As the school age population goes down, families leave cities for suburbs, and school choice enrollments increase, traditional public schools face a new problem: What to do with empty school buildings? This may be a symptom of a bigger issue. Continue reading
Category Archives: Charter Schools
Twin Story: What Really Happened to Pinewood
How can a school go from an ‘A’ to a ‘D’ in three years? Pinewood was an ‘A’ school serving over 1000 students for many years. About sixty percent of its students were economically disadvantaged. A higher than average number of students were English language learners or had learning disabilities. By any measure, Pinewood was a public school success story. The charter located across the street was half the size. It had 20 percent fewer economically disadvantaged students, and it earned only a ‘B’ grade from the State. Then, Pinewood’s world began to change.
A Twin Study in Broward
by Margery Marcus, LWV of Broward
Margery’s compares two schools located across the street from one another, Pinewood traditional elementary and North Broward Academy charter school. Pinewood used to earn a ‘B’ school grade. The schools could be fraternal twins, but now one earned a ‘D’ and the other an ‘A’. I was intrigued. So, I went back through the data for the last three years to see if there were changes in the schools over time. There were.
- For two of the years, Pinewood had twenty percent fewer students proficient on the kindergarten readiness test than North Broward (74%-92%). In 2012-13, there was a 40% difference. Clearly, North Broward has attracted better prepared students.
- Broward’s district achievement levels are nearly identical from one year to the next. However, Pinewood’s FCAT proficiency levels go down somewhat over time, especially in third grade, and North Broward’s go up.
- Pinewood’s staff is stable; they had 16% new teachers compared to 43% new teachers at North Broward. They were not likely to become less effective in three years. Yet, school grades kept declining.
- Pinewood lost 100 of its 716 students in three years. North Broward gained fifty students (683) over the same period.
- The mix of students also changed. Pinewood gradually increased its percentage of economically disadvantaged students to 80% in 2014 compared to 75% at North Broward.
Margery states that CSUSA is doing something right. What do you think it may be? Numbers do not always tell the whole story.
Public School Choice: A Revolving Door
In the last legislative session, there was a proposal to allow students to enroll in any public school that had room. It would give parents flexibility.
Most districts already allow students to enroll in a district school outside their zoned school to accommodate parents’ work places. Some states have enacted these open enrollment policies for everyone to go to any school. I was surprised at what happened. Maybe this is not good for Florida.
For-Profit Charters: Whose Interest is Being Served?
Lots of money easily available can lead to abuse, and it did–over and over again in Miami. It is so much money that it may be time to follow New York’s lead and ban for-profit education management companies. In this post we look at Academica, Florida’s largest for-profit education management firm.
Its schools are consolidated into at least four non-profit entities that allow Academica to operate legally as a contractor to its own schools. Their 100 schools are organized into the Mater, Somerset, Pinecrest and Doral networks. They also manage several Ben Gamla schools as well as others. Academica operates in five states plus D.C. including Florida, Utah, Texas, Nevada, California.
The Doral and Mater charter governing boards keep appearing in the Miami Dade Inspector General reports. There is a lot of money involved and continued poor governance citations. You can follow the money. Do these schools do more with less?
Jeb Bush’s Foundation Grades Legislators on Education Reform Policy
Education Now reports that the Foundation for Florida’s Future has released its grades for legislators. They are based on their support for the Bush/ALEC school privatization agenda.
As you know, Jeb Bush made his mark in Florida with his advocacy for charter schools and vouchers. When the State Supreme Court declared vouchers unconstitutional, they were turned into corporate tax rebate scholarships. The Southern Legal Counsel’s lawsuit against school choice Citizens for Strong Schools comes to trial next spring.
Privatizing schools has turned into big business in Florida. To protect the business interests, legislators are pressured and cajoled. In this report you can see the grades your individual representatives and senators have received from the foundation Jeb Bush created. High grades mean that those legislators are failing our public schools and promoting privatization. Here’s the link to the report.
Do You Know Which of Your Charters is in Trouble?
Who is in trouble in your county? The other day I posted the 2015 Florida Auditor General’s report on charter schools. Today, I happened to look at that report again. I scrolled down to find the list of charter schools in trouble. Goodness, I found 3 of them were located in Alachua County. You might want to see which ones are located in your area.
Summer Sizzle (Fizzle) in Broward County, Florida
By Margery Marcus
The Broward County School District is upset. Broward County has nearly two million people who live in relatively small cities. Ft. Lauderdale, its largest city has fewer than 200, 000 people. It is one of those pretty, but large beach towns. One third (100) of their schools are charters, but they enroll only 15% of the school population. Thus, there must be a lot of small charter schools.
Some charters with a high percentage of children from lower income families do well. Some charters have very nice facilities. There is once again, more to the story. Margery’s report will give you some clues about what is happening.
Florida Can Learn from Ohio: Charter reforms that can make a difference
Ohio has had as many or more charter school scandals than Florida. Maybe that is what it take to the Legislature’s attention. Ohio’s House and Senate have passed charter reform bills that are stronger than Florida’s. The charter industry is pushing back. The legislature needs to reconcile the two bills. Will they?
The reforms are strong and meaningful. Florida can learn from Ohio. Here are some specifics Florida needs to consider.
CHARTER SCHOOL ACHIEVEMENT: HYPE VS. EVIDENCE
Meredith Machen sent this link from Education Justice.
Reliable sources of information are not easy to find. Here is one I find very useful. It has state-by-state links with information about recent legal cases and publishes newsletters on education issues with legal implications.
The one that follows pinpoints misleading information that is published in the media. It breaks down achievement comparisons to show what scores tell us about how charters play the achievement game.