A report released today by A+ Denver asserts three charter management organizations are not only outperforming traditional and other charter schools in the city, but are having a significant impact on the district’s growth and achievement scores at grades six and above.
The charter management organizations whose performances are highlighted in the report are the Denver School of Science and Technology, the Knowledge Is Power Program and West Denver Preparatory, all of which operate multiple schools within the Denver Public Schools system.
The report does not attempt to specify which programs or strategies are working for the charters, or how their success might be replicated in traditional DPS schools.
“I think what the report shows is very clearly that the significant driver of the overall achievement in Denver in the middle and, to a lesser degree, at the high school level has to do with the three charter management organizations,” said Van Schoales, executive director of A+ Denver, a non-profit education advocacy group.
“What we are suggesting is that the district, whenever possible – and other groups in the city looking at performance – be very careful and rigorous in its analysis of what is working and what is not.”
Charters’ impact ‘magnified’ in grades with higher enrollment
DPS administrators in August touted state test scores showing district students outperforming the statewide average in academic growth. DPS was the only district in the state with more than 10,000 students and a poverty rate topping 50 percent to do so.
“Sometimes averages can be misleading,” Schoales said. “It may lead you to conclude that overall, the district’s traditional and charters in all schools are doing well.”
The more accurate picture, the report contends, is more complicated. It states that, due to the relatively small percentage of students enrolled in charter schools, their overall impact on DPS performance is limited. But in individual grades with high percentages of charter enrollment, “the impact is magnified,” according to the 15-page report.
For example, the statewide average academic growth rate or Median Growth Percentile is 50. DPS’ overall growth rate is 53. Pulling out all charters’ achievement shows they increased the district growth rate by 1 point.
But in the sixth grade, which has the largest charter enrollment, charter schools increased the overall DPS growth rate by 4.7 points, the report found.
“That is a significant difference,” said Schoales.
DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg said the district’s growth is a result of “strengthening our existing schools and creating high-quality new schools.”
“And it has given us a large number of high-growth schools to learn from and share their successful practices,” he said.
DPS board members say all schools should be held to high bar
The picture of DPS schools’ performance, with leading charter networks removed from the calculations, is something board member Nate Easley has been asking to see.
“It’s not surprising,” Easley said of the results, “because those schools are intensively focused on improving student performance. Their entire orientation is focused on academic achievement, and when you put that much emphasis on academic achievement, regardless of student background, you’re going to see a result like that.”
Easley added that creating more educational opportunities such as those presented by the top charters “that don’t make excuses for failure, that’s my focus for the remainder of my time on the board.”
Board president Mary Seawell said she was aware that the district performance picture was not as rosy with certain charters removed.
“The main issue is that we need to be looking at where we’re seeing improvement and where we’re seeing the district backtracking; and that should drive our decisions around resources,” she said, adding, “We need to make sure the district is meeting the same bar for turnaround and district-run schools.”
DSST: ‘I wouldn’t put a lot of stock in separating us out’
West Denver Prep currently operates four schools in DPS, and next year will add three more. In the district’s most recent school rankings, the charters’ four schools were in the top 11.
Chris Gibbons, CEO of West Denver Prep, had not seen the A+ Denver report Wednesday.
“It has always been a core goal of West Denver Prep to support the broader reform of public education as a whole, and we’re always eager to contribute to anything that supports that,” he said.
As for replicating the WDP blueprint or any aspects of its programs, Gibbons said, “I think DPS is looking pretty actively at what we’re doing, and we’re looking forward to continuing that relationship.”
Bill Kurtz, head of the DSST network, said he knew DPS performance scores minus his schools’ contributions were being put under the microscope but that, “I wouldn’t put a whole lot of stock in separating us out.”
“We’re thrilled to be in the mix,” Kurtz said. “They’ve been very committed to providing us with facilities and being a good partner, and this is a great result for that investment. You’d hope that we’re adding value to the district, and not taking value away.”
Schoales said A+ Denver isn’t arguing for replication of any one charter’s academic programs or practices.
“We don’t want somebody to conclude that we’re advocating that DPS be composed of West Denver Prep and DSST, which each started out as single schools,” he said.
“We would like to see a greater diversity of high-performing schools. We don’t want a one-size-fits-all charter management school. We don’t think that would be a good pick for Denver, given the diversity of the district and its families.”
Perhaps, part of the success of some of these schools results from the makeup of the student body. The students are choosing these schools with the support of their parents, and are motivated to succeed. Perhaps, a factor in the differences in performance levels of these schools and others is also attributed to the choice of these students to leave the other schools, thus draining them of supported, motivated students.
Don,
This is an important question that A+ will be looking at more closely at in the coming months.
We do know that many of these schools (West Denver Prep and KIPP) have as many or more low-income students than the district does as a whole. We also know that when the data in these schools is disaggregated into different student groups by income and ethnicity, each of the sub-groups does much better than the district averages. We also know that the growth numbers as a whole and in sub-groups are much greater than DPS. The CO growth model builds in a comparison for students having the same status scores. Given all of this with the exception of the choice factor it looks like the difference in scores is not tied to a different student population with the exception of the choice factor (which by the way is growing in the overall DPS population so will increasingly not be a differentiating factor between charter students and district school students).
Again we’d like to more closely at this question. Thanks, Van
I wasn’t thinking of, nor did I mention, income or ethnicity. My assertion is that a student and their parents’ awareness of options, and their shared motivation is a better determinate of success.
I suggest that a possible indicator of their success is not their income or ethnicity, but rather their active and conscious effort to attend a school which they, and their parents, feel will possibly better their chances of success. I was wondering about the parents’ support and child’s motivation to choose a school and the implied motivation to succeed.
Is there any indication in your data that a child is more likely to succeed if the parents take an active roll in their children’s education (i.e. selecting their child’s school)?
Is a school whose student body is aware, motivated, and willing to put forth effort to choose the school more likely to have measurable success?
Remember, most of these are under wih innovation status, allowing them to work under different rules than the typical neighborhood school.
Sorry . . . I meant to say that most, if not all, of these schools work under the innovation status, allowing them different rules to follow than the neighborhood school (entrance requirements, hours of school, materials, uniforms, parent required involvement, etc.). You can’t compare apples to apples in this case . . .
The UCD/DPS Research Collaborative identified West Denver Prep Federal as the middle school achieving the greatest academic growth for English Language Learners in the district over a 3-year period, and I led a team conducting a case study of the school’s schoolwide practices last spring. The school has a strong academic press, it serves mainly Latino students from low income homes, and its results are truly impressive. At the same time, it presents prospective parents with very clear and rigorous expectations: your child will wear a uniform, will have homework every night, will stay until 5:00 p.m. if any part of homework is incomplete on a given day, and you will attend a mandatory parent orientation day. Parents who agree to these demands are certainly different from parents who aren’t seeking that sort of academic press for their child. The case study is available through DPS or UCD.
Disaggregated data isn’t available for the unaware, unsupportive, or unmotivated families in these schools, since every student is there by choice involving their, and their parents’, awareness, motivation and effort,
Three quick thoughts:
1. The practices Mr. Davis identifies — uniforms, regular homework, parent orientation sessions, etc — are part of the West Denver Prep program, but there should be some caution in identifying them as the reason for its success, for there are numerous schools that have virtually identical practices and do not have the same results. The evidence in this report (and elsewhere) is that many charter schools — including those with similar practices — do no better than the traditional schools where such practices are not present. I don’t mean to imply, from his comments, that Mr. Davis believes there is a causal relationship — indeed, if it were only this easy, we could pretty quickly improve academic outcomes.
2. Another question to ask here — if one were to assume a significant casual effect — would be why other schools are not incorporating these practices. If uniforms, additional homework support, and clear expectations do indeed lift ELL student achievement, why are there not other schools implementing them? Rather than have the results somehow dismissed as an outlier, the practices might be incorporated (and the Colorado innovation school law provides a ready vehicle). It may be that these practices — even if their contribution is slight — should still be incorporated so that they become commonplace.
3. Lastly, sInce Mr. Davis’s study, WDP has opened two schools which include boundary students (whose parents do not expend any additional effort to select the school). While I have not gone into the detail of the UCD report, and both schools are still early in their development, at a general level, results were very similar: (ELL growth percentiles of Federal: 77.7, Lake 77.7, and Highlands 75.3). We would certainly welcome a more detailed look from UCD or others.
Mr. Mangus,
You seem to be arguing that since charter school parents exercise choice to attend their schools, they will be more “aware, supportive or motivated’ and this explains why the students have better academic outcomes. But this report shows exactly the opposite: for the vast majority of charter schools — all of whom have the same exercise of parental choice — there is not a premium in performance.
And in DPS, over half of students now choose a school other than their school of assignment. This choice does not in and of itself indicate higher performance (at least I know of no study or data that would support such an assertion).
Oddly enough, the claims that the self-selection of families into schools of choice only surface around the schools that do well. The 2011 DPS School Performance Framework ranked three charter schools as the poorest performing in the district. All have the same choice enrollment — do you believe these parents are someone less aware supportive and motivated than other parents who exercise choice? Or is it some fantastical statistical miracle by which only the successful charter schools attract motivated parents?
But the title of the article is “Report says charters fueling DPS growth”, not “Charter schools — there is not a premium in performance”.
Perhaps, it’s not a miracle that the higher performing schools attract motivated and supported students that desire to perform highly.
Is there data or research to suggest that families that make the effort to learn about, choose, are committed to, and support a school program add to the success of the school? If these families are concentrated in a certain school, does that help the school perform well?
I’m confident you can read beyond the title.
There are plenty of studies that show students from affluent families generally do better than low-income students — but many of the outstanding charters in this study have high FRL percentages. It’s a lot harder to try to define “motivation” — in my experience, parents have different levels of resources, but not vastly different levels of motivations. All parents what their children to be successful. But in any case, one way that is clearly NOT valid to measure motivation is simply to look at charter schools that did well and say their families must have been motivated, and then look at the charters who do poorly and say that their families are not.
If you are equating choice enrollment with motivation, you need to consider all schools which have choice enrollment — not just the ones who do well, and certainly not after the fact.
Income aside,
Do families that are desirous of a school that might give them a better chance to do well on tests select those that do not get good scores on tests? Perhaps, the families that select the “poorly performing” schools select these schools for reasons other than the test scores. Perhaps, their idea of success is different, and so are motivated by different goals. Or perhaps, they select schools for other reasons unrelated to school performance on tests.
Is there data or research concerning the reason that families select certain schools?
In my experience, families have a wide variety of situations concerning a wide variety of factors involving a wide variety of choices. They often don’t acquire what they desire for a variety of reasons.
Mr. Ooms makes important points that I agree with. Parental choice in itself is not a predictor of higher achievement growth. Students at many charter schools show little growth, yet their parents chose the school. Moreover, when one examines the instructional practices and motivational environment of high-performing charter schools, the growth they achieve is consistent with their instructional practices (instruction focused on clear and measureable objectives, extended instructional time, frequent monitoring of comprehension, highly interactive instruction, etc.). At the same time, Mr. Mangus’s main point is also valid. If you have an opportunity to meet with parents before they enroll and say to them and their child, in effect, “If you come to our school you will work very hard, with homework every night, and an extended day, because we are intent on preparing you for college,” then some parents and students will select themselves out of the pool because they don’t want the pressure, and those who elect to go will feel that they agreed to these expectations and be more inclined to support them. Could Kepner Middle School hold the same sort of conference with the parents of prospective 6th graders? Maybe they should. I strongly believe it would make a difference.