For those who think charter schools are the answer

http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_14978039

Not all charter schools succeeding

By Sharon Noguchi

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Posted: 04/28/2010 06:07:57 PM PDT
Updated: 04/28/2010 10:04:35 PM PDT

The Obama administration has touted charter schools as a key education reform, based on the phenomenal success some have scored in educating hard-to-teach students.

But just like regular public schools, some charters — publicly funded schools that run independently of school boards and education codes — have washed up on the shoals amid rough seas.

Locally, MACSA Academia Calmecac in San Jose and MACSA El Portal Leadership Academy in Gilroy lost their charters last year over financial irregularities. In perhaps the most embarrassing example, Stanford New Schools in East Palo Alto, a venture of the vaunted university's school of education, two weeks ago was denied a renewal by the Ravenswood City School District.

Charter schools have steadily multiplied, with 809 this year in California, including 34 in Santa Clara County and 16 in San Mateo County.

But the same independence that fosters charter success also hinders outside intervention when schools are flailing.

Take the case of South Bay Preparatory in San Jose, which won a charter two years ago for grades six to nine. The school's opening was delayed a year because it couldn't find a facility. It finally opened last fall with 65 students instead of the 200 planned.

Then South Bay's sponsor, the Santa Clara County Office of Education, determined the converted church auditorium the school was using wasn't appropriate for classes. While South Bay looked for another location, its entire staff resigned or was fired amid infighting and a financial squeeze, and enrollment fell to 39. And the school reported that its $25,000 debt could grow to $75,000 by June.

County charter schools director Lucretia Peeples recommended the board of education revoke the charter. The school, which has until May 13 to rectify its problems, now is down to 18 pupils.

Troubled waters

"We were taken by surprise," said South Bay founder Stephanie Brown, whose own two middle-schoolers don't attend the school. She said her board is still committed to the vision of independent learning and intends to enroll students for 2010-11.

But even schools that pass the facilities hurdle face tough challenges.

Stanford University had all the predictors of success when, in 2001, it opened a high school serving East Palo Alto and eastern Menlo Park — where no public high school had existed for decades. It added an elementary school in 2006. But the school posted test scores so low that it landed on a list of the bottom 5 percent of schools in the state. Last year, Stanford New School students scored 605 on the state's academic performance index, nearly 200 points below the state's goal of 800 for all schools.

Dean Deborah Stipek of Stanford's school of education, contends that comparisons are unfair. "You've got to look at income and poverty and immigration status," she said. "The students don't have the educational role models and social capital."

But economically disadvantaged students in the Stanford schools scored 597 on the API last year, while those in the Sequoia Union High School District, which also serves students from East Palo Alto, scored 652. And similar students at East Palo Alto Charter, a K-8 school, scored 834.

In fact, Stanford posts the lowest scores in the Ravenswood district.

"When it came to learning, the Stanford education professors hurt rather than helped too many of these children," said Bill Evers, a research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and a former U.S. assistant secretary of education.

Ravenswood officials found the charter school's elementary campus chaotic during visits. Both schools suffered from high staff turnover, and in the fall a fourth principal will oversee the high school's 10th year. Because Ravenswood voted not to renew the charter, the elementary school will close in June; Stanford won a two-year extension for the high school and a fifth-grade class.

Stipek said the school is improving. "The lesson we have learned is we do have to be very single-minded if we want to have the kind of scores being asked of us." She touts an increase in students passing the high school exit exam and a 53 percent acceptance rate to four-year colleges.

But critics are skeptical of those claims of progress, given the tiny portion of students scoring proficient on state tests in critical subjects: 16 percent in English, 6 percent in U.S. history, 2 percent in chemistry and zero percent in Algebra II.

In deciding how to vote on the charter renewal, Ravenswood board President Sharifa Wilson said, "I went on the data. The data was very clear."

所有跟帖： 

• Charter school要想成功，基本上要有一个strong的校长 -LilyWhite- ♀ (135 bytes) () 04/29/2010 postreply 08:33:42

• 回复：Charter school要想成功，基本上要有一个strong的校长 -/新绿叶/- ♀ (64 bytes) () 04/29/2010 postreply 08:41:09

• 咱俩说岔了。怨我没头没脑没说清 -LilyWhite- ♀ (250 bytes) () 04/29/2010 postreply 08:51:17

• 回复：咱俩说岔了。怨我没头没脑没说清 -/新绿叶/- ♀ (15 bytes) () 04/29/2010 postreply 09:03:20

• 也许选择学校的时候多检验学校的历史可以帮助.我家边上有个 -MMXIAO- ♀ (319 bytes) () 04/29/2010 postreply 08:44:22

• 回复：也许选择学校的时候多检验学校的历史可以帮助.我家边上有个 -/新绿叶/- ♀ (23 bytes) () 04/29/2010 postreply 09:06:44

• 回复：也许选择学校的时候多检验学校的历史可以帮助.我家边上有个 -/新绿叶/- ♀ (82 bytes) () 04/29/2010 postreply 09:14:11

• 上次我转的那篇，Stanford办的charter school都失败了。 -毕小珠-- ♀ (0 bytes) () 04/29/2010 postreply 09:19:40

• 这个话题很热嘛，前两天pbs刚讨论过，还推销书来着。 -婪妈- ♀ (0 bytes) () 04/29/2010 postreply 09:23:20