Setting the Record Straight on Charter School Academic Performance

May 27th, 2011

If you were coaching a mixed squad of marathoners and newly rehabilitated runners, would you want their race results to be averaged and people to say your team can, “at best keep up” with the other guys? I don’t think so.

In a May 2, 2011 Texas Tribune article by Reeve Hamilton, Texas charter school performance for both our schools in standard and alternative accountability systems were lumped together and compared with the traditional school system. Lumping data sets without explanation can lead to although numerically true, not entirely candid, conclusions.  

When comparing open-enrollment Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test passage rate for standard accountability charter schools to standard accountability traditional schools – charter school districts are OUTPERFORMING traditional school districts in every single subject, from the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade in the critical areas of reading, math, science and social studies.

This point is made on page 163, table 13.3, of the 2010 Comprehensive Annual Report on Texas Public Schools which describes the status of Texas public education, as required by §39.332 of the Texas Education Code. The report was prepared for the 82nd legislature and is available on the Texas Education Agency (TEA) website.

If you come away with one thing from this blog – charter schools are unique from each other. Mainly, they can be evaluated under two accountability systems: either standard accountability or alternative education accountability (AEA). Beyond accountability, charter schools widely vary in terms of mission. They may focus on college preparation, a specialized mission like arts or math & science, some are dropout recovery schools, and others are residential treatment centers or juvenile justice centers.

You may not know, but almost 40% of Texas charter schools are registered for evaluation under Alternative Education Accountability (AEA) procedures because they are serving a majority of very at-risk students. The criteria for determining if a student is at-risk can be found here and the full technical definition of AEA can be found here.

We think this type of charter schools serves a profound and immense need in Texas. TCSA is proud to support this type of school and watch them prosper.  During the 2009-2010 school year, this type of school graduated over 2000 students – that’s 2,000 more paths paved.  Most have overcome major obstacles that their peers may never understand, and well over one-third of the students in the AEA system arrive back to school over the age of 18.

We hope that forthcoming data analysis on school performance will take into account the separate accountability systems so there can be a clear understanding of our performance. Gathering, analyzing, and ultimately reporting on data sorted by accountability systems will help administrators, regulators and lawmakers isolate concerns and render prompt and practical solutions about public education moving forward.

Josie Duckett
TCSA Vice President Public & Government Affairs

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A Charter Parent’s Reflection on a Day at the Capitol

May 12th, 2011

On my way to Austin I thought about how I felt before finding my charter school-lost and frustrated. I was determined to ensure that my children exceeded the academic goals my husband and I had set for them. I desperately searched for schools that would provide a quality education for my children.

I submitted application after application to transfer my children out of our poor performing neighborhood school. Without the money to enroll them into a private school we were left frustrated. After many prayers later, a family friend told us about our local charter schools. We found our hope in Williams Preparatory, an Uplift Education charter school in Dallas.

I have been amazed by the learning environment my children are now in–but my children are the lucky ones. There are so many more children waiting to get into Williams Prep. Because of that, I jumped at the chance to attend the Charter Parent Rally at the Capitol.

On the bus ride to Austin, the journey that led my family to our charter school ran through my mind.

When I got off the bus and walked toward the Capitol I was filled with pride. I was proud to support Williams Preparatory and proud to rally for the thousands of families looking for something better for their children.

The rally was a great experience that was filled with emotion. As I looked around the crowd of over a thousand parents from all over the state, I felt that we were one. One voice fighting for the schools that provide our children with a chance at a bright future.

On the way back to Dallas, I couldn’t help but reflect on those parents who also feel the hunger for their children’s success and are unsatisfied with their neighborhood school. I hope that the presence we made at the Capitol will remind our representatives that our charter schools represent hope and strong futures.

Our charter school community is waiting for Superman–right now we look to our legislators to be that hero. We look to them to protect and expand our right to find quality public education for our children.

Monica Deantes, Williams Preparatory Parent

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It’s a Wrap: Spring Charter School Finance Bootcamp is a Resounding Success!

April 13th, 2011

Last week, charter finance leaders from around the state gathered at the Lincoln Training Center at Advantage Academy in Duncanville, TX to take part in the first ever Spring Charter School Finance Boot Camp. Outside of the TCSA Annual Charter Schools Conference this event was the largest ever gathering of charter leaders in the DFW area.

It was great to get to rub shoulders with so many of my charter friends in one place. Although it sounds a little weird, nothing excites me more that overhearing people chat about MOE, T&E, PEIMS, Title 1, AARA, GL, and Budget Development, to name a few. When I hear these conversations I know that charters are constantly looking to better themselves and be one step ahead. Charter Business Officers are a unique breed who I have grown to appreciate immensely because of the unique way they adapt to deal with an ever growing mountain of financial and operational compliance issues. Together with expert presenters charter leaders were able to gain clarification on key compliance issues and proactively plan for the tight financial times to come over the next biennium as Texas works towards tackling its current deficit.

In true charter style it was not all just business at the Charter School Spring Finance Boot Camp. There is nothing better at the end of a long day than to break bread with friends. Thanks to vendor members, CDA and Vinson&Elkins for sponsoring the Charter School Networking Happy Hour that was attended by more than 40 people. I am still savoring the flavor from the Cajun goodies, specifically the spicy etouffee, yum. Good friends and good times for all.

Thank you again to all of the attendees, sponsors, presenters and staff that helped make this training a success and I look forward to doing it again next spring. Together, we all made this possible.

Matt Abbott, TCSA Director of Training Services

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Measure Schools for their Mission – House Bill 1311

March 25th, 2011

In 2012, more than 73,692 students will drop out of high school based on Texas A&M projections. These dropouts will cost Texas up to $10.7 billion over their lifetimes.  As a state, we cannot afford these costs or continue to ignore the dropout crisis.

To combat this crisis, seven charter districts in Texas have opened schools dedicated to helping students that have dropped out of traditional public schools or are at risk of dropping out.

In 1999, ResponsiveEd began opening Premier High Schools to help students who are pregnant, homeless, addicted to drugs or work full-time.  For many students, Premier High School is their last chance to get a diploma.

In the last 12 years, more than 5,000 Premier students have earned a high school diploma.  We are proud of these graduates. And, we want to do more.

However, Texas unintentionally penalizes Premier High School and other dropout recovery charter schools for educating these students.

On Tuesday, the Texas House Public Education Committee debated HB 1311 by Rep. Mark Shelton. The bill would eliminate many disincentives that prevent Premier High Schools from serving a larger number of dropouts.

Rep. Shelton’s bill creates a separate designation for “Dropout Reduction Charter High Schools,” that will allow schools, which have proven themselves academically successful and fiscally accountable to expand.

This bill is desperately needed. For many years, legislative and media discussions have focused on early-intervention, such as a focus on retaining middle school students, to prevent dropouts.  While this effort is admirable, we cannot afford to abandon those who have already dropped out and wish to re-engage and return to school.

HB 1311 will allow ResponsiveEd to open more high-quality Premier High School campuses across the state.

Charles Cook, Chief Executive Officer, Responsive Education Solutions

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Dallas Can! Academy Opens High School Campus in Area With Highest Percentage of Drop Outs

March 24th, 2011

Dallas Can! Academy recently hosted a grand opening of its 58,000 square-foot Pleasant Grove campus.  The new location was opened to meet the shifting population needs of its students.

The ceremony featured remarks by Texas State Board of Education Member Mavis B. Knight, Dallas City Council Member Delia Jasso, and Texans Can! CEO Richard Marquez. The first Dallas Can! graduate and also the first charter school graduate in Texas, Maleka Blacklock was recognized during the ceremony.  Maleka graduated from Dallas Can! in October 1996. Student-led tours of the school followed the ceremony.

The Pleasant Grove campus opened with an enrollment of approximately 500 students and has the capacity to enroll up to 700.

The facility was formerly an Albertson’s grocery store and sits on 6.9 acres.  It was vacant for three years before Dallas Can! purchased the property and spent $1.5 million in renovation and construction costs to create a state-of-the art learning environment for their students.

The campus has 22 classrooms including two designed specifically as computer labs and two for science classes.  The student-to-teacher ratio averages 15:1.  Dallas Can! Academy offers students two half-school days every weekday. The students can attend school for four hours in the morning or four hours in the afternoon to allow them to work if needed.

Statistics for Pleasant Grove cite that it has the highest drop out rates, lowest income and highest number of people living at or below the poverty level in Dallas County.  More than 50% of the residents do not have or will not obtain a high school education.  The area also has the highest concentration of residents on probation from prison.

Highly optimistic about the new campus, Principal Mene Khepera cited the opportunities ahead for their new home. “We are definitely excited about opening this new campus in the Pleasant Grove community. Many of our current students live in this area and we are looking forward to being able to serve the youth of this area.”

Dallas Can! is one of Texans Can!’s unique network of 10 public schools of choice located in Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, Houston and San Antonio.

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Why not make the playing field level?

February 10th, 2011

February 9, 2011 hundreds of charter school parents traveled to the Capitol by the busloads to visit their legislators to ask for equity in funding for their students. This report is the reason all Charter School Districts (CSD) must support charter parents as they go to Austin.

The Legislature has not provided for Texas charter schools to access the same funding ISDs receive. As the founder of Life School Charter School District (LSCSD), it is my responsibility to speak for the students who have no voice. The difference between what 3,726 LSCSD students and the same number of ISD students receive for education is amazingly unfair. If 3,726 LSCSD students’ education were funded as an ISD students are funded the difference would be a whopping $12,858,426 more than as a CSD. How do charters compete? Very well, thank you. However, that does not make it equitable.

Charters aren’t complaining, but someone must stand up and speak out for the charter students being short-changed. The Texas Constitution requires the Texas government to provide every public school student with a “fair and equitable” education. Charter students are not provided equitable funding for their schools.

Some may say defending the status quo, “Charters are doing okay; their students get an equitable education.” Charters do score well when compared to surrounding ISDs. True, but their good scores don’t mean they are provided for equitably.

As a rule, the charter administrators work harder and have more responsibilities. Generally, the teachers have more classes and assignments than their counterparts. The coaches volunteer or receive smaller stipends. Charter facilities are usually inferior to ISDs, and often parents and community stakeholders volunteer to clean, paint and fix-up empty buildings reclaimed from other uses. Thanks, visionary educators and volunteers, for your hard work and sacrifice! However, that does not offer absolution to our lawmakers.

Many charter students don’t grasp the many additional educational options they’re missing. Like the charter teachers, they just work harder and longer because they are so excited about learning. However, innovative, creative LCSCD educators could certainly productively utilize $12M additional funding to further increase the opportunities for students’ educational experience and college readiness. If we do so much with less; why not make the playing field level? Charter students would like the equal opportunity to experience education with equal facilities, equal sport venues, additional professional consultants (rather than the required minimal ratio), and the effective (but expensive) educational programming materials and IT equipment that the average ISD student takes for granted.

Perhaps it can’t happen this session. Budget realities make it a faint hope. But I sure won’t give up that hope! See you in Austin!

Dr. Tom Wilson, Founder
Office of the Chancellor
Life School

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Austin Community Not Standing Silent or without Presenting New Options in the Face of School Closures

January 21st, 2011

Wednesday night, at the first of two Austin Independent School District (AISD) Facility Master Plan Task Force meetings, more than 700 community members came out to be heard about the options put forth to counter a projected budget shortfall of $45 million for the coming 2011-2012 school year.

A task force had been convened to design a plan for cutting costs for the district, and the resulting options were through various plans that included the potential closure of nine schools throughout the city. The meetings intended to offer the community time to provide feedback about the options put forward before the recommendations are made to the AISD School Board on January 18th. And Wednesday night, Austin community members were going to be heard.

While the task force has been working on the plan since the spring, final options were shared with the public Monday night, approximately 48 hours before the first of the two AISD Facility Master Plan Task Force community meetings. Many parents at Wednesday’s meeting were outraged that more time was not being provided to have their voices heard and for other community options to be presented.

Among the criteria the task force used for their recommendations was “education enhancement” in which a judgment of whether the educational needs of students were being met. However, each option proposes closing schools (eight elementary and one middle school) and all of the elementary schools have a state ranking of recognized or exemplary.

During the community’s opportunity to make comments, which started at 6: 40pm as speakers were called upon to speak at random, people spoke of their concerns regarding how schools slated for closure were chosen. Some questioned why schools with exemplary state rankings or a rich history in the community were on the list; others asked the task force “why are your eyes on the east side” for closure? And most eloquently, one woman stated that a community’s schools are the heart of the community – and the currently proposed closure plans ignore that.

Near 8:15pm, Janie Flores, an East Austin community member stepped forward with an alternative option for how AISD could not only offer a quality education to students in East Austin, but could also divert existing funds to save other schools in danger of being closed. As President of the East Austin College Prep Academy (EACPA) Parent Council, Ms. Flores presented a proposal in which EACPA would be allowed to lease Eastside Memorial High School from AISD.

Eastside Memorial High School, a campus beleaguered for more than a decade with unsatisfactory state rankings, sits in the middle of the East Austin neighborhood of Govalle/Johnston Terrace. Ms Flores stated that if the EACPA were to take over all related operational and facilities costs of running the school from AISD, EACPA could continue to provide the services it currently provides to the community including a college prep middle school, school-based health clinic, employment services, childcare services, cultural arts programs, afterschool programs and parental education.

This arrangement could impact the community in two very significant ways:

  1. AISD would save significant existing funds by not having to operate this underutilized school. The cost savings could then be redirected to help them keep other campuses open and operating.
  2. It would offer the East Austin community, and their children, with the type of stable and consistent quality education that prepares them for successful futures – in particular to attend and graduate in college.

In the end, when the meeting adjourned around 8:40pm, the task force had heard from others in support of this East Austin College Prep option and the impact it may have on the other schools.

The task force members did not have an easy evening, listening to the pleas, arguments, reasoning and concerns of parents. But in the end, another option was presented that may help both the East Austin community and the rest of the city. And provide our city’s students with what they all deserve, a quality education.

Narissa Johnson
Southwest Key

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Charters in the State’s High Court

December 17th, 2010

Texas Supreme Court Justices

Last week was an exciting week in the Texas open-enrollment charter school world; well, at least exciting for a legal geek like me. Last Tuesday was the first time a case involving an open-enrollment charter school was before our state’s highest court, the Supreme Court of Texas.

The case, LTTS Charter School vs. C2 Construction, involved a construction company that sued Universal Academy claiming that the school owed it more money. This case, which started out as a run-of-the-mill contract claim, has truly morphed into a legal case that may have broad implications for all Texas open-enrollment charter schools. In an effort to spare you all much of the legalese, I will summarize by saying that the Supreme Court of Texas heard oral arguments on whether an open-enrollment charter school has the right to file an “interlocutory appeal” from a lower court’s ruling. Such an appeal “hits pause” on the case going on in the lower court while the appellate court decides the issue that a party has brought before it on interlocutory appeal. The public policy rationale behind such an appeal is that public funds should not be wasted on protracted litigation – in order words, we must be mindful of the “public’s purse”.

TCSA submitted two separate amicus curiae, or friend of the court, briefs in the case in support of Universal Academy’s position. Encouragingly, the Texas Solicitor General, who was asked by the Supreme Court of Texas to file an amicus curiae brief, also agreed that open-enrollment charter schools have the right to file an interlocutory appeal. Sitting in on the hearing, what fascinated me most was listening to the Court grapple with “what is a charter school”? “Is it a public school?” “Are they subject to the Texas Open Meetings Act?” “Are their records open to the public?” “Do their students take the same TAKS test?” “What or who authorizes these schools?” “How are these schools funded?” I realized sitting in that courtroom that I take for granted, living in this charter school world in which we live and breathe, that many people who don’t live in our world don’t understand the concept of a charter school – they don’t know that it’s a free, public school; they don’t know that open-enrollment charter schools are equally accountable, both academically and financially, as their traditional school brethren; and they don’t know charter schools are doing a remarkable job at sending off kids to college and recovering or preventing high school dropouts with less money than traditional ISDs and no facilities funding to boot!

All this is to say that it was a great opportunity to provide the Supreme Court of Texas with a little Open-Enrollment Charter School 101. TCSA seized this opportunity through the briefs we submitted and provided the Court with this much needed information. We here at TCSA wait with much anticipation the Court ruling as we believe it will give us some insight as to how the Court views open-enrollment charter schools. In the meantime, at each opportunity, we’ll continue to educate the public on charter schools and showcase our successes.

Veronica Garcia
TCSA Director of Legal and Policy Services

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Yvette East, TCSA Annual Conference Chair, reflects on the 14th Annual Conference

December 9th, 2010

 

Yvette East and Ruby Payne at the 14th Annual Texas Charter Schools Conference in San Antonio.

If you ever needed to experience a place to KNOW that you belonged, it was the 14th Annual Texas Charter School Conference.  On the banks of the San Antonio riverwalk, you were able to mingle with your charter cousins and friends. Most importantly, share experiences regardless of mission or vision. It’s about reaching, teaching kids – from the back office to the classroom.

Faces young and old were excited by the format. Teacher Track/Administrator Track – Top Names – I attended both tracks.  As the TCSA Conference Committee Chair, I wanted to observe how people were responding.

Harry Wong was a hoot, excellent workshop.  He spoke on procedures, procedures, and more procedures. He is quite an inspiring speaker, “Stick with me and I will make you famous!” I left feeling good about my role in education after he said, “I saw the angel in the marble. I carved him out and set him free. We don’t make a difference in the lives of kids. We are the difference.” Reminding us all to, “Give love in abundance everyday.”

I can never get enough of Ruby Payne’s delightful antidotes. She spoke on obstacles that we face educating kids from all economic classes, but especially those in poverty. Perfect for these times we’re facing now.

Opportunity was everywhere at this conference – name it, and you can learn more about it. I was happy with the quality of information that was given from experts in the field of finance, governance, RTI, seasoned charter holders, and Regional Service Centers.

From the beautiful tribute to the memory of Eric Singleton to the Legislative Rally, I was reminded of how proud I am to be part of the charter school movement. This is where I belong.

Yvette East
Houston Heights Learning Academy

 

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Holocaust Survivor from U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Shared Her Personal Story of Thanksgiving to Dallas Can! Students

December 3rd, 2010

Dallas Can! Academy students had the exciting opportunity to hear from Holocaust survivor and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum volunteer Manya Friedman when she spoke to our Oak Cliff campus about her experience during World War II and the Holocaust.

Manya shared her story of survival and experience with intolerance during a visit to our Oak Cliff Dallas Can! Academy campus this month. As a volunteer with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Manya shares her moving story of survival with students and groups around the nation.

In 1939 German soldiers invaded the town in Poland where Manya and her family lived. Her father was taken into German custody and forced to build latrines for them before he was released. In 1941, when Manya was 16, she was forced to work for a German company that produced military uniforms. In March 1943, she was taken from the uniform factory to the Gogolin transit camp, and later to the Gleiwitz labor camp where she was tattooed with the number 79357, which became her name. At the end of 1943, Manya’s family was deported to Auschwitz; she never saw them again.

Manya was liberated from Auschwitz by the Swedish Red Cross in late April 1945. In 1950, she emigrated from Sweden to the United States. Today, Manya is an active volunteer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Our students asked many questions about the Holocaust. Manya commented that she speaks in many schools and has never had a more attentive and respectful group.

The students of Dallas Can! have overcome various obstacles to complete their education. Meeting someone like Manya inspires our students to never give up and remember the importance of their freedom.

Richard Marquez
CEO, Texans Can!

For more information, visit http://www.texanscan.org

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