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.