Thursday, October 12, 2006
A Curious Decision
On September 28th, the Pittsburgh School Board decided to revoke the charter for the Career Connections Charter Middle School, citing an “unsafe building” as the reason for doing so. The middle school was temporarily holding classes in a Boys and Girls Club building while awaiting a zoning and occupancy permit from the City. The Club, also the sponsor of the charter middle school as well as a charter high school, holds meetings in a building that is only 7 years old.
What makes this decision curious is the history between the School Board and the Career Connections Charter Middle School (CCMS). CCMS had applied for a charter late spring of 2006 and was denied by the School Board. CCMS then appealed to the State’s Charter School Appeal Board and won a reversal in late summer. Soon after they moved into their temporary quarters, the school district began to question the school. The district budget director said, “They’re in a facility that is not an educational facility. They’re in a community club.”
But did the district use a thin excuse to eliminate competition? In an op-ed shortly following the revoking of the CCMS charter, Pittsburgh’s Superintendent defended the decision as a matter of holding up academic standards. He claims that if these standards are not being met by charter schools, then they district must act accordingly and shut them down. Given the short life of the school, how could any reasonable assessment of performance be made?
And whose academic standards is he referring to? The Pittsburgh City Schools have been well below state averages for reading and math proficiency and is one of the worst districts in the area. In 2005, the superintendent’s first year in the district, less than 50 percent of Pittsburgh’s eighth graders scored proficient on the state’s reading exam while only 45 percent scored at the proficient level in math. The same story line plays out for the other grades taking the test—scoring well below state and county test takers.
While the Superintendent claims that he is making changes to correct the district’s woeful academic performance—such as closing 22 schools, most of which were low performing, and implementing best practices in the curriculum—not enough time has elapsed to see if academic improvement is occurring. He has asked the public to be patient while the changes take effect, yet does not exhibit the same patience with CCMS.
The reason charter schools are popping up in Pittsburgh is that parents are fed up with inadequate performance and are looking for alternatives. Charter schools provide such an alternative—75 students were enrolled in the CCMS’s sixth and seventh grades. The Career Connection Charter High School has 300 students on its rolls.
While the Superintendent is correct in saying that “some charter schools will succeed and some will fail.” CCMS never had a chance to do either. The emergence of charter schools in the city will do two things. First, it will offer parents an alternative to the poor performing Pittsburgh School system. Secondly, this competition should put pressure on the district, as well as other charter schools to improve academic standards and properly serve the city’s children. As long as the district stifles the growth of charter schools, that will not be allowed to happen.
What makes this decision curious is the history between the School Board and the Career Connections Charter Middle School (CCMS). CCMS had applied for a charter late spring of 2006 and was denied by the School Board. CCMS then appealed to the State’s Charter School Appeal Board and won a reversal in late summer. Soon after they moved into their temporary quarters, the school district began to question the school. The district budget director said, “They’re in a facility that is not an educational facility. They’re in a community club.”
But did the district use a thin excuse to eliminate competition? In an op-ed shortly following the revoking of the CCMS charter, Pittsburgh’s Superintendent defended the decision as a matter of holding up academic standards. He claims that if these standards are not being met by charter schools, then they district must act accordingly and shut them down. Given the short life of the school, how could any reasonable assessment of performance be made?
And whose academic standards is he referring to? The Pittsburgh City Schools have been well below state averages for reading and math proficiency and is one of the worst districts in the area. In 2005, the superintendent’s first year in the district, less than 50 percent of Pittsburgh’s eighth graders scored proficient on the state’s reading exam while only 45 percent scored at the proficient level in math. The same story line plays out for the other grades taking the test—scoring well below state and county test takers.
While the Superintendent claims that he is making changes to correct the district’s woeful academic performance—such as closing 22 schools, most of which were low performing, and implementing best practices in the curriculum—not enough time has elapsed to see if academic improvement is occurring. He has asked the public to be patient while the changes take effect, yet does not exhibit the same patience with CCMS.
The reason charter schools are popping up in Pittsburgh is that parents are fed up with inadequate performance and are looking for alternatives. Charter schools provide such an alternative—75 students were enrolled in the CCMS’s sixth and seventh grades. The Career Connection Charter High School has 300 students on its rolls.
While the Superintendent is correct in saying that “some charter schools will succeed and some will fail.” CCMS never had a chance to do either. The emergence of charter schools in the city will do two things. First, it will offer parents an alternative to the poor performing Pittsburgh School system. Secondly, this competition should put pressure on the district, as well as other charter schools to improve academic standards and properly serve the city’s children. As long as the district stifles the growth of charter schools, that will not be allowed to happen.
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Ester Bush has a charter school and that got a green light to exist. But, that decision from PPS came after vocal support from Mrs. E. Bush for the Rightsizing Plan of Mark Roosevelt.
Another payback, E.Bush gets to be on the State Board of Ed.
It is all politics.
You might want to confirm these hunches.
Another payback, E.Bush gets to be on the State Board of Ed.
It is all politics.
You might want to confirm these hunches.
Dr. Tim Daniels:
Executive Director of the PA Coalition of Charter Schools said:
Why is it that the first or second thing that big system "reformers" want to do when they get a system to reform is to reform what is already a demonstrably successful education reform: Charter public schools? You would think that the scale of their own challenges would define and consume their focus. All this current effort to take a choice away from 75 needy kids when the district has empty space a stone's throw away which they could rent Career Connection Middle CS shows the intent to harm.
As David Hornbeck told me in a corridor conversation in the Annenberg Center at Penn in 1998. "I don't have time for these little schools, they are inconsequential, I need to save the system!"
What these system reforms in PA don't get: from Roosevelt to Vallas to Hornbeck to Mark Shedd. School reform starts at the school level. None of these individuals every taught in or ran a school; as a long term successful building administrator and teacher, I submit that the system will never be successfully reformed by leaders who do not know how individual schools work.
By the way, the latest Statewide Susquehanna poll indicates that 65 percent of Pennsylvania residents support the idea of choice in public education in the form of charter public schools(up from 61 percent last year).
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Executive Director of the PA Coalition of Charter Schools said:
Why is it that the first or second thing that big system "reformers" want to do when they get a system to reform is to reform what is already a demonstrably successful education reform: Charter public schools? You would think that the scale of their own challenges would define and consume their focus. All this current effort to take a choice away from 75 needy kids when the district has empty space a stone's throw away which they could rent Career Connection Middle CS shows the intent to harm.
As David Hornbeck told me in a corridor conversation in the Annenberg Center at Penn in 1998. "I don't have time for these little schools, they are inconsequential, I need to save the system!"
What these system reforms in PA don't get: from Roosevelt to Vallas to Hornbeck to Mark Shedd. School reform starts at the school level. None of these individuals every taught in or ran a school; as a long term successful building administrator and teacher, I submit that the system will never be successfully reformed by leaders who do not know how individual schools work.
By the way, the latest Statewide Susquehanna poll indicates that 65 percent of Pennsylvania residents support the idea of choice in public education in the form of charter public schools(up from 61 percent last year).
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