Recent Report Shows How Charter Schools are Helping Defy Poverty, Redefine Public Education

Newsweek Magazine’s recent 2012 ranking of “The Best High Schools in America” seeks to identify the nation's top public high schools based on which schools best prepare students for college. Newsweek selects 1,000 schools from more than 22,000 contenders—roughly, the top 5%.

The list can be sorted by several categories, including the percentage of students eligible for school lunch subsidies. Schools where more than fifty-percent of students are eligible for subsidies can be defined as low-income. Using that classification, one can compare schools where poverty is the norm to those where poverty is the exception.
 
Of the 1,000 high schools listed in the Newsweek report, only 75 (7.5%) serve low-income student populations. Further, only 16 of 789 (2%) traditional open enrollment high schools listed in the report are low income. That is an abysmally low percentage. In Florida, for example, more than half of the state's 474 public high schools are low income, but only 9 of 69 Florida schools that made the list are low income.
 
The dearth of “low-income” schools on Newsweek's list underscores the reality that economic advantage often correlates with academic attainment across America. The success attained by the few low income schools that defy this harsh reality merits careful study because they offer hope that being economically disadvantaged needn’t be an insurmountable barrier to academic success.
 
Charter schools are the newest entrants among the four school types designated by Newsweek (open enrollment, lottery enrollment, magnet, and charter). Surprisingly, charters also represent the largest cohort of low-income schools on the list; they appear to be especially effective at delivering college readiness to the children of low-income families. Sixty-nine charter schools made the Newsweek list, 24 of them are low-income schools, 35% of the total. That's an amazingly rapid ascendancy given that not a single charter high school existed 20 years ago in our nation.
 
The discrepancy in the list is glaring: 1 in 20 of the non-charter schools versus 1 in 3 of the charter schools serve majority low income students. As newcomers to the education sphere, charters appear to offer the greatest bang for the buck in tackling the vexing challenge of providing college readiness to low-income students.
 
I’ve had the privilege of working with and visiting some of the high-achieving low-income charter schools across the nation, and they offer a culture of high achievement and expectation that is profoundly motivating. The students at these schools are active and purposeful agents in their own educations. 

I believe that the schools that succeed do so by creating a “culture of learning” that intrinsically motivates students to dedicate great time and effort in becoming educated. This is an intangible property not easily captured by standardized tests alone but that becomes evident in comprehensive reviews like Newsweek’s. By “creating culture,” high performing charter schools are defying poverty and helping redefine what we should expect from public education across America.


Image via www.academica.org

Fernando Zulueta is president of Academica, one of the nation’s largest charter school service and support organizations.  He also serves on the board of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.  Academica serves three of the 24 low-income charter schools that made the Newsweek 2012 list of “Best High Schools.”


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Charter Schools and the Legacy of Brown v. Board of Education

Michigan Results Show That African-American Students Perform Better in Charter Schools

Every year, all public school children in Michigan take a standardized test called the MEAP – Michigan Educational Assessment Program. The purpose of the test is to assess the performance of students and schools using content standards prescribed by state educators.

When the MEAP results are release each spring, researchers and educators in Michigan have a data-filled field day digging through all the numbers. And this year’s MEAP test revealed something quite significant, but not at all surprising:

In both math and reading at every grade level, African-American students in charter schools performed better than African-American students in traditional public schools in their host districts. Students are tested in grades 3-8, so when you combine math and reading, that’s 12 categories altogether. In all 12 of those categories, African-American students in charter schools scored higher in every single grade level for both math and reading.

Wow.

The results were almost as impressive among Hispanic students. Those results showed that Hispanic students in charter schools scored higher on the MEAP than Hispanic students in traditional public schools in 10 of the 12 categories.

The MEAP results also revealed that charter schools in Michigan’s biggest cities continue to outperform the traditional public schools. In the state’s largest city, Detroit – where a whopping 37 percent of children are enrolled in a charter school – charter school students scored 5 percentage points higher in math and 7 percentage points higher in reading.

Taken together, these results are very significant for several reasons. First, they show that charter schools are succeeding when it comes to one of their primary missions – giving parents a quality educational option in places where the local public schools are failing. In Detroit, where the local public schools are most certainly failing, the data tells us that students in charter schools are doing better.

These numbers also show that we’re finally starting to make some progress when it comes to closing the achievement gap that has plagued our public education system for so long. We have a lot of work left to do, but we can finally see that we’re making progress – significant progress.

In Michigan, we’re never going to be truly great again as a state until we have an educational system that offers every child the chance to receive a quality education. As these results show, for African-American and Hispanic students, charter schools are doing a superior job of helping to prepare them for college and success in the 21st century.

There’s a saying in sports that holds true here: “The scoreboard don’t lie.” That’s certainly the case with this year’s MEAP results.

Dan Quisenberry is the President of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies

A Portrait of 2012 Hall of Fame Inductee Jim Griffin

What does the growing K-12 enrollment in Minnesota charters and the decline in district enrollment mean?

As people prepare to come to Minneapolis next week for the national charter conference, they might be interested in this:

• Over the last decade, the number of K-12 students attending charters in Minneapolis has increased by more than 9,000, from 1,921 in school year 2001-02 to 11,125 in school year 2011-12. Over the same time period, the number of K-12 students attending district public schools in Minneapolis decreased from 47,658 to 33,503

• Over the last decade, the number of K-12 students attending charters in Minnesota increased about 29,000, while the number of K-12 students attending Minnesota district schools has declined by more than 45,000. From 2001-02 to 2011-12, Minnesota charter enrollment grew from 10,162 to 39,129, while district K-12 enrollment declined, 831,535 to 785,729.

While the majority of Minnesota youngsters still attend district public schools, trends are clear and strong.

Widespread adoption of cell phones and computers helps explain these startling statistics: The numbers come from a new study our Center did, based on data from the Minnesota Department of Education website. The report is available at www.centerforschoolchange.org.

What does this trend mean for families, and for Minnesota public education? Many families are looking for something different, and they hope, better. But neither district nor charter public schools are always “better.” “Charter public school” like “district public school” tells you nothing about the curriculum, philosophy or instructional approach. Comparing is about as useful as trying to decide which has better gas mileage: leased or purchased cars? Because there are enormous differences within each category, the comparison does not make sense.

But the charter movement has allowed educators and parents to create new, and in some cases, more personalized, distinctive options. That has helped many youngsters and provided valuable opportunities for educators.

That’s in part why Minnesota charter K-12 enrollment rose in the last decade, while district K-12 enrollment declined. It also helps explain why charter enrollment in US charters rose from less than 100 students twenty years ago, to more than two million in the 2011-12 school year. Many Minnesota charters offer something “different.” For example:

• Lakes International offers an elementary Chinese and Spanish immersion in Forest Lake.
• A downtown St. Paul Arts charter makes great use of the nearby Ordway Theater and wonderful nearby dance studios.
• Montessori schools can be found in Swan River School in Monticello and World Learner, Elementary/Middle School in Chaska.
• There are “classical” schools like Spectrum, a small high school in Elk River, Seven Hills, an elementary school in Bloomington, St. Croix Prep, a K-12 in Stillwater, and Cologne Academy in Cologne.
• Mainstream is an Arts High School in Hopkins, and New Heights is a small, personalized K-12 School in Stillwater.
• Northwest Passage High School in Coon Rapids features extensive travel.
• Minnesota New Country has pioneered the Hope Study and project-based learning and has helped start more than 30 other district and charters around the country.
• A Minneapolis charter, Southside Family School, has an extensive civil rights curriculum and takes students periodically to visit legendary civil rights sites in the South.
• Harvest Prep in Minneapolis is constantly on Minnesota's "Beat the Odds" school list and has been asked by Minneapolis Public Schools to help create other schools in the city.
• Trio/Wolf Creek is an online school based in Chisago City.

Photo: St. Paul City Charter School students singing on Minnesota State Capitol steps as part of National Charter School Week celebrations.

Given the array of public charter school options, wise school districts have responded, in part, by offering distinctive programs. For example:

• St. Paul offers a French Immersion, a Hmong Magnet and two Montessori Elementary Schools offer some instruction in Chinese. 
• ISD 196 (a suburban District) offers the “Zoo School” for 11th and 12th graders, and Anoka-Hennepin offers the STEP program for high school students.
• Forest Lake has a Montessori option. Minnetonka provides a Chinese option. Edina offers a French Immersion elementary school.

At least some of these, such as the Forest Lake Montessori, were opened in response to the possibility that parents and educators would set up a charter if the district did not respond. The charter movement has helped some educators and districts recognize that there is no single perfect kind of school for all students. Some educators have recognized that identical does not mean not equal educational opportunity. Saying “one size or format fits all” is like saying everyone can wear a size 8 shoe comfortably.

As Governor Mark Dayton and Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius have suggested, we should learn from the most effective, while offering opportunities to develop new approaches (as has been done with phones and computers). Enrollment trends suggest that wise educators will look for more effective ways to organize learning and teaching. Students don’t need more district or charter public schools. They need more personalized, excellent public schools.



Joe Nathan (pictured above), formerly a Minnesota public school teacher, administrator and PTA president, directs the Center for School Change. Reactions welcome, joe@centerforschoolchange.org.