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I know I am shocked by this. Maybe not.

still hope she breaks one of her Manolo heels – I can’t afford them but when you make at least $350,000 a year I guess you can. and clay you are right – if she isn’t careful her real self is going to be exposed soon – she is gross.

She is a coward and the teachers at her school are too inexperienced and ignorant to do the job that courageous educators in the PUBLIC school system do everyday.

Good story.  In the very least, the 3-year lag makes no sense.  If they use target percentages at all, it seems to me that those percentages should only apply to incoming students.  Schools shouldn’t be penalized for graduating their students from ELL and SWD status.  

“(The Title III money) changes both teaching practices and outcomes.”

How so, in your experience as a Success teacher? What do you do differently as a Success teacher that teachers in district schools don’t? I am more curious because my co-teacher and I were able to help 5 out of 8 students pass out of the NYSESLAT test last year in an ICT classroom and I teach in a district school in a district with a very large number of students who receive English Language Learner services.

In addition, as a former student who received special education services growing up and is now a provider of special education services in an ICT classroom, I join with @e15b214830d6a6460db14967ac07b39c:disqus in saying that classifying students by a label (SPED, ELL, etc.) does a child a bit of an injustice. Labels can seriously hurt, especially a teacher’s perspective of a child. I felt that quite a bit growing up and those labels stick with you for years. Special education isn’t a location or a label, it’s a service mandated by a student’s IEP to be administered for the benefit of the child. Same with the English Language Learner label and it being mandated by law.

Congratulations on your 5 kids who passed the NYSESLAT.  I only know my former school and my current school.  I agree with your second paragraph completely! Labels do a complete disservice.

Thank you, @9e53557914a55deb5dc339409a03dc08:disqus , but still, I’m curious: what does Success do differently than your district school that you taught at previously?

i don’t know enough about how SPED and ELL categorizations work, but isn’t this focus just a smokescreen for Success Networks?  isn’t the real threat to them here that enforced at-risk goals would torpedo their new push to open schools in gentrifying areas?  their applications for these new schools in areas like clinton hill, prospect heights and williamsburg explicitly state that they will attempt to recruit an overrepresentation of affluent kids.  how can they do that under these rules? 

Taking the same number of the special needs and ELL students would completely defeat the charter schools ability to manipulate the data and also their claims of success.  Not all ELL students come in the system at the same level in their native languages.  Before any claims of moving kids out of ELL are made by Success Academy people, you must know where they started otherwise your arguments are spurious and usual.  Attrition rates must also be considered before any data even comes close to being reliable. 

Eva’s hubby, Grannis,  through a couple of his lawyer friend board members (Ryan and Godsil are on the Tapestry board, along w/ Girls Prep’s CMO  Chair Brian Laurence and Gideon Stein Chair of  HSA5/UWS, 
http://tapestryproject.org/team.html ) made a very similar ask (below) regarding FRLP targets, claiming that requiring charters to meet district averages for poverty would create segregation.
 Interesting how segregated the charters have been BEFORE the law was passed and continue to be prior to any mechanisms for enforcement, and how little these folks at 10,000 feet seem to understand segregation WITHIN urban community districts. I find it disturbing that academics and researchers,  who really should know better, have been hoodwinked into signing on to a letter advocating that laws protecting the 96% of students in public schools should be thrown out to create a special status for the 4% in charters. All of this charter lobby push back to legal measures to create a level playing field for the “choice”-based competition of the supposed “free market” edubusiness makes crystal clear that charters are an unregulated, unsustainable model that can only thrive by creaming and skimming.May 29, 2012SUNY Charter Schools Institute Attn: Webinar Feedback 41 State Street, Suite 700 Albany, New York 12207Email: TargetsWebinar@suny.eduRe: Proposed Methodology for Establishing Enrollment and Retention Targets http://www.p12.nysed.gov/psc/enrollment-retention-targets.htmlDear Colleagues,The undersigned educational researchers are writing to express concerns regarding the proposed enrollment and retention targets for charter schools in New York. We are committed to the proposal’s underlying goal of ensuring that our state’s most vulnerable students have access to high quality schools. Requiring charter schools to provide greater access to Students with Disabilities by ensuring that such schools mirror the local school district average is consistent with this goal. However, the mandate that each charter school replicate the free and reduced price lunch rate for the district is not.If all school districts were socio-economically diverse, the enrollment mandate would serve the laudable purpose of ensuring that charter schools are not segregated economically. But in districts where the public schools are serving predominantly poor children, the enrollment mandate will require that charter schools be as economically segregated as the district’s schools. And in light of racially and economically segregated housing patterns in New York City, this regulation will increase rather than decrease the number of schools that are both racially isolated and economically homogenous.This is a mistake. High-poverty schools do sometimes succeed, and where high-poverty schools are unavoidable, of course, every effort should be made to give students an excellent education in those schools, regardless of the demographics. However, where it is possible to create diverse rather than economically isolated schools, regulations ought to support such opportunities. Decades of social science research show that economically and racially integrated schools are educationally beneficial to children of all income levels. The preponderance of social science disseminated in the past 20 years indicates that the SES composition of schools significantly contributes to the quality of their educational opportunities, and when compared with their otherwise comparable peers who attend schools with high concentrations of low-income and /or disadvantaged youth, students who attend diverse schools are more likely:- To achieve higher test scores and grades;- To graduate from high school;- And to attend and graduate from college. Attending a diverse school promotes achievement in mathematics, science, language and reading. Achievement benefits accrue to students in all grades but most markedly those in middle and high school. Youth from all racial and SES backgrounds can benefit from diverse learning schools—including middle class whites. Low-income youth appear to benefit the most from diverse schools. (What Social Science Research from the Last 20 Years Says About the Effects of Integrated Education on Achievement Outcomes, (Roslyn Arlin Mickelson 2010)).We support the general goal of inclusion embodied in the enrollment and retention targets, and we don’t believe that public charter schools should be permitted to become enclaves for white and middle class flight (as some public schools have become). But inclusion need not be achieved at the expense of diversity. Public charter schools can be required to actively recruit very low income children and at the same time set diversity goals to ensure a racial and economic mix that reflects the diverse population of the city and region. Strict adherence to the existing profile of a poverty concentrated school district (and refusing to permit enrollment from beyond the district border) will only serve to create more segregated schools.To best serve the educational and social needs of all students, both charter and traditional public schools should be attempting to diversify their student bodies and New York State laws and regulations should support this effort – not render it extremely unlikely except in areas that have already achieved some level of integration.Sincerely,Susan Eaton James Ryan Research Director William L. Matheson & Robert Charles Hamilton Houston Morgenthau Distinguished Professor of Law Institute for Race and Justice F. Palmer Weber Research Professor of Harvard Law School Civil Liberties and Human Rights Director, Program in Law and Public James Forman Jr. ServiceClinical Professor of Law University of Virginia School of LawYale Law SchoolRachel D. GodsilEleanor Bontecou Professor of LawSeton Hall University Law SchoolDaniel LosenDirector, Center for Civil Rights RemediesCivil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles Univ. of California, Los AngelesGary Orfield Professor of Education, Law, Political Science and Urban Planning Co-Director, Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles Univ. of California, Los Angeles

Here is NYSED’s flow chart for screening, assessing, placing, and reassessing ELLs: 

http://www.p12.nysed.gov/apda/lab_r/lep-09.pdf

Can someone (I’m asking honestly) tell me where there is room in this process for ‘over-identifying” ELLs, particularly for a child first entering the school system, be it in K or as a newly arrived immigrant entering a higher grade? 

As for reassessment, it doesn’t seem likely to me that district schools would be committing test fraud on a widespread basis (for a taste of the stakes and the security, see here: http://www.p12.nysed.gov/apda/lab_r/1346-12.pdf), or that there’s much incentive for them to intentionally undereducate a subgroup that gives them the most bang for the buck when it comes to improving/maintaining a school’s letter grade. 

This is all a very pleasant and interesting diversion, of course, from the central issue, which is that charters aren’t starting out with anywhere near the same amount of ELLs (or special ed or economically disadvantaged students) as their district counterparts. But it was a pretty good try!

Retention matters as well, Ken.  When Success Academy loses 36% of their students by 3rd grade, it would be helpful to ensure that they’re not all her ELLs or kids with IEPs.  

Jim hit the nail on the head.  I’m not sure why Eva is complaining when there’s no teeth to these requirements anyway.  

In terms of your first question (over identification of ELLs), it can easily be done by the home language survey with parents who are bilingual.  They will be extremely confused by this document even if they speak only english as home but know spanish.  If the home is determined to have a ‘dominant’ language other than english (determiend by the confusing home language survey) the child takes a test called the lab-r.  

While this is not tested or research based, I would bet 50% or more below grade level students would fail the lab-r even if they spoke fluent english.  I know for example, that the current kindergarten tests require them to have mastery of their letters.  In many schools, students are not entering kindergarten with mastery of letters.  Thus, over identification.

A school not concerned with numbers of high needs students would work with parents on the home language survey to determine the actual dominant language of the household.

I agree that the percentage targets should only apply to incoming students, but and also believe that there should be a target for retaining these students, NOT for retaining them in a more restrictive setting. The school isn’t doing it’s job if it enrolls 20% ELL students and loses half of them, but they also aren’t doing their job if they enroll 20% ELL students and 5 years later those 20% are still ELL.