Chicago renews charter school in spite of failing scores, but plays tough with public schools.

madfloridian

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Tue May-03-11 02:36 PM
Original message

Chicago renews charter school in spite of failing scores, but plays tough with public schools.

Edited on Tue May-03-11 03:06 PM by madfloridian

I have begun to believe that accountability is only for public schools and public school teachers.

From an education blogger:

Urban Prep gets its charter renewed despite failing test scores

Urban prep get lots of money from Oprah. Picture courtesy of Small Talk blog

Urban Prep is the most over-hyped charter school in Chicago. It's not that Tim King's all-boys charter school isn't doing some good things or having some successes. It is. But, like KIPP and all the other darlings of the corporate reformers, Urban Prep is constantly being compared and held up as the, "no excuses," magic-bullet alternative to neglected and ravaged neighborhood schools. But so much of the media hype is ideologically driven, there's very little that educators or parents can take away from it to help understand what it takes to create successful schools in poverty stricken neighborhoods like Englewood.

...Nothing to write home about, especially considering the ton of extra money the school gets from celebrities like Oprah.

Board members also renewed the charter of Chicago Virtual Charter School, which flunked its accountability plan. It won low marks on 57 of 74 indicators, failing particularly in areas involving attendance, transfers-out and dropouts. All this shows that we can expect an continuation from the mayor and his hand-picked board to double-standard education in Chicago.

Here is more about Urban Prep charter school from the Chicago Sun-Times:

Help for charter schools

A lameduck school board prepared to pass the baton to a new leadership team Wednesday, approving policies that help charter schools touted by Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel and renewing the charter of the all-boys Urban Prep Charter High, despite its failing test scores.

But with traditional public schools, the last Mayor-Daley-era school board took the hard line, voting 6-1 to eliminate half-empty schools by consolidating seven schools into four others.

Board members approved the renewal of Urban Prep-Englewood�s charter even though the school failed to meet its accountability targets, due to low test scores. Only 17 percent of Urban Prep juniors passed their state exams last year, far lower than the district average of 29 percent. On the positive side, that beats the 8.4 percent passing rate in the neighborhood schools that Urban Prep kids would normally attend.

Chicago Public School officials said they were impressed by the intense college-going culture at Urban Prep, which has won headlines and personal kudos from Emanuel for garnering acceptances for every senior to four-year universities two years running. Its first graduating class included one senior who was accepted to prestigious Johns Hopkins, despite a 15 ACT score � well below the 18 often accepted at far less exclusive schools.

Chicago, that's where a charter school which get public taxpayer money decides to declare itself a "private" school in order to keep their teachers from unionizing.

Now that is pretty obvious, and pretty repugnant.

A Chicago charter school that has received more than $23 million in public money since opening in 2004 is arguing that it is a private institution, a move teachers say is designed to block them from forming a union.

In papers filed with the National Labor Relations Board, attorneys for the Chicago Math and Science Academy on the city's North Side say the school should be exempt from an Illinois law that grants employees of all public schools the right to form unions for contract negotiations.

The absolute nerve of the "reformers" of education in both major parties surely does make it clear they know they have the power and the money to make it happen.

They know that we probably can't stop them.