In the News – Let Charters Succeed

Let Public Charters Succeed

Let public charter schools succeed: Column
In this USA Today column, Neerav Kingsland of New Schools for New Orleans argues that attacks against successful charter schools, like those in Illinois, are really an attack on parents who want a different option because their neighborhood school has failed them. Kingsland says that only by handing power back to educators and families will our nation ever achieve academic greatness. “It seems clear that we must reject the ‘our schools should be the only schools’ way of thinking. Let educators create great public charter schools. Give families the power to choose these schools.”

Hope Renewed for Special Needs Students

Hope Renewed
Teach For America’s national publication, One Day, profiled ReNEW schools’ special education programs to demonstrate the innovation and flexibility available to charters to better serve children with special needs. The five-school network has two classrooms for students with severe autism spectrum disorders, one “community skills” classroom for middle school students with moderate cognitive impairments, a high school for students up to 22 years old who are missing credits, and two “therapeutic classrooms” for students with serious psychiatric disabilities. About 14% of the network’s students have IEPs, compared to a citywide average of 10%.

Jindal Flip-Flops on Common Core

Governor Bobby Jindal, who once was a strong supporter of Common Core and the PARCC assessments, now wants Louisiana to withdraw from the PARCC consortium and develop its own assessments. He also hopes anti-Common Core efforts in the state legislature succeed. James Varney says the governor has abandoned his friends who supported his educational reforms in what is clearly an attempt to curry favor with his conservative base. Jindal’s turnaround made national news. The Washington Post noted that Superintendent of Education John White strongly disagrees with the governor. White believes efforts to abandon Common Core are creating “a state of chaos” for teachers. He says Louisiana has no other tests to put in place next year, and developing our own will cost Louisiana millions.

Meanwhile, Louisiana’s transition to Common Core continues. Twenty-five thousand Louisiana students successfully field-tested the new assessments for English and mathematics, and another 25,000 will try out the tests next month. View the state report detailing the results of this first phase of PARCC testing.

Discipline Policies Create Controversy

Civil rights complaint targets New Orleans charter group Collegiate Academies
A group called Better Education Support Team has filed a complaint with the Justice Department and the U.S. Department of Education against Collegiate Academies. The group claims that Collegiate violated students’ rights through overly punitive discipline policies and special education lapses. Collegiate’s student handbook clearly outlines its discipline policies. Jarvis DeBerry says these policies are worrisome, but one Sci Academy graduate says the school and its discipline are the reasons for his success. He has gone from an illiterate high school freshman to a sophomore at Bard College.

National Stories

Parental Involvement Is Overrated
A study of parental involvement over three decades yielded surprising results. The study found that most forms of parental involvement, such as homework help, talking with teachers, PTA, etc., did not improve children’s test scores or grades, regardless of racial or ethnic background or socioeconomic standing. Researchers believe parental support is important but say the results disprove the idea that parental involvement is critical to closing achievement gaps between Black and white or rich and poor.

Prominent Ed-Tech Players’ Data-Privacy Policies Attract Scrutiny
Education Week reviewed the privacy policies of three education technology vendors and found reason for concern in the way all three companies used tracking and surveillance technology to gather data on students and share that information with third parties. In response to growing concerns, Education Week also reports that trade groups, nonprofit advocacy groups, and local school districts are all working to establish more clarity on how to share student performance data while protecting student privacy.

College Board Details New SAT Redesign
After outlining the big-picture redesign of the SAT last month, the College Board has filled in the details with sample questions and information about the new scoring system. The new SAT will be introduced in the spring of 2016.

Louisiana Headlines

Electing the Superintendent of Education is not a good idea: CABL
The Council for a Better Louisiana (CABL) urges the House to reject both the bill and the constitutional amendment that would change Louisiana’s Superintendent of Education to an elected position. CABL says the legislation is more about a conflict of personalities and less about good policy. CABL’s reasons for killing the legislation include: 1) We shouldn’t politicize a position that should be about education policy; 2) If we have an elected state board of education and an elected superintendent, we could end up with dysfunction and gridlock; 3) It makes sense for the state board to do what local school boards do – hire a superintendent as CEO and hold that person accountable for student performance.

Bobby Jindal, teachers reach agreement over firing appeals process
Governor Bobby Jindal, teachers unions, and other groups have reached a compromise on how to rework the appeal process for when a teacher is fired, demoted, or otherwise disciplined. Under the new procedure, which is being proposed as a long amendment to House Bill 987, the firing decision would be reviewed by a hearing officer selected at random from a list approved by the local school board. The old procedure, which was part of Jindal’s education reforms, was ruled unconstitutional because it violated a teacher’s right to due process.

Local News

New Orleans school building repair fund bill clears House committee; $1.8 billion investment underway
A bill to maintain New Orleans’ newly built and renovated public school buildings cleared the Louisiana House Education Committee with no opposition. HB 941 would allow over $20 million in Orleans Parish sales and property tax to go toward funding a school facility office, emergency repairs, and eventually a centrally managed revolving loan fund and maintenance accounts for individual school buildings. Currently, the taxes go to pay off school construction bonds, but these should be paid off by 2020.

Algiers Charter School Association charges $25 fee for Saturday detention
The Algiers Charter School Association (ACSA) charges families $25 if their child has to attend Saturday detention. ACSA says the fee helps pay for staff at the detention center who provide supervision and counseling. The fee may be waived if the family cannot pay, but if the family refuses to pay, the child will be suspended. The ACSA model is based in part on Jefferson Parish Public Schools, which charges families for conflict resolution sessions.

New college-prep charter school under consideration in Jefferson Parish
The Jefferson Parish School Board is reviewing a charter application for Laureate Academy, an elementary school that would open on the West Bank and focus on literacy and college preparation. Laureate is one of two schools that is being created with the help of Building Excellent Schools, a nonprofit brought in by Jefferson Parish to help identify and train school leaders who could open new charters.