Despite the documented failure of the Tennessee Achievement District, the Charlotte Observer thinks it is worth a try to copy the same model in North Carolina. In Tennessee, the ASD was created to take over neighborhood public schools that rated in the lowest 5% in the state based on test scores and give them to charter operators. Within five years, starting in 2012, those charter schools would rank in the top 25% in the state. But the ASD schools are not on track to show any improvement.
Gary Rubinstein demonstrated that four of the original six schools in the ASD remained in the bottom 5%, while the other two are in the bottom 6%.
A recent Vanderbilt study concluded that the ASD schools were ineffective, although they held out hope that they might get better over time.
Ron Zimmer of Vanderbilt said the study showed that the district’s own innovative public schools outperformed the charters:
Zimmer’s team, which was asked by the state to keep tabs on progress from the outset, zoomed in on test data more closely than the typical measures of “below basic” and “proficient.” While there were some changes year-to-year — up and down — there was no statistical improvement on the whole, certainly not enough to catapult these low-performing schools into some of the state’s best, which was the lofty goal.
“It may be a little disappointing to those who were advocating for the Achievement School District that we haven’t seen better results at this point,” Zimmer says.
The Vanderbilt researchers found more encouraging results with the turnaround efforts known as iZones led by local districts in Memphis and Nashville.
Chalkbeat Tennessee stressed that if the state wants real improvement, it should look to the iZone model run by the Shelby County public schools.
Days before the Tennessee Achievement School District is to announce whether it will take over five more Memphis schools next year, Vanderbilt has released a study suggesting the city’s low-performing schools would be better off in Shelby County Schools’ Innovation Zone.
The study, released Tuesday, shows that iZone schools have sizeable positive effects on student test scores, while the ASD’s effects are marginal. That means that students at ASD schools are performing mostly at the same low levels they likely would have had their school not been taken over by the state-run school turnaround district.
A little over a year ago, two Metro Nashville school board members complained that the ASD (which now manages 27 charter schools) wanted to take over one of Nashville’s high-performing public schools as a way of boosting ASD’s lackluster performance. Parents were outraged, as they were in many of the other takeover schools.
While the charter movement is allegedly predicated on parental “choice,” that choice seems to vanish when appointed ASD officials decide to impose a charter school on a community. The ASD is pushing forward despite protests by parents, teachers, community members, a variety of elected officials from the community (including current and former school board members), and even the MNPS Director of Schools.
Why, under these circumstances, would the ASD insist upon a hostile takeover of Neely’s Bend when other local schools clearly require more attention? The answer is simple: The ASD is trying to save itself. It has cherry-picked a school to boost its own dismal performance. This is a prime example of a government bureaucracy attempting to justify its own existence.
Although originally conceived as something very different, the ASD has become a way for state officials to hand over neighborhood schools to charter operators. This has not proven to be an effective solution. Despite higher per pupil expenditures (the exact amount has not been revealed), the ASD is underperforming. In Memphis, where nearly all ASD schools are located, district-operated schools outpace ASD schools, and, in fact, the ASD overall showed negative growth in every single subject area in 2014.
The ASD did take over Neely’s Bend, and just last month the Black Caucus in the Legislature called for a halt to ASD expansion because of community opposition and no results.
Why should North Carolina adopt a model that has shown no results? What is it about failure that the Charlotte Observer editorial board likes? Why not adopt proven practices that strengthen public schools–like reducing class size, adding a health clinic– instead of handing them over to privately operated charters?
They don’t care, Diane. They simply prefer charter schools over public schools.
“Most local charter schools got F’s in K-3 Literacy on the recently released state report card, failing to help struggling kindergarten through third-grade readers make adequate improvement.
Of the 15 Montgomery County charter schools that were graded in K-3 Literacy improvement, 13 received F’s. Charter schools accounted for eight of the 10 worst K-3 Literacy improvement scores in the county (of 69 graded schools), with two Dayton Public Schools also on that list.”
John Kasich is right now barnstorming New Hampshire promoting charter schools. You would think he would check on the charter schools in the state he supposedly governs, but you would be wrong.
http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/news/news/local-education/charter-schools-fail-on-states-k-3-literacy-push/nqB9S/
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
It is the American way to follow other states failed experiments. Texas is following the failed of assigning letter grades to individual campuses.
https://davidrtayloreducation.wordpress.com/2015/01/22/the-scarlet-letter-again/
Can anyone imagine a business looking at the data of a failed business venture and saying, “Dang! We have just got to get in on this thing!”
I want to invest in Enron…
Too late to invest in Enron. You should have gotten in sooner.
Enron…a failed business like some of the failed education ideas that keep resurfacing.
Send my as much money to me as you can David and I send you some failed business plans in return!!!
I’ll get right on that Duane
“Critics also are wary of Bryan’s proposal because Bryan is a Republican. We get the skepticism. N.C. Republicans have chronically underfunded public schools while encouraging charter schools to flourish without proper transparency and accountability. It’s not far-fetched to see Bryan’s plan as another way to deemphasize public schools.”
But let’s continue to completely ignore what they do and instead rely on what they say.
They’re just ga-ga over charter schools. That’s the plain truth. They will twist themselves into knots to justify replacing public schools with charters.
Ohio has a 15 year record, and they continue to defund public schools and build more charters. They’re getting ready to privatize a whole city district, with funding and support from the Obama Administration.
Maybe the operator’s are just ga-ga over getting money from the government without having to do anything more than move themselves into position. They can become supes and principals (CEO’s) without going to school, investing their own money, or even working (hire someone else cheap.) Just sit back and collect a high rate of return for nothing.
Another rheephorm “innovation”: juke the numbers & stats by stealing a star from the competition—
Your numbers go up! Their numbers go down!
😱
And that proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that corporate education reform works.
Rheeally!
But not really…
😎
Reblogged this on Politicians Are Poody Heads and commented:
They love the charters, even in the face of statistics that show they don’t nearly live up to the hype.
Let’s face it, with charters, you get to rid yourself of teachers’ unions, you get to hire poorly-trained or barely-trained teachers at much less pay, you get to use public tax money with no public oversight. What’s not to like, for charter proponents, anyway.
The kids? Who cares about the kids? They’re not doing this for the benefit of the kids.
The explanation- The majority of North Carolinians are happy, as the rich, right-wing’s chattel (or, ignorant) and, the newspaper and politicians know it.
Since N.C. voters are enamored with plutocratic domination, to prevent further hypocrisy, they owe it to America to stop cashing their Social Security checks.
Smokey Mountain News reported recently that Chancellor David Belcher sees no problem with Koch influence on publicly-created and funded college campuses. A document written by Prof. Lopez, of Western Carolina University (available on-line), spells out the eagerness that exists in N.C., for Koch management of tax-funded assets.
It appears, a couple of $ million, to the college, will buy student exposure to the messaging of the richest 0.2%, possibly in perpetuity.
The purchase of university personnel and property would be made, much more efficient and profitable, with a Priceline-bidding system.
And to clear the way for the types of jobs they want to see in NC—possibly low wage, and in this right to work state, that could fly. Where once we recruited PhDs and research companies to RTP, I think current leadership has other ideas in mind.
Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? When did North Carolina become infected with a roaring case of stupidity?
It’s the public schools fault. I’m not sure why folks like the Kochs, Gates, Broad want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs (public schools) that they happily steal. You’d think they’d be doubling down on public schools so that so many more idiologues will do their bidding.
Why don’t all the newspapers just fold into one national newspaper? They all say the same thing anyway. I know, it could be called Pravda.
As Homer Simpson once asked: “Why do things that only happen to stupid people keep happening to me?”
If they just renamed all of the public schools of N.C, “The Charter Schools of North Carolina” and changed absolutely nothing else about them, then would the people of NC be happy? Perhaps add a meaningless caption to their districts’ websites like, “Employing the methods and philosophies of the charter school approach”?
But Mike, then no one would make a profit.
The sad truth.