A lot was riding on the State Board of Education’s decision about whether to renew the Thrive Charter Schools of San Diego. The schools have a terrible record, which the district documented. The charter lobby was pushing hard for renewal, showing how little it cares about results or accountability or children’s welfare. It was Linda Darling-Hammond’s first meeting as chair of the State Board.
The Board voted to deny renewal. Facts still matter.
The Board voted 7-1 to renew a Gulen Magnolia Charter. A former member of the charter’s board, now on the State Board, declines to revise herself.
Thrive certainly did not lack funding; it received $575,000 from the U.S. Department of Education to open in 2014 and has received millions of dollars in “New Market Tax Credits” from the federal government since then.
To learn more about Thrive, here are some readings.
Thrive’s scores have dropped every year since it opened.
Christopher Rice-Wilson, a charter parent at another charter in San Diego, called for the closure of Thrive and laid out the facts of its poor performance.
He wrote:
“I did not feel safe… and I learned absolutely nothing.” That was the testimony heard from one former Thrive Public Schools student who is now doing well in fourth grade at a different school. A group of former students and parents have come forward to describe their experiences during their time at Thrive charter schools. Without a doubt, there are many more like them — the school has a 27 percent to 39 percent attrition rate — roughly one-third of the students leave the school each year. And with good reason, especially for San Diego’s most vulnerable students. Simply put, Thrive is failing low-income, black and Latino students.
Looking at the numbers, Thrive failed to demonstrate it meets the academic requirements to renew its charter, especially when compared to the 13 schools Thrive identified with similar grade and demographic data. For low-income students, Thrive had the worst academic outcomes in both English Language Arts and Math. For low-income students, more than 75 percent of Thrive students weren’t able to meet the state’s standards in math. At the middle school level, the situation is even worse: 80 percent of all of Thrive’s middle school students failed to meet the state achievement standards in math, and 90 percent of low-income students failed the same standard.
Similarly, for black students and Latino students, Thrive’s outcomes were worse than almost all other schools in ELA and math. Fewer than 10 percent of Thrive’s Latino students were meeting state standards in math. All of the comparison schools have a much higher low-income population than Thrive, and a higher percentage of English learners, yet still demonstrated better academic outcomes than Thrive. Thrive argues that it excels at serving students with disabilities. However, Thrive’s academic outcomes for these students are far lower than SDUSD’s outcomes, as well as the outcomes for these students countywide.
Our entire school system needs to do better by black students, and San Diego Unified is 42 points away from having all black students at grade-level proficiency on the California Schools Dashboard in English Language Arts. For these students, Thrive is a disaster. Thrive is more than double that number, at 106.5 points below grade-level proficiency for black students. Outcomes in math are similar. Thrive also has a larger achievement gap in math and ELA between black and white students than the district overall. Why renew the charter for a school that expands the achievement gap?
Thrive argues that parents are choosing Thrive because they were struggling in the schools they were attending. But there are over 130 charter schools in San Diego County, and 46 in SDUSD alone. Wouldn’t we see these same poor outcomes at all of those schools? Thrive argues that they are too new for us to look at state standards. Two other charters in the district opened at the same time as Thrive. They were renewed because they demonstrated improved academic performance. There should be one standard for these schools and Thrive should be held accountable.
Thrive has been given every advantage to show their school can succeed. They have benefited from the investment of millions of dollars from wealthy supporters and received $13 million in new market tax credits from Civic San Diego and another Los Angeles entity. All that and still couldn’t prove their ability to deliver achievement for students.
Schools like Thrive are a symptom of a system in much need of reform. Recent research has found that the dramatic growth of charter schools has cost San Diego Unified about $66 million annually. This cost is born by the students who remain in district managed schools — the overwhelming majority of students in our public school system. Given what’s at stake, we can’t continue to support schools that cost more to our system but do not deliver for our most vulnerable students. We need to ensure our scarce resources are invested in educational strategies that create student success, not expand student failure.
Publicly funded private sector charter schools Do NOT need to be reformed. They need to be flushed away into the sewer and become a footnote in the history books.
Take those names of charter schools like “THRIVE” and think the opposite. The names of those schools “DO JUST THE OPPOSITE.”
It’s all about “marketing.” Up really means DOWN these DAZE. Truth in advertising no longer exists.
Yvonne, you have just hit upon the understanding of the current not-reform movement!
Everything is the opposite.
Thrive means not-thrive.
Reform means destroy and disrupt.
Love means control.
Democrats for Education Reform are Hedge Fund Managers for Educational Privatization.
It’s upside down land.
Thanks, Diane. I am not crazy after all. The “SPINS” and the “SPINS.” Unbelievable.
What kind of nation have we become?
To be fair, those students probably won’t do much better at a regular public school. The elephant in the room is that no one really knows how to lift up the hardest to educate kids. And we’re not willing to have an honest discussion about it. OF COURSE poverty is a factor. But is that the end of the discussion? Does school quality matter? If so, what do we mean by “school quality”? Leave banal platitudes aside. What exactly does a school that lifts up poor kids look like? What is its curriculum like? Do we really know? Does one exist?
Many of you know my prescription (not panacea): a knowledge-centric curriculum (as opposed to the vapid skills-centic curriculum virtually every school, regular and charter, has now). Why aren’t we trying that? One reason is the stranglehold that Common Core and its tests have on schools. Free us from Common Core and let a thousand flowers bloom. Or better yet, let Common Core be damned and give kids the curriculum they need.
To be fair, the students in similar demographic SDUSD schools are doing much better even in the same collocated buildings. Sure there could be improvement and a good starting point would be not taking more than $60 million a year out of the public schools. Than they could reduce class sizes and improve facilities which would lead to actual improvement.
My prescription for improvement is to put joy back into schools and reduce the toxic pressure that is harming children. Quit pressuring children to act like adults and let them be children.
I’m all for joy, but also for real learning about the world. This is the necessary foundation for the “higher” skills we want kids to have, don’t you agree?
Not really. The need access to a well rounded fundamental education, but no pressure until they get to college. High school kids are dealing with serious life changes and pressure is toxic for their brain development. Pressuring younger kids is child abuse.
Democracy and freedom on Earth are in real trouble (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2019/03/14/feature/the-strongmen-strike-back/?utm_term=.117acb477cca).
One of the many bodies of knowledge we must transmit to kids is the facts that lead one to abhor authoritarianism and appreciate democracy. If we don’t do this, it won’t matter if kids are at charters or public schools. We’ll have become China (or Russia or Egypt). We’re fiddling with stupid, fruitless, content-indifferent Common Core curriculum –non-education –while Rome burns.
and quit treating teachers like children and let them be independent grown-ups
I think ineffective curriculum is child abuse.
I don’t see toxic pressure in my K-8 district. Teachers feel pressure, but the kids who (.rightly) hate the ELA and math curriculum tune out or socialize.
I think you’re wrong to discount the importance of knowledge building, but I’m not surprised. Your opinion is endemic to the profession nowadays. I hope you’ll read E.D. Hirsch. He’s much smarter and more convincing than I am.
Ah, kids that hate going to school.
I just watched an interview today by the Zach Sang Show with Grace VanderWaal and in the interview, she mentioned that she hated going to school until she was home taught for a year and hated that a lot more. She said the virtual charter school she failed for 7th grade didn’t work for her because she was s super procrastinator and she hated being alone all the time. After she became a singing sensation at age 12, her parents pulled her from the local public middle school.
Grade said virtual schools are for the rare students that do not procrastinate and get work done without anyone forcing them.
She now loves going to school. She’s 15.
If you haven’t heard of Grace, here’s a snapshot. She is a singer-songwriter prodigy that won America’s Got Talent at the age of 12 performing her own original songs.
Fast forward three years, and she has had a leading role in a Disney film that wrapped filming near the end of 2018, won multiple awards (Disney, Billboard, MTV) and released two albums with original songs. When she was 13, her first concert tour was sold out in a few days. When she was 14, she opened for Imagine Dragons in forty cities. She also closed the Special Olympics in Austria in 2016 with one of her songs.
It’s a long interview but near the end of the interview, she says she loves school now and the reason she loves it is that she is with other teens her own age.
The social element is in some ways the bane of teachers, but it’s also the surprising savior of traditional school vis a vis the Gates/Zuckerberg “personalized learning” and online school juggernaut: kids don’t want to be marooned with a computer on their own “individualized” track. They want to be with other kids. The trick for teachers is to harmonize this socializing impulse with actual content learning.
That is the biggest challenge teachers face when teaching adolescents, to find ways to “trick” and it is not an easy task.
And for sure, the greed motivated, “FAKE” reformers are not taking this into consideration.
“At times, it seems like teens don’t think things through or fully consider the consequences of their actions. Adolescents differ from adults in the way they behave, solve problems, and make decisions. There is a biological explanation for this difference. Studies have shown that brains continue to mature and develop throughout childhood and adolescence and well into early adulthood.
“Scientists have identified a specific region of the brain called the amygdala that is responsible for immediate reactions including fear and aggressive behavior. This region develops early. However, the frontal cortex, the area of the brain that controls reasoning and helps us think before we act, develops later. This part of the brain is still changing and maturing well into adulthood.
“Changing Brains Mean that Adolescents Act Differently From Adults
“Pictures of the brain in action show that adolescents’ brains work differently than adults when they make decisions or solve problems. Their actions are guided more by the emotional and reactive amygdala and less by the thoughtful, logical frontal cortex. Research has also shown that exposure to drugs and alcohol during the teen years can change or delay these developments.
“Based on the stage of their brain development, adolescents are more likely to:
Adolescents are less likely to:
“These brain differences don’t mean that young people can’t make good decisions or tell the difference between right and wrong. It also doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be held responsible for their actions. However, an awareness of these differences can help parents, teachers, advocates, and policymakers understand, anticipate, and manage the behavior of adolescents.”
https://www.aacap.org/aacap/families_and_youth/facts_for_families/fff-guide/the-teen-brain-behavior-problem-solving-and-decision-making-095.aspx
I trust public school teachers, and I trust our public school students. Honest.
I see so much good teaching and kids learning.
Secret ingredient: Access to good books matter. Poor communities don’t have access to books. Even in communities well off, access to books can be tricky.
I support Public Libraries.
https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1110&context=si_facpub
For me, nothing can replace a book. Books are treasures.
Kids and teens like going to school. The kids in my neighborhood love their public schools. I remember loving going to school. Of course, kids and teens like the breaks, too. Makes sense.
All this stupid stuff coming from people far away from the classroom is noise and should be ignored.
The deformers hate it when they are ignored … so ignore them. Besides they don’t know anything any way. It’s insane to keep paying attention to them.