2006 - "Old" Moyer receives its charter and begins operating.
2010 - DeDOE revokes that charter and orders closure
Later in 2010 - DeDOE grants "extraordinary authority" to K12 Classrooms Delaware, Llc to operate the school.
2012 - The New Maurice J. Moyer Academy Inc, applies to DeDOE to assume operations of the K12-State venture. DeDOE affirms.
Now, let's take a good look at AYP -
2011/12 -Planning Year - School Operated by K12
2012/13 - New Moyer is alive and on life support. No AYP calculations. Why?
School Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) Schools must meet an annual progress target for percentages of students participating and meeting set standards for both reading/language arts and mathematics to attain AYP, an artifact of the federal No Child Left behind Legislation. Selected subgroups of students must meet these annual percentages each year or show a decrease in the number of students not meeting the standards in order for a school to successfully meet accountability requirements. AYP is one of two components of the Delaware School Rating.
New Schools are not rated until after the second year of asssement.
A New School either:
-Has less than 60% enrolled in the same school together
-Is in the first year of operation for a charter school
-Added or changed 2 or more grade levels
2013/14 - School fails to make "Original Model" AYP in its first "countable" year. And does it matter that New Moyer did not exist in 2010/11? Is the baseline data approach flawed? If it's Moyer-centric data, wouldn't the data be inapplicable as the school under the charter that coaxed that data does not actually exist anymore? And If I am wrong in my approach to thinking about this - I hope my fellow bloggers will interject and explain DOE's rational for 10-11 baseline data.
Moyer is also unable to make AYP using the "Growth Model..
AYP Original Model In order to meet the Annual Measurable Objective, each subgroup must have at least forty students in the cell to qualify. The student must also be continuously enrolled in the school for a full academic year. The targets have been set using the 2010-11 data as baseline. The targets than increase in an effort to decrease the percentage of non-proficient students by 50% over a six year period.
Can't measure Growth where there is no longitudinal data. Don't believe me?
AYP Growth Model The Growth Model assigns values to each student's progress, comparing last year's proficiency level (PL) to this year's PL. In addition, PL1 and PL2 are divided into two sections established by a table of cut scores. The Growth Model's Value Targets correspond to the percent proficient target requirements in the Original Model.
Look at this completely blank worksheet on DOE's website.
2014/15 - AYP Unknown and it apparently, it doesn't really matter as New Moyer is now slated for closure. Talk about data driven decisions - there is no data to drive any decisions regarding New Moyer. And no, this doesn't mean I've gone all charter-love-crazy for Moyer from my crystal castle with the Ice Queen. But, was New Moyer given a fair shot? I don't know.
I mean, don't we all think this method for grading children, teachers, and schools is horribly flawed? Don't we all know it's driven by a desire to corporatize education and turn it into a profit-generator? Education is a capitalists last Gold Rush. Don't believe me? You gotta go read this:
April 4, 2014: Public Comment by Nelia Dolan in the matter of Great Oaks Charter School, pages 8 to 14 of the official transcript.
So why am I throwing stones at glass houses when I live in a crystal palace? I'm not. There is a distinction that needs to occur in the public charter world. The mom-and-pop charter schools vs the corporate machine charter school. In the early years, charters were driven more by politics and who-knew-who and who-had-deep-pockets than they were driven by corporations. The second wave of charters, mom-and-pop outlets, created by locals who found common ground in ideology, established our quieter charter schools. Some succeeded, some failed, some closed of their own fruition, others closed after long battles with the state -battles attributed to the state's lack of capacity to oversee and shutter its charter schools. By design? Maybe.
But, suddenly, if you believe in 'suddenlys' and I don't, there is a new focus on these little guys. Is there a great purging coming? My prediction is yes, Delaware would never have adopted the nationalized "charter framework" if something weren't brewing. And it's been written on the wall for years in the making. It's called market share. The outliers, the Big 2, are well insulated and we all know why. It's who-you-know and how-deep-your-pockets-run. As we look out to sea at the Tsunami headed our way, the third wave of charters are coming for us - or rather our students. These are not local start-ups, but corporate backed chains with "proven" models. Delaware is only so big, and with a new shiny CEB in Wilmington waiting with open arms, big business is courting our taxes, I mean, students. DOE is carving out market share for the new super charters coming to Delaware. And for that, mom and pop and grandfather DISTRICTS, we should all be very worried. Is it time to cross the divide and share best practices? Are there any to share? Or should we sit by and let business take the reigns of education?
And if you don't believe. Go Read Nelia Dolan's comments. It'll make you shudder. (Disclaimer- I don't know Nelia Dolan, at least I don't think I have ever met her, but she lives and breathes here in Delaware. And she's not a crazy-castled blogger. She appears to be a regular person.)
April 4, 2014: Public Comment by Nelia Dolan in the matter of Great Oaks Charter School, pages 8 to 14 of the official transcript.
1 comments:
I do know Nelia Dolan, and she is awesome! She is one of the co-founders of Delaware Parents & Teachers For Public Education. Like many of us, including you, we are against what the DOE is doing to pave the way for the charter invasion. This is a very unique time in Delaware, because voices are coming from all over the state in regards to the priority schools and what is happening with public education. Are you calling us bloggers crazy-castled? I haven't done anything crazy...wait, yes I did... today in fact!
Post a Comment
Word Verification May Be Case Sensitive