CPS Considers Closing An Urban Prep Campus For Poor Performance
After the New York Times debunked the success of the T. M. Landry school in Louisiana, some very prominent reform cheerleaders have been writing about how the media needs to be more skeptical of stories in education that seem too good to be true. Alexander Russo, for example, wrote about it in Phi Delta Kappan.
However, the ground rules for reporting on miracle schools should be clear by now: No passing along a school’s claims of test scores or graduation or college acceptance claims without independent verification. At this point, claims of 100 percent graduation rates should raise immediate red flags.
Considering the constant trolling I’ve endured over the years by reform body guards anytime I’ve uncovered a 100% college success that was worthy of further scrutiny, this is quite an admission.
Urban Prep Charter School in Chicago is the original ‘miracle school.’ Seven years ago at the Teach For America 20th anniversary alumni summit, I heard Arne Duncan talk about how they had 100% of their senior class graduate and how 100% of them went on to college after they shut down the public school in that building and replaced it with a charter school.
In my very first school policy blog post in March of 2011, I wrote about how that school had a very high attrition rate since 166 freshmen three years before had shrunk to 107 CONTINUE READING: CPS Considers Closing An Urban Prep Campus For Poor Performance | Gary Rubinstein's Blog
