Public
education in New Orleans is at an important crossroads now; with the current
reform, educational leaders are thinking critically about how to provide high
quality schools for all students.
Simultaneously, there is a debate about effective school governance and
litigation regarding the return of Recovery School District Schools to the
authority of the Orleans Parish School Board.
These conversations open the door to a dialogue about the importance of
considering all the available data to inform us of the reality of individual
school and Charter Management Organization performance.
The
post-Katrina educational reform in New Orleans has been largely based on
analyzing academic data to improve instruction, and student and school
performance. However, in order to
provoke significant, sustainable reform that improves outcomes for all students
and moves us toward a more equitable system of schools, the discourse must
include the data that gives us insight into individual school climate. School climate, including school and
classroom-level discipline are important to ensure a positive learning
environment and we must look at the “discipline gap” as it relates to the
“achievement gap.” Consequently, discipline data must play an explicit role when
determining the expansion of charter management organizations. Neglecting to factor in discipline data
constricts the narrative of school performance and provides the public with a
narrowed view of the reform efforts.
Consider
this snapshot (based on reporting by The Lens Charter School Reporting Corps):
·
ReNew Charter Schools, was asked by the Recovery School
District to send a letter of intent to charter Schaumberg Elementary for the
2014-2015 School Year. ReNew operates
Batiste Cultural Arts Academy and Sci
Tech Academy, which both earned grades of F last year (and this year are
Transformation schools). Both schools
have out-of school suspension rates above 20%.
·
New Orleans College Prep Schools, whose schools are failing,
suspended over 60% of their student population and has applied to take over
management of any other charter or direct-run school.
It
is timely and important to question the metrics that are used to determine
which Charter Management organizations are invited to apply to take over
schools, as well as those that ultimately get charter applications approved. It
is an undeniable honor to be an educator; education is the cornerstone of our
democracy. It defies logic that managers
of schools with failing academic records, who are also
failing in their duty of care, should remain unquestioned in their pursuit to educate
our young people.
Education
reform in New Orleans set forth a big, bold, audacious vision of school choice
and high student performance. The
recently released School Performance Scores not only flatten that fantasy, they
make us question the core convictions of the reform itself - to transform
failing schools into high-performing, quality learning environments. According to the data, 69% of the direct-run
and charter schools are failing and in the 2010-2011 academic year 46% of the
schools had an out-of-school suspension rate above 15.0%. Yet, year after year, failing schools and
failing CMO’s are given the opportunity to take over other schools. Low performing schools with high suspension
rates do not serve our children or our city.
If the Recovery School District continues its pattern of
denial and frames its failures as success, we must push them to, at the very
least, be transparent about all of the data.
There is a relationship between school discipline and student
achievement; ineffective discipline
policies, like the over-use of suspension, often push students out of school,
increasing the likelihood that they will drop out and increasing the likelihood
of becoming involved in the juvenile justice system. The RSD should consider
all of the available data to determine school and CMO performance, including the
data on the impact of discipline practices on student learning, especially when
the policies and practices often push young people to criminalization, instead
of civic engagement and leadership.
for more information on the "discipline gap": Opportunity Suspended
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