Report says performance of Arizona's charter schools is mixed - washingtonpost.com:
"Across the road, teacher Harrison Stratton tramped with his eighth-grade environmental science class through a patch of desert. He showed students how to stake out, with string, a one-meter-square section. Their task was sampling soil; his goal was teaching scientific methods. The class would climb a nearby mountain soon to do the same thing.
'It's a lot of footwork,' he said, 'taking data in a range of environments.' Many of his students will take their first AP tests next spring."
Regular public schools nationwide are gravitating toward AP. But this school and a sister program in Tucson, more than most, make the college-level program a centerpiece. Andrew Shabilla, 17, a senior, said that by the time he graduates he will have taken 11 AP tests and that he relishes the fellowship of a small academic community. "It's a special place, an oasis for learning," he said.
Multiplex academy
To the southwest, Chandler Preparatory Academy is tucked into a former model home showroom and what used to be a 10-screen movie house near a Target. Its 530 students, grades 6 through 12, are immersed in Western culture, from Homer to Dostoevski. The girls in red-and-black plaid skirts and boys in khakis, all wearing red or white knit shirts, convey a preppy ambience without the five-figure tuition and entrance exams.
"Across the road, teacher Harrison Stratton tramped with his eighth-grade environmental science class through a patch of desert. He showed students how to stake out, with string, a one-meter-square section. Their task was sampling soil; his goal was teaching scientific methods. The class would climb a nearby mountain soon to do the same thing.
'It's a lot of footwork,' he said, 'taking data in a range of environments.' Many of his students will take their first AP tests next spring."
Regular public schools nationwide are gravitating toward AP. But this school and a sister program in Tucson, more than most, make the college-level program a centerpiece. Andrew Shabilla, 17, a senior, said that by the time he graduates he will have taken 11 AP tests and that he relishes the fellowship of a small academic community. "It's a special place, an oasis for learning," he said.
Multiplex academy
To the southwest, Chandler Preparatory Academy is tucked into a former model home showroom and what used to be a 10-screen movie house near a Target. Its 530 students, grades 6 through 12, are immersed in Western culture, from Homer to Dostoevski. The girls in red-and-black plaid skirts and boys in khakis, all wearing red or white knit shirts, convey a preppy ambience without the five-figure tuition and entrance exams.