Franklin Schargel’s Blog

Closing Charter Schools – A Good Thing or a Bad Thing?

About 15 percent of the nation’s charter schools close””and that’s not a bad thing, according to a newly released report, which argues that those shutdowns are proof that the system weeds out institutions that can’t cut it for one reason or another. Of roughly 6,700 charter schools that have opened in the United States, 1,036 have closed since 1992, says a report unveiled today by the Center for Education Reform.

The center advocates for charters and school choice, in its report, “The State of Charter Schools,” as the “first-ever national analysis” of the charters that have closed shop over the past two decades.

So why do charter schools close?

The greatest portion of them, 41.7 percent, go under for financial reasons, the center found. Mismanagement””which could be misspending, failure to provide adequate programs or materials, or an overall lack of accountability””is the next most likely reason, at 24 percent, followed by academic problems, at 18.6 percent.

Of the rest, 4.6 percent close because of problems with their facilities. “District obstacles” are another barrier, at 6.3 percent. The report maintains that in those cases, school systems may saddle charters with unrealistic paperwork or regulatory burdens or treat them with outright hostility.

So is the closing of charter schools a good thing or a bad thing in your opinion? Public schools that are performing poorly are rarely or never closed. What bothers me is that over 40% of charter schools are being closed because of financial problems and not because they are not performing better than the traditional public schools they were supposed to replace.

Holding Parents Accountable

Data exists which shows a correlation between actively involved parents and student success. There’s no question that a great teacher can make a huge difference in a student’s achievement, and we need to recruit, train and reward more such teachers. But here’s what some new studies are also showing: We need more involved parents. Parents more focused on their children’s education can also make a huge difference in a student’s achievement.

How do we know? Every three years, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or O.E.C.D., conducts exams as part of the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, which tests 15-year-olds in the world’s leading industrialized nations on their reading comprehension and ability to use what they’ve learned in math and science to solve real problems “” the most important skills for succeeding in college and life. America’s 15-year-olds have not been distinguishing themselves in the PISA exams compared with students in Singapore, Finland and Shanghai.

To better understand why some students thrive taking the PISA tests and others do not, Andreas Schleicher, who oversees the exams for the O.E.C.D., was encouraged by the O.E.C.D. countries to look beyond the classrooms. So starting with four countries in 2006, and then adding 14 more in 2009, the PISA team went to the parents of 5,000 students and interviewed them “about how they raised their kids and then compared that with the test results” for each of those years. Two weeks ago, the PISA team published the three main findings of its study:

“Fifteen-year-old students whose parents often read books with them during their first year of primary school show markedly higher scores in PISA 2009 than students whose parents read with them infrequently or not at all. The performance advantage among students whose parents read to them in their early school years is evident regardless of the family’s socioeconomic background. Parents’ engagement with their 15-year-olds is strongly associated with better performance in PISA.”

Schleicher explained that “just asking your child how was their school day and showing genuine interest in the learning that they are doing can have the same impact as hours of private tutoring. It is something every parent can do, no matter what their education level or social background.”

For instance, the PISA study revealed that “students whose parents reported that they had read a book with their child “˜every day or almost every day’ or “˜once or twice a week’ during the first year of primary school have markedly higher scores in PISA 2009 than students whose parents reported that they had read a book with their child “˜never or almost never’ or only “˜once or twice a month.’ On average, the score difference is 25 points, the equivalent of well over half a school year.”

Yes, students from more well-to-do households are more likely to have more involved parents. “However,” the PISA team found, “even when comparing students of similar socioeconomic backgrounds, those students whose parents regularly read books to them when they were in the first year of primary school score 14 points higher, on average, than students whose parents did not.”

The kind of parental involvement matters, as well. “For example,” the PISA study noted, “on average, the score point difference in reading that is associated with parental involvement is largest when parents read a book with their child, when they talk about things they have done during the day, and when they tell stories to their children.” The score point difference is smallest when parental involvement takes the form of simply playing with their children.

Monitoring homework; making sure children get to school; rewarding their efforts and talking up the idea of going to college. These parent actions are linked to better attendance, grades, test scores, and preparation for college. The study found that getting parents involved with their children’s learning at home is a more powerful driver of achievement than parents attending P.T.A. and school board meetings, volunteering in classrooms, participating in fund-raising, and showing up at back-to-school nights.

To be sure, there is no substitute for a good teacher. There is nothing more valuable than great classroom instruction. But let’s stop putting the whole burden on teachers. We also need better parents. Better parents can make every teacher more effective.

Drawn from a NY Times article by Thomas Friedman

High School Graduation Rates Increase

SEE PREVIOUS STORY

According to a new analysis of high school completion from the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center finds that the national graduation rate stands at 71.7 percent for the class of 2008, the most recent year for which data are available. The overall graduation rate for public high school students jumped nearly 3 percentage points from 2007 to 2008, more than offsetting the nationwide declines of the previous two years. Each major racial and ethnic group also posted gains of at least 2 percentage points, with African-American students improving most rapidly.

That projection equals nearly 1.2 million students from this year’s high school class will fail to graduate with a diploma. That amounts to 6,400 students lost each day of the year, or one student every 27 seconds. To bring it to a visual level, that equals 160 school buses, filled with children leaving school every day, never to return.

What is particularly vexing is that there are still graduation gaps along the lines of race, gender, and geography. Asian-Americans and whites remain the nation’s highest-performing groups, posting graduation rates of 83 percent and 78 percent, respectively, for the class of 2008. The nation’s graduation rate rose by 6.1 percentage points over all of the past decade. During the same period, the black-white graduation gap narrowed by 2 points, owing to the more rapid progress made by African-Americans. Because improvement for whites outpaced that of other groups, though, the gaps between Native Americans and whites and between Latinos and whites have widened somewhat since 1999.

Among Latinos in the class of 2008, 58 percent finished high school with a diploma, while 57 percent of African-Americans and 54 percent of Native Americans graduated. On average, 68 percent of male students earn a diploma compared with 75 percent of female students, a 7-percentage-point gender gap that has remained virtually unchanged for years. High school completion rates for minority males consistently fall near or below the 50 percent mark.

Suburban districts graduate considerably more students on average than do those serving urban communities, 76 percent vs. 64 percent. Regardless of location, graduation rates in districts characterized by heightened levels of poverty or racial or socioeconomic segregation fall well below the national average, typically ranging from 58 percent to 63 percent.

In addition, the 44-percentage-point chasm separating the highest- and lowest-performing states remains alarming. The national leaders””New Jersey, North Dakota, Vermont, and Wisconsin””each graduate more than 80 percent of their high school students. At the other extreme of the rankings, fewer than six in 10 students finish high school in the District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, and South Carolina. Overall, graduation rates in about half the states fall within 5 points of the national average of 72 percent.

Graduation rates have also risen in a large majority of states during the past decade. Thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia have posted gains ranging from a fraction of a percent to 20 percentage points over that time span. Among the states that have lost ground, all but one of the declines were on the order of 5 percentage points or less.

Urban districts, perhaps predictably, occupy the lowest spots on the rankings, often graduating no more than half their students and as few as one-third. Montgomery County, Md., and Fairfax County, Va., respectively, rank first and second among the nation’s largest districts, with graduation rates topping 85 percent, more than 50 percentage points higher than Detroit, the lowest-ranked district.

Median earnings for prime working-age adults (25 to 54) steadily increase as levels of educational attainment rise. A typical worker with at least a four-year college degree earns about $50,000 per year, compared with a median income of $30,000 among those with a two-year degree and about $18,500 for those with no more than a high school diploma. Income data from 2009 show that annual earnings increase significantly as workers acquire progressively higher levels of education. Median earnings for adults who have not completed high school stand at only $12,000. Acquiring a high school diploma generates an additional $10,000 of earnings on average, with any amount of postsecondary education (including an associate degree) raising income an additional $8,000 a year, to almost $30,000. The typical four-year degree-holder earns about $50,000 a year.

Twenty-?ve individual school systems account for one in every ?ve nongraduates nationwide for the class of 2011.

As I have indicated in the past, we do not know what “career readiness” means. Data indicate that many of the jobs of the future have not been clearly defined and according to many business magazines, many companies which will employ graduates haven’t even opened. So schools are preparing students for jobs that may not exist.

The expectation that every student needs to be college-ready is also a fallacy. We need graduates who are capable of building and repairing equipment, automobiles and computers instead of sending these jobs offshore. Many of our students who have followed the rules and gone to college and graduated cannot find work and are not burdened with large loans.

Franklin Being Interviewed by “School Leadership Briefing

School Leadership Briefing is an audio on-line broadcast sent to 10,000 school superintendents. He discusses School Leadership and School Culture.

https://www.eyeoneducation.com/About-Us/In-the-News/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1779/Franklin-Schargel-Shawn-Joseph-and-Frank-Buck-Interviewed-in-School-Leadership-Briefing

The School Shooting at Chardon High Scool

The tragic events in this small rural Northeast Ohio leads me to want to post this. The superintendent of the Chardon School District, Joe Bergant III best expressed it when he said,”This can happen anywhere.” My friend Dr. Steve Sroka has worked in Chardon and has posted some information which I have excerpted.

“I have spoken in this community several times over the years, and it is a quiet and friendly community. The schools are well run and the students are respectful. From all accounts at this time, the school and community response teams coordinated a textbook example on how to respond to the crisis.

Denial is still a huge issue. As the superintendent has indicated, it can happen anywhere, at any time. In the past school violence was associated with the inner-city, now we have had violence on an American Indian Reservation, in an Amish community and in the suburban community of Columbine, Colorado.

Social media now gives more insights and quicker responses to the tragic events than do authorized officials. But confusion is often created by misinformation, rumors and conflicting information. Reliable sources lag as they sort out the details. Interviews with students, tweets and Facebook often beat the news reporters at their game. Principals hear about violence in their schools from parents who are calling with information that their kids have just texted them. Today social media can also create problems, but it can be a powerful messenger to prevent and respond to violence. Schools need to take advantage of social media to reach parents and the rest of their community to dispel rumors and incorrect information.

We need to put a human face on school safety. We don’t need more metal detectors, we need more student detectors. School safety needs to be built in, not tacked on. I had the privilege of serving as Coordinator of Student Activities (COSA). The job description was to serve as a “third ear” to listen to students. School counselors are frequently overwhelmed by paperwork and other work like programming to give proper guidance. I cannot believe that school systems have not set up COSA’s. For me, for students and parents and the school, it was the best thing in preventing school violence.

A plan of action needs to be in place, practiced and proactive. Teachers and students should be trained and allowed to practice lockdown drills. Parents need a low tech and high tech communication system for responding to school emergencies. Schools need to be prepared to deal with the consequences of violence long after the incident. Grief has no specific timeline for everyone.

Parents have, because of busy schedules, become dependent on technology – cell phones, IM, and the Internet to reach their children. The best technique is for parents to talk to their children as frequently as they possibly can. They need to know who their children’s friends are, where they hang out, and what they did in school.

I will be delivering two workshops in Savannah Georgia’s Youth At Risk Conference about Preventing School Violence on March 6th.

Begging for Educational Funds

At least 23 states have made huge cuts to public education this year and school districts are searching for ways to make up for the losses. There are going to foundations, parent-teacher organizations, and business groups.

In New York City, foundations are being asked to pay for classroom supplies, music and art lessons. In Lakeland, FL a church has provide $5,000 to pay for an elementary school’s resource room and math and English tutors. Businesses are being asked if they would place corporate logos on cafeteria walls and on school ball fields.

School budgets have been cut beyond the bone and into the marrow. Class sizes have been increased, the number of hours and days reduced, electives eliminated and students and parents are being asked to pay for workbooks, Advanced Placement Classes, extracurricular activities and basic instructional activities.

In Miami, FL, 4,500 students were cut from after-school programs. Texas has cut pre-kindergarten programs for 100,000 children. Not surprisingly, poor students are disproportionately affected far more: in Pennsylvania education cut amounted to $581 in the poorest 150 school districts, but only $214 per student in the wealthiest 150 districts.

I am not a lawyer but I believe that this is a violation of the 14 amendment which guarantees equal treatment under the law. It is time to bring law suits to stop these cuts. Where is the American Federation of Teachers, or the National Education Association? the Supreme Court of New Jersey ordered Governor Chris Christie and the state legislature to reinstate $500 million in funds for poor urban districts. A North Carolina judge blocked cuts that would have decimated a statewide preschool program.

POLITICIANS HAVE A CONSTITUTIONAL OBLIGATION TO PROTECT PUBLIC EDUCATION. Remember that when you vote.

It is bad enough when students are begging motorists to have the cars washed in order to pay for school uniforms and activities. Will politicians be happy when students and parents take to the streets to raise money to pay for textbooks, or chalk?

It Appears That Children Are Not The Only Ones Who Cheat

The pressures of high stakes testing, No Child Left Behind, and Race to The Top has created enormous pressure on school administrators and teachers to cheat on high stakes tests. The latest case in point was in Hopeville Elementary School in Waterbury, Connecticut. Ten years ago, that the low performing school had achieved a perfect 100% proficiency on the Connecticut Mastery Test. The error was caught by thee Republican-American newspaper in July.

Hopeville joins the infamous list of schools in:

– Atlanta where 178 teachers and principals were caught in a state investigation of tampering with tests. Investigators found that there existed a “culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation” under Superintendent Beverly Hall.

– Georgia’s Dougherty County 11 schools were accused of cheating on student test scores.

– the Camden, NJ school system which paid a former high school principal who claimed his superiors forced him to alter student test scores. New Jersey Education Department officials are investigating an additional 34 schools where there were high rates of wrong-to-right erasures.

– Washington DC where a federal probe found high erasure rates on math and reading examinations. A USA TODAY probe has raised doubts about scores in 100 more schools.

– Similar investigations have been conducted in New York City, parts of New York State and Philadelphia.

I do not condone cheating whether it is done by students, teachers or school administrators. But the federal and state emphasis on high stakes tests as the way to raise achievement and to tie teacher and administrators’ salaries and job-performance to student test scores, makes little sense. It is interesting to note that Michelle Rhee, former school superintendent of Washington, DC has convinced the state legislatures in Michigan and Nevada to overhaul teacher evaluations based on high stakes tests. This is the same Michelle Rhee who is being investigated by the D.C.’s inspector general for high erasure rates on standardized tests during her tenure.

Cheating on tests results in students without qualifications being passed through and penalizes those students who actually legitimately passed the examinations. Unless we can get a fair assessment of their abilities , we must give serious reservations to high stakes examinations.

Child Abuse: What Are Educator’s Responsibilities?

The accusations of child abuse at various colleges raises the question of what are the responsibilities of educators if they suspect child abuse? According to child welfare agencies 695,000 children were abused or neglected last year. Many believe that that number is understated as many case go unreported.

State laws are very clear regarding educator responsibility. All states including the District of Columbia, hold educators responsible if they fail to report suspected child abuse. This applies to social workers and child care workers as well. Failure to report is a misdemeanor but three states have laws that make failing to report abuse a felony.

If officials had spoken up, other children might have been spared. Apart from the law, if you are a human being, how can you not have compassion for children who have no voice?