How great is a Charter School that is given permission by the state to offer a master’s degree in education?
I decided to check out the Learning Community Charter School in Central Falls, which just got the go-ahead and $500,000 to train teachers and award master’s degrees.
Surely this must be an extraordinary school, or you would expect the Providence Journal to let you know whether it’s up to the task.
Turns out it’s not extraordinary at all.
Its scores are below the state average.
Way below the state average.
In the state, 26% were proficient in math, but only 15% at this charter.
In the state, 37% were proficient in English, but only 28% at this charter.
Disadvantaged students are falling behind, and achievement gaps are not narrowing.
Scores for low-income students are below state averages.
Question: What makes this charter school exactly the right place to train teachers and award master’s degrees?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
To quote from the source you cite:
“9/10 Student progress
“This rating measures how much students at this school improved from one year to the next, compared to students with similar proficiency levels at other schools in the state.
“Good news!
“Students at this school are making far more academic progress given where they were last year, compared to similar students in the state.
“High progress with low test scores means… that students are starting at a low point but the school is doing a great job at supporting their academic growth compared to most other schools.”
Yes, there was growth in scores but they are still far behind low state averages, with significant racial Gaps.
This is not what most people would identify as an exemplary school, one that should be given the privilege of calling itself a “graduate school of education.”
I find if of interest to see how the school presents itself:
http://www.lcannualreport.org/
Interesting that they embed reference to test scores amongst a much wider variety of alleged successes that they celebrate.
As for the statement there about test scores: (“We were the top performing RI urban middle school on the state standardized test last year in both English Language Arts and Math.”) that seemed questionable given what’s found at the source Diane provided.
However, looking directly at the state education data site:
http://infoworks.ride.ri.gov/school/the-learning-community-charter-school
their account seems more plausible… exceeding not just urban, but state-wide PARCC results in 11 out of 12 instances.
And looks like they’d welcome your visits to judge for yourselves, Dienne and Diane.
http://www.lcannualreport.org/rsvp
With a little advance notice, I could probably meet you there if you’re ever in that neighborhood.
I like how you conflate “test scores” with “academic growth”. Nice try, but folks around here are onto that schtick.
perfect word for the entire “score growth” argument: schtick
Who’s to say that wouldn’t have happened at a public school. The number that only matters is the total that was given. Charters do not educate as well as possible blue schools, give a false sense of accomplishment and throw away children when they are perceived failures due to sub par teachers and material. I know pla few kids that left public school for charters and they are washing cars at a car dealership, looking to get full time labor jobs and falling behind because the curriculum changes almost daily and they can’t keep up.
Stephen Ronan, you should identify what your connection is to this school, since clearly there is one. Making more progress than last year, or being above average, is nice, but hardly a recommendation for becoming a master’s-degree-issuing institution. That looks like simply a novel idea for getting more grant money.
Hi Kirba53,
I don’t have any connection to the school. And don’t, as yet, have a confident, deeply well-informed sense of how successful it may be in all its various aspects.
In respect to evaluating schools, I’m very much a fan of Jack Schneider’s approach as reflected in his book “A Better Way to Measure School Quality,” and commend that book to any who are interested in that subject.
Kirba53,
What you need to know about Stephen Ronan is that he is a very nice, very intelligent man who adores charter schools. He has never met a charter school he doesn’t like.
To clarify Diane’s remark, I live in Boston, where all our children and charter schools are above average.
Ronan, you left out the fact that most if not all of your real public schools in Boston are also above average.
In fact, according to Havard Politics.com, “It appears that Massachusetts’ charter laws are responsible, at least in large part, for the superior performance of the state’s charter schools. Indeed, Massachusetts prohibits for-profit Education Management Organizations (EMOs), and its process for authorizing charter schools is particularly rigorous. According to Alison Bagg, director of charter schools and school redesign at the Massachusetts Department of Education, Massachusetts is one of the few states in which the Department of Education serves as the sole authorizer of charter schools. “You have some states that have hundreds and hundreds of charters schools, all authorized by these districts or non-profits,” Bagg explained to the HPR. In Massachusetts, by contrast, “it has been historically very difficult to get a charter,” and the state has been recognized by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers as “one of the leaders in charter school authorizing nationwide.”
“The charter renewal process is also quite rigorous, according to Bagg. The state monitors charter schools closely and has the ability to close charter schools that have achieved poor results—a practice that is not universal across states.” …
And then there are those real public schools you failed to mention in your alleged misleading comment:
“Massachusetts’ educational success is certainly not limited to its charter schools. Massachusetts public schools across the board rank the highest in the nation, and at the international level, Massachusetts students achieve the fourth highest reading scores in the world—outpaced only by students in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore.” …
Then there is this: “Massachusetts may also promote greater respect for the teaching profession than many other states, achieving higher salaries and lower attrition rates. By contrast, the same states with low-performing educational systems and even lower-performing charter schools also tend to have particularly negative reputations among teachers. Arizona, for example, has been labeled the “worst state to be a teacher” by USA Today. According to the Huffington Post, “When you adjust for cost of living, Arizona elementary teachers are the lowest paid in the nation,” while “[h]igh school teachers come in 48th.” Nearly three quarters of Arizona school districts are understaffed due to problems recruiting and retaining teachers. And among teachers that were hired in 2013, 42 percent quit within three years or fewer. ”
http://harvardpolitics.com/united-states/massachusetts-charter-schools-why-do-they-outrank-their-counterparts-across-the-nation/
Massachusetts allegedly runs their real public and private sector charter schools similar to how Finland does it.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts also allegedly does Finland one better. It limits the total number of charters.
“According to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, a charter school advocacy group, there were an estimated 81 total charter schools in Massachusetts in the 2015-2016 school year. These schools enrolled approximately 40,300 students.
“Overall, charter school students accounted for 4.28 percent of total public school enrollment in Massachusetts in 2015.”
The current (cap) limit of charter schools in the state is set at 120.
https://ballotpedia.org/Charter_schools_in_Massachusetts
For a comparisoin, “In 2013 Massachusetts had 954,773 students enrolled in a total of 1,854 schools in 404 school districts. There were 70,636 teachers in the public schools, or roughly one teacher for every 14 students, compared to the national average of 1:16.”
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every real public school in the nation had one teacher for every 14 students?
Some good points, Lloyd.
Once we recognize that charter schools aren’t generically good or bad, it can indeed be helpful to examine, as you have done, the conditions that facilitate success, and recognize that a similar set of conditions can be influential for better or worse for both district and charter schools.
A few factors here in addition to those you mention:
Average teacher salary in Boston Public Schools: $99,368
http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/statereport/teachersalaries.aspx
Expenditure per student: 20K+
http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/statereport/ppx.aspx
Tons of local non-profit partners able to ally with schools, e.g.:
https://www.jebhs.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=182829&type=d
And, of course, the concentration of colleges and universities helps creates an especially large pool of potential teachers.
It is obvious that the average public school teacher pay you quote is misleading. That $99k is the top of the pay scale, and NOT the average.
“The typical Boston Public Schools Teacher salary is $71,719.”
“Teacher salaries at Boston Public Schools can range from $49,486 – $99,000. This estimate is based upon 34 Boston Public Schools Teacher salary report(s) provided by employees or estimated based upon statistical methods. Feb 18, 2019”
https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Boston-Public-Schools-Teacher-Salaries-E132915_D_KO22,29.htm
Then there is this: “In Boston, the average salary for charter school teachers is roughly $55,000, according to a Globe review of payroll data.”
That means the average teacher pay for Boston charter schools was $55,000
vs. typical for Boston public school teachers at $71,719
The next quote and link can only be explained by one word: GREED!
“Some charter school leaders’ pay far outpaces their public rivals”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/08/01/some-boston-charter-school-leaders-paid-hefty-salaries/fbHDOC33WKmzcvvZaNNkLN/story.html
Lloyd: “That $99k is the top of the pay scale, and NOT the average.”
Go the the link I provided for official Dep’t of Education data and you’ll see that the header on the column that has $99K+ for Boston is “Average Salary”.But also note that it says 2016-2017 so could have changed a bit since then.
Here’s an article from 2016 citing 2014 average Boston teacher salaries of not much more than 90K:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2016/02/25/boston-school-budget-this-what-means-starve-then-where-sign/z0eWXsn4aQMmt80KVRUpeJ/story.html
In any event I think that you and I and Diane would all agree that funding for charter school administrators deriving from public funds could appropriately be capped at a level less than what we currently see in some circumstances.
Stephen,
I don’t know what charter school leaders are paid in Boston, but we have at least two in NYC whose annual take home exceeds $500,000, despite very high teacher turnover in their school(s). One of them brings home more than $700,000 per year.
Indeed. Though in considering how best to implement salary caps it may be appropriate to distinguish to some degree between those whose pay derives purely from public funds and, alternatively, those who raise tens of millions of donated private dollars for a network of schools and are principally paid from such donations, subject to scrutiny by the state attorney general’s charities bureau.
Our big winner in NY is paid about $250,000 and aprivate Foundation was created to give her another $500,000.
Question: What makes this charter school exactly the right place to train teachers and award master’s degrees?
Answer: To turn out more ignorant people like Donald Trump
Lloyd,
Love your question and answer. You sure have this one right.
Been saying that Charters are about Jim Crow.
Are they even accredited or are they going to be given a pass on that too? Now that NCATE and TEAC merged to form CAEP, legitimate schools of education are going through new sets of requirements for accreditation. It’s interesting that there used to be “choice” of which accreditation organizations, and now there isn’t.
Also, just to clarify, I’m referring to CAEP as in the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, not CAEP the medical condition.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3701748/?fbclid=IwAR2vEHI9EowC6oXNxTbWgzv2ihF-7gFId1F2RaJcLUmNQwmXg8vEm4GJY5w
Long
The Learning Community Charter School in Central Falls was selected as the administrative location for first full-time urban residency program in Rhode Island for several reasons, not all of them obvious from the press releases.
First, The Learning Community Charter School in Central Falls is touted as “a high performing urban public school that effectively closed one of the largest Latino Achievement Gaps in the nation.” You will find that claim embedded in the press for the new graduate program, named
(hold your breath)
The Rhode Island School for Progressive Education (RISPE).
RISPE will offer two masters level degree programs: Urban Teacher MAT/ ESL Residency Program and Urban Principal M.Ed. Residency Program. Certifications will be available in Elementary Education (grades 1-6) and Building Level Administrator of Elementary ESL. Members of the faculty are only identified as “ master teachers and adjunct professors with a history of serving as consultants and coaches.”
Justifications: A PROVEN MODEL: “In other cities across the country—Boston, New York, Los Angeles and more—urban residency programs have been proven to be the most effective way to prepare and retain exceptional teachers in urban schools, and their student outcomes are better. We want to replicate these successes for Rhode Is land’s teachers and students. ….”
Justifications: “LOCAL DEMAND: All four of RI’s urban superintendents support these programs. Central Falls, Pawtucket, Woonsocket, and Providence superintendents want to know how fast we can get our programs up and running and have signed letters of support. They want us to train their current teachers to be ESL certified because they are confident we can provide real strategies to close equity gaps for their English Learners. They have agreed to interview our graduates for open positions.” https://thelearningcommunity.com/site/wp-content/uploads/RISPE_Fact-Sheet.pdf
There is more than meets the eye is RISPE’s endorsements from four urban superintendents. Two of the four superintendents signing up as endorsers and future employers have worked for the non-profit Mass Insight Education.org and the same two had an eye out for jobs in Providence, a district under Mayoral control.
One of these superintendents, Victor Capellan, is an ambitious reformist. His bio says he has experience in K-12 school reform in New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island and has also worked in higher education. In 2014, while Deputy Superintendent of transformation at a Central Falls High School, Capellan decided NOT to run for mayor of Providence. At about the same time Capellan worked as an Engagement Director at the non-profit Mass Insight Education. (I will have more on Mass Insight Education). Capellan was named Superintendent of the Central Falls School District in 2015.
The second person eager to recruit from the new RISPE graduate teacher education program is Providence Superintendent Christopher Maher. Prior to serving as the Superintendent, Maher served as Vice President of Mass Insight Education (2012-2014). Maher is also resigning from his position at the end of this school year, so he will not really be hiring. https://www.golocalprov.com/news/new-providence-schools-superintendent-maher-to-step-down
What is Mass Insight Education (MIE)? MIE is a multi-state “school transformation” network of reformists who take over the governance of schools.
The jargon is thick: “Partnership Zones are performance-based partnerships creating scalable strategies for turning around low-performing schools. Zones transform governance and management structures within districts to create streamlined, adaptable organizations that manage, support, and lead schools based on identified needs.”
The needs that really count are scores on standardized tests including AP tests galore and graduation rates.
http://www.massinsight.org/ourwork/school-improvement/#1544517219626-958348ba-b750
Mass Insight Education has these sponsors.
$100,000 and above Mass Mutual Foundation, State Street Foundation.
$50,000-$99,999 the Charles Hayden Foundation, The Irene E And George A. Davis Foundation.
$25,000-$49,999 Bridgewater State University, K&L Gates, Linde Family Foundation, The Nord Family Foundation.
$10,000-$24,999 Liberty Mutual, Sanofi, State Street Corporation.
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/43369687
$5,000 -$9,999 EY, Rasky Partners, Inc., Wellesley Bank.
$1,000-$4,999 Competition Dynamics, Distributor Corporation of New England, Umass Boston.
Note the funding of this undemocratic initiative by two universities. Also note that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundatio sent Mass Insight
$572,533 in 2005 “to design and produce recommendations for states and school districts seeking a flexible, systemic approach for improvement in underperforming high schools” and
$1,600,051 in 2007 “to produce organizational strategies, work plans, and manuals for states, urban districts, and outside partners to turn around low-performing schools through a new system of turnaround zones.”
In addition to this poking around I also looked at the IRS form 990 for Mass Insight Education. Here are three program descriptions:
Program A (Expenses $ 1,605,601) (Revenue $ 480,871 ) AP STEM AND ENGLISH: In academic year 2016-17, Mass Insight Education (MIE) implemented its full AP STEM program in 33 Massachusetts high schools. In these 33 schools, there have been more than 6,300 new enrollments in AP courses and over a 166% increase in the number of students from those schools earning qualifying scores on math, science and English AP exams since 2008. Forty-five additional schools participated in our newer AP sustaining partnership program (SPP), which provides continuing services to schools on an a la carte basis after they complete the core program. MIE serves approximately 10,000 students per year in Massachusetts through these two programs. The MIE programs are reaching thousands of students who would not otherwise be enrolled or earn a qualifying score in an AP course. In February 2017, Massachusetts was named first in the nation for the percentage of students receiving qualifying scores in AP. MIE was a key contributor to this result.
Program B (expenses $ 4,740,640) (revenue $ 1,014,865 ) SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT: In 2009, Mass Insight Education (MIE) launched its nationally-focused school turnaround group (STG) with the intent of creating proof points for school turnaround through the partnership zone initiative (PZI). The PZI is a national effort to prove the efficacy of the partnership zone framework for school turnaround, which was developed in MIE’s landmark 2007 publication, “The Turnaround Challenge.” By the end of 2016, Mass Insight had worked with 19 states and partnered with 20 school districts across the nation to turn around low-performing schools, transform districts, and support under-resourced students. (FoundationNot in the 990 form: Major funding of “The Turnaround Challenge” came from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.)
Program C (Expenses $ 661,644) GATEWAY TO COLLEGE SUCCESS NETWORK: The Gateway to College Success network was started in August 2016. Its members are 5 gateway city school districts in Massachusetts working on a common problem of practice: How to create aligned, rigorous, and personalized instruction in grades 6-12 such that all students graduate prepared for college and career.
Additional transactions listed on the 990 form include Contracted Services, Student Study Sessions, Professional Development, and Program Fees.
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/43369687
There is much more in this effort to reduce teacher education to on-the-job training with no undergraduate work in education required and treating school improvement as nothing much more than a management problem in how to raise test scores and increase graduation rates. A state agency on higher education also approved this program.
Rhode Island education is enchanted with failed ideas about school turnarounds and a really narrow view of professional education for teachers.
Free, dedicated, enthusiastic source of exploitable labor.
Wow. Just…wow.
Zero’s a hero
Starting at zero
It’s easy to grow
Zero’s a hero
An idle, you know
I give them credit for admitting that the ed reform “promise”, what was sold to the public, was that they would “improve public schools”.
Maybe this experiment is a bad idea and I understand how it must be infuriating how charters are always treated as if they’re miraculous and brilliant, but the rest of the echo chamber won’t even admit the goal was (supposedly) improving public schools, so at least this charter school is attempting some outreach to the unfashionable and much-maligned public school sector 🙂
90% of ed reformers don’t mention public schools at all unless it’s to bash them.
You really have to read ed reformers to see how relentlessly negative the approach to public schools is. It’s remarkable. It’s such an echo chamber I don’t even think they see it themselves.
You can start at the US Department of Education. Every single public school is portrayed as a crumbling disaster full of drug addicts and violent thugs. It’s crazy. They’ve gone from bashing public schools to bashing the actual STUDENTS. DeVos markets vouchers as a way to escape from public school STUDENTS.
They’ve basically gone off the deep end. They surround themselves with fellow travelers so this stuff starts to sound normal to them.
The claim that the purpose of charters is to improve public schools is simply a lie — a deception meant to fool the public into funding charters– so the ones who don’t make the claim are actually being more honest.
Lol charters hurt public head every chance they get they steal their money and only take students that either their parents fail to teach them to toughen up or students that think it’s an easy A. Most parents I have met baby their charter child or don’t care to be a parent
NPE deserves praise and appreciation for its newly released report about the millions of dollars the U.S. Dept. of Ed wastes on charter schools.
The report represents the hard work and dedication and hundreds of hours by our small but incredibly talented staff. Especially Carol Burris, executive director, who has spent most of her time in recent months researching and writing this significant report. Today, she, Anthony Cody, Denisha Jones, and Jeff Bryant are briefing members of Congress.
Great to hear!
The members in Congress who were present?
AGREE. Thank you NPE!
United Way’s donors should read AWrenchintheGears.com. The articles in February, “…boiled frogs, P&G…” and “No Small Matter” expose a league we should all be warned about.
RI United Way was part of the masters degree deal.
WOWZER. Thanks for this information, Linda.
Thanx for alerting blog readers, Linda. Since before retirement in 2010, I was always asked–as were colleagues–to donate money to the United Way. Many of us didn’t, aware of some bad groups/activities funded by U.W. donations.
Do NOT donate to U.W.!!!
Gates has funded United Way heavily, so it comes out for testing, VAM, and charters, which is not its area of expertise.
Divided we fall
United against United we stand
Thank you Carol Burris & N.P.E.–you are indeed a force to be reckoned with.
The truth will out…
My opinion- the Providence Journal wants to be part of the billionaire echo chamber.
Some reporters I’ve talked with work at papers that publish teacher salaries. The reporters are resentful that an experienced teacher makes more than they do. It’s usually the same ones who approach reporting with a focus on the present and the trees as opposed to a thought process that sees the future and the forest.
A newspaper manager may view teacher salaries as a competitive force that drives up the pay of his employees, a cost in a market where profits are already lean.
Disaster capitalism.
Politico wrote about the Gatehouse newspaper chain on 2/4/2016. Gatehouse has the greatest number of daily newspapers in the U.S. The article states, some of the “top editors of Gatehouse newspapers are complaining about diminished perception of Gatehouse newspapers’ credibility”.
The article is worth a read. It focused on the role newspaper management/owners played in a controversy about investigations into Nevada judges.