Tubman Village Charter School

THE FIGHT OVER A FIRED CHARTER SCHOOL TEACHER; December 3, 2010; Voice of San Diego (CA) 

The San Diego teachers union plans to fight the firing of a teacher who spearheaded union efforts at Tubman Village Charter School, where teachers became unionized nearly a year ago.

The battle is an unusual one because while Tubman is unionized, its teachers have yet to hammer out a contract. That leaves them in labor limbo…

The firing goes to the heart of why Tubman is unionizing and why unions argue their protections are needed. When Tubman teachers joined up with the union in January, they said they wanted to be able to air concerns without worrying about retribution from the principal.

Unlike a teacher at a unionized public school, who would get to argue their case before the school board and a panel, the Tubman teacher had no chance to contest the decision beforehand because charters don't have to follow the same labor rules…

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Serious quality challenge in national charter school sector: Stanford CREDO study

NEW STANFORD REPORT FINDS SERIOUS QUALITY CHALLENGE IN NATIONAL CHARTER SCHOOL SECTOR; June 15, 2009; CREDO Press release 

Report Recognizes Robust Demand, Supply and Exceptional Charters, Faults Quality Controls, Authorizers and Charter Caps

Stanford, CA – A new report issued today by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University found that there is a wide variance in the quality of the nation’s several thousand charter schools with, in the aggregate, students in charter schools not faring as well as students in traditional public schools.

While the report recognized a robust national demand for more charter schools from parents and local communities, it found that 17 percent of charter schools reported academic gains that were significantly better than traditional public schools, while 37 percent of charter schools showed gains that were worse than their traditional public school counterparts, with 46 percent of charter schools demonstrating no significant difference.

The report found that the academic success of students in charter schools was affected by the individual state policy environment. States with caps limiting the number of charter schools reported significantly lower academic results than states without caps limiting charter growth. States that have the presence of multiple charter school authorizers also reported lower academic results than states with fewer authorizers in place. Finally, states with charter legislation allowing for appeals of previously denied charter school applications saw a small but significant increase in student performance.

The Stanford report, entitled, “Multiple Choice: Charter School Performance in 16 States,” is the first detailed national assessment of charter school impacts since its longitudinal, student-level analysis covers more than 70 percent of the nation’s students attending charter schools. The peer-reviewed analysis looks at student achievement growth on state achievement tests in both reading and math with controls for student demographics and eligibility for program support such as free or reduced-price lunch and special education. The analysis includes the most current student achievement data from 15 states and the District of Columbia and gauges whether students who attend charter schools fare better than if they would have attended a traditional public school.

“The issue of quality is the most pressing problem that the charter school movement faces,” said Dr. Margaret Raymond, director of CREDO at Stanford University. “The charter school movement continues to work hard to remove barriers to charter school entry into the market, making notable strides to level the playing field and improve access to facilities funding, but now it needs to equally focus on removing the barriers to exit, which means closing underperforming schools.”

The report found several key positive findings regarding the academic performance of students attending charter schools. For students that are low income, charter schools had a larger and more positive effect than for similar students in traditional public schools. English Language Learner students also reported significantly better gains in charter schools, while special education students showed similar results to their traditional public school peers.

The report also found that students do better in charter schools over time. While first year charter school students on average experienced a decline in learning, students in their second and third years in charter schools saw a significant reversal, experiencing positive achievement gains.

The report found that achievement results varied by states that reported individual data. States with reading and math gains that were significantly higher for charter school students than would have occurred in traditional schools included: Arkansas, Colorado (Denver), Illinois (Chicago), Louisiana and Missouri.

States with reading and math gains that were either mixed or were not different than their peers in the traditional public school system included: California, the District of Columbia, Georgia and North Carolina.

States with reading and math gains that were significantly below their peers in the traditional public school system included: Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio and Texas.

"If the supporters of charter schools fail to address the quality challenge, they run the risk of having it addressed for them," said Dr. Raymond. "If the charter school movement is to flourish, a deliberate and sustained effort to increase the proportion of high quality schools is essential.

The replication of successful charter school models is one important element of this effort. On the other side of the equation, however, authorizers, charter school advocates and policymakers must be willing and able to fulfill their end of the original charter school bargain, which is accountability in exchange for flexibility."

To download a copy of the full report and executive summary, visit: http://credo.stanford.edu

About CREDO at Stanford University

CREDO at Stanford University was established to improve empirical evidence about education reform and student performance at the primary and secondary levels. CREDO at Stanford University supports education organizations and policymakers in using reliable research and program evaluation to assess the performance of education initiatives. CREDO's valuable insight helps educators and policymakers strengthen their focus on the results from innovative programs, curricula, policies or accountability practices. http://credo.stanford.edu

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Charter schools movement a civil rights failure: UCLA Civil Rights Project study

CHOICE WITHOUT EQUITY: CHARTER SCHOOL SEGREGATION AND THE NEED FOR CIVIL RIGHTS STANDARDS; January 2010; The Civil Rights Project of UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies 

The charter school movement has been a major political success, but it has been a civil rights failure. As the country continues moving steadily toward greater segregation and inequality of education for students of color in schools with lower achievement and graduation rates, the rapid growth of charter schools has been expanding a sector that is even more segregated than the public schools. The Civil Rights Project has been issuing annual reports on the spread of segregation in public schools and its impact on educational opportunity for 14 years. We know that choice programs can either offer quality educational options with racially and economically diverse schooling to children who otherwise have few opportunities, or choice programs can actually increase stratification and inequality depending on how they are designed. The charter effort, which has largely ignored the segregation issue, has been justified by claims about superior educational performance, which simply are not sustained by the research. Though there are some remarkable and diverse charter schools, most are neither. The lessons of what is needed to make choice work have usually been ignored in charter school policy. Magnet schools are the striking example of and offer a great deal of experience in how to create educationally successful and integrated choice options.

Executive Summary

Seven years after the Civil Rights Project first documented extensive patterns of charter school segregation, the charter sector continues to stratify students by race, class and possibly language.  This study is released at a time of mounting federal pressure to expand charter schools, despite on-going and accumulating evidence of charter school segregation.

Our analysis of the 40 states, the District of Columbia, and several dozen metropolitan areas with large enrollments of charter school students reveals that charter schools are more racially isolated than traditional public schools in virtually every state and large metropolitan area in the nation. While examples of truly diverse charter schools exist, our data show that these schools are not reflective of broader charter trends.

Four major themes emerge from this analysis of federal data.  First, while charter schools are increasing in number and size, charter school enrollment presently accounts for only 2.5% of all public school students.  Despite federal pressure to increase charter schools--based on the notion that charter schools are superior to traditional public schools, in spite of no conclusive evidence in support of that claim--charter school enrollment remains concentrated in just five states.

Second, we show that charter schools, in many ways, have more extensive segregation than other public schools.  Charter schools attract a higher percentage of black students than traditional public schools, in part because they tend to be located in urban areas.  As a result, charter school enrollment patterns display high levels of minority segregation, trends that are particularly severe for black students…

Third, charter school trends vary substantially across different regions of the country.  Latinos are under-enrolled in charter schools in some Western states where they comprise the largest share of students.  At the same time, a dozen states (including those with high concentrations of Latino students like Arizona and Texas) report that a majority of Latino charter students attend intensely segregated minority schools.  Patterns in the West and in a few areas in the South, the two most racially diverse regions of the country, also suggest that charters serve as havens for white flight from public schools.  Finally, in the industrial Midwest, more students enroll in charter schools compared to other regions, and midwestern charter programs display high concentrations of black students.

Fourth, major gaps in multiple federal data sources make it difficult to answer basic, fundamental questions about the extent to which charter schools enroll and concentrate low- income students and English Language Learners (ELLs).  Charter schools receive public funding and therefore should be equally available to all students regardless of background.  Approximately one in four charter schools does not report data on low-income students.  Since eligibility for receiving free lunch is proof that families cannot afford to provide it, the lack of a free lunch program at school would impose a severe economic barrier to attending a charter school. There is a similar lack of information on ELLs…

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Charter schools show no significant overall impacts on achievement: Mathematica study

CHARTER SCHOOL STUDY SHOWS NO SIGNIFICANT OVERALL IMPACTS ON ACHIEVEMENT: MATHEMATICA’S EVALUATION FINDS WIDE VARIATION IN ACHIEVEMENT IMPACTS ACROSS SCHOOLS; June 29, 2010; Mathematica Media Advisory 

Issue: Charter schools are an important and growing component of the public school system in the United States. As of the 2009-2010 school year, more than 5,000 charter schools served over 1.5 million students—approximately three percent of all public school students—in 40 states and the District of Columbia. Charter schools are intended to play a key role in school improvement under the existing Elementary and Secondary Education Act (No Child Left Behind), as well as the programs established under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. However, there remains considerable debate as to whether, how, and under what circumstances charter schools improve the outcomes of students who attend them.

Study: Mathematica Policy Research recently completed a large-scale randomized trial of the effectiveness of charter schools, the most comprehensive charter school study of its kind to date to use an experimental design. The evaluation, funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, covers 36 charter middle schools across 15 states and a sample size of 2,330 applicants. It compares outcomes of students who applied and were admitted to these schools through randomized admission lotteries (lottery winners) with the outcomes of students who also applied to these schools and participated in the lotteries but were not admitted (lottery losers). This experimental research design produces the most rigorous estimates of charter school impacts on student outcomes. The study’s results apply to this group of participating charter middle schools that held lotteries, and do not necessarily apply to the full set of charter schools in the U.S.

Findings:

On average, charter middle schools that hold lotteries are neither more nor less successful than traditional public schools in improving student achievement in reading and math. However, these averages mask wide variation across individual charter schools in their impacts.

Study charter schools were more effective for lower income and lower achieving students and less effective for higher income and higher achieving students. In addition, charter schools in large urban areas had positive impacts on students’ achievement in math; those outside these large urban areas had negative impacts on achievement.

Study charter schools did not significantly affect most of the other outcomes examined, including attendance, student behavior, and survey-based measures of student effort in school.

These charter schools did positively affect levels of satisfaction with school among both students and their parents.

Quote: “This report helps us make sense of previous charter school studies that have generated a wide range of findings,” said Phil Gleason, senior fellow and lead author. “In this study—the most comprehensive and geographically diverse using charter school lotteries to date—our findings are consistent with prior evaluations that focused on a broad range of schools. We found that the average charter school in our sample did not have positive impacts on students’ math or reading achievement. And like previous lottery-based studies that have focused on single, urban districts, we found that charter schools in large urban areas and those serving a more disadvantaged student population had positive impacts on students' achievement in math."

Report: “The Evaluation of Charter School Impacts.” Philip Gleason, Melissa Clark, Christina Clark Tuttle, and Emily Dwoyer, June 2010. Executive Summary.

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Majority of charter schools not following basic financial guidelines: Minnesota 2020 study

CHECKING IN ON CHARTER SCHOOLS; June 15, 2009; Minnesota 2020 study

Seventeen years after the first charter school opened in Minnesota, this examination of fiscal year 2007 charter school financial audits shows that the vast majority of charter schools do not follow basic financial guidelines or, in some cases, state law. Since this analysis agrees with a recent report by the Office of the Legislative Auditor and audit examinations written in 2001, 2002 and 2003, we conclude that these financial problems are not being adequately addressed by the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) and, further, are endemic of the charter school system.

Efforts by the 2009 Legislature to provide more accountability to charter schools was welcome, but shorthanded. The charter school program is financially flawed and basic concepts about charter schools - such as unelected school boards and under informed business management - need to be changed.

In November and December, 2008 and January, 2009, Minnesota 2020 combed through the financial audits of 145 charter schools for the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2007 - reports that were filed with MDE by December 31, 2007. Our research found several trends in charter school financial management:

    * 83 percent were found to have at least one financial irregularity in their audit - five years earlier, that figure was 73 percent;

    * 51 percent of those schools with problems identified on their 2007 financial audits had the same problems identified on their 2008 audits, according to the MDE;

    * 29 percent did not respond to a request for board minutes - five years earlier, that figure was 33 percent;

    * 55 percent were found to have "limited segregation of duties," a requirement that ensures no single charter school official has control of the school's funds;

    * 26 percent didn't have proper collateral for deposit insurance, a requirement that ensures the charter school can pay its bills…

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Paul Laurence Dunbar Academy / Northpointe Academy

FOR-PROFIT MANAGEMENT COMPANY SKIRTS OHIO’S CHARTER SCHOOL CLOSURE LAW: DOCUMENTS SHOW CLOSED TOLEDO SCHOOL RE-OPENED WITH NEW NAME, SAME STAFF; February 15, 2011; Policy Matters Ohio press release 

The Leona Group, a Phoenix-based for-profit charter school management company, has evaded Ohio law by opening a new school to replace a school closed by the state at the end of the 2009-10 school year for poor academic performance.

Paul Laurence Dunbar Academy, a K-8 school located at 3248 Warsaw St. in Toledo and operated by the Leona Group, appeared on the state’s closure list and was required to close by June 2010. But by July 2, 2010, the Leona Group had taken steps to open a new school, Northpointe Academy, at the same address with the same phone number and much of the same staff. Leona operates nine schools in Ohio, according to its web site. (www.leonagroup.com)

“Until Ohio overhauls charter school law and creates an effective oversight system, this kind of abuse will not be resolved,” said Piet van Lier, Policy Matters researcher. A September Policy Matters report, available at www.policymattersohio.org/AuthorizedAbuse, documented other evidence that charter management companies in Ohio are operating with little oversight.

“At their best, charter schools can provide options for students seeking a good education and serve as a proving ground for innovative education models,” said van Lier. “This example, of weak oversight and inappropriate behavior by a for-profit management firm, shows how some charters fail miserably to meet that standard.”

Accompanying this press release are two PDF files containing staff lists for Dunbar and Northpointe, both downloaded from the Leona Group web site. The Dunbar staff list was downloaded in July 2010; the Northpointe list was downloaded in February 2011.

These staff lists show that Andre Fox served as Dunbar principal and continues to serve in that capacity at Northpointe, according to the staff lists; all but four of the teaching staff listed for Northpointe also appeared on the Dunbar list from last year.

As of February 1, 2011, Northpointe Academy enrolled more than 270 students and had collected more than $2 million in state money for the 2010-11 school year, according to state records. The Toledo-based Ohio Council of Community Schools was Dunbar’s sponsor and serves as Northpointe’s sponsor as well. In Ohio, charter school sponsors are responsible for authorizing new schools and monitoring them once they are open.

Beginning in 2008, Ohio law required charter schools to meet certain academic standards on their state report cards or face closure. While this law was a positive step toward improving accountability for Ohio’s charter schools, the case of Dunbar/Northpointe shows that oversight of these publicly funded, privately operated schools remains inadequate.

Staff list for Paul Laurence Dunbar Academy

Staff list for Northpointe Academy

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Imani Elementary Charter Academy

TROUBLED IMANI CHARTER SCHOOL COULD CLOSE NEXT WEEK; May 3, 2011; Orlando Sentinel (FL) 

Parents of students at Imani Elementary Charter Academy in Orlando may have to find new classrooms for their children with less than a month left in the school year.

The Orange County School Board is set to vote Tuesday on a recommendation to close the school, which didn't have computers for seven months, racked up more than $400,000 in debt and switched most of its teaching staff, administration and governance midway through the year…

Clara Bailem, whose daughter is among Imani's 73 students, said no one at the school had informed her that closure might be imminent. Although the school has been a major disappointment to her, she said the School Board shouldn't close it in May.

"If they let it go this far, let it go a few more weeks. They should have done it in January, gave the students a chance to settle in" to a new school, she said.

Key textbooks were missing from many classrooms for months and a state grant worth about $160,000 was misallocated. So far, the school has gotten $604,545 in taxpayer money. If it stays open for the rest of the school year, that will increase to $692,082…

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

SHUT ORANGE CHARTER SCHOOL NOW, ITS EX-TEACHERS URGE; February 5, 2011; Orlando Sentinel (FL) 

Imani Elementary Charter Academy promised parents a model school when it opened in one of Orange County's poorest neighborhoods in August.

The Pine Hills K-through-5 school said it would have the latest technology, field trips, bus service, before- and after-school care, and two adults in every classroom.

It has none of these things.

The troubled school underscores the limits of Florida's charter-school law, which strips away many of the accountability requirements faced by other public schools. Even when charter schools appear to have broken the law or failed their students, they have multiple chances to improve or appeal, a process that can stretch for months or longer.

Six months into the school year, there are no computers at Imani. Textbooks are still missing from some classes.

The 88 students, most of them poor and African-American, play in a dirt-and-grass courtyard. There is no physical-education teacher.

They make art with shoe boxes their teachers bring from home. And the school is not offering the extra help for English-language learners and special-education students that is required by law, Orange school officials and former teachers say.

On Thursday, students sat down to eat cheese-pizza slices from Papa John's for lunch, as they do most days. They'd had breakfast bars and juice in the morning, paid for by a benefactor.

Orange County Public Schools stopped providing food there because Imani didn't have a valid health permit until Friday and still owes thousands of dollars for previous meals.

The state also cut off the school's grant funding because it misappropriated $160,000 earmarked for computers, school-district officials said…

At the end of last week, Orange County Public Schools sent Imani a notice that it had 90 days to clear up a litany of legal, educational and managerial problems or face closure.

According to the letter, the school must document and provide a repayment plan for the $160,000 meant for computers that was misappropriated from a state charter-school-planning grant, more than $90,000 in payroll taxes owed to the Internal Revenue Service, and unpaid bills of more than $22,000 for rental facilities and food service.

It also must provide missing documents, including fingerprinting, background checks and proof of state training for all board members; proof of employment contracts and more.

 Finally, the school must provide proof of a viable instructional program. That includes copies of teacher certifications; a list of textbooks and other curriculum materials; evidence of compliance with class-size rules; and a master schedule that includes physical education, reading interventions for low performers, special-education services and accommodations for English learners…

Imani's registered agent and president is Barry E. Daly, husband of Principal Daly.

Florida's charter-school law prohibits owners and governing-board members from hiring or advocating the hiring of their family members. Barry Daly would not comment about his role in the school…

As the school was preparing to reopen, former staffers said they were called back in to interview with two new advisers, Ardonnis and Richelle Lumpkin. They also were asked to fill out a survey listing their minimum salary requirements.

Lumpkin is principal of two South Florida charter schools and runs several education-related companies. He also has a record with several misdemeanor convictions, including third-degree theft to deprive in the early 1990s and two DUIs…

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