How To Define ‘Success’?
The new and improved New York State tests have arrived and the higher standards have taken much of the air out of many charter chain’s balloons. Schools, in particular, from KIPP and Democracy Prep have seen their status change from ‘above average’ to ‘below average’ overnight, at least based on the ‘reform’ definition of quality.
But there is still one charter chain, standing tall, and that is the Success Academy network. ‘Reformers’ must be conflicted. On the one hand they have a charter network that is doing well. On the other, many of the sacred cows of reform, including KIPP, are not looking so good. If Success really has demonstrated that it has the recipe that the other chains do not have, then in the name of ‘accountability,’ wouldn’t it be best to stop investing in these other charter networks and focus solely on the one that seems to be working?
Still, I’d say that this is a ‘victory’ for the reform crowd right now since the Success schools seem to finally prove that ‘Poverty is not destiny’ — as long as you define destiny as below average scores on a multiple choice math and reading test.
I’ve examined the various statistics about Success and will summarize and analyze them here with the hope of shedding light on what things this network might be doing that ‘works’ and also illuminating some of the problems with this network.
An example of the press gushing about this network, see this recent New York Post article
. Here is an excerpt:
. Here is an excerpt:Of the 1,500 kids in her Harlem and South Bronx schools who took the Common Core exams, 82 percent got a passing score in math, and 58 percent passed English.Across the city, the pass rates were 26 percent in English and 30 percent in math. Many other
Join me and guest Dr. Camika Royal live on Wednsday at 2:00 PM
I’m doing another Spreecast show this Wednesday and I’m excited to announce a very special guest, Dr. Camika Royal. She is awesome and definitely one of the wisest voices in the education discussion today. She is often on Huffington Post Live, and always steals the show. It should be great. If you have a web-cam, you can join in on the discussion. Also, I’ve invited a few other guests who may
AUG 09
My New eBook Available On Amazon
But it’s not the book you book think. People who like this blog would probably like to see a book about my ed reform tales and research, and I have actually started that book a few times. I even have a working title, something like, “The Attempted Hijacking of American Education: How I helped a little old lady cross the most powerful men in the world.” Assuming one day the corporate reform move
AUG 08
Driven by data … right off a cliff
Yesterday the big announcement in New York was the results of the latest ‘common core aligned’ state tests. As expected, the scores plummeted. The New York Times reported that from last year to this one, the percent of students scoring ‘proficient’ on English dropped from 47% to 26% while the percent scoring ‘proficient’ on Math dropped from 60% to 30%. Various ‘reformers’ weighed in and tried t