The state-appointed superintendent of the Camden, Néw Jersey, public schools announced that five public schools would be handed over to private charter chains. These schools will receive “significant” renovations to prepare them for the takeover by private managers. Three private organizations–KIPP, Mastery, and Uncommon Schools–have been designated to take over the schools and students.
“”This marks a new beginning for five of Camden’s most-struggling schools,” predicted Paymon Rouhanifard, the district’s state-appointed superintendent. “We hope this will be remembered as the moment we turned the corner.”
“A different view came from Save Our Schools New Jersey, an education-advocacy group. It asserted the schools were being “given” to private operators “to ensure a forced supply of students.”
“The people of Camden had no say in this decision,” said the group, which noted the city district is under state control and does not have an elected school board.
“Current staffers at the five schools would have to interview for new positions with the renaissance schools, Rouhanifard said.”
Read more about the superintendent here and here. Here is Jersey Jazzman’s description of his resume: Teach for America, Goldman Sachs, And a high staff position in the Néw York City’s Department of Education. He was 32 when Governor Chris Christie appointed him.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Wasn’t Christie overheard saying “We don’ need no public skools here in New Jersey”? — Edd Doerr
The 2013 Credo study says charter schools, especially those operated by the best operators like these, get much better results in urban centers like Camden. http://urbancharters.stanford.edu/download/Urban%20Charter%20School%20Study%20Report%20on%2041%20Regions.pdf
I think there’s every reason to believe that Camden charters will do as well as Newark ones; more than 0.2 standard deviations in ELA and Math growth scores, which equates to more than 144 additional days of learning per year.
The study also shows that the charter sector is improving each year. I think the majority of critics don’t care about results and care more about the adult interests than the children. If your own children were behind (and most in urban centers are), wouldn’t you want them in a school with that much extra growth per year?
Amazing work is happening in urban charters, and those who refuse to look at recent data or to look at it objectively for political reasons are doing a disservice to communities like Camden and their children.
You have drunk the Kool-Aid. http://goo.gl/SNZ4U1
Credo was just fine when you agreed with their findings, and I’m pretty confident they will continue to quoted on parts of their report that support the agendas here.
If you find something that analyzes their methodology and finds fault with it, I’ll happily read it.
John,
You fail to note that charters serve different populations than public schools. They have fewer ELLs, free and reduced lunch recipients and expensive to educate Special Education students. Moreover, they counsel out children lagging behind and those exhibiting behavior problems. Nice try though!
Not true. KIPP’s Camden school serves more Special Needs and more students receiving Free lunches. KIPP’s Newark schools serve the same demographics as the district. Nice try though!
How many autistic kids are served by Kipp in Newark???
Ben,
How many kids did KIPP and other charters dump back into NPS after October 15th?
John,
To be honest we could quote studies at each other forever with no resolution. It all depends on who conducts and funds the studies. As philaken’s link notes, the second CREDO group certainly has some interesting connections.
The new charters will do what all charters do. Game the system to get their “results.” I teach in a community that borders Detroit. We’re open enrollment. Concerned parents in Detroit first try to win charter lotteries. When they do, their kids attend the charter until the charter determines whether the kid “fits” there. We get kids kicked to us every year from the charter who are nice kids with supportive parents but so far behind academically that it’s incredible. The charters view them as low achievers who don’t help their test score narrative and find creative ways to “encourage” them to attend school elsewhere.
I’m sure charters do a good job with a very narrow group of students. Students they essentially choose after a trial period. But they aren’t miracle schools and they don’t really provide a service that’s any different or better than the surrounding public schools. They just get to be more selective over time and use their “private school”-ish rules to avoid things like backfill.
I had three students added to my class this year that cme from charters. They arrived a week before state testing. Charters got the money but we got their test scores (even though they had attended our school for only the prior week).
This is the problem with test score evaluations for studies. It can be gamed quite easily.
It is embarrassing to read something so empty.
First, a “one-blog” refutation—Jersey Jazzman. Please google.
Second, when comparing groups, make sure the groups are comparable. [Gerald Bracey, READING EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH: HOW TO AVOID GETTING STATISTICALLY SNOOKERED, 2006]
Although, to be honest, after the embarrassment I experienced another feeling:
“A day without laughter is a day wasted.” [Charlie Chaplin]
This day, on this blog, on this thread, was not wasted.
Thank you.
😎
John,
“. . . more than 0.2 standard deviations in ELA and Math growth scores, which equates to more than 144 additional days of learning per year.”
Please explain that stat. As it is it means nothing.
Thanks,
Duane
What do you mean by “best operators”? Stanford research shows that charters nationwide are no better or worse than public schools. Only 18% or something of those nationwide are considered better, while one third of them turn out to be worse than public schools. In reformers narrative, charters are supposed to be better performers than public schools–but overwhelming numbers of those prove otherwise.
That well deserves a letter F to me.
The CREDO study compares charter school math and reading test scores to traditional public schools’ math & reading test scores, taking care to compare demographically similar students . A “complex statistical algorithm” is used to translate increased test scores into “additional days of school instruction delivered.” All conclusions rest on the validity of this algorithm.
I fail to see how changes in test scores translate to number of instructional days delivered. I have to assume we’re talking about standardized tests delivered across the board. As far as I know, there is not a standardized test in existence which corresponds to curriculum delivered (with the possible exception of the old NYS Regents’ Exams).
It’s one thing to assert that charter schools delivered math & English test scores which were x% higher than those of public school students. That information would be interesting, although not world-shaking. It would inform us about charter-school test-prep methods.
However. The number of instructional days delivered– days not spent on test-prep– have intrinsic value. They in fact are what education is all about. Unlike standardized tests, whose recent authors (SBAC & PARCC) take care to present as a mere snapshot of where students are at on a particular day, & cannot represent overall student performance.
Here on the ground, it’s pretty obvious that time spent on test-prep and testing subtracts from instructional days delivered. Hence the OPT-OUT movement.
Results are further undermined by the simple fact that there are no across-the-board standardized tests for the cohort studied. Precisely which tests were used for whom & how do they compare? I cannot find this info in the CREDO study report.
They are finally fixing up these schools as a wrapped gift for profiteers. Why not just fix them up and let the public schools thrive on their own?
How sad…At least we know what goes around comes around…no one takes Chris Christie seriously, and he has 0% chance of becoming President of the U.S. What a mess he has created….
Hi Sad,
We are taking Christie pretty seriously here in Jersey. He has bludgeoned the pension and Cami Anderson is my boss.
My condolences for the last five words!
Christie’s latest proposal: put pension fund mgt into the hands of those outfits which have contributed the most to Republican party & his own campaigns. Of course, he’s ALREADY BEEN DOING THAT! but seeks to ramp this up to bigtime.
Here’s how this method has resulted so far for pensioners: “As Christie has moved more pension money into those private equity, hedge fund, real estate and venture capital firms, the state’s pension returns have trailed the median, while taxpayer fees paid to financial managers has skyrocketed to $600 million a year. Christie officials have increased the pension system’s payouts to financial firms at the same time the governor has argued that New Jersey must slash retirement benefits for police officers, firefighters, teachers and other public employees.”
http://www.ibtimes.com/chris-christie-officials-propose-100-million-top-donor-republican-governors-1857758
Somewhere on NPR’s “All Things Considered” today late aft, I listened to a discussion as to how this scenario could even be legal, given NJ’s strict “Pay to Play” laws. The answer was simple: ever since the 2010 Citizens’ United decision, this sort of thing happens outside the scope of our state laws. Legally.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
“The people of Camden had no say in this decision,” said the group, which noted the city district is under state control and does not have an elected school board—is this the beginning of the end of democracy starting at the bottom?
File this under “unintended consequences” :
“The school-choice movement is built on the philosophy that competition forces schools to improve.
But new research on New Orleans – arguably the nation’s most competitive school market — suggests that school leaders are less likely to work on improving academics than to use other tactics in their efforts to attract students.
Of the 30 schools examined in the study, leaders at just 10 — or one-third of the total — said they competed for students by trying to improve their academic programs or operations. Leaders at far more schools — 25 — said they competed by marketing their existing programs, including with signs, billboards, t-shirts, home visits and incentives for parents to refer potential students.”
“These school leaders do not always respond to competition in the ways that policymakers hope,” said the study’s author, Huriya Jabbar, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin.”
Public schools now advertise in Ohio. They have to, to “compete” with charters. It’s a shame.
I once got a direct mail solicitation from an Ohio charter that is 60 miles away, My son was in 5th grade. It’s unlikely he’ll be traveling 60 miles to school and back, even if we did want to leave my public school, which we don’t. I have no idea how they got his name and address.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/03/26/how-do-schools-respond-to-competition-not-as-you-might-expect/
Also, leave us not forget the latest ploy used by charters in their attempt to make themselves “competitive”, as noted in Diane’s post today about YESPres withdrawing from Memphis (& clearly in evidence in the Camden machinations): make sure you get the whole school turned over to the charter corp– to insure sufficient enrollment.
Reminds me a lot of the way the post-Godfather mafia (“infiltrate legal operations”) used to handle competitive issues in soda distribution in NYC. The muscle goes into establishing a turf in which your selected product (Coke or Pepsi) can be distributed.
Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if these schools, before being scarified up to the charters, could have received a facelift for the students it currently serves? For the teachers? Wouldn’t it have been lovely to fully fund these schools and provide wraparound services, and all that is missing? This Superntendent is 1%er plant, just like in Newark. No good will come to this disenfranchised community, nor to the students, teachers, or parents. Bet ya tho, the charters will be happy as clams and rich as cream.
sacrificed…not scarified, but jesus be, what a slip.
There is a sad fact to be noted here, which is that Camden City Schools were long designated as an Abbott District, which means they benefited for decades from pooling property taxes and delivering a significantly larger proportion to schools in poverty-stricken areas. It’s one of the reasons my property taxes are so high in my wealthy NJ town: a good chunk of our RE taxes go to places like Camden, & we pony up the rest ourselves to maintain an excellent school district (we pay about 96% of the school budget from municipal taxes).
So what happened to all the dough? There were some good results here & there. But on the whole the answer is, fraud graft & corruption, under Democratic state administrations. There you have one big piece of how a Republican governor was elected in a blue state…
http://danley.camden.rutgers.edu/2015/04/02/camdens-superintendent-cannot-communicate-with-camdens-public-school-parents/
Diane,
Maybe you could highlight this video better than I can. It is raw footage of a recent meeting between parents and the superintendent of Camden City Schools. The parents are outraged that their neighborhood school is being taken over by the Mastery Schools charter school chain without their consent. They were disenfranchised when the state of NJ took over Camden’s public schools. It really is worth listening to the entire tape to understand the parents’ position.