The Gem on the Hill: How to Create a Community-Based In-District Charter
In the post Photo Essay: This Charter School is Lovely, I first introduced Travis Heights Charter School.
This post examines Education Austin’s efforts to serve as a conduit for bringing teachers and parents together to create an in-district charter school. Travis Heights elementary is a community-based charter that is an alternative to the top-down approach (i.e. teacher quality, curriculum, and governance) employed by corporate charter chains. This post examines the process by which the Austin community created a democratically designed charter by utilizing the extensive expertise of the school’s teachers, administration, and community stakeholders. We also document the pedagogical and curricular approaches that were selected by school leaders and community stakeholders to develop critical thinking and collaborative skills.
When AFT President Al Shanker first promoted the charter school concept, they were designed to be spaces for innovation, where educators could reach beyond the constraints of traditional public education.[i] Currently, the public perception of the charter approach is that freeing schools of certain rules will automatically increase student success (Vasquez Heilig, Williams, McNeil & Lee, 2011). However, it turns out that student success does not automatically improve. CREDO (2009) showed that across the nation, 85% of charters did not perform better than the traditional neighborhood public schools in their vicinity. Furthermore, CREDO (2013) found that, on average, charter schools in Texas cost kids 22 days of learning in reading and 29 days in math. Charters in Texas, writ large, have a negative impact on student learning.
Corporate charters have been criticized in the research literature for stymying access and equity via the skimming and trimming of students (Welner, 2013). These practices limit enrollment or eliminate mid-year the highest needs students, including Special Education and Emergent Bilinguals (Williams, 2013).[ii] By controlling the type of students who enter their schools and exiting those who fail to follow the prescribed program, many present day corporate chain charter schools purport success, while public schools continue the educate the students those charters are unwilling to teach (Vasquez Heilig, Williams, McNeil & Lee, 2011).
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Another important concern raised by critics of corporate charters is that they are top-down rather than bottom-up in their approach to education. Large corporate chain charters like the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) or IDEA The Gem on the Hill: How to Create a Community-Based In-District Charter | Cloaking Inequity: