Pennsylvania's online charter schools (poor performance)


POOR RESULTS FOR PENNSYLVANIA ONLINE CHARTER SCHOOLS; April 18, 2011; Education Sector Quick & the Ed blog 
Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) report on Pennsylvania charter schools continued many themes from its national report: average learning gains for charters are smaller, charters’ performance improves as students are enrolled longer, and importantly, high variability among charters, with significant numbers of both high-performing and low-performing charter schools.

But, there’s one very interesting finding. In the CREDO sample, taken from schools that enrolled students from 2007 – 2010, there are eight full-time, online “cyber” charter schools. These eight schools enrolled 18,705 students — 30% of the study population — and contrast sharply with the typical “bricks and mortar” charter student. Online students tend to be white, ineligible for free and reduced lunches, and entered the online schools with significantly higher test scores. And, online students are more likely to be repeating a grade.

Overall, the results for the cyber schools were terrible. None of the eight online schools did better than their “virtual twins” in traditional district schools. And, the cyber school performance was so poor that it dragged down the results for charters in general…
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CHARTER SCHOOL PERFORMANCE IN PENNSYLVANIA; April 2011; credo.stanford.edu 
Expanding on the 2009 CREDO National Charter School Study Multiple Choice: Charter School Performance in 16 States, this report examines the performance of Pennsylvania charter schools for the period 2007 - 2010. Compared to the educational gains the charter students would have had in their traditional public schools, the analysis shows that students in Pennsylvania charter schools on average make smaller learning gains. More than one quarter of the charter schools have significantly more positive learning gains than their traditional public school counterparts in reading, but their performance is eclipsed by the nearly half of charter schools that have significantly lower learning gains. In math, again nearly half of the charter schools studied perform worse than their traditional public school peers and one quarter outperform them…

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lincoln Leadership Academy Charter School. At least 1/3 or if not more of the salary being paid is paid directly to the CEO's family, friends and church members. The CEO is a pastor at the church and the church has repeatedly listed the school as one of the church's schools in church services. The CEO strategically positions family members for jobs. It began with replacing a very competent and qualified Assistant Principal with a Doctorate degree with her husband. In order to do that she replaced him first with a Spanish Teacher. Once he was in the school teaching spanish, she then replaced the Assistant Principal with her husband. She strategically replace a certified math teacher with her daughter who DOES NOT have a degree. Her daughter is teaching remedial math. Her daughter is not listed on report cards as the teacher when if fact she is. She puts on the report cards that a certified math teacher is teaching the class. She does not report the non-degreed individuals on PIMS (PA sTATE REPORTS). She hired her son as the Maintenance supervisor. He is paid more than teachers and gets overtime.
She hired her sister as a consultant and as the Curriculum Director. As the Curriculum Director, her sister purchased over $100,000.00 in curriculum from McGraw Hill. Her sister's husband works for McGraw Hill.
She hired her son in law to do web design when they have a highly qualified IT engineer to do the design. She has paid her son in law who is also the church's pastor's son, thousands of dollars for web design which is inadequate and inefficient. She hired a young man who is a pastor's son to teach Computer Technology who does not have a degree. He is listed on the report card as an teacher and grades the students. The social studies teacher is not properly certified. Two 6th grade teachers are not properly certified. The science teacher is not properly certified.The media teacher is not properly certified.
The computer technology teacher is not degreed and not properly certified.The math teacher (her daughter) is not degreed and not properly certified. In addition she has individuals who teach but are not certified.She has the nurse teach substitute classes and she is neither a BA degreed individual nor is she certified as a school nurse.
The school is filthy.
Her husband whom she employed told the staff at the beginning of the year that it was a 'family business."

Anonymous said...

Not at all surprised - all of these issues were obvious when they applied for the charter originally. Unfortunately, districts have little ability to turn down the application and when they do, the Charter Appeals Board usually overrules them. Check the Philadelphia Controller's investigation from 2010 - you will see the same patterns.

Anonymous said...

Just wondering why We have Charter Schools. What is it that they are suppose to offer? We are told time and time again it is a family biz. So you are to put your kids in a school where people are running a biz and only care about testing the kids and nothing more. Lincoln has been open since 2009 and still they have no policies and procedures to administer medicine to students, band aids etc. They just do what they want. In fact children who are suppose to have epi pens on them all the time are not allowed to carry them. They are located in the main nurses office. How is that safe? How is this allowed for out children. Education is more then just testing. It is in place to help students become well rounded PEOPLE and not factory Parts/workers.
If you are not part of the family at Lincoln or do not go to the same church as the CEO as she calls herself (not principal) you are considered less of a person.
Safety is first priority for all children in this country. So why is this place any different. PDE needs to know about all the rules Lincoln is breaking. From special education (lack of) to highly qualified teachers (lack of) People get appointed to higher positions within the school if your life long friends, family, or part of a church. Not to mention why does the school allow a church to share space with them and have bibles and scriptures all over the place.
Not to mention kids are in school til 4:45pm! Unreal. Kids need to be kids and kids need to go home and have a LIFE. After this year I am pulling my kids out of this school, no question. (My family goes and visits family during the summer. I have heard RUMOR that they are switching to year round schooling, yet nothing was mentioned in the Allentown School District meetings I have seen online.)

Anonymous said...

Kids at Lincoln are required to write sentences over and over or punsihment. Isnt that illegal? Not to mention they do not have any administration/principal at the middle school or elementary schools. No special education one on one teachers either. This.school isnt about education its about Fame.