Former tennis star Andre Agassi opened a charter school in Las Vegas a few years back. He collected millions of dollars from adoring fans. He promised that his school would prepare every student for college. It was supposed to be easy. But there were many problems. Principals came and went. Teachers came and went. The school was a disaster. An article written in 2012 said:
More than 10 years after it opened, Agassi Prep, one of the first charter schools in Nevada, and arguably the most high-profile, is still finding its way. The school serves students from kindergarten to 12th grade (it’s arranged into elementary, middle and high schools), and graduated its first class in 2009. Like all public schools, it receives more than $6,000 per student from the state and county, and supplements that with private funding. During the last school year, Agassi Prep spent $11,069 to educate each of its 600 students.
“My impressions were that everyone wanted the school to be one of the best schools in the nation,” Piscal said. “It hasn’t all come together, and there is some frustration about that. But people still wanted to make it happen.”
Piscal has been on the job for more than a year. He is the sixth person to lead the school since it opened in 2001. But high turnover is not restricted to the chancellor’s office. Teachers, principals and staff come and go like visiting teams. Former teachers said the constant turnover creates a chaotic learning environment. Although the school has a high graduation rate and sends most of its graduates to college, it has had little success getting students into top-tier institutions, and many of its graduates attend community college.
Piscal wants to change that. The charter school veteran came to Agassi in January 2011. Not only is he trying to increase academic rigor, especially at the high-school level, he’s also supervising an increase in enrollment that will almost double the student body.
He’s already had some success staunching turnover at the high school and middle school. When he arrived, many positions were held by long-term substitutes. Some students had four or five teachers over the school year. Most of those subs have since been replaced by teachers who survived a rigorous interview process, Piscal said.
(The interesting thing about this article–which is unique in describing the struggles of the school– is that I quoted it in my 2013 book “Reign of Error.” At the time, it was easily discovered through googling by the school’s name. However, when I searched for it to link for this post, the article had disappeared. It took repeated efforts to find it, and it is filed under the name of a state assemblyman. I can’t help but suspect that an Internet mechanism was used to bury this piece.)
Agassi, bear in mind, is a high-school dropout.
But he saw a good money-making deal and he went for more, leaning on the alleged success of his Las Vegas charter school. He teamed up with an equity investor named Bobby Turner, and they raised nearly a billion dollars for charter investment deals. The first one they built was sold to KIPP in Philadelphia, and the Agassi team made a profit of $1 million.
The team recently opened its fifth charter school and its first charter in Washington, D.C., called the Rocketship Rise Academy. On the day it opened, it declared itself a high-performing school.
Do they pay the teachers more? (Do they pay the teachers?)
🙂
Rocketship charters is a chain started in CA that has been heavily criticized for featuring large classes, putting kids on computers for extended periods during the day, and a very restricted curriculum. Their test scores have also fallen in recent years.
See
http://www.epi.org/publication/school-privatization-milwaukee/
http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/education/2015/07/05/rocketship-charter-network-criticized-overly-rigid/29646659/
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/01/21/19el-rotation.h33.html
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/06/24/477345746/high-test-scores-at-a-nationally-lauded-charter-network-but-at-what-cost
http://www.pbs.org/video/2321924400/
Is any charter chain more over-hyped than Rocketship?
The over-the-top glowing reviews of these schools is a combined result of over-hyping charters AND over-hyping “blended learning”- it’s two factions of ed reform working together, PLUS Agassi’s celebrity.
Is there any concern in ed reform that the self-promotion and exaggerating success is a problem?
Come on. This is a piece about Arne Duncan. “Can Arne Duncan Save Chicago?” is the title. It’s another ed reform hagiography.
It’s ALL like this- these crazy claims of crusaders “saving” other people- whole cities and states!
If Arne Duncan was capable of “saving Chicago” single-handedly I assume he would have done so the years he worked there, reforming their schools.
Who is he saving Chicago from, incidentally? Rahm Emanuel?
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/November-2016/Arne-Duncan/
So in 2012 (four years ago now), eleven years after starting, they make a mockery of Bill Gates’ assertion that it would take ten years to see if this rheephorm stuff works.
Time is up.
😎
Much like the “three year” turnaround game in our district. Three years of invasive policies and mandates which ultimately offer only negative results lead to: three more years with NEW programs and new personnel, which, in the end, give up only negative results, and this, of course, leads to: three MORE years with newly hired leaders and newly written programs….
Oh my, you are so right. Reminds me of the mantra from the “Just 6 more months & Iraq will be stable” crowd. It’s been six more months for 13 years.
Maybe, just maybe, Agasi wanted this to succeed. The fact that he never finished high school may have some reason that he understood what went wrong with him during his high school years, and wanted to improve those so kids would indeed finish high school.
There are many people who did not finish school, and want other to complete and succeed. Some pour a lot of money into that desire, made through hard work, saving and investing wisely.
Rudy, I have no beef with a person trying to help others, whether they have a high school diploma or not.
I met with a Dutch scholar a few days ago who told me that anyone there can open a school. I asked, “even non-educators?” He replied, “Certainly not!”
The point of the post is that Agassi’s school is very well funded by external gifts, spends twice as much as public schools, and is a massive failure due to constant turnover of teachers and principals.
Agassi formed a for-profit partnership to open more charters. To make more money.
Why doesn’t he go back to school, get a GED, enroll in collage and get an education degree, if he feels so deprived by his lack of education?
Do you know the history behind Stanford university?
Rudy,
Do you know the history behind the USA? Not a savory story. Should we give it back and all go back where we came from?
Agassi and Turner are woking with Prudential in Newark, NJ to spread the disease that is his charter school throughout NJ. Its absolutely shameful the amounts of money that pass hands and the various legal instruments and “who’s who” of investors and benefactors. Do the kids get grade A educations? Not so much – but, hey, who cares? Players got paid.
“On the day it opened, it declared itself a high-performing school.”
Well, of course it declared itself that. Just depends upon what it means by “high performing”. I think it has something to do with illicit mind altering pharmaceuticals.
CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS has multiple entries here:
http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/2010/05/andre-agassi-college-preparatory.html
My favorite — a person on Andre’s staff, the cheerleading coach, was working as pimp/madam in her off hours:
==============
6/8/2007: “Agassi Prep Cheerleading Coach Charged in Prostitution Sting”
http://www.8newsnow.com/story/6634246/agassi-prep-cheerleading-coach-charged-in-prostitution-sting
An investigation into an international prostitution ring is underway and police say the leader of it is a cheerleading coach at the Andre Agassi Preparatory School.
Police say 36-year-old Esperanza Brooks faces 14 counts and the concern was not only that she was selling women on the streets, but also was a role model for young women as their cheerleading coach at the Andre Agassi Preparatory School.
Police say she worked with Rasehda Kemp in arranging three prostitutes to a hotel room along with drugs.
Police say undercover vice officers investigated Brooks for two weeks. They say she sold herself as a “Heidi Fleiss-type” madam dealing with high-end prostitutes who would cater to celebrities.
The alleged operation ended at 2 a.m. when police say Brooks delivered them three hookers at a Las Vegas Strip resort.
Police say the 36-year-old Brooks, known as DeeDee the cheerleading coach at the reputable Andre Agassi college prep school, moonlighted as a madam.
Metro Vice Lieutenant Karen Hughes said, “She sold herself as being involved in high-end prostitution, which means the girls are very top notch — dealt with celebrities.”
Lt. Hughes says a citizen tipped them off that the coach was selling sex. “She was no rookie to the game,” Hughes added.
The Channel 8 I-Team uncovered early Friday that police arrested Brooks and an acquaintance, Rashena Kemp, for arranging and bringing them three hookers. The price charged was more than $10,000.
What really worries police is whether Brooks used her position as a cheerleading coach to add to her stable of women. One, Brooks allegedly told police, which involved nearly fifty women from all over the world.
Lt. Hughes continued, “Clearly, when we got that complaint and it involved an individual we verified had connections with the school, we were very concerned.”
There are no clear signs at this point that Brooks recruited or employed former or current students. The I-Team spoke with parents who said they were more than surprised. However, they did not wish to be on camera.
A principal at Agassi Prep said he was unaware of the charges and did not want to comment further until he knew more about the case.
“We really want people to understand if they think there are vice-related crimes going on in their neighborhoods to please call and report them so we can follow up,” Lt. Hughes said. “There might be an impression that this is fertile ground for prostitution, but we’re just not going to have it.”
Police encourage any parents from Agassi Prep to call them if they suspect Brooks propositioned their children to become prostitutes.
Unfortunately, what happens here in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas.
Agassi’s charter is on the lowest performing list the Nevada State Department of Education recently released.
In fact the lowest performing list also included many other Nevada charters.
Nevada does not need Agassi’s hedge fund helping more failing charters to come to Nevada.
Charters are learning from the unions…
https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20161019/brighton-park/uno-charter-school-network-teachers-union-united-educators-of-uno-strike-agreement-cps
Rudy,
93% of charters are non-union. The Waltons are spending $200 million a year to keep it that way.
I thought ALL education was about children??
Not any more, Rudy. If Agassi were concerned about children, he would try to improve his own charter school in Las Vegas, which is on the state list of the lowest-performing schools.
I am not the biggest fan of charter schools – I understand the globalism behind the movement. However, I subbed in an urban public school. The turnover was horrific – 75% of the teachers left in 2 years! The administrator had no control over students, and up to 10% of the students were in ISS daily. One 3rd grade class had six, yes 6, teachers in a 9 week period last year. The school has multiple teachers who have already quit this year, and no one will sub in this school Since 2001, there have been 8 administrators.
Many charters have the same problems. But they have one big advantage: they kick out the kids they don’t want. The public schools have to take them. The more that charters skim, the more that public schools are weakened–by the loss of their best students and by high concentrations of the kids the charters don’t want.