The 2014 school-level TVAAS data has been out for a few weeks now and since we did an analysis earlier this summer on local charter performance using 2013 data, I thought it only appropriate that I run a similar analysis of Memphis charter schools using this year’s data..

Such an analysis is vital first and foremost because charter schools are public schools and should be held accountable to the same standards as other public schools. At a time when we are taking over and closing down other schools based on performance, charters should be subject to the same level of scrutiny.

Second, charter schools can (or should be) laboratories of innovation in discipline and academic practices. They have more freedom than do traditional public schools and as such can experiment with different practices. But we won’t be able to learn what’s working and what isn’t if we can’t identify those schools performing at a high level.

Third, I believe that it is vital for the community to be able to clearly understand the performance of its public schools in order to hold our leaders accountable for ensuring that our children receive the best education possible and that our limited education funding is truly achieving the greatest bang for its buck.

Who I Looked At
Before jumping in, I should note that I chose to look solely at charter high schools and left out middle and elementary schools. I made this decision for two reasons. One, Tennessee is hyper-focused on improving its college readiness percentage. High school is the last stop on most students’ education journey before going to college, and as such it’s vital that our high schools are performing at a high level to give them that last push towards college. Second, there are less charter high schools so its easier to do a side by side comparison. Third, I teach in a charter high school (Soulsville) so I am always very interested in how we stack up in comparison to other schools.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at how local charter high schools stacked up. I’ve created two visuals using infogr.am, which will allow readers to examine charter performance by subject and compare all seven charter high schools across Memphis. The first chart shows absolute achievement and the second shows growth of all charters side by side.

I’ve also included the Shelby County average for each subject. While I realize that comparing one school to an entire district does not offer the best comparison, I believe it does give some valuable benchmark to compare against besides other charter high schools.

9/1/14 update: it was brought to my attention that the term “growth” could be misconstrued as student growth. The second graph does not represent TVAAS growth of expected vs actual, but merely the overall growth in absolute performance from 2013 – 2014. Thus students may still have “grown” on an individual basis, but the school may still show negative growth because it’s overall proficiency rates went down. 

9/5/14 update: to use the infograms below, click on the dots at the top of the graph below the title to switch the test you want to view. It has also been brought to my attention that the infograms may not load on all computers. If you are viewing this article and you cannot view the infograms (they appear to be always loading but never do) please leave a comment with the type of machine you use so we can fix this problem.

 

In terms of absolute achievement, Power Center Academy (PCA) and The Soulsville Charter School saw the most consistent success. Both schools scored noticeably higher than their peer charters and the county average on Algebra I and Algebra II. Other schools of note were City University which dramatically improved its algebra I scores from last year and KIPP Memphis, which outperformed the Shelby County average.

It should be noted that Freedom Prep is not included on the mathematics graphs as they did not have data for those subjects in high school (they take Algebra I in 8th grade and don’t have an Algebra II class yet).

Charter Achievement, English I and II

Overall charter schools performed  higher in English than they did in math. Notable English performers are Soulsville, PCA, Memphis Business Academy (MBA) and Freedom Prep, all of which performed at a much higher level on English I than Shelby County and their other peers on English I. However, the only two schools able to sustain this success into English II are Soulsville and PCA, both of which had notably higher scores than SCS or their peer schools.

Charter Achievement Growth, Mathematics

The biggest surprise here is City University, which saw dramatic gains of 40 percentage points in Algebra I and 14 percentage points in algebra II. Considering where they were last year this is a tremendous improvement and should be lauded and studied further. Notably Soulsville also grew by double digits. However, we did see several schools take a strong slide backwards in Algebra II scores, notably Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering (MASE) and MBA.

Charter Achievement Growth, English

Only one school had any negative growth in English I or II, which was MASE in English II, and even then only by 3 percentage points. Otherwise Memphis charter high schools performed remarkably well in English. Notable schools include City University which again saw double digit gains in both English I and II, and MBA which saw almost a 30 percentage point increase in its English I scores and a 20 percentage point increase in English II. But the takeaway here is that everyone is improving in English.

Takeaways

If we’re going to truly treat charter schools as laboratories of innovation, we need to be able to identify who we can learn from and in what subjects. This data suggests that we need to be studying PCA and Soulsville to see what they’re doing with their mathematics curriculum, and Freedom Prep, MBA, Soulsville and PCA for English. We should also be examining MBA and City University to determine what has led to this dramatic turnaround growth and if these practices could be applied in other public schools across our city.

I want to emphasize the “wow” factor with City University. Double digit growth in every subject! Amazing job, I would love to see someone (chalkbeat perhaps?) dig into what’s going on over there to see how this growth has been achieved!

I should add that this data should only serve as a starting point for charter school study in Memphis. We still need to examine charters to see how they are doing in educating students with disabilities, students in poverty, and whether or not their student populations differ noticeably from other local public schools. But at the very least this data can serve as a launching point for continued study of these schools to determine what’s working and what takeaways we can apply throughout our collective system of public education.

Written by Jon Alfuth

Follow Bluff City Education on Twitter @bluffcityed and look for the hashtag #iteachiam and #TNedu to find more of our stories.  Please also like our page on facebook. The views expressed in this piece are solely those of the author and do not represent those of any affiliated organizations. Inflammatory or defamatory comments will not be posted on this story.

Correction:(9/1/14) in an earlier version of this story the second graph was labeled as “charter high school growth in Memphis, TN” The graph has been changed to read as “achievement growth” since the growth scores represent the growth in achievement from year to year, but not overall student growth using TVAAS as the baseline. An update section has also been included before the graphs to further articulate this concept.