I just heard about American Indian Public Charter school in Oakland today. It got me questioning whether our schools are really that good. Here are some stats on this charter school:
91.1% are low income and get free or reduced lunch
The median teacher experience is 1 year
The student to teacher ratio is 22:1
Its API scores are here: http://api.cde.ca.gov/Acnt2011/2011GrowthSch.aspx?allcds=01612590111856
What’s really intriguing is the API score of the Black and Hispanic subgroups. Black’s API score is 968 and Hispanic’s API score is 942. To put the number into perspective, TPHS API score for Black and Hispanic are 820 & 744 respectively.
[quote=captcha]Mentioned here a year ago. Very unorthodox.[/quote]
With their results, maybe we should have a lot more unorthodox schools. In 2009, AIPHS graduated its first senior class. All eighteen graduating seniors were accepted to four-year colleges, including Cornell, MIT and UC Berkeley.
[quote=AN][quote=captcha]Mentioned here a year ago. Very unorthodox.[/quote]
With their results, maybe we should have a lot more unorthodox schools. In 2009, AIPHS graduated its first senior class. All eighteen graduating seniors were accepted to four-year colleges, including Cornell, MIT and UC Berkeley.[/quote]
It doesn’t scale. They use undisclosed procedures to qualify students for admission and then kick another 50% out.
If you want a case for comparison in San Diego, you should check out the Preuss School. And even then, Preuss has a *much* strong emphasis on retention than this school you’ve found.
[quote=captcha][quote=AN][quote=captcha]Mentioned here a year ago. Very unorthodox.[/quote]
With their results, maybe we should have a lot more unorthodox schools. In 2009, AIPHS graduated its first senior class. All eighteen graduating seniors were accepted to four-year colleges, including Cornell, MIT and UC Berkeley.[/quote]
It doesn’t scale. They use undisclosed procedures to qualify students for admission and then kick another 50% out.[/quote]
Doesn’t our university do this?
[quote=Rhett]If you want a case for comparison in San Diego, you should check out the Preuss School. And even then, Preuss has a *much* strong emphasis on retention than this school you’ve found.[/quote]
AIPHS has higher scores than Preuss. But I guess if the weaker students at Preuss drop out, then their scores might be just as high as well. Preuss is also another good example of Charter school working.
[quote=AN]
AIPHS has higher scores than Preuss. But I guess if the weaker students at Preuss drop out, then their scores might be just as high as well. Preuss is also another good example of Charter school working.[/quote]
In my opinion, neither of them use a method that could scale to all public schools. The premise, stated or not, is that if you get enough students from disadvantaged situations to succeed, it would propagate out to the entire community.
[quote=Rhett]In my opinion, neither of them use a method that could scale to all public schools. The premise, stated or not, is that if you get enough students from disadvantaged situations to succeed, it would propagate out to the entire community.
Sounds like trickle down economics.[/quote]
I agree that it won’t make every kids from poor area succeed. However, with these charter schools, the kids who want to succeed will have a school that will help them succeed vs being stuck in their failing schools.
I support segregation by skill&talent, but that does not give us a recipe on how to improve ‘bad’ schools. I.e. this school is not better school than the best public San Diego school. It is different kind of school. Nothing wrong with that.
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