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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2007-08-09

CSAP Impressions, part IIB 

Two nights ago, I did an analysis of the CSAP scores for three Colorado elementary charter schools. The results were, well, uneven.

One school show regression in every test in every grade, one show a mixed bag, and one showed pretty good growth. My point was that charter schools are not a simple cure-all to what ails the education system.

I failed, however, to point out one obvious factoid: charter schools, by their very nature, are more nimble and aggressive in diagnosing and prescribing solutions to problems. They are not tethered to a district bureaucracy which may have invested heavily in a curriculum project, or which may have created a culture of conformity; as such, charter schools have a much better opportunity to respond to problems that the CSAP brings out.

I would be very surprised if there wasn't a noticable difference in two of the charter schools I analyzed by this time next year.

What do I mean, "invested heavily in a curriculum project"? Tomorrow night, I will elaborate, using "Math Investigations" and the Jefferson County schools.

Note: Denise has pointed out that the one charter school I mentioned earlier which showed great growth this past year, Peak to Peak, has also recently been honored to have its high school named the Best High School in the Denver Metro Area by 5280 magazine. With scores like the ones that elementary is putting up, I would expect this high school to be in contention for that award year in and year out.
Posted by: Michael / 8/09/2007 12:17:00 AM

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