Monthly Archive - September 2007

Good national NAEP gains reported yesterday, with math performance outstripping reading. The Feds didn't report charter performance, but Alliance sleuths have dug into the NAEP data base and unearthed the conclusions. Bottom line: a little slippage at fourth grade but strong gains at eighth. And Latino charter students are outperforming their non-charter counterparts in reading and math across the board, while African-American charter 8th-graders are now leading their peers in district-run schools in reading.

You have to look for it but there’s some charter news in John Edwards’ eduplan, released last Friday. Note the passing mention of public charter schools in the list of “schools that are helping children from all backgrounds succeed” -- though of course that’s true. More surprising is the nod to the “new schools” strategy — the idea that in addition to fixing schools you have to replace some of them with healthy new ones, charter and otherwise.

There are a lot of reasons why including growth measures in NCLB will help schools do a better job with low-achievers;