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State revokes Dorchester charter school's charter
By adamg on Wed, 01/27/2016 - 7:08am
WBUR reports on the 6-4 vote by the state education board to make Dorchester Collegiate Academy shut down due to low test scores and high attrition rates.
About 20 stunned parents in bright yellow shirts with the DCA logo stormed out after the vote, many in tears.
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Comments
Back in the pool
So the school focuses on special needs but their test scores aren't high enough so it gets shut down?
Perhaps someone can explain to me how this helps.
failed attempt
The basic concept of the charter is to take the same amount of funding and deliver better results. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't and when a charter doesn't work, it should get shut down, like this one did. It's the worst case outcome of course but better than keeping it opening and further harming the education of these kids.
The ability to close an underperforming charter is a key feature of a charter vs. a public school. For example, Madison Park was a disaster but I'm sure many administrators involved in that fiasco are still employed by BPS.
Clearly the board felt that the school was failing to help the special needs kids there well enough so here we are. I'm sure they weren't being comped to the Kilmer or something.
Do they shut down Public Schools when their test results suck?
Sure they do..right?
The state takes them over
Hasn't happened in Boston yet but there are always a few schools right in the edge, such as Madison Park.
Another Mayor Walsh's failure
Another Mayor Walsh's failure, among other things! First the Olympics, then the casino. We need a new Mayor!
Why?
Although the school receives public funding, it's outside the control of BPS, so why are you blaming the mayor for this?
Walsh also did a lousy job
blocking for Brady on Sunday.
I thought that was Obama?
I thought that was Obama?
Obama was the holder on that missed
extra point.
I wouldn't blame Walsh for this particular closing
But the whole charter movement is an abdication of responsibility among politicians. If and when these schools fail they can simply pass the buck.
This is demonstrably not true
How was Menino ever held accountable for the performance of BPS in any way? He really wasn't.
He wasnt at all
In fact he campaigned on school reform every election and the same suckers voted him in again and again.
Sorry bud
Just cause there are multiple ways to avoid accountability doesn't make my statement "not true". I don't know how Menino managed to do it for so many years and even in the end he saw the light. Charters are the ultimate pass for politicians and society who want an easy and cheap solution to decades of neglect.
How did the Mayor have
How did the Mayor have anything to do with a school loosing its charter? Did the Mayor go to this school every day and teach classes? Don't think so...
This is all so wrong!
There aren't many charters that make it their mission to work with students who are struggling to succeed. That seek out students that are left behind by other charters and traditional public schools. Dorchester Collegiate was unique in this way and they were punished for it. Of course their test scores were lower, but that doesn't mean it was a bad school. Test scores don't measure how good a school is. The state should be ashamed of this decision, but I guess it just reinforces the fact that they only want charter schools that push out students with low test scores instead of nurturing them. smh.
It's one of the big shames of
It's one of the big shames of the push towards testing that a school can be declared failing simply for not meeting some decided upon standard without any flexibility for the situation.
Example: You are a teacher and your incoming class is full of kids who are testing in the bottom 10-20% standard for reading, etc (several grades below where they should be), and you bust ass and your school is awesome and you get all the kids up to a 65-70%, that should be celebrated. IE you catch them up a grade level and a half, or maybe even two grade levels, in one year. Instead all students are tested and expected to meet 80% of the standards, and because your kids who are the result of years of educational neglect and poverty are still below their nominal grade level, the school is declared a failure.
That's the charter life. Just
That's the charter life. Just as a company can't generate any productivity if no one shows up to work, a charter school can't accomplish its goals if students don't show up.
At the charter I work for, we are constantly comparing daily attendance numbers and week-to-week retention, and every single bump in the numbers is a huge victory. There's even a gigantic counter in the office showing how many students entered the building on a given day. In many cases, the student population are simply non-frequent attenders for a variety of reasons and half the goal is to just get them to show up every day. My biggest class is about 30 students on the roster, of which just nine show up regularly and with a peak of 14, but it's better than the four I started the quarter with.
Besides the goal of getting kids learning, going to school, committing to a thing, etc., it also affects our funding like any other budget. Not using all of your budget? Looks like you won't need that surplus next time around.
You raise a huge question.
Deepfreeze: Why is attendance a challenge at your school (and I'm guessing is a challenge at many urban schools)? I don't mean to imply the answer will be simple. Instead the issue of attendance strikes me as so basic that the question can help illuminate at least some of the fundamental problems, issues or hurdles that result in attendance needing to be celebrated instead of assumed.
What are your thoughts? I'm asking because your response is sober and rational and so I'm guessing that you may have good insight and can explain that insight.
The unanswered question now
The unanswered question now is who gets the building? the back story of many charters is who do they pay rent to? There are often corporate entities behind them that hold the building--often paid for with taxpayer funds--and take ownership when a charter is closed. This is happening across the country--so research if you're interested.
Since charter funding is not open to scrutiny like a real public school we have no way of knowing. I am very concerned b/c this in in my neighborhood.
I don't know.
I don't know.
This building wasn't originally a BPS school (or any sort of school) before becoming a charter. It was actually a nursing home, I think.
doesn't matter who the
doesn't matter who the building belonged to originally--often bought with New Market Tax Credits or other taxpayer funded govt sources. but again we don't know because the records of charters aren't public