Chester Community Charter School is the largest brick-and-mortar charter school in Pennsylvania, with more than 4,000 students. It is a for-profit charter school owned by a wealthy lawyer named Vahan Gureghian, who was the largest individual contributor to former Governor Corbett. It is hard to know how much money CCCS makes, because its books are not open to the public. It must be doing very well, because his 36,000 square-foot oceanfront house in Palm Beach was recently sold for $60 million.
But his profits are less important than the fact that CCCS now enrolls 70% of the primary students in the Chester-Upland school district. And it is not because the charter is an academic success. Its test scores are very low. Only 16.7% were proficient in English language arts, compared to a state average of 63%. Only 7% were proficient in mathematics, compared to a state average of 45%.
By most metrics, this charter school is a failing school, yet it gets preferential treatment. The scores in the charter school are below those of the remaining public schools in the district.
The district, one of the poorest in the state, is in receivership, and the receiver—who exercises total control over the district—decided in 2017 to take the unprecedented step of extending the charter to 2026. No charter in the state has ever had a nine-year extension. The receiver said he did it in exchange for a promise by the charter that it would not open a high school to compete with the Chester High School, but would remain satisfied to enroll 70% of its primary students. Why might the receiver make this unusual decision? Surely it would not be because he was treasurer of Governor Corbett’s campaign.
So, from 2017 to 2026, there is no accountability for this low-performing for-profit charter school. The charter corporation is now recruiting young students from Philadelphia with an aggressive marketing campaign. Currently, more than 1,100 students from Philadelphia ride a school bus that takes from 2-3 hours to reach the school in the morning and another 2-3 hours to return home each day. Most of these students are in kindergarten through third grades. I wonder if their parents know they are riding a bus 5-6 hours a day to attend one of the lowest performing schools in the state?
Philadelphia officials also say that Chester Community has mounted an aggressive marketing campaign and distributed glossy fliers that don’t include information about the charter’s academic performance.
“It is fundamentally a marketing strategy,” Monson said. “The lure is how you sell yourself,…We all have plenty of examples of advertised products that don’t live up.”
Results from the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) exams released in September showed that Chester Community had some of the lowest scores among charter schools in the region: 15.6 percent of Chester Community students passed the PSSA reading test in the last school year; 6 percent passed math. Those scores are similar to those of Khepera Charter School in North Philadelphia, which the School Reform Commission has voted to close in June because of poor academics and financial woes. At Khepera, 15.8 percent of students passed reading; 2 percent passed math.
Folks in PA must be really itchy….there seems to be a lot of “back scratching” going on in the state.
Four to 6 hours on a bus every day, for kids, is criminal.
Pennsylvania has one of the most harmful charter payment plans in the nation. It is not a sustainable formula, and that is why Chester is struggling. The state legislature contains many members of an entrenched charter lobby that keep their position due to gerrymandering. The governor does his best to fight them, but he cannot do it alone. The legislature has refused to release funds unless he yields to their demands. Pennsylvania should be a cautionary tale to other states. Keep the charters out of your state and cities!
By the way I ran into some people that live in the town near Philly where I first started teaching. They described the high school as “empty,” since so many students are taking cyber courses. So sad! This was once a vibrant school district.
frightening to imagine what future social interaction will entail: standing in front of each other or sitting together in groups but using text messages to communicate?
YES, indeed.
Getting “worst than ever” = people becoming upset at others because no immediate response. via that call phone. It’s just weird.
Of course, those who like to collect data on others and snoop love this kind of situation. I think they are voyeurs of the worst kind.
An aside: Diane, want to let you know … “thank goodness” your blog is not just a bunch of silos.
If you have read my posts, you know that I am opposed to all public money going to private schools. You also know that I do not approve of testing to create false accountability. That said, I have a question.
How do we know that this charter is a “low performing” school. When I see that label attached to public schools, I think that the privatizers are spoiling for another takeover. Do the words “low performing” have anything to do with things other than testing?
This seems to me to be a fundamental question as we approach some hope of pushing back the privitazation agenda. If we use testing to prove that privitazation does not work, we allow the beast to survive. How can we drive a stake through the heart of the vampire that threatens community education without using the testing argument?
The results for cyber charters have been universally dismal. There is wide consensus they provide inferior academics. I have no problem calling cyber charters “low performing.” They are a cheap scheme to make lots of corporate profit.
I agree that test scores are a poor measure, but test scores were used by supporters of privatization to define failing public schools. They set the metrics. It only seems fair that they be forced to die by their own sword.
The “reformers” use test scores when it serves their purposes. Ignore them when they don’t succeed.
Forcing them to die by their own sword preserves the sword. Let us beat the sword into,a ploughshare.
Let’s just be a little bit fair. The school is doing better than the elementary schools in the same district. Comparing the charter school scores to the state average is ridiculous, and it’s simply bad blogging. 100% of the charters students are economically disadvantaged, compared to less than 50% statewide. That isn’t even close for a comparison, but it works well for a cheap shot. Compared to peer schools in the same district, of which there are two, the charter has a better SPP (state dept. of ed’s school level academic scoring system) than one school by 3.3 points, and is 1.7 points lower than the other comparable school. The district schools have economically disadvantaged populations of 95.8% and 97.1%, so lower than the charter, but comparable. Comparing Chester Upland students to a statewide average is disingenuous at best.
Oh, please, Ryan. This charter is a huge money maker. The test scores don’t matter other than to show that this zillionaire has not succeeded in doing anything other than stealing the public schools of an impoverished community.
Understood. There are a lot of valid concerns about charter management companies that need to be discussed fairly. But starting that discussion with a misleading comparison of Chester Upland students to the statewide average is “oh please” worthy. And It’s the kids money, not the local districts, so I don’t think it can be characterized as stealing.
No, it’s not the kids’ money.
It’s the public’s Money.
Now it’s in Vehan’s bank account.
He gets rich and the kids get taken for a ride.
Charters provide a “FAST FOOD” education … not nutritious with a lot of bad stuff.
Charters = THE FACTORY. To the Charter industry, kids are just “canned goods” wrapped in the same cans.
I worked in a factory and so did my husband … WE KNOW about FACTORIES. They are unsafe, filthy, and the foremen and foreladies “YELL and SCREAM” at the workers.
Charters are really the same as FAST FOOD chains.
BTW, now with technology so prevalent, the kids and teachers are at the mercy of “techno-p_____.” fueled by this online everything and the teachers and students are in SILOS.
“Chester Community Charter School is the largest brick-and-mortar PRIVATE charter school in Pennsylvania. . . .”