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.