The Shelby County school board encompasses the schools of Memphis and the schools of Shelby County. A number of its schools were plunked into the Achievement School District, where they were given to a charter operator. Despite grandiose promises of lifting the lowest performing schools into the top 25%, it hasn’t happened. Achievement in the ASD has stalled.
The ASD is one of the Crown Jewels of the reform movement, based on its belief that charter schools are a magical solution that turns low-scoring students into scholars.
The school board of Shelby County has called for a moratorium on any expansion of the ASD.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“A number of its schools were plunked into the Achievement School District, where they were given to charter operator. ”
It implies that all schools in the ASD are operated by charter operators. This is not true.
Six schools — five in Memphis and one in Nashville — joined the ASD in 2012, its first year operating schools. Three of them were assigned to charter operators, while the district opted to run three others directly. All got new names, teachers and programs in an effort to break out of long histories of low performance.
Of those schools, the three that the district has run directly — all in Memphis’ Frayser neighborhood — had higher math scores this year than when the ASD took over, although only two of the schools have outpaced the state’s overall trend during that time.
“We have some really incredible gains this year in Frayser, and that’s partially what led to the 5 overall,” said Margo Roen, the ASD’s director of new schools, referring to the six schools’ combined rating from the state, the highest possible.
But all three schools that the district assigned to charter operators, privately managed but publicly funded nonprofits, had fewer students score proficient or advanced in math this year than last year, even as two had more students at those levels than in 2013.
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I’m pretty sure that even ASD “district run schools” are still charter schools. Certainly, there is not an elected school board in charge of those schools.
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the post pretty clearly says “a number of its schools were plunked into the Achievement School District,” which certainly does not infer that ALL of the schools were placed into the ASD.
which corporate reform company or funder do you work for?
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mrobsmsu
“A number of its schools were plunked into the Achievement School District, where they were given to charter operator. ”
Read carefully, the part where it says “where they were given to charter operator.” Do not stop reading at mid sentence. It did not say only half were given to a charter operator.
Instead of sticking to the subject(ASD), you seem to be on an attack mode. By the way you already are sure that I work for a corporate reform company, but now you want know to which company. Are you for real? What are you going to achieve from your comment?
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This piece had some more background:
“Before the vote on the strategic plan, an extended public comment session included many voices in the community speaking out against the ASD. A group of emotional Kirby Middle School students, who learned last week their school would be operated by Green Dot Public Schools next year, pleaded with the school board not to let their school go into the ASD.
Latoya Robinson said she served on one of the neighborhood advisory councils that the ASD employed to rate charter operators who applied to take over the struggling schools. Robinson said the way their input was calculated allowed for Kirby Middle to be taken over against the council’s wishes.
“We did not put down information saying that we wanted Kirby to be taken over by Green Dot,” she said.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/schools/shelby-county-schools-calls-for-halt-to-asd-takeovers-26f65201-8052-28e8-e053-0100007f7bd7-362568091.html
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Raj, what’s the difference between ASD directly operating a school after take over or giving it to a charter operator? The school is taken over against their wishes, and the teachers get fired.
Also, when you talk about ASD’s improvement of the schools over the rate of improvement of the original schools, what’s the data you rely on?
What’s your opinion about Barbic’s promise to put these schools in the top 25% in 5 years? Do you still think, ASD has the magic touch to do this in the remaining 1 year?
Was the $20+ million taxpayers’ money Barbic spent on this project worthwhile?
And, finally, shouldn’t Barbic be held accountable for not keeping his promise?
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Tennessee. Achievement School District.
Reality as opposed to rheeality.
One example of many from the blog of Gary Rubinstein:
Link: https://garyrubinstein.wordpress.com/2015/11/22/the-new-more-transparent-asd/
😎
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The process used by the ASD was a sham. Full of lies.
Four out of six people on the advisory council rated scholar academies as unfit to take over a school, but it was still matched.
There is a video about it here https://youtu.be/ktRkk_QDpuw
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A bill to cancel the ASD has been introduced. We’ll see where it goes.
In other TN news, vouchers passed a house subcommittee for the first time. This will likely become law this time.
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