John Merrow raised this question in his PBS show about Rocketship charters.
I have not visited one of these schools so do not pass judgement on them. I can say without qualification that I would not want my grandchildren to attend a school where children spent two hours a day in front of a computer screen doing point and click. I have heard that these charters offer no art or music. I hope that’s not true. I will wait to hear from others.
But the key question here is: Is it possible to “mass produce” a high quality school.
My assumption here is that the goal is to cut costs by replacing teachers with computers and having a “system” that can be managed by inexperienced, low-cost teachers.
My answer is that the question is an oxymoron. Any school that is “mass produced” [i.e., teacher-proofed] cannot be high quality. Just as one cannot mass produce a string quartet, or mass produce great families, or great anything, one cannot mass produce a great school. A high quality school has a culture made up of its principal and teachers. They cannot be mass produced. Period.
John Merrow’s show last night was called: Profiling Rocketship Education
“Rocketship Education operates seven schools in San Jose, California that are among the top performing low income schools in the state. The dream was to eventually serve one million students. Although others have tried, nobody has successfully mass produced a high quality, cost effective school model. Will Rocketship be the first?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The upside to this business model is that much larger classes give owners the opportunity to cut many teachers, as Tom Vander Ark has boasted.
The stumbling block to this business model is also no secret. How do you keep students engaged for 2 hours while drilling themselves in math and reading, day in and day out?
And all the jokes about the galvanic bracelet to monitor student engagement that Gates funded?
Just a business solution to a business problem.
Schooling and “mass production”…………………only in America!
Sheez…what a bunch of hooey. The business model (FACTORY) is inappropriate for education, just like FOR PROFIT jails is BAD for this country are inappropriate. Guess it’s money, money, money — the root of many evils.
“Just as one cannot mass produce a string quartet….”
I may have to steal that someday.
Rocketship operates charters that enroll students via application. Therefore, it necessarily follows that the Rocketship will enroll a different mix of students than the low-SES-area neighborhood public schools. In low-SES areas, many parents are too unconcerned/dysfunctional to learn about the charter, to successfully complete the application process, and to provide daily transportation to the charter. The neighborhood public school will enroll all of the children of the unconcerned/dysfunctional parents as well as some of the children of he concerned/functional parents (who decide not to enroll in Rocketship). Rocketship, by contrast, will enroll only children of the concerned/functional parents.
For this reason, it is comparing apples to oranges to compage Rocketship test scores with neighborhood public school test scores.
If Rocketship thinks it has discovered the secret to effectively educating low-SES-area students, let Rocketship take over a low-SES-area neighborhood school — enrolling all the neighborhood school children and only the neighborhood school children — and let’s see how Rocketship’s model works when Rocketship has the same apples as the neighborhood public school.
There is someone who has done this before and that is Richard Arthur. In 1970 he took over the most violent and criminal high school in the U.S. Castlemont High School. They had constant gunfights on campus and eventually killed the principal in their office. There was not one more even fistfight after Richard took over. In less than 4 years over 50% dropout to almost 0% and to college went from 5-65%. Then the SLA assinated Marcus Foster and attempted the same on Richard. He had a family and moved back to the L.A. area and helped to found Whitney High School in Cerritos which for more than 25 years has been one of the highest performing public high schools in the U.S. The rules are simple. Richard is still alive and has his mind and is willing to talk about how he did this. The “Fish Rots from the Head” is the way to think about this. If you have bad leadership that does not understand students and their needs you will always get a bad outcome. Those who have really turned around schools should all be brought together and they should brainstorm not the losers of consultants who collect large fees and never do anything useful.
I saw the PBS segment and ended up with several questions that the show did not answer, and several thoughts.
First, is Rocketship a profit-making enterprise? I looked on their website, and it seems that they are a 501(c)3, but that still does not answer the question of how much public money is being spread around, and to whom. Walton provides start-up costs.
Second, to what extent do they serve the same student population? Their website denies skimming, but I saw nothing in the PBS report on this topic. Do we just take their word for it? Little is spelled out about special education services and how this is handled.
Some of the other points you raised were addressed in the segment. No art, no music. The computer lab time is supervised by non-teachers (hourly workers) who oversee large groups. The reporter said he saw a fair number of children just sitting there unengaged by the point and click lessons. I would like to know real numbers or percentages. Also, the website makes clear that even kindergarteners are in the lab. This seems developmentally inappropriate.
The principal of the San Jose Rocketship charter stated that the school begins with “high expectations.” Well, I work in an urban public school, and I have high expectations too.
John Danner, the Rocketship founder said the following about unions: “We’re a startup. You know, in startups, you basically do something different every day. Any major school district has a 450-page kind of contract that literally says minute by minute what teachers are supposed to do. So the fit between how that’s evolved and what Rocketship is like is just a bad fit.” Where do they get these ideas? If this is true, please quote me the relevant text. My union contract has virtually nothing to say about what goes on in the classroom. Oh wait, there are some class size guidelines. Isn’t that a good thing?
One final nugget from their website: students are given standardized tests every 8 weeks.
Frankly, I expected a more thorough job from PBS. I also could have done without the Model T Ford analogy.
Despite its non-profit status, Rocketship Charter can turn an enormous profit from selling its software for drilling students to any traditional public schools district in the US, Australia, Canada or UK.
Months back, Rocketship’s web site described this as its “micro-reach strategy.”
The strategy spreads the two-hour daily drills throughout a public school district. It doesn’t limit the practice to only charter schools.
It is, I believe, the real reason behind lengthening the school day in the Chicago district.
The profits will be reinvested in the spread of charter schools in urban districts.