For years, Teach for America has pointed to YES Prep charter schools in Houston as the epitome of charter success. In her most recent book, Wendy Kopp identified YES Prep as an example of the miracles wrought by charters.
But Gary Rubinstein noticed a strange anomaly in the performance of YES Prep. It doesn’t seem to know how to educate black students. All but two of its schools in Houston serve mostly Hispanic students. The two that enroll a high proportion of black students are F-rated by the state.
Its five high schools have received many plaudits. But they enroll tiny proportions of black students.
It’s founder Chris Barbic bailed out of the Tennessee Achievement zschool District when he saw he was on a track to failure.
What gives?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Rubenstein concludes that the depth of poverty in the region where the school is located mostly determines the scores and ratings a school receives, This is a logical conclusion since performance on standardized tests correlates with socioeconomic levels of students. It should be noted that most of the Kipp Schools in Houston continue to outperform many of the Yes Preps. Again, this could be due to higher attrition rates, longer school days, a more effective program, or a higher socioeconomic level of entering students, or mixture of all of the above.
LikeLike
Where do people who are serial failures in reforming schools go? Chris Barbic ended up as SENIOR EDUCATION FELLOW at the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.
” Chris is working to advance the portfolio model of school governance in cities across the country in order to increase student achievement. Prior to joining the Foundation, he served as the founding superintendent of the Achievement School District (ASD) in Tennessee. In that role, Chris led the development and operations of a statewide school district designed to transform Tennessee’s Priority Schools, those categorized as being in the state’s bottom 5 percent. Under his leadership, the ASD opened and authorized 33 new schools in four years, serving nearly 10,000 students. ASD schools outperformed the Tennessee state average in math and science in every year of operation—at a time when Tennessee’s statewide academic achievement was improving faster than any other state in the country. By the second year of operation, ASD schools improved performance earning the highest value-add growth rating assigned by the state, and direct-run ASD schools averaged double-digit gains in math and science.”
You would not know from this bio that Barbic left his position leading Tennessee ASD early, because he had not done the expected turnaround–taking the schools in the state’s bottom 5 percent according to test scores, to the top of the heap within five years. He bailed out but he is a darling in the charter world, founder of YES Prep, a Houston-based charter management organization (CMO) which, in 2011, received the inaugural Broad Foundation Prize for the Best CMO in the country.
What “best” means is highest test scores and greatest closing of gaps in scores for subgroups, even if that means cherry-picking students and kicking out students who will not conform perfectly to militaristic discipline. There should be no surprise that Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy Charter Schools won the Broad prize in 2017.
LikeLike
A “buffet” of parallel systems will make things worse, not better. In addition to being less efficient, all this “choice” will diminish resources. In other words, there will be a whole lot more of less.
LikeLike
“By the second year of operation, ASD schools improved performance earning the highest value-add growth rating assigned by the state, and direct-run ASD schools averaged double-digit gains in math and science.”
Was it not Disraeli who suggested that thing about lies, damned lies, and statistics? The value added thing we do in Tennessee allows anyone to say anything about any aspect of what is occurring. We all know Barbican left Memphis with his tail between his legs. The Memphis teachers I met in Nashville one day who had taken their spring break to lobby the legislature were not going anywhere but to bat for their communities.
LikeLike