I wish this sentiment could be shared by parents across the city about their children’s schools.  However, in my experience this is rarely the case.  More often than not, parents face two choices; send their student to the struggling neighborhood school or move. And for many, this second option really isn’t realistic.

Enter charter schools, a publicly funded alternative to the traditional neighborhood school that allows for greater flexibility of discipline systems, curriculum and employment practice.  We are blessed to have many quality options here in Memphis.  However, charters in Tennessee have recently come under attack, notably by Jim Horn and Denise Wilburn in the Washington Post this past week.  They argue, among other things, that the growth measures created by the TVAAS system in Tennessee act to perpetuate the mass expansion poor charters.  They also point out that many have neutral or negative growth (more than show positive effects).  They also note that TVAAS’ focus on growth over proficiency masks the true inequality in our education system.  Their solution is to do away completely with value added measures and charter schools all together.

This would be a serious mistake.  While there are certainly many charters in Tennessee with room for improvement, there are also many charters doing incredible work for students across the state.  And these schools truly do give parents a third option for where to send their kids.  However, data doesn’t lie, and we do have many charters in Tennessee that are not achieving the success we would want to see for a publicly funded alternative school.  Instead of a blanket ban on charters as advocated by Horn and Wilburn, a better solution, as it so often does, lays in a more nuanced solution focusing on identifying quality schools and shutting down those that don’t demonstrate success over time.

Such a proposal is needed more now than ever.  As of May 2011 the cap on charters in Tennessee was lifted.  To ensure the state is not flooded with charters that promise transformational outcomes but wind up with gains similar or worse to traditional public schools, I propose three different policies that would introduce quality and accountability into the system:

Ensure a rigorous, research based application process to ensure only quality charters are opened - not everyone should be allowed to open up a new charter school whenever and wherever they please.  We should have standards for good quality charters and these standards should be used when new considering charter applications. We should prioritize bringing charter authorizers with a track record of success to our state.  Some authorizers have a track record of successful charter school governance and some do not, and we need to draw on this information to be discerning when opening new charters in Tennessee.

Give charters 3 years to demonstrate student growth or face closure - evidence suggests that charters that are successful in their first year continue to be successful.  Likewise, those that struggle in their first year typically continue to struggle as time goes on.  Given that information, we should draw a hard line in the sand in Tennessee; you show that you can grow our kids or you are shut down.  And you have three years to do it.  I work with educators who teach in charters across the city, and we know which ones are good and which ones deserve to be shut down.  However, many of them continue to be approved for god knows what reason.  We need such a hard deadline and criteria for shutdown to ensure that we do in fact eliminate under performing charters from continuing to function.  It’s tough to shut down an under performing charter once it works its way into the planning process for the district and gains the backing of financial advocates.  But if we truly place kids at the center, we will see this as a necessity rather than a nuisance as so many do.

Study and learn from effective charters to apply their successes to our traditional public schools – one of the chief criticisms of charter schools is that they have more freedom to operate than traditional public schools.  Yet we know very little in Tennessee about what our most effective charters do to achieve their results (as Horn and Wilburn note).  We should be studying these charter schools to learn more about what makes them so successful and see if we can apply these lessons to our traditional public schools.  Are there programs we can replicate?  Are there professional structures that exist in these schools that don’t exist elsewhere?  If we can’t do this (as we so often don’t) charters will still serve a purpose in helping some students escape poor performing schools.  But we lose a valuable source of innovation if we fail to take the lessons successful charters demonstrate and apply them to traditional public schools.

Just like the mother of my student, all parents want a quality school for their kids, and they should have more than one realistic option. Charter schools do provide the option of choice.  However, not all charters are good and it’s time we stop pretending. Parents and educators everywhere should make a push for a sensible charter policy in Memphis and Tennessee that ensure that our school choice options set the tone for quality public alternatives in this state and across the country.

In opening her piece she states “Memphis is poised to become the next national center for New Orleans-style school governance.”  And this isn’t just her saying it, it also comes out of the mouths of district officials.  The stated goal of this system, to quote Brad Leon, is to create “a system of schools” similar to what New Orleans has done.” Those words will make you cheer or shudder depending on which side of the education reform debate you come down on.

I won’t quote the whole article here because it is extensive, but my favorite graphic from the whole article shows the speed and extent to which these new “systems of schools” are already forming:

As a teacher in our city I’m both encouraged and worried by what I read here. I’m encouraged because, unlike many urban cities with struggling education systems, we are truly taking action to address the tremendous inequalities that exist in our system.  I work in a high performing charter (Soulsville) and see the tremendous impact it can make on kids, especially those that would otherwise attend the neighborhood school where I used to work (right down the road at Hamilton High).  I’m also encouraged because I sincerely believe that these people truly want to see quality educational outcomes for all children.  Personally, I’ve never bought into the corporate reform mindset that believes all school reformers are out to destroy public education in our state.

At the same time, I’m worried that creating these new systems will only solidify tiered inequality in our city.  I can easily foresee a system where the lucky few attend high performing charters, those zoned for the ASD attend those schools and the district pours its time and money into iZone while neglecting those schools and students that don’t fall under the umbrella of the iZone, most likely due to lack of resources.  Furthermore, out in the municipalities, which will not fall under the jurisdiction of SCS and these reform efforts, there may be NOTHING done to combat the inequalities that exist there. Outcomes in these areas are still woefully low by any standard and should be a part of any reform efforts in Shelby County.

I’m also worried about the impact this approach will have on teachers in these new systems.  In my experience and in that of my colleagues, those that work in charters, ASD schools and iZone schools work incredibly hard and burnout is common due to the numerous stressors that come with trying to turn around long time failing schools.  I know many teachers who have left their charter schools in the past year because of the high stress environment.  This is true whether I talk to teachers in ASD charters, non-ASD charters or iZone schools across the city.

As these “systems of schools” expand, it is imperative that charter operators and system superintendents work to ensure that this pattern doesn’t continue.  Educators want schools where they can work for an extended period of time.  They need to see these new schools as long-term career options where they can work for five, ten, even fifteen years while continuing to be successful. I firmly believe that for this to happen, there needs to be some sort of teacher voice heard in this process to ensure that these type of work conditions exist.  Unions and charters have not traditionally worked well together, so that’s probably not the answer, but there needs to be some sort of unified teacher voice ensuring we make this vision a reality. Because at the end of the day, education is about the quality of the people we put in the building with the children.  All the reforms in the world won’t do us any good if we can’t get good people to come to and continue teaching in whatever school systems we put into place.

Are you a Memphis or Shelby County educator?  What do you think about this “systems of schools” approach?  Email us your thoughts at [email protected], then sign up for our email list and follow us @bluffcityed on twitter!

Kevin Woods and Ken Whalum will square off in a re-election after the judge sided with Whalum in his law suit.  Woods defeated Whalum last year by 106 votes, but the election was marred by a large number of out of district votes cast, which Whalum said swayed the election.

Stand for Children is holding a candidate forum on Tuesday, August 20th at 5:15 PM at St. Pauls Baptist Church, 2124 E. Holmes Rd. for the four candidates looking to step into the shoes vacated by Reginald Porter.  Everyone free to attend.

TCAP scores released to the public.  SCS has 33 reward schools: 4 charter, 29 traditional public.

A national survey by the AP-NORC poll finds a majority of parents support testing in its current form, no matter how you cut it.

And finally, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan issues a statement on Tennessee’s teacher license reforms:

“I want to praise Tennessee’s continuing effort to improve support and evaluation for teachers. For too long, in too many places, schools systems have hurt students by treating every teacher the same – failing to identify those who need support and those whose work deserves particular recognition. Tennessee has been a leader in developing systems that do better—and that have earned the support of a growing number of teachers. Tennessee’s new teacher licensure rules continue that effort, by ensuring that decisions on licensure are informed by multiple measures of their effectiveness in the classroom, including measures of student learning. The new system also adds reasonable safeguards to make sure any judgment about teacher performance is fair.”

Herenton’s struggles speak to one of the most crucial but often overlooked components necessary to improve our schools and our education system, that being how to inform the public about both existing opportunities AND the quality of those opportunities.

What Choices Exist?

Efforts should first targeted towards informing parents on the options that exist for their children.  Because currently the only option for school choice outside the option programs are charter schools, I’ve chosen to focus on those few for which we have data. Individual schools have taken different approaches to doing this in Memphis.  Some schools, like KIPP and Soulsville, can rely on the power of their name and their association with national or local icons (the KIPP network and Stax respectively) to spread the word.

However, if as a city we truly want to give parents the information they need to become aware of the choices that exist, we need to provide much more collective data to our parents to enable them to easily access information on these choices.  A quick google search turns up several websites offering incomplete lists, but none that address quality or provide any more in depth information.  As it stands, parents are left to wade through the excess of information that exists without any guide to assist them to existing opportunities.

Quality of Choice Also Matters

Second, efforts need to focus on the quality of choices.  This is where most of the work needs to be done because the information .  Its out there, but it can be difficult to find and subject to interpretation.  The two charts below show one way parents might compare these different school choice options side by side using school growth data (middle school followed by high school) obtained from the TCAP and TVAAS 2012 Report Card:

This information is not complete or perfect.  It leaves out data from newer charter schools like Grizzlies Prep, Veritas Prep and Omni Prep (because none exists on the 2012 report card).  Some of the high school data is left out as well because of how long they’ve been around.  Here’s how to read these: the middle school letter grade is the grade assigned by the state to the growth data for each subject area.  I averaged the 2011 and 2012 letter grades together.  For example, KIPP Diamond’s math B represents an average between an A and a C.  If the grade would ball between two contiguous grades, I just wrote them both as a slash.  Green indicates the school outperformed the district in that specific area, red indicates growth lower than the district, and yellow indicates growth on par with the district.

For high school, the number represents the amount of growth above or below the school’s predicted score (same color codes).

What do we see with this information?  Even a cursory glance shows considerable variation not just among schools but across subjects.  For example, MBA beats the city average in reading and social studies but falls below in science and math.  Some schools very clearly come out on the bottom (City University and, surprisingly, Freedom Preparatory Academy).  At the high school level, Memphis Business Academy and Soulsville clearly come out ahead, mostly due to a lack of data from other schools.  Making information like this available to parents would greatly enable them to make a much more informed decision.

Why Isn’t This Information Easy To Access?

It mystifies me as to why information like this is not in a readily accessible format like I have it here.  If advocates for free choice truly want this system to work, it first requires that parents are informed about the quality of choices facing them.  From this information, we can clearly see that all school choice options are not created equal, and parents need to be made aware of this information so they can make the best choice for their students.

Of course, there are many other components to a quality school beyond test scores such as discipline systems, supplemental services such as SPED services, extracurricular activities and athletics.  This information should also be available to parents, again, to enable them to make a much more informed decision for their students and their needs.

A Final Word on Data

One final word on the data.  I realize that this data is not complete and it’s from 2012.  I recognize that some might argue for using other data to evaluate school choices in Memphis.  Regardless of your feelings on what should be used, all I’ve done here is use the data available to the public.

If you’re a parent looking to inform yourself, THIS is likely what you would find.  If you believe that there is other data that is more relevant or that this data is incorrect, you need to address THIS data and ensure that parents have access to data that provides an accurate representation of the school choices available to them if you believe that there is some other piece of information that should be taken into account.

For example, anecdotally I’ve heard nothing but positives from Freedom Prep, so I was fairly surprised by the data showing them to be ineffective in 2011 and 2012 in areas other than math.  I’m sure that parents would also want any additional data, as do I.

School choice only works with informed parents. Without that information in one central location, all the choices in the world won’t truly create the type of choice and competition among schools that advocates of charter schools and school choice seek to create.