I love seeing a facilities success story for a public charter school since facilities is one of the biggest challenges for charter schools. As you read this article, you'll see how this school is in multiple locations which is often the case for public charters. As we move forward, I hope to see more positive relationships develop between districts and charter schools especially where facilities are concerned as many charter schools do not have a feasible option to purchase land and build a new facility such as this school.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Monday, September 9, 2013
New York Charter School Teacher Uses Error Analysis
New Ed Tech Helps Bronx Teacher Increase Her Impact on Students
Bronx, NY- Julissa Soriano, a teacher of ninth grade Algebra at the Frederick Douglas Academy III charter school in the Bronx, believes strongly in error analysis as a means to helping students improve their understanding of math. Error analysis is the use of errors to understand what a student needs to work on, also called a student’s knowledge gaps. Error analysis is often used in teaching mathematics, where a student’s grasp of key concepts and skills can be readily identified as weak or strong by having students provide answers to a series of problems that require those concepts and skills.
One-on-one attention is crucial to student improvement. Ms. Soriano’s error analysis approach replicates one-on-one attention. By identifying the exact concepts and skills each student needs to study and then assigning topics based on those concepts and skills, she has attempted to maximize her impact on her students. Though she can’t reduce class sizes, this is one way she can try to improve the learning experience for all of her students.
In the past, Ms. Soriano has done all of the error analysis for her classes on her own. She would distribute assessments, collect and analyze the data, and then address student knowledge gaps based on what she found.
“I could ask myself, ‘Based on this mistake, what is this student’s knowledge gap?’” she said in a recent interview, detailing her old approach to using error analysis. Her method was straightforward and effective, but also time consuming for a full-time teacher with a heavy course load, and hundreds of students with errors to analyze.
A solution arrived in the form of a new online math program called LearnBop. While using the program students are able to ask for hints. Each hint addresses a specific concept or skill needed to answer the problem. The program records individual student performance and overall class performance using the problems and hints, producing in-depth diagnostic reports that can be used immediately by teachers for error analysis.
Ms. Soriano said she’d tried other programs that did similar things, “but none of the other programs were as useful as LearnBop. All of the side work was done for me.”
Since Julissa didn’t have to spend time collecting and organizing error analysis data, she was freed to turn all of her attention to her students and their needs. She says she now uses LearnBop’s color coordination for student knowledge gaps to group students into similar knowledge groups, so they can work on the topics of most importance to them. The wide implementation of such programs in public schools could represent a real step toward closing the achievement gap.
Since Julissa didn’t have to spend time collecting and organizing error analysis data, she was freed to turn all of her attention to her students and their needs. She says she now uses LearnBop’s color coordination for student knowledge gaps to group students into similar knowledge groups, so they can work on the topics of most importance to them. The wide implementation of such programs in public schools could represent a real step toward closing the achievement gap.
LearnBop is currently offering a free, month-long pilot to teachers this Fall. Click here to learn more: http://go.learnbop.net/schools
The Value in Parent Outreach Shows in Student Performance
Marcos Breton: A reason for hope at Father Keith B. Kenny Elementary School
Published: Wednesday, Sep. 4, 2013 - 12:00 am | Page 1B
Last Modified: Wednesday, Sep. 4, 2013 - 7:47 am
On the first day of school, on a campus recently on life support, hope greeted children Tuesday morning as the bell rang for instruction at Father Keith B. Kenny Elementary.
It's not false hope, either. Test scores are up at the campus on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in the heart of Oak Park, recently considered one of the worst schools in the Sacramento City Unified School District.
Now Kenny kids have scored over 800 – the state's target – in the Academic Performance Index. That's a departure from 70 percent of schools in the county that didn't.
Since it was made a "priority school" by Superintendent Jonathan Raymond, Kenny has seen a 182-point increase in API scores since 2009 – from 631 to 813.
How was this possible on a campus of 420 kids who are all eligible for free or reduced-price lunches?
Put simply: a break from teacher union seniority rules. Amid high teacher turnover due to layoffs and budget cuts, Raymond's handpicked principal, Gail Johnson, used Education Code rules on training and experience to bypass seniority requirements and maintain a stable teaching staff.
This was possible because teachers at Kenny and the district's other priority schools were trained in analyzing detailed data, making home visits to promote parent involvement, and teaching lessons on largely minority campuses with materials that didn't ignore the students' cultures as school materials in the past might have.
With this specialized training, exemptions to seniority rules were upheld in court after the local teachers union sued Sacramento City Unified to stop the practice.
That's critical, because a school like Kenny might otherwise have seen a revolving door of teachers.
Continuity in Kenny's staff created stability. Stability allowed teachers to take a step back and determine where students were stumbling. "It was a sad situation here before," Johnson said Tuesday. "This wasn't a place filled with hope."
Now comprehension in math and English is the mantra. Teachers at Kenny emphasize critical thinking – not simply reading pages but digesting the curriculum.
At nearby Oak Ridge Elementary, another formerly troubled school, teachers plan together. They built teamwork by gathering before the school year started. They made 205 after-hours home visits last year, up from 51 in 2011.
In this way, they connected with the people living with the students they send home every day.
Oak Ridge has also seen big gains in API scores. The campus was alive with enthusiasm Tuesday.
"We're trying to show the community we can change a lot of things in our schools," said Raymond, who utilized federal funding to pump $4 million a year into priority schools.
"We changed a lot of things, but we didn't change the children."
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Schools That Change Communities Trailer
DVR this documentary on your public channel because it's worth the watch. I was able to watch "Schools That Change Communities" on KVIE here in Sacramento. The documentary highlights several public schools throughout the country and how they are connecting with their communities to create meaningful understanding and change for both students and communities.
Saturday, September 7, 2013
A Look at the Political Environment of Charter Schools in California
Viewpoints: Education board can save these great schools
Published: Saturday, Jul. 27, 2013 - 12:00 am | Page 11A
Last Modified: Thursday, Aug. 8, 2013 - 9:50 pm
One of the best elementary schools in California isn't in San Francisco or Beverly Hills. It happens to be located at 171 12th Street in Oakland, of all places, next to a trash-strewn lot and across the street from one of the most hideous parking garages I've ever seen.
About 650 elementary school kids attend American Indian Public Charter School II in what used to be a Wells Fargo Bank office. In the 2011-12 school year, the students scored a remarkable 981 out of 1,000 on the state's academic performance index, ranking fourth in the state. No wonder parents from across the downtrodden city clamor to get their children enrolled there.
Yet by the end of this coming school year, odds are AIPCS II and its equally high-performing sisters, American Indian Public Charter School and American Indian Public Charter High School, will lose their charters and be forced to close. More than 1,200 students will be scattered to inferior public schools across Oakland Unified School District, which itself may be on the cusp of returning to state receivership for the second time in a decade.
All that's left between American Indian's kids and bureaucratic oblivion is a reprieve from theCalifornia State Board of Education, which isn't as charter-friendly as it used to be.
It might seem strange – downright immoral, even – that the trustees of a school board which can't manage to keep its own house in order would vote to strip three highly successful schools of their charters. It may appear stranger that the Alameda County Board of Education last month would affirm the district's decision, giving lip service to the students' tremendous achievements before voting to cast them out.
The revocation rests on an "extraordinary audit" of the schools last year by the state's Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, which alleged the school's former executive director, Ben Chavis, and his wife made more than $3.8 million from the schools on construction, leases and consulting deals in violation of California's Political Reform Act.
Chavis is outspoken, profane and politically incorrect. When he took over American Indian in 2000, it was the worst school in Oakland and the district was one vote away from closing it for good. Within a few years, Chavis added two campuses – he owned the buildings and rented them out at below-market rates – and his no-nonsense model disproved once and for all the notion that poor, minority kids can't excel. Graduates from the schools attend MIT, Stanford and UC Berkeley.
He also made enemies. When the extraordinary audit came out, Chavis stepped down. Although he has nothing to do with the daily operations of the schools, he is still their landlord. I met him last week at the 12th Street campus, which had been visited by the FBI and IRS a week earlier. The feds executed a sealed warrant on the schools, as well as Chavis' home. They want to know whether Chavis misused a federal afterschool program grant.
"If I did what they say," Chavis told me, "then I should go to jail." But he insists he did nothing wrong. Everything was disclosed on the schools' IRS 990 forms, which is required by law, and independently audited, which is not.
Most people would find it noteworthy that the Alameda County district attorney chose not to pursue any criminal charges against Chavis. Alameda County school officials, however, are not "most people." According to the county, "It is irrelevant that the contracts were reviewed by the (American Indian) Board, or that Dr. Chavis gave (the schools) a favorable rental rate, or that (the school) has separated itself from Dr. Chavis, or that Dr. Chavis has not been criminally prosecuted for his actions."
Actually, it's highly relevant to the families whose children will need to find new schools if the local and county board rulings hold up. It's relevant, too, because a number of other charter operators have faced serious prison time for similar allegations of corruption involving far lesser sums of money.
But all of the handwringing about Chavis' alleged conflicts of interest obscures the real issue: the American Indian schools are an embarrassment to the education establishment. Even district officials concede the schools are successful.
Trouble is, they're too successful. American Indian doubled its enrollment in the 18 months leading to the audit. "We're costing them $18 (million) to $20 million a year" in average daily attendance money, Chavis says, adding that American Indian's per-pupil costs are substantially less than the district schools.
American Indian's current leadership hopes the State Board of Education will look kindly on their appeal. The question for board members is whether they'll let raw politics and disdain for charter schools trump extraordinary student achievement. We'll know soon enough.
KIPP Public Charter Schools
Charter school experiment a success: Our view
The Editorial Board, USA TODAY 8:39 p.m. EDT April 1, 2013
The arrival of charter schools in any city usually starts a fight.
Critics — whether district superintendents or teachers' unions or school boards or a traveling band of academic doubters — snipe at the newcomers, arguing that they're siphoning students and money from traditional public schools.
But as evidence from the 20-year-old charter experiment mounts, the snipers are in need of a new argument. There's little doubt left that top-performing charters have introduced new educational models that have already achieved startling results in even the most difficult circumstances.
That doesn't mean all charters are automatically good. They're not. But it's indisputable that the good ones — most prominently, KIPP — are onto something. The non-profit company, which now has 125 schools, operates on a model that demands much more of students, parents and teachers than the typical school does. School days are longer, sometimes including Saturday classes. Homework burdens are higher, typically two hours a night. Grading is tougher. Expectations are high, as is the quality of teachers and principals, and so are the results.
KIPP's eighth-grade graduates go to college at twice the national rate for low-income students, according to its own tracking. After three years, scores on math tests rise as if students had four years of schooling, according to an independent study.
The question isn't whether such successful models should be replicated, but how best to do it. In some forward-thinking communities, that reality is altering the stale charter debate.
Houston's Spring Branch school district, for instance, courted two proven charter companies — KIPP and YES Prep — to open schools with their own teachers and principals inside two existing public schools. Finding and paying for space is one of the biggest obstacles charters face.
The charters started last fall with fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms, and they plan to expand over the next few years. They're sharing ideas and programs with district teachers and principals. In exchange, the district is providing the extracurricular activities, from band classes to sports, that charters often lack.
Richard Barth, CEO of the KIPP Foundation, says similar collaborations have sprung up across the country, where civic leaders have moved past the "charter vs. district debate" and are asking themselves: "How do we just make sure that every child in the city gets to wake up in the morning and go to a great school?"
This revolutionary change is coming at a propitious moment: A rigorous new study of KIPP, the nation's best known and most scrutinized charter network, blew away criticism that has fueled the charter fight. Critics have long contended that KIPP's success with minority and low-income children is less about its methods than about skimming the best students with the most motivated parents. Not so, the five-year study of 43 KIPP middle schools concluded.
Instead, Mathematica Policy Research found that KIPP schools improved student achievement in math, reading, science and social studies. Researchers compared students who had won lotteries to enter KIPP schools against students in the lotteries who lost out. Thus, students and their parents were equally motivated. Even so, the KIPP students did better.
The sooner educators figure out how to replicate charter successes, the better off students will be.
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