Highlights from Fordham-sponsored charter schools (2011-12)

June 20, 2012

The Fordham Foundation has authorized (aka sponsored) charter schools in Ohio since 2005 and currently oversees eight schools (three more will join our portfolio this fall).  As the 2011-12 school year ends, we want to highlight the unique events and successes that happened in our schools this year.

Columbus Collegiate Academy (CCA)
Last summer, CCA moved from space that it shared with a Weinland Park area church since the school opened in 2008 to a new location on Main Street, in the near eastside of Columbus.  In terms of student achievement, 40 students were “NWEA all-stars” – meeting ambitious academic growth targets set for them in both reading and math. Sixth graders also participated in “Run the City,” a day-long project where they dealt with the ins and outs of running a city, including banking, marketing, and advertising. Students also got a glimpse of college life with full-day visits to the Ohio State University, Ohio Dominican University, Ohio Wesleyan University, and Denison University. CCA leadership recently launched a new charter management organization, the United Schools Network, which will open a second middle school, Columbus Collegiate Academy-West, this August.

KIPP: Journey Academy
KIPP received excellent news this spring when the school was awarded the prestigious New Leaders for New Schools EPIC Award for outstanding academic growth. KIPP: Journey Academy was the only school in Ohio and the only KIPP school nationwide to receive the award. The inaugural

» Continued

Highlights from Fordham-sponsored charter schools (2011-12)

Diplomas Count 2012

Aaron Churchill / June 20, 2012

Education Week and the Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center has released its 2012 graduate rate calculation and analysis. The researchers find three out of four (73.5 percent) of the national 2009 graduating class successfully graduated high school in four years. This is a 1.7 percentage point increase from 2008. The 2009 graduation rate represents the highest graduation rate since the late 1970s. When the author’s partition the data by race, they find that increasing Latino graduation rates, in particular, have contributed the most to the national improvement in the graduation rate. 

How did the Buckeye State do? Education Week and EPE report that in Ohio 76 percent of its 2009 class graduated high school on-time. This rate places Ohio three percentage points above the national average and toward the middle of the pack—17th out of 51 states, including Washington D.C. The researchers also compare Ohio’s 1999 graduation rate with its 2009 graduation rate and they report that the rate has increased by seven percentage points, which again tracks closely with the national ten-year graduation rate increase of seven percentage points.

The report here adds to the conversation about how well the U.S. and each state are doing in graduating students. However, any calculation of the graduation rate should be taken with a grain of salt, for considerable debate and ambiguity still exists about how to calculate the graduate rate accurately. (See Fordham’s “The Great Graduation-Rate

» Continued

Diplomas Count 2012

Measuring Teacher Effectiveness: A Look “Under the Hood” of Teacher Evaluation in 10 Sites

June 20, 2012

It’s essential that great policies are not just created but also effectively articulated to those who must execute them. Policy implementation means putting theory into practice, wherein many logistic and technical complications can arise. This has happened in the case of teacher evaluation and accountability policies. Addressing these implementation issues is critical to education reform; as a result, the education reform organizations ConnCAN, 50Can, and Public Impact address questions and obstacles that arise in teacher evaluation in their May 2012 report, “Measuring Teacher Effectiveness: A Look ‘Under the Hood’ of Teacher Evaluation in 10 Sites”.

While many school districts have stuck with the same ambiguous methods of teacher evaluations, the report examines ten sites that include states, school districts, a charter school network, and a graduate school program (Delaware; Rhode Island; Tennessee; Hillsborough County, FL; Houston, TX; New Haven, CT; Pittsburgh, PA; Washington, DC; Achievement First; and the Relay Graduate School of Education in New York City). These institutions are all trying more rigorous, comprehensive approach to teacher evaluations; therefore, the report specifically focuses on their evaluation practices.

The authors consider the ways to measure student achievement and the value of nonacademic measures, like student perception and personal growth. For example, applying value-added measures for only math and science creates a problem for evaluating non-math and science teachers. Delaware is making use of multiple measures: state-defined metrics, approved internal school metrics, and growth goal measures. This combination of measures can compensate

» Continued

Measuring Teacher Effectiveness: A Look “Under the Hood” of Teacher Evaluation in 10 Sites

The Greenfield School Revolution and School Choice

Hanif Abdurraqib / June 20, 2012

In this report, the Friedman Foundation for Education Choice looks at new models for schools. Using the term “greenfield,” from Rick Hess’ vision of areas where there are unobstructed, wide-open opportunities to invent and build, greenfield schooling strips down ideas of the traditional schoolhouse and gives schools the freedom to grow by tailoring education to a wider variety of students.

The report challenges the choice system as it currently stands, saying that existing school choice programs, while delivering slightly better outcomes, are not challenging the public school sector as they need to be. Greg Foster, who co-authored the report, begins by stating, “We know from previous research that vouchers (and equivalent programs like tax credits and ESAs) consistently deliver better academic performance, but the size of the impact is not revolutionary.”

Greenfield schools, the report states, would aid in a move to universal choice, a prerequisite for schools to innovate and grow and to prevent the shuffling of children from public to private schools. Universal choice would open opportunities to children of all ethnicities and income levels, many of whom have been excluded from private schools because of cost. Universal choice aims to lower tuition, and allow private schools to expand and serve new populations, which would afford educational entrepreneurs with dramatically more freedom and support than they currently enjoy even in charter schools. According to Foster, in communities where wider choice has been introduced, academic performance has improved.

» Continued

The Greenfield School Revolution and School Choice

Managing Talent for School Coherence: Learning from Charter Management Organizations

Theda Sampson / June 20, 2012

The Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) takes a look at how strong charter management organizations manage staff to maximize the instructional and cultural coherence of the school.

The report uses data collected from a study of charter management organizations (CMOs) by Mathematica Policy Research and CRPE. The data includes interviews with nearly 150 teachers and leaders in 10 CMOs along with survey information from 37 central offices and more than 220 principals. The authors examined CMOs which had practical control (they could remove principals), were brick-and-mortar schools serving general student populations, and operated at least four or more charters.

Generally, the study found CMOs managed their teacher talent to impact cultural coherence using three levers.

First, they recruited and hired for fit. This can include targeting pipelines such as Teach For America and other teacher programs or schools that match their own school’s work culture and ideals. One hiring strategy is to communicate clearly what the school values most to its prospective candidates; another is to require applicants to submit sample lesson plans or to teach demonstration lessons (to gauge how they interact with students). Some CMOs involved other school community members, such as students and parents, to discern soft skills. 

Second, they used intensive and ongoing socialization. Teachers reported they received feedback from both formal and informal observations given by their principal and peers. Not only did they cover instructional methods along with responding to behaviors, but the evaluations were expected

» Continued

Managing Talent for School Coherence: Learning from Charter Management Organizations

EVENT: Is American Education Coming Apart?

June 20, 2012

For all the talk of gaps in achievement, opportunity, and funding between ethnic and racial groups in American education, a different divide may also be splitting our schools and our future. In his acclaimed and controversial recent book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, scholar/pundit/provocateur Charles Murray describes a widening class schism. On Tuesday, June 26, he will deliver a lecture on what that divide means for U.S. schools and education policy. Register now to webcast the lecture, from noon to 1:30 p.m. EST.

» Continued

EVENT: Is American Education Coming Apart?

Giving Students the Three Rs: Reading, Readiness, Results

June 20, 2012

• Many of us have probably dozed off in class, and now $1.1 million in grants will go toward keeping classroom engagement alive. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is funding development of bracelets that measure physiological responses related to engagement; ideally before students can fall asleep on learning.
• Little boys need to get interested in reading! At least, this is the message in a recent Columbus Dispatch article. In light of the recently approved reading guarantee, Columbus City Schools has generated a seemingly obvious, but useful conclusion: to get boys excited about reading, we have to provide what appeals to them. So whether it’s a literary classic, Captain Underpants, or a comic book, reading should be fundamental.
• Dayton has reason to boast this school year. Preliminary results from the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT) show that area public schools are scoring higher than the state average. The OGT will be revised in 2014-15 to meet Common Core Standards. Hopefully this successful trend will continue
• Students yet to graduate are anxious about the job market, with good reason. What do employers want? According to Charis McGaughy and many others at the Higher Education Compact of Greater Cleveland’s college readiness symposium, employers want someone “who can think.” McGaughy states that “it’s a problem when students are pushed to memorize facts they’ll forget, but not challenged to think about skills and content needed in the real world.”

» Continued

Giving Students the Three Rs: Reading, Readiness, Results