Report cards for charters go public
by thenotebook on Feb 22 2011 Posted in Latest news
by Patrick Cobbs
A moment charter schools in Philadelphia have been dreading arrived last Wednesday when District officials made their first public presentation of a school rating system many charters think is a mess.
It’s called the School Performance Index (SPI), and the District has used a version of it to decide which low-performing traditional schools should be restructured under Superintendent Arlene Ackerman's Imagine 2014 program.
The District has been working on a similar measure comparing charter schools and public schools since August, which it says will be used to determine charter renewals and expansion requests.
But this process has been a rocky road.
This story continues on the NewsWorks website; it is a product of a reporting collaboration between the Notebook and WHYY.
Comments (7)
Submitted by Teacher (K.R. Luebbert) (not verified) on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 18:49.
The SPI is not really fair to any school. Many of us believe that the numbers gathering process is deeply flawed. But some charters have benefited from the flawed numbers used to "Renaissance" some schools. Now they will see that this process is unfair to all stakeholders.
Submitted by Hi (not verified) on Wed, 02/23/2011 - 11:59.
Hi, K.R. Luebbert, could you email rally4phillypublicschools@gmail.com. I'd like to ask you a quick question.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 22:48.
I could not find the actual SPI scores for the charters. Please post a link to the scores if they are available. Thanks!
Submitted by tired_of_corruption (not verified) on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 23:43.
I'm starting to see that David Weiner makes a lot of errors in tabulating data and reporting with accuracy. It's one thing after another. Why is there no accountabilty for this NYC crony of Arlene Ackerman, and why is he paid so much when he is not qualified for this job. What he did with ICS's data is a travesty. This is the same man who used data from a defunct school (old Audenreid) to condemn a new school(Audenreid of today). Shame shame on David Weiner. No decisions should be made on any data that comes out of his INCOMPETENT and CORRUPT office!
Submitted by bad_data (not verified) on Tue, 02/22/2011 - 23:56.
Weiner's biography states that he was a history major who taught kindergarten before getting out of the classroom. He obviously is not educated in Statistics or Data Analysis, nor does he understand the importance of performing checks on data before releasing reports, as evidenced by his shrugging off the mistakes that continually come out of his office. Let's not forget the lies about how many kids actually attended and completed summer school. He's either brilliantly corrupt or in way over his head. Either choice - show him the door!
http://www.philasd.org/offices/caco/biography.html
Submitted by Christina (not verified) on Wed, 02/23/2011 - 09:58.
No way! I was only at one SRC meeting, where teachers and allies were speaking about the flaws and broken promises of CM/CR. There was a current running through the meeting (among some SRC members and maybe Dr Ackerman as well) that when Weiner got the data together from those schools, we would see a jump in PSSA scores, so whatever teachers, university professors, etc. were saying to the SRC at the moment would be proven false with that data. Now you are telling me the data man is not a data man? WHAT? Not surprising bc numbers are good at lying/covering up the real data anyway. Definitely spooky.
Submitted by Ms. Chips (not verified) on Wed, 02/23/2011 - 12:48.
Data on the "old" Audenried could actually bolster the argument that the current one is not a failing school. When the remaining students were moved to a temporary location at Palumbo from the old building, I remember that student attendance increased dramatically. After 2 years here, the 12th graders were moved to other HSs for their senior year. A large number continued contact with former staff, who reported that almost all of them graduated. Recapturing these numbers, since their attendance & graduation rates were remarkable improvements over past performance, and these both factor into ratings would show the potential that the "new" Audenried is striving to realize. And provide data that the district seems unwilling or unable to provide.
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