Most Dayton charter schools received an F grade from the state of Ohio for failing to teach children in grades K-3 to read.
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.
State Sen. Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering, wondered whether smaller charter schools are making the changes required by the state’s new K-3 requirements, as well as larger public districts that have more infrastructure. She also advised patience with any new measure.
“K-3 Literacy is a new metric, and I think the jury is still out on exactly what it is telling us,” said Lehner, chair of the Senate Education Committee. “But this is troublesome. We’ll have to look at this much closer, and hear from the charters why they think we’re seeing this.”
The two top scoring charters managed to teach half their students to read.
While top charters scored better than DPS, the worst charters scored worse than the public district. Only two of Dayton Public’s 19 graded schools scored below 15 percent on the K-3 Literacy measure, while more than half of charters (eight) scored that poorly. The only graded Greene County charter, Summit Academy, also received an F.
Meanwhile Governor John Kasich–and every other Republican candidate– is in New Hampshire and Iowa, touting the success of charter schools. When will our elected officials be honest and admit that there is no secret recipe in charter schools? In Ohio, public schools outperform charter schools, yet state officials are obsessed with charters, charters, charters.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“The two top scoring charters managed to teach half their students to read.”
I dunno, this is the quagmire you get into when you rely on test scores as any kind of “metric” [sic]. Frankly, I don’t even know what that sentence means. Does it mean that more than half of the kids in the other 13 charters can’t read at all? Or read “at grade level” (again, whatever the heck that means)? I have a hard time believing that that many kids aren’t learning to read at all. And, of course, it’s complicated by the fact that they’re including kindergartners, who shouldn’t be learning to read anyway. But for the older kids, my guess is that they read pretty well, they just don’t do well on the tests – most likely as a function of socio-economic status.
I like hoisting charters by their own petards as much as the next person, but this is getting ridiculous.
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The metric came from ed reform, so I think it’s fair to use the same measure. It was another Jeb Bush initiative- The Third Grade Reading Guarantee.
If my (admittedly anecdotal) conversations with people is any indication it was a really big deal for parents with small children (and I would assume students).
People thought it meant 3rd graders would be left back if they didn’t pass a test. That didn’t turn out to be true across the board- there were other measures used for decisions on promotion in addition to testing.
I wonder if scale hurt charters on this measure. Districts move slower (they’re bigger) but once they get rolling with a focus on a new mandate there might be a multiplier effect that comes in.
There are benefits to coherent, organized systems 🙂
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The focus on reading in the lower grades wasn’t all bad. One of the things they did at my son’s school was have the little kids come in and read books they liked to the older kids. My son got a kick out of this-he thought he would be reading to THEM, which they had done in the past.
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I subbed in a middle school reading class. One girl would not stop drawing, so I said if she was going to draw, she had to read the story and then draw a picture of the story. She drew a perfect picture of what the story was about. I guess multiple choice questions didn’t allow her to express herself, and she would fail the state test.
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It seems that charters take the children with a solid foundation. Their economic status can have impacts, but if they come from a home that values self-respect, and a good education-it is likely a classroom full of more disruptive peers is their greatest hurdle. Reformers like to talk about how teachers and schools “fail”, but what really is happening is that these educational posers choose only the parts of the job that they want to do. It would be a little more respectable for them to say “We can’t do what real schools do, but we can offer a chance for a few of these kids.”
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The odds of career politicians and/or CEOs being honest is slim to nothing. Part of their job description is to master lying and getting away with it.
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Same kids, same results.
The whole idea behind the success of charter schools is based on the fallacy that the urban public schools “just aren’t trying” to educate their students or that somehow public schools have either substandard teachers or old, decrepit teachers who are past their prime (which occurs about the same time as they get that first colonoscopy).
The results indicate that the solutions to educating those of low socio-economic status are not as simple as hiring high energy teachers working with scripted lessons emphasizing testing drills. If there was an easy way to overcome the children’s deficits, the public schools (at least in Buffalo) would already have achieved results. If anything, over the years I have seen the urban public schools pull out all the stops. However, any movement forward has lead to an upward expectation of the final score. In fact, the “finish line” in NYS is now out of reach to over two thirds of the student population.
So how are charter schools supposed to overcome this challenge? Especially since they are teaching the
Same kids
And of course they are getting the
Same results.
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“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.”
How ridiculous!!!!!!!! Struggling kindergarten children!!! No child in K -3 should struggle! With the proper method and realistic objectives no child struggles. Teach them at their instructional level with the proper method and they will achieve unless a child is mentally challenged. If a child is instructed on his/her instructional level the child will make great strides. Children have a desire to learn and achieve until it that desire has been thwarted by unrealistic demands.
I don’t care how the children scored on their standardized test; those scores are meaningless. Those children shouldn’t even be given those standardized tests aligned to the CC. I am most concerned about the damage being done to the children who are made to feel that they have failed. I concerned about the many children that are being destroyed by unrealistic expectations. The approach is wrong; the attitude and demands of the people in charge are wrong.
I suspect that the children who met the standards learned to read at home at least had more nurturing and understanding parents or caregivers. I suspect those children came from homes where the parents and caregivers weren’t drilling abstract concepts but instead surrounded the children with picture books, manipulative objects, spent time with the children answering their questions, playing with them outside or in the park…those children are succeeding. Those children had parents who were wise and knew that drilling wasn’t learning. Some smart parents might even do the asinine homework for their children and spend the time reading to them; role playing with them; and relating the stories to their children’s lives.
Dr. Elkind in his book “The Hurried Child” states. “Children who are confronted with demands to do math or to read before they have the requisite mental abilities may experience a series of demoralizing failures and begin to conceive of themselves as worthless. Such children not only acquire a sense of inferiority that overwhelms their sense of industry but also may acquire …’learned helplessness.’ …children who experience repeated school failure are likely to acquire the orientation of learned helplessness as well as an abiding sense of inferiority.” P 109 Elkind stressed that children should be involved with free, self-initiated, and spontaneous play developing a healthy, mentally, emotionally and socially adjusted child. As an authority on “Child Development,” he is forever advocating for the preservation of childhood.
What are the Charter schools in Dayton doing, I don’t know. But I suspect they are doing like all other schools under the yoke of Common Core. I suspect that they are adhering to the curriculum anchored in direct teaching of abstract sounds, words, and text handed down to them by uniformed administrators. With such an approach failure to meet their unrealistic standards can be expected. If the teachers do not have proper credentials from an accredited intuition you can expect failure.
When are we going to learn from the experts such as Marie Clay that young children must be given so much support that they can not fail. All learning must be related to the learner- the child. The initial stage of reading is picture reading but what does the CCSS require – learning via drill of the names and sound and sight voc. Sight vocabulary has no meaning unless it is embedded in meaningful text.
The emergent reader must be able to relate to the text and illustrations. The children don’t need to know the entire alphabet and sounds before learning to read. Plus there are many ways children learn to read, first and for most by being read to. They learn when they can relate to the text that is supported by the illustrations, rhythm and repetition.
But CC expects children to blend sounds even meaningless words for some children. Some children have an auditory discrimination problem but CC ignores that, insisting that every child follow in the same foot steps at the same rate. It’s like a Hitler command for marching.
Any school under the control of the Common Core Standards which means adhering to a phonetic and direct approach is going to leave children floundering. As the report states “Failing.” Our children coming from homes whose parents don’t have an understanding of what learning is all about are not going to be able to help their children. Those parents will just adhere to the directives coming from the school: drill, drill, drill. Parrot contrived stories that make no sense.
When will those in power become educated and learn what a successful reading program looks like. When will they listen to experts in the field adhering to experts such as Marie Clays’ philosophy and her method?
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What disturbs me is that “teaching” literacy in K-3 is used as a measure of success. I would give an A+ to any school that 1.) used developmental readiness rather than grade level or age as a guideline for when to include literacy as a “subject;” and 2.) actually read and ACTED ON the research about the harm being done by pushing literacy on younger and younger children. Children will naturally learn to read (assuming that they have had positive experiences with books and learning) when they are both developmentally ready AND have a need to read for some purpose, be it enjoyment or learning about something in which they are interested. We have to get over the idea the the earlier kids learn to read, the “smarter” they are. It’s just not true! Research shows that many children who learn to read later rapidly catch up and surpass those who were forced to read at an early age.
When you force children to do something before they are developmentally ready, it creates stress as well as a negative emotional response to reading, and potentially, learning. Other research has shown that the optimal age for kids to learn to read is between 7 and 10! Certainly, early learners should be exposed to letters and words…they should be read to and encouraged to take on whatever literacy tasks they CHOOSE to do. If we keep forcing literacy and numeracy earlier and earlier, public schools will soon find that more and more kids are turned off to learning well before 5th grade.
We must question everything we have been brainwashed into believing about learning and the role of education. ESSA, with its funding for early childhood education is a huge threat as long as they keep talking about “aligning” pre-K to K-3 along with the rhetoric about “readiness.” If we don’t stay on our guard now, we will have 1-year-olds filling out bubble tests!
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Judith, everything you stated is so too! If you aren’t on an education board making decisions about the emergent and primary readers, you should be. We need someone like you who will stand up and defend our helpless little children.
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