Vol. 4, No. 47
November 19, 2002

* HELP SOLVE THE INFORMATION CRISIS PLAGUING BIG CITY SCHOOL SYSTEMS: New York City students apparently failed to give their parents or guardians the notices they were told to bring home that said they were eligible for federally-funded tutoring, according to a New York Times report on November 15. Most have missed the deadline, which is not hard to believe given the lack of information and communication on the part of the school system, which, like many, have had a hard time figuring out exactly what to do to get the word out. Los Angeles has had similar problems, to name just one other district.

        But rather than impose what appear to be arbitrary deadlines, wouldn't it be useful to allow students to access tutoring dollars on an ongoing basis so they can avail themselves of the help they need when they do find out about it? In a world where we know a lot about how to saturate people with messages, we're wondering whether or not there are results-oriented solutions that can help these cities figure out exactly how they can reach the vast majority of parents quicker and get these kids the help they need to succeed.

        Now's your chance to help children do better. Please send any suggestions for how schools can reach all of their families to CERNews@edreform.com and we'll pull the best together in recommendations and publish them next week, with or without your name, whichever you prefer. If we get none, we'll assume that our readers are resigned to the fact that school systems are just incapable of carrying out good policies for kids. We hope not.

* CHARTERS

*California: Recently the Bureau of State Audits was asked to examine how well the state's charter school oversight system is working. What it found was that a few of the largest authorizers -- like Los Angeles and Oakland Unified -- are not living up to their responsibilities. The auditors also found that the California Department of Education (CDE) isn't helping, claiming to have insufficient resources to ensure that districts are doing their jobs, despite a 2000 reorganization undertaken specifically to support charters. And who ends up paying for it? The charter schools themselves -- literally:

"...none of the four chartering entities could document that the fees they charged corresponded to their actual costs ...because the entities failed to track their actual costs. Rather, the entities automatically charged a percentage of charter schools' revenues, assuming that their oversight costs exceeded the revenues they charged. As a result, the entities may be charging their charter schools more than permitted by law."

        A few schools mentioned in the report do not appear totally blameless, but the culprits are clearly the districts and CDE. The auditor has reported that at least one of the schools portrayed in the report as fiscally incompetent, the West Oakland Community School, is actually operating soundly and responsibly.

        In the end, the audit leads to one very clear conclusion: It is a testament to the people who actually work at and run the schools that they are able to succeed in a state whose oversight and support system is so obviously dysfunctional.

* Georgia: A new report by the state's Department of Education on the status of charter schools in 2001-2002 is full of good news. In several measures, Georgia's charter schools are doing appreciably better than their public school peers. On the state test, charters exceeded state standards by an average of 4 points on Grade 4, 6 and 8 reading and math exams. And the percentage of charter students passing each of the five subjects on the Georgia High School Graduation Test outpaced the state, 93% to 85%. In addition, the study shows that charters have a lower dropout rate and fewer students repeating grades than their district counterparts. Even more impressively, all this occurred with charters serving a higher percentage of ESOL and special education students than other Peach State publics. Georgia charters also serve a 41 percent minority population and the percentage of students eligible for free and reduced lunch increased to 32 percent this year. To view the full report go to: http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/charterschools/about.html. This is not unusual. Similar numbers can be found in charters across the country. To get all that data, check out CER's Annual Survey of Charter Schools.

* Washington, DC: More good news comes out of the nation's capital where this year some 15 percent of Washington, DC students are enrolled in the District's 39 charters schools, providing an option to thousands of parents in a system that has been broken for years. Predictably, as the charter school population has steadily grown, enrollment in District schools has declined. The bad news is that some 1,000 students are being prevented from joining them as almost all D.C. charters are full, and lack of facility space is severely stunting charter growth. According to charter operators, dozens of suitable locations, unused school buildings and other similar facilities are not available for consideration or use by the charters, often because D.C. itself won't make them available.

* STANDARDS: In the past, Michigan natives touted their high standards and urged others to follow their example. However, now it seems they are taking the low road. Just last week, the State Board of Education redefined the meaning of "failing" schools, lowering the bar so that fewer schools end up on the state's failing list, avoiding provisions in the No Child Left Behind law that guarantee that students in failing schools will be able to transfer to higher performing schools, escaping failure. While it's noteworthy that Michigan had more than 1,500 failing schools because of its high standards, and states like Arkansas registered zero for the year, the solution shouldn't be lowering the standards, but demonstrating which schools actually make progress from year to year, something required by federal law anyway in order to comply with new act. Maybe if one leader would step forward, others would follow. Maybe.

* STANDARDS II: For teachers in Pennsylvania, new-found respect may come soon, thanks to efforts by the state's board of education and its secretary of education to establish new standards for teachers to comply with the No Child Left Behind act. Rather than simply meeting minimum certification rules that do not guarantee competency in subject areas, the new regulations require middle school teachers to pass tests in their subject areas, and require all teachers to meet higher standards to teach children. And most important, the state board action clears the way for individuals who are non-education majors and mid-career professionals to enter the classroom if they, too, can meet the standards. This additional pool of people will help the state attract new people and hopefully decrease the number of emergency certificates individuals hold because of shortages. Critics of the move claim that going away from traditional certification routes actually lower standards. But the standards for entry into teaching cannot get much lower. Kudos to Pennsylvania for tackling this issue the right way.

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