GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Last week I visited another great New York City charter school: KIPP Infinity in West Harlem.  Infinity serves grades 5 through 8.

In the most recent NYC Department of Education progress report, KIPP Infinity received the highest overall score amongst all 1,043 elementary, middle, and K-8 schools that were graded.  On their 2007-08 “Learning Environment Survey Report”, in which parents, teachers, and students are surveyed, the scores were uniformly excellent and, often, outliers.  For example, on parent engagement, they scored a 125% on a scale from 0 to 100%.

As I talked with principal Joe Negron in his office (a table in the hallway), it was clear that his focus is on further improvement.  He noted, for example, that while most of Infinity’s students pass the state tests, few of them have advanced into the most selective high schools.  (more…)

I have been compiling some New York City charter school data from tax filings.  “IRS Form 990″ is the required federal filing for tax-exempt organizations.  On these public documents, you can find information about fundraising and spending.  Since these forms are usually filed several months after the end of the reporting period, the most recent data I could find was for the 2006-2007 school year.  (I hope to get 2007-2008 data later this year.)

For the 39 schools for which I could get good data, the total amount of contributions received directly from individuals and foundations was $11,625,432.  These same schools served 9,898 students in that school year.  Therefore, the average per pupil philanthropic contribution was $1,175.

Several notes on this:
1. The 39 schools were taken from a list of 50 New York City charter schools in my database.  These 50 schools were chosen because they have taken state exams in 2007-2008.  (more…)

Today, GothamSchools reported on new poll results released by Quinnipiac: “Nearly three-quarters of parent voters want more charter schools”.  These results are not surprising given the parental demand for charter schools in the annual lotteries.  No one seems to track lottery statistics in a detailed manner, but, in my experience, the better charter schools are usually oversubscribed by between two and ten times.

I’ve seen parents literally praying at charter school lotteries.  What do these parents think about debates on “creaming”?  I think they would be perturbed by arguments that they are leaving behind the children with the least active parents, especially when those arguments come from people that would never let their own kids set foot in the schools in which some inner-city children are expected to remain.

The simplest and perhaps best argument for increasing the number of charter schools in New York City is that the parents, the ones whose voices we should be most concerned about, want more of them.

As I continue to visit charter schools in Manhattan, I am struck with the prevalence of arrangements in which there are two teachers in a classroom.  The classrooms themselves often have between 20 to 30 children, but the kids are frequently split into two groups or some other arrangement in which they seem to be getting more attention than the typical single-teacher approach.  A few thoughts on this:

1. Aaron Pallas wrote yesterday “One of the truisms about class size reduction is that, if the student population stays constant, the only way to reduce class size is to increase the number of classes, which requires more classroom space.”  This makes sense to me, but is the goal class size reduction, i.e. reducing students per foot of classroom space, or is it to reduce the student-teacher ratio in classroom settings?  Is class size important for reasons beyond the student-teacher ratio in classroom settings?  How important are these other reasons?

2. In part, charter schools are able to afford lowering the student-teacher ratio because they generally employ younger teachers and they don’t participate in the UFT benefit plan.  Since most charter schools roughly follow the UFT salary scale, they can’t afford to compete with salaries for the most senior teachers. (more…)

I believe that our current system of teacher certification requirements could be greatly improved.  I think we should focus more on competency exams and less on required coursework, especially if that coursework has a questionable relationship to teacher effectiveness.  Also, I think we should liberalize the ability of high-performing schools to make exceptions to any coursework-related certification requirements.

When I debate this issue, perhaps the most common questions revolve around comparisons to doctors and lawyers.  Would you go to a doctor who didn’t go to medical school?  Do you think lawyers shouldn’t have to go to law school?  Here are some of my thoughts on these questions.

1. In general, I don’t have the option to see a doctor or lawyer who didn’t go to professional school.  (Lawyers, in a few states, can be admitted to the bar without completing law school, but this is uncommon.)  Before the 20th century, I would have had more choices, but movements lead by the medical and law schools and by professionals who were concerned with excessive competition have managed to eliminate almost all alternative routes.  (I recommend “The Social Transformation of American Medicine” by Paul Starr and “American Law in the 20th Century” by Lawrence Friedman for the gory details.)  Here is some advice from one well-known lawyer who couldn’t afford law school. (more…)

“Teaching to the Test” refers to the practice of teaching in a manner designed to improve test results at the expense of some superior form of learning.  Currently, the phrase is most commonly used as an attack on certain standardized tests.  In New York, for example, students take annual standardized tests in grades 3 through 8.

If the standardized tests are competency tests, which I think they should be, the risk of “teaching to the test” should be related to the treatment of slower students that are at risk of failing to reach measured competency unless the teaching methods are targeted to the particular testing content.  Then, for these students, the risk is that focusing on their ability to answer some form of basic competency questions is materially worse than educating them in some other manner that won’t allow them to best answer these same questions.  I have always been skeptical that the probability and cost of this scenario could outweigh the benefits of basic competency testing.

To better inform my opinion on this issue, I reviewed the New York 2008 math and ELA tests for grades 3 through 8.  I was surprised to learn that all of the recent tests are well-organized on the state website.  I randomly picked a few pages from each test and compiled them in two files (math and ELA).  To me, the questions seem to be fair and straightforward.  I have difficulty understanding what is meant by “teaching to the test” with these sorts of questions and how it could be damaging to the students.  So, I ask the reader: What are some examples of how someone might “teach to the test” with respect to these particular questions?  How would such a method be harmful to the student?  I would love to hear from teachers and school leaders in New York that are particularly concerned with the “teaching to the test” phenomenon.

As we debate the merits of charter schools, many of us have not had the time to visit one.  Many others have visited exactly one.  Although I have visited several charter schools in recent years, I decided that it would be worthwhile to visit every charter school in Manhattan.  To be more precise, I hope to visit every charter school in Manhattan that took the New York State exams last year.

Eighteen schools are on my list.

I hope to learn things that you can’t learn by reading their websites or reviewing their test scores.  So far I have visited five schools.  I have written about two schools (here and here) that really impressed me.

I also hope to visit many traditional public schools as well as some magnet schools, special education schools, and private schools. Of course, in all cases, the school has to let me visit.  In my experience, charter schools are generally happy to have visitors.

All suggestions for what I should be looking for on my visits are encouraged!