Los Angeles Unified School District:
L.A. charter schools flex their educational muscles: Enrollment is up, and overall, standardized test scores outshine those at traditional campuses.
January 10, 2010|By Mitchell Landsberg, Doug Smith and Howard Blume
". . . Charter schools now are challenging L.A. Unified from without and within. Not only are charter school operators such as Green Dot Public Schools and ICEF Public Schools opening new schools that compete head-to-head with L.A. Unified, but the district's own schools are showing increasing interest in jumping ship by converting to charter status.
In the most recent example, Birmingham High School in the San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Lake Balboa broke free from the district last summer after a wrenching battle among members of its teaching staff.
Under state law, a school can apply for charter conversion if a majority of its tenured teachers petition for the change.Charters are taking students not just from traditional public schools but also from private schools. Particularly as the economy has soured, many parents see no reason to pay for school if they believe that a charter might offer a similar education without tuition.. . . Even now, there are those who believe that charter schools are private (they aren't), that they are run by for-profit companies (rarely in California), that they primarily serve affluent communities (the opposite is true) and that they are better than traditional public schools.. . . Overall, L.A. charter students score significantly higher on standardized tests than their counterparts in traditional schools. But even some of the most strenuous charter advocates are wary of a blanket assumption that charters are superior, in part because they are so different from traditional schools and from one another.
Citywide, charter performance is so mixed that speaking broadly about it is like talking about the quality of fish. What kind of fish? Salmon? Goldfish?
Nearly 9% of Los Angeles public school students now attend charters, which offer great variety. Ocean Charter, a predominantly white, middle-class school on the Westside, emphasizes "experiential learning" based on the Waldorf model. The Alliance for College Ready Schools, whose 16 schools south and east of downtown mostly serve low-income black and Latino students, use a strict and structured adherence to state curriculum standards.
They include small, scrappy operations like New Los Angeles Charter, a 150-student middle school that carved space out of a church in the mid-Wilshire area, and institutional behemoths like Granada Hills Charter High School, a former L.A. Unified school that is probably the largest charter school in the nation, with more than 4,000 students.
There are charters dedicated to learning through dance, through science, even through German language and culture. Most, however, offer a fairly traditional curriculum -- more traditional, in many ways, than regular public schools.
Critics of charters tend to focus on three main arguments: Charters "cherry pick" the best students from traditional schools; kick out students who do poorly; and serve far fewer special education students and non-English speakers than traditional schools. Such practices could give charters a boost in standardized test scores, the primary gauge by which schools are judged.
. . . By law, charter schools are required to enroll any interested student or use a lottery, but even some charter operators allow that the schools tend to attract families who are especially motivated. And although charter administrators generally say that they rarely, if ever, expel students, staff at traditional schools say they periodically receive troubled students who have been counseled out of charters.
In fact, classes of motivated, focused, non-disruptive students are a drawing card for charters, as are their small size and apparent safety.
. . . Although much of the focus on charters has been on the high fliers that are outstripping the performance of regular district schools, others have struggled.
Even a sophisticated charter organization like Green Dot achieves mixed results. With 18 schools and a comprehensive headquarters staff, Green Dot is practically a district unto itself. But although its campuses typically outscore nearby traditional schools, fewer than 5% of students at several of its campuses scored at the "proficient" level in math last year.
Green Dot would argue that the scores are low because it is taking students from the most academically deprived parts of the city, which is undeniably true. It took over Locke High School in South L.A., which had become a poster child for the failings of L.A. Unified.
. . . Consider College Ready Academy No. 4, an Alliance school where 97% of the 325 students qualify for subsidized meals, a poverty indicator.
This year, the school had an Academic Performance Index score of 846, more than 200 points higher on average than schools that the state deemed similar, based on the students they serve. Only four of 132 high schools in Los Angeles had higher scores, and two of them are charters. . . "All of it is about hard work and being clear about what you're trying to accomplish, having clear, high expectations for kids and working to accomplish what it is you said you were going to do without having to suddenly do something new because somebody new is in charge," she said.
. . . Others see a future in which students have a choice of high-performing charter, magnet or traditional schools. Already, Los Angeles Unified is developing a new breed of traditional schools intended to have charter-like flexibility.
-more - (above snips from six page article)
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/10/local/la-me-charters10-2010jan10
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
