Is it tougher to open a charter school in a high achieving district?
In a 4-3 vote Friday met with a standing ovation, the Cherokee school board rejected Cherokee Charter Academy, one of eight new charters statewide whose futures were thrown into limbo by the state Supreme Court decision on May 16.
Like most of the other charter schools scheduled to open and the eight already in operation, Cherokee Charter turned to its local school board for approval, which was the best lifeline since it assured the best funding. But many things were at work against the fledgling school, one being the short time frame for local approval due to the late ruling by the Supreme Court.
By issuing its decision in mid May after hearing the case in October, the high court left a window of only a few weeks for schools approved by the now illegal state commission to find legitimacy through local boards of education. I think that the schools already in operation had a slight edge over schools like Cherokee Academy, which had not yet opened and had no record on which to stand.
What is interesting to note in both Cherokee and Coweta — which also rejected one of the 16 commission charters Friday and one that is actually in operation -- is that these are communities with high achieving schools, creating tensions between the charter parents who want a different setting for their kids and the parents who are satisfied with their existing public school choices and see the charter schools as a financial drain on already strained resources.
In Cherokee, each group of parents showed up in their colors — red for charter school supports and black for opponents.
Most of the charter school students stranded by the Supreme Court decision — two-thirds of them — would have attended virtual charter schools, which are among the fastest-growing in the nation. Down the line, I have to spend time looking at the research on the efficacy of virtual education. From what I have seen so far, the efficacy falls into that standard big pot in education called “mixed results.” But online charter schools are growing everywhere, and it will be interesting to see how well they fare.)
The idea of a charter school in Cherokee County was met with over 2,600 applications and a groundswell of support from parents concerned about slipping test scores at their neighborhood schools. The overwhelming interest grew the charter school’s rosters from over 700 students to 995. The school, which was set to open in August, could never win board approval, however. It was rejected in 2009 and 2010 because of concerns about its finances, governance and budget.
Parents were disappointed by the third rejection, but refuse to give up. “We will continue to fight,” said Ted Handey, who has a fifth grader accepted at Cherokee Charter Academy. Organizers say they will appeal to the state Board of Education for approval as a state special charter school. That vote will be held Tuesday.
School board members said the charter school wasn’t right for the district and the price was too high with 995 students. To raise $3.4 million for a school of 500 — the board’s counter proposal — Cherokee school superintendent Frank Petruzielo said the board would have to consider either laying off 55 teachers, increasing furlough days, eliminating step raises, hiking taxes or siphoning reserves. If the charter was allowed to continue with 995 students, it would be a $6.8 million impact; or $40 million over five years.
“We are not talking about small change,” Petruzielo said.
Board members Mike Chapman, Janet Read, Robert Wofford and Rick Steiner voted against the charter petition. Board members Michael Geist, Kim Cochran and Rob Usher voted in favor.
“What I hate the most about this situation is that we should not be pitting one against the other,” said school board member Chapman before the vote. He also told those who wanted more choices to consider relocating. “If you feel like the Cherokee County school system isn’t meeting your needs you have the option to move.”
School officials also said the charter school’s application had continued deficiencies and question whether the charter school was giving too much control to its partner, Charter Schools USA, a for-profit education management firm. Some also wondered whether enough students had the opportunity to apply.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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72 comments Add your comment
Real Athens
June 27th, 2011
3:18 pm
Teacher Reader:
Relax, Francis. My mother and sister are educators … spare me. Again I reference your lack of self-awareness. I watched Gwinnett County Schools compromised by the iron fisted, idiotic reign of Louise Radloff. Her authority was granted to her solely because of her politics. Idiotic school boards and administrators come in all shapes, sizes and colors and have for all time. You get the school boards you deserve (just like any of our any elected offices). They are elected officials, up for review every few years.
I’ll tell you what. Let’s send girls to girls’ schools, boys to boys’ schools. Then we’ll separate them by ethnicity, (OK, wait that’s illegal) how about, socio-economic background, that seems popular these days. What do you think we’ll have in 30 years? We’ll be marching backwards to the good old days — the Dark Ages.
What public schools need is a greater infusion of personal responsibility, attention and volunteerism from parents, taxpayers and the public at large. Build a better mousetrap.
Dr. Seuss touches on the idea of charter schools and this line of thinking in the children’s story “The Sneetches Go to the Beaches”. It should be required reading every 10 years for all humans.
Publicola
June 27th, 2011
3:47 pm
It’s all relative. We’re talking about so-called high achieving districts in a State at the bottom of the heap nationally, in a nation falling behind the rest of the developed world.
Why are we defending the status quo?
Ga Teacher 10
June 27th, 2011
4:01 pm
As a teacher in Clayton County, I absolutely understand the need to change and improve schools. It is more apparent in one the most poorly run districts in the state. I absolutely understand that when there is a need and the powers that be refuse to address the issues, than charters schools certainly have a place. With some of the incompetent leadership (and to be fair, some teachers) I absolutely understand why parents would want to get their child out to a better situation. Even though my school had a vast majority of excellent teachers who care deeply about their students and worked their tails off, the leadership was so awful that I could understand parents wanting better. That being said, though, it is incomprehensible for me to see the “outrage” in well-run districts such as Cherokee, Cobb, and Gwinnett. Before I get grenades thrown my way, I know that every district has its issues, but when you work in such a terribly run county as mine, these places seem like heaven.
Charter Schools…..
1) Represent the tried and true-to-fail “market model” economics full of “competition” including massive deregulation and changing the rules to make success easier.
2) Screen applicants through a lottery system vs. having to teach every child regardless of restrictions, race, special needs, poverty level, discipline problems, etc.
3) Most charters mandate a certain level of parent involvement or child is “counseled” out of that school
4) Enforce strict discipline rules and regulations that would likely incur lawsuits in regular schools. At any time the student can be “counseled out” (ie….kicked back to their public school).
5) I can give you all the reasons in the world why Charters are a bunch of BS, but the biggest and most important one simply is that they’re just not as good. They absolutely do not outperform their public school counterparts…..
And yet, this study [from CREDO] reveals in unmistakable terms that, in the aggregate, charter students are not faring as well as their TPS [traditional public school] counterparts.”
http://credo.stanford.edu/
Known as the CREDO study, it evaluated student progress on math tests in half the nation’s five thousand charter schools and concluded that 17 percent were superior to a matched traditional public school; 37 percent were worse than the public school; and the remaining 46 percent had academic gains no different from that of a similar public school.
For all of you complaining about not having a choice and your kids not getting the best they possibly can be, you’re forgetting the most influential education of all: YOU. Stop whining and get to work helping your kids in their education.
Parents wanting charter schools in good districts = wanting a private school education for FREE.
Ga Teacher 10
June 27th, 2011
4:10 pm
Nation falling behind the rest of the world…………..
It bears mentioning that nations with high-performing school systems—whether Korea, Singapore, Finland, or Japan—have succeeded not by privatizing their schools or closing those with low scores, but by strengthening the education profession. They also have less poverty than we do. Fewer than 5 percent of children in Finland live in poverty, as compared to 20 percent in the United States. Those who insist that poverty doesn’t matter, that only teachers matter, prefer to ignore such contrasts.
I can give you all the reasons in the world why most (not all, obviously some work well, KIPP, Aspire, etc) charter schools are a bunch of crap (screening, kicking kids out with ease, changing the rules, extreme discipline, an intrinsically high motivated group, mandated parental involvement, less qualified teachers, etc), but the bottom line charters as a whole simply just AREN’T AS GOOD!………
Known as the CREDO study, it evaluated student progress on math tests in half the nation’s five thousand charter schools and concluded that 17 percent were superior to a matched traditional public school; 37 percent were worse than the public school; and the remaining 46 percent had academic gains no different from that of a similar public school.
http://credo.stanford.edu/ – Credo Reports Section
As a teacher in one of the worst run districts in the nation (ClayCo), I absolutely agree that there should be reform in public schools, mainly at leadership levels, but saying that charter schools are the silver bullet is false, and frankly, insulting.
parents wanting charters in high performing districts = wanting a private school education for FREE
public_education
June 27th, 2011
4:58 pm
School district scores are not dropping, check the data. Cherokee is a high performing school district.
Jerry Eads
June 27th, 2011
5:11 pm
@ reader: the state legislature is not empowered by the constitution to make local decisions.
@Cherokee Student: great response. While I’ve not seen decent research on the subject, extensive anecdotal observation at one of the area’s top schools would suggest that the privates (in general – yes there are really good ones – $$$$) do a less than superb job of preparing students; they seem to be typically one or more years behind students who came up through the county schools. While there are NO data WHATSOEVER that suggest “competition” is the silver bullet to solve school problems, it is certainly testable as a research issue. If you are considering charters to be such competition, the research DOES very clearly show, once such things as “cherry-picking” and the propensity to expel unruly students is accounted for, that charters are no better than and frequently worse than their comparable ‘regular’ public schools. Public schools, by the way, are based on cooperation, not competition. While you indeed ‘compete’ for high grades, schools seem to work better when everyone is working together rather trying to beat one another.
@Teacher Reader: a superb response; one I take to heart. There ARE systems that are obviously virtually completely broken, and our local inner city district has certainly shown itself to be a superb example. I wish there were a silver bullet to fix schools generally. As for KIPP and Propel the data very starkly show that these private sector attempts do nothing more than avoid accountability and slip their trouble kids back to the public school or, worse, onto the street. I cannot favor such sleight of hand. In the case of New Orleans, if every school is a charter school, then there are no charter schools. If the purpose of the charter is to get rid of regulation (and, usually, accountability – the utility of which is a separate discussion), then indeed we could simply let each individual school be a “charter” and let the chips fall where they may. As Ravitch noted in Savannah, however, 90% of the country’s kids are in public schools. Charters may address 2-3% of them (I think those were the numbers). It is not reasonable to address the needs of 2-3% of the student body at the expense of the rest of them. We DO need to address some very serious issues, but running away from them is not the solution. Yes, having spent most of my career thinking about state and national policy, I do tend to think globally rather than individually, and there are benefits as well as shortcomings to that perspective. Look forward to arguing with you more!
Active in Cherokee
June 27th, 2011
5:33 pm
My biggest problem with Charter schools under the current method of approving them – we’re sinking national, state, and local tax money into a ‘for-profit’ organization that has very little regulations. Give ‘traditional’ public schools some of the same flexibility and they would succeed also.
In an answer to the question – one of the cases against this charter school in Cherokee was that the Cherokee County School System outperfomed every Charter Schools USA (the for-profit company) already has and can be compared by test scores. Why would CCSD spend so much money on a system they are better than by traditional methods of measurement?
Former GCA parent
June 27th, 2011
5:42 pm
Chiming in re: the Georgia Cyber Academy. It’s a JOKE. Not a high-level quality curriculum but a mindless, computer-based test prep program. And guess what else? They are lying about at least one of their CRCT scores. My student was told they got one score, but on the final grade report for GCA, all scores had been raised so it appeared he has exceeded the standard (instead of met, which was no big deal because we weren’t really teaching the curriculum – The Test – anyway, and his real performance on tasks was spot on). Multiple emails sent concerning this discrepancy have gone unanswered, and they are still in the office through June.
Don’t confuse a lot of work with good work. The amount of mindless busywork provided by GCA is mind-numbing and pointless. They read adaptations instead of real books. The online classes are slow and boring; if you have a gifted student RUN SCREAMING in the opposite direction. Just test prep – a public school online.
Former GCA parent
June 27th, 2011
5:44 pm
Really, public_education? Oh, that’s right, test scores aren’t dropping – the bar (in the form of cut scores) is, so it can appear to be a high-performing district. Low standards, low expectations.
If you believe public school and public school students are on track (or improving), you are living with your head in the sand.
Jerry Eads
June 27th, 2011
7:08 pm
THANK YOU, @GCA. But I have to stand up for the measurement-trained folk (by the way, few state testing folk are actually trained in the technology) at DOE . They aren’t fiddling with the cut scores over time – these people are HIGHLY ethical technical experts trapped inside the political bubble. They do absolutely the very best they know how to keep the difficulty level of the cut score at the same level every year. (Although much of the “bounce” of pass rates every year is simply a function of the error inherent in the year-to-year linking process. The technology is WAY short of the political demands upon it.)
The PROBLEM is that “mincomp” testing has just never done us much good in improving schools since we started this misguided effort in the late 1970’s to know how many kids passed a very low bar – usually on the order of the 5th to the 10th percentile, sometimes a tad more. We DID learn that state and national leaders are REALLY slow learners. Only very recently have people like John Barge gone on record saying he wished we’d get away from this kind of testing. He MOST certainly has my support.
It’s MUCH cheaper to produce minimum competency tests like this than develop full-range tests that might help us learn how EACH student is progressing, wherever on the distribution they are. We spend tens of millions of dollars on these questionable tests; we would spend huge amounts more to build useful ones. The research indicates that the problem you mention is actually CAUSED by the tests, not indicated by them: districts, schools, administrators and teachers are forced to focus only on the “bubble kids” whose performance is very close to the cut score, at the expense of both those who will fail even with enormous instructional effort as well as those who could already pass the tests.
CherokeeStudent
June 27th, 2011
7:44 pm
@Jerry Eads: I was talking about competition as a school system and not on a student level. Having other school options who demonstrate outperformance of the public schools will in time initiate change and hopefully influence those decision makers and authoritative figures to want to change the school system. You are obviously very knowledgeable and I am in no way educated enough about the statistics to debate such. Everyone has great points but what I conclude is that if there are that many accusations about the public school system, then I would prefer to try almost anything different.
Jerry Eads
June 27th, 2011
9:54 pm
@Cherokee: The competition issue spreads throughout everything, and as I understand the research (but I’m no expert in this particular area), the school culture is essentially cooperative. When a requirement for competition is introduced into the system at some level, it seems to damage the cooperative culture (I should be able to say that better but it’s late for an old man). One of the biggest reasons so (very) few policy changes implemented at local, state and federal levels ever result in positive outcomes is that the decisionmakers rarely study the possible negative consequences of their actions. Sometimes those negatives do far more harm than the intended changes do good. One of the other issues is that policymakers tend to make “one size fits all” decisions. What might be needed in a low-income inner city system might do enormous damage in an upper-income suburban system. Trying “anything different,” history shows pretty well, almost always causes far more harm than good. I would expect that eliminating some state regulations might help in many situations (the primary benefit seen for “charter” schools); but with the elimination of oversight comes responsibility, and apparently at least as often as not that responsibility has been either squandered or mishandled. If the constructs underlying “charters” were demonstrated to be largely positive (which they haven’t by any stretch of the imagination) then I would argue strongly for same.
Fled
June 28th, 2011
1:16 am
@really amazed: I often disagree with you, but this time I do believe that your points are valid. Teachers, at least the ones who could actually prepare kids for higher education, are not allowed to teach in Georgia. Almost every time I tried to teach honestly (and that means giving honest grades), the loudmouthed, lazy parents would start ringing the phone off the hook with complaints, and the spineless (bald) administrator would, yet again, come down on me. He even changed grades more than once. I always thought this was a shame because the parents who actually wanted their kids educated (which form the largest part of parents, including myself) are overruled by those who want rewards for education without the boring parts like reading books and doing research. So, yes, I agree that in Georgia there is need for massive overhaul of the education system. Look at the salaries of the central office staff and ask yourself what these people actually accomplish: precious little in my experience. I ain’t never coming back there.
This lesson hit home hard this year when I was finally able to get my children into a private school with an international reputation for excellence. In spite of TAG (a real joke in Georgia btw: how many of those teachers themselves were top students, do you think?) and going to primary and middle schools with all sorts of placards about how excellent they are and straight As, my kids simply did not know how to study and how to learn. It has been a hard year for them as time after time they have done what the public schools in Georgia taught them was excellent work only to learn over and over that it is not up to international standards. They were surprised right up until the final report card, which was honest. No, they did not get to redo every assignment over and over. I am ever grateful that we fled, as my children are finally being educated and are learning what it means to work hard for grades. The teachers here are real pros and are treated as professionals with much to offer: think that makes a difference in the job they do?
I do not think that corporate education is the answer for Georgia. Don’t be fooled: what these people want is to turn the big pile of money for education into profits for themselves. If you turn over the schools to these people, you will find yourself in even worse shape than now. The poor level of schools in Georgia will get even worse when classrooms become profit centers. You’ll still be in the bottom of the educational world, but at least investors will make money off your educational misery.
The sad truth is, there are no easy answers, no magic bullets, no approaches that will turn things around immediately. I often thought that the only answer was simply to begin insisting on excellence across the board and to stick with that; painful as it would be kids would eventually rise to the level of expectations. But that will never happen in Georgia.
Coweta Watcher
June 28th, 2011
7:31 am
High achieving? Really? We are ranked 44th in the state in Coweta County. How is that high achieving.
“You are okay with “for-profit” companies in charge of education?” – The public system has operated for-profit since the inception. Look at all of the administrators in all of the schools and in the main office. Too many chiefs running around.
Really amazed
June 28th, 2011
12:07 pm
@Fled, glad you realized this and that your children are finally being educated. Why is it that many parent in GA believe because of easy grades, redos and crct scores that their children are truly being educated??? Can’t parents see what their child is being taught?
DemocracyChamp
June 28th, 2011
6:07 pm
@ Bill M – Charters as they are perceived by many districts and citizens, like yourself is not how charters were intended originally. You mentioned that they don’t belong in districts that are high performing. I respectfully disagree for two reasons. First, because the original purpose of charters was to get the freedom to try new things and for those innovations to be scaled up and into traditional public schools, should they prove successful. No matter how well any school is doing, there are always ways to improve. Second, parents applied to the school in droves, implying the demand for choice which I believe is fundamental to a healthy democracy. Sure, Cherokee’s test scores are great, but students are still not doing as well in social studies, at least according to the stats, implying tunnel vision focus on math and language arts. And how about the art, drama, music and dance? Perhaps parents want schools that aren’t as obsessed with the test scores.
That being said, I honestly don’t know whether or not Cherokee Charter Academy (CCA) is planning to do anything different of innovative and even if they were, my first point about the original intent of charters would be useless if the relationship between the district and school wasn’t there to begin with. Hypothetically speaking, even if CCA did something awesome that really worked for students, I really doubt the district would pay any attention or care because of the bad blood between them that is inevitably going to worsen (but let’s hope not, for the sake of the community/students). Even with that caveat, I still think in general, that charters are good for democracy.
Really amazed
June 28th, 2011
8:31 pm
If you mean Cherokee Counties test scores are great…do you mean crct scores?? If so, this is what I mean about drinking the kool-aid. Crct scores are a joke of truly deciding if a student is or has learned how to learn. Please, please don’t be fooled into believing that just because crct scores are good means these students are truly learning. How were their itbs national scores. Funny how the state won’t release those anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Paddy O
July 1st, 2011
7:16 pm
obviously, the answer to this headline is yes. Why? exactly. why open a duplicative charter when the current schools are performing adequately. And most folks need to stop with the comparative studies on the US & other relatively small nations.
Paddy O
July 1st, 2011
7:17 pm
why would the state NOT release ITBS? With the improved curriculum (supposedly), those test scores should have increased.
Paddy O
July 1st, 2011
7:21 pm
fled demonstrates the underbelly of GA schools – is APS behavior actually far more spread out state wide? The state BOE should have a rule that prohibits administrators from changing any grade. It is there high paid butts job to listen to gripes from the parents, but sadly, many parents do a poor job today – the slippery slope has infected the entire nation.
Maureen Downey
July 1st, 2011
9:55 pm
@Paddy O, Because not every system gives ITBS since it is not required. Those systems that do administer it aren’t required to do so.
Maureen
Paddy O
July 3rd, 2011
2:16 am
maureen – don’t know if you will read this: Is ITBS expensive to administer? If no, why would you not give? It would seem to be a good benchmark on where your student is relative to other kids in teh country. Also, why not release the data on those schools that do give the test? Thank you!