traditional district schools who contend with new students over the course of the school year.

I know that some charters in Boston don't take any kids after the first few months of their intake year; others take kids only during the first few years, and then not afterwards. I can't speak to the specific policies of each school.

I think if you take the view that charter schools make this decision only to boost their scores, I can see why the district schools complain. Not only are their jobs made harder by this decision, but it may inflate the scores of the charters that use this policy.

However, let's look at this policy from the perspective of the students and teachers in the school.
Does it make the jobs of the teachers, who are already teaching a challenging group of kids, a little bit easier? Probably. Does it mean that the kids who stick around get a better education than if their classes were repopulated? Probably. Would district schools choose this policy if they could? Probably.

Let's look at a specific example. Let's say a group of kids entered a school in 5th grade with an average DRA level of about 3rd grade. Let's say that by the beginning of 7th grade, they're reading at a 6th grade level. They've made a year and a half of progress each year. What happens when you add a 7th grader into the school who's reading at a third grade level? Is that good for him? Is it good for his classmates?

Here's what I think. Adding a couple of new students early on in a cohort's time in the school tends not to hurt it too much. It's when schools take in a lot of new students into a cohort (often for financial reasons), that schools and their students (new and old) tend to struggle. Without naming names, I can think of a couple of schools in which this has caused problems over the past couple of years. One of those schools is generally strong; the other is weak. Both schools were weakened partially by taking a lot of new kids.

In the end, it's really a balancing act between what's best for the kids in the school and the school itself, and the needs of the kids on the outside looking in. Since I dedicate a ton of my time to the student I already have, and they have a ton of their own issues, I'd say that I have to side with them and not let it others. But I'm open to persuasion.

What do other people think?

Another Reason Kids Leave

I was just reminded of another reason kids leave charter schools. To go to other charter schools!

Sometime, parents like the idea of charter schools but the fit isn't perfect. I know kids who have been pulled out to go to other charter schools because of behavior policy issues (uniforms, detentions, etc.), because of retention, or because their kid gets into one of the higher achieving schools. (By the way, proof that parents don't use academic achievement as their only criteria of for picking a school, I know of parents at my school who have chosen to pull their kids from a high achieving charter to send them to Uphams Corner, and vice versa).

Here's a second reason I can think of: since there isn't a single charter school in Boston (proper, that is - Prospect Hill in Cambridge/Somerville is K-12) that serves all grades, in many cases parents need to find another place for their kids to go next. If parents like charter schools, but the school doesn't have a middle school or high school, they will pull their kid out of the original school to go to the school that will take them further along in grades, even if that means leaving before the school finishes. With waiting list spots so hard to come by, parents often feel they can't give up a chance to get in as soon as they are offered a spot. Here are some examples, kids being pulled from Boston Renaissance (K-6) to go to Excel (5-8) so their kids are guaranteed a spot through 8th grade, kids being pulled from Edward Brooke (K-8) to go to Boston Collegiate (5-12), MATCH (7-12) or Boston Prep (6-12), so their kid is guaranteed a spot in a charter high school.

Study This

Here's a study I would like to see done that might help us all get a better perspective on the attrition rates and causes at various charter schools. For every student who enters a charter school, get the following information:

1. Basic info - including LEP, SPED, SES, etc
2. Previous school(s) attended.
3. Interviews with parents, teachers re: students skill levels, performance levels, behavior, parental motivation, reasons that parent chose to leave previous school and enroll in the charter schools.
4. Previous assessment data.
5. Entering skill level - given by a neutral party. Say the DRA for reading and Stanford 10 for math.
6. Follow students during time at school - gather data on homework completion, grades, behavior (detentions, suspensions), MCAS scores over time.
7. When kids leave or graduate, record reason from perspective of administrators, teachers, and parents.

Obviously the methodology is ridiculously intensive, but the study might help us to understand where kids are going and why. Of course, charter schools could collect much of this data themselves.

Solvency = Greediness?

The AP has a piece today about an aggregate audit that was performed on the state's charter schools. The study finds that 46 of 57 charter schools are running surpluses, which to me seems like a positive thing. Of course, charter opponents immediately argued that charter schools are being irresponsible.

"Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, said the report shows charter schools are "stockpiling large reserves" when other public schools are struggling to make ends meet.

"It cries out for reform of the charter school funding system," Koocher said. "If they've got money to give back, why don't they give it back to the people they took it from."

Seems to me that charter schools need to be financially solvent to survive. It's not only good budgetary policy, but it means that financial mismangement can't be used as a reason to shut them down.

How is it that charter schools are running surpluses when everyone else is running deficits? Is it because of lower teacher costs (non-union salaries, benefits, etc.)? Is it because of fundraising? I'd be interested to see what percentage of the aggregate surplus ($91.5M) is due to fundraising, and what amount comes from other cost savings.

Shall I Compare Thee to a BPS School?

We all know that when charter schools are compared to district schools, district folk cry foul. Arguing that charter schools "cream" the best students, or parents, or whatnot, they liken comparing BPS and successful charter schools like Boston Collegiate, Roxbury Prep, or Excel Academy to comparing apples and oranges. They argue that these comparisons make them look artificially bad, since their kids are harder to help to succeed to begin with.

I have two thoughts on this.

1) If successful charter schools were barely doing better than the district, I think this would be a better argument. However, successful charter schools are leaving BPS in the dust. I don't think that small differences in student populations can account for major differences in test scores.

Case in point: In 8th grade, 34% of BPS student scored Advanced + Proficient in math last year. Here are the percentages for some of the highest achieving Boston charter schools - Roxbury Prep (86%), Excel Academy (88%), and Boston Prep (93%). They're almost doing 3x as well. I doubt that those students would have been doing as well if they had stayed in BPS. However, I know that some people will never believe in the power of these schools if this is the argument that's put forth. So here's a more powerful one:

2) When the successful charter schools that I'm familiar with in Boston look at MCAS results, comparisons with BPS and the state averages are almost an afterthought. They assume that they're going to do better than these marks. If they don't achieve at this level, it's considered to be a major problem.

Instead, they compare themselves to wealthy, suburban districts like Weston, Wellesley, etc. They believe that only when urban students are consistently doing as well as their wealthy, white peers that we can start talking about the achievement gap being erased. (Whether test scores can really satisfy that condition is another story for another day.) However, I think everyone in urban education should cheer when schools populated with majority low-income and minority students are doing as well or better than kids in high-achieving suburban schools.

I think successful urban charter schools would be better served comparing their students to suburban schools than to their district peers down the street. I think it's a more compelling apples to oranges comparison, and it diffuses one of the main pillars of the creaming argument.

Creaming in Boston Charter Schools

Over at Gotham Schools (and elswhere in the blogosphere), there's an ongoing debate about the nature of charter school skimming (aka creaming). I would agree with most of skoolboy's analysis and would agree that much of it takes place in Boston, too. A few points in response.

1) My experience is that kids entering charter middle schools in Boston from BPS schools are not academically advanced. Most enter charters multiple grade levels behind in reading and math, just like their district school peers. Where these kids are advantaged is that their parents are together enough to make the choice to opt out of BPS (or whatever other schools their kids are in - often parochial, other charter schools, or METCO).

Despite this advantage, they have not been able to keep their kids academically on grade level. I think some charter school opponents imagine that these parents are on top of their kids' learning like wealthy private school parents.

In fact, many charter school parents don't realize that their kids are behind, or the degree to which they are behind; they often choose charter schools for safety and structural reasons (uniforms, etc.).

I would agree, however, that once their children are enrolled, these parents' "togetherness" allows their children to benefit from the structures of successful charter schools.

2) Obviously, some of the students that enter charter schools from BPS schools are high-achieving when they enter. Others, respond quickly to charter school interevention and start to achieve at exceptionally high levels. Interestingly, charter schools often lose many these strongest students after 6th grade, 8th grade or 9th grade when they choose to attend exam schools (Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy, and the O'Bryant School of Math and Science). Some parents see high achieving charter schools as a way to prep their kids for these schools.