Struggling High School Given Over To Union Charter Schools

Green Dot charter to take over Locke High School LA Times
The Los Angeles Board of Education voted Tuesday to turn over one of the city's most troubled high schools to a charter school organization, marking the first time an outside group will run a traditional public school in Los Angeles.

Comments

[Chicago is next.]

Chicago is next in line. A way for Arne, and the mayor to get rid of LSC's.

Then later this fall they will have the honor to host the Power of the Parents. What a joke.. Parents will fall for it.

I would like a Charter school to take over Gage, Marshall, Clemente, and Fenger. I would also like to make sure these charters have to take the kids in the area. Can not throw students out for not meeting their expectations. They can not pick and choose who is allowed to attend. They take them all and keep them all. At least for 3 or 4 years. After all these charter fail, Chicago will realize Charters are not any better than public schools.

Charters should take over failing charter high schools. Charters have a great track record in Chicago, especially Perspectives, CICS, and Noble. I am an elementary principal and I have students in a Noble school (chosen by the lottery--completely non-selective). The students are cared for and pushed to be college bound. It helps me sleep good at night, knowing that they are not falling through the cracks at Manley.

Isn't a lottery, in and of itself, a selection process?

[Skalinder]

10:58 - Elementary Charter Principal,

Charters by definition are selective. They do not take any student from the neighborhood who happens to walk through the door. And a lottery system, even if truly random, is not enough to define any school as non-selective.

Some schools require some form of academic or non-academic achievement prior to admission, i.e. exams, GPA, singing talent, etc. Obviously, these types of schools are actively selecting which students will end up in the building.

But active selection is not the only kind of selection. Passive selectivity, I believe, plays a central role in the types of students and families that attend charters. So, what is passive selectivity?

Charters require some form of application to obtain a spot in the lottery. Even an application that is minimal - two pages and mostly informational - selects out students whose parents a) don't know about the charter school, b) don't want to send their children to a charter school c) don't care if their children attend a charter school or neighborhood school, or d) don't care at all about their children's education. (Geographic proximity when compared to the neighborhood school may also play a factor.) These students and others are removed from the lottery system, not through active selection by the charter school, but through the passive selection of an application process required for enrollment.

Additionally, charter schools, unlike many neighborhood schools, have a cap on enrollment. While not selecting for specific students, this cap does select for class size and the perils that come with population overload. (Enrollment at my school is well over 1000 students above building capacity.) Charters simply don't have to address overcrowding and the severe limitations it inflicts on an entire school.

All controversy aside - and there's plenty of it - I'm not necessarily opposed to charters. I am opposed, however, to comparing charters to neighborhood schools. It's not a valid comparison because all charter schools are selective and few neighborhood schools are. And I am vehemently opposed to any attempt to define charters as non-selective. Any attempt to do so is, at best, simply inaccurate.

Elementary Charter Principal

Have you ever read the State report card for Perspective and Chicago International or any of the charter high schools? Only Noble has made AYP.

[Charlie]

Go to the last pages of the last Perspectives state report card and it clearly says that they made AYP, you might not like the way they combine high school and middle school data, but I'm just telling you what the state has to say about it...Last time I checked, they were the ones whose opinion actually counts for something on this matter.

To selectivity. Do student fees make a school selective? Does having to bring identification and proof of address to a neighborhood school before enrolling your children make it selective? What about making sure all immunizations are current, does that eliminate students whose parents forgot to schedule a doctors appointment? Charter schools are out there advertising in the community, showing up at events and in churches, advertising at bus stops and mentioned in the media on a pretty regular basis, its not as if they are out there recruiting students who are exceeding standards on the ISAT or something. There are so many charters right now (that despite what waiting list numbers might tell you) charters are out their butts off to get every last seat in their school filled...that urgency doesn't exactly lend itself to selectivity.

We've all had remarkable students whose parents were not actively involved in their education, and incredibly troublesome students whose parent call you every day. These may be the exception to the rule, but they certainly exist. After the lottery is said and done, I really think most charter schools end up with a population that is fairly similar to neighborhood schools. I will agree that the conditions are very different, and much of this is due to charters' ability to cap enrollment. Hopefully CPS can get their act together and eventually provide solutions that allow neighborhood schools to cap their enrollment at capacity as well.

Yes charters are given a better set of circumstances to work under, but rather than complaining about charters and blaming charters, why not talk about the real issue: neighborhood schools should be getting many of the same advantages. Even though I am an adamant charter supporter, I think fixing education in this city absolutely requires a two-pronged solution: investing in alternative public school options (like charter school), and at the same time putting even more effort into improving existing neighborhood schools. I think these can even work together, if you demand more accountability from charters and also find more ways to share the learning of all schools across the district.

Charlie said "Hopefully CPS can get their act together and eventually provide solutions that allow neighborhood schools to cap their enrollment at capacity as well."

...and he is absolutely right. CPS' leadership is CHOOSING NOT to implement a public high school assignment process that allows 8th graders to CHOOSE which high school they want to apply to.

It's as simple as that. Implementing a standard high school application whereby 8th graders list their top choices would include a hard enrollment cap for EVERY PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL, whether it's a charter high school (yes, those are public high schools), Military high school, Magnet high school or neighborhood high school.

The real question then is why is it not happening.

My opposition to charters is because charters represent an out. I believe very strongly in public education. I believe everybody should have a right to a decent public education. I admit that isn't the case right now. However, by expanding charters we give more people less of a stake in the quality of public education and we wind up with 2 systems. The public school system in inevitably hurt by this.

Elementary Charter Principal

Perspective 2006 PSAE scores, 29% met or exceeded stabdards in reading and 21% in math. In 2007 the bar score was 47.5%. How does that meet AYP. Simeon a 100% African American high school on the southside has better PSAE scores than Perspective. Simeon ranks 23rd and Perspective 35th. By the way, 39% of simeon students met or exceeded standards on the 2006 PSAE.

Elementary Charter Principal

Perspective 2006 PSAE scores, 29% met or exceeded standards in reading and 21% in math. In 2007 the bar score was 47.5%. How does that meet AYP. Simeon a 100% African American high school on the southside has better PSAE scores than Perspective. Simeon ranks 23rd and Perspective 35th. By the way, 39% of simeon students met or exceeded standards on the 2006 PSAE.

If you want to make claims of selective enrollment, Simeon selects there kids. How did kids get into Simeon anyway? Is it a fair and open lottery like the charter schools? Don't bet on it.

[cermak_rd]

Given that Simeon's complete application packet includes the 7th grade standardized test scores, first period of 8th grade report card, a typed written essay, letters of recommendation from counselors & teachers, as well as the cumulative records, they certainly could select students based on academic background. In fact, the CPS page states that Simeon is not a neighborhood school, instead selecting its applicants based on test scores.

[1.04]

Simeon Oh Simeon

Having spent a good deal of my adult life teaching at Simeon I can tell
everyone that it is a selective enrollment school. However its proper name was
Neal F Simeon Vocational High School. Here is a brief history. In 1961 a tornado
Tore through the then Kroger Frozen Food warehouse at 83rd and Vincennes.
About the same time the neighborhood south of Simeon was changing. Too
many Black kids were starting to apply for admission at CVS, so in order
To keep the block busting on an orderly and profitable schedule Simeon was born
In the warehouse its initial enrollment came from the tiny Wescott School down the street.
The building was a total dump and the worst death trap the board ever created.
any fire would have made The Our Lady of the Angles a minor footnote.
By 1970 the Board had created several classes of High School. The Tech:
Of which Lane, Tilden, And Lindblume comes to mind. These were brain schools
Where to attend you had to be smart, real smart.
Then came the Vocational Schools; Simeon, Prosser, CVS. And the grand daddy of
them all the old Dunbar.To teach in a Tech school one had to possess a college
degree, although the students even at Lane had to take shop. In a Vocational School
some teachers came from the trades without a degree, but with an apprentice education
the reason for this was a law called The Smith Hughes Act of 1919. These schools were the Glue which held the Board together in the 70’s 80’s and much of the 90’s.
I singled out Dunbar because almost all the Vocational teachers at Simeon were former
students there. To attend Simeon you had to have a 7.8 grade level in reading a skinny
Grammar school discipline file and some one willing to fill out the application, so it was selective even back in the day. However, large, fast, and talented athletes somehow always made the cut. It was selective in that way also.
All the students took shop or business classes, as well as academic subjects.Simeon had
it’s share of gang problems but it also had very big very tough teachers who took no shit
from anyone. I cannot go into detail on the manner in which we kept control because I am not sure about the statute of limitation. Lets just say the kids there got the best
education We were able to give them.
Then came the General High schools Calumet was the closest to Simeon. It had a better
building, nicer location, and more kids. The difference was that Calumet had to take
everyone in the area .Simeon did not have to take anyone. Calumet drew from a geographic plot. Simeon drew from the entire city, and the many suburban kids who
snuck in, even in 1970.
As I have blogged before the new Charter school in the old Calumet is going
head to head with one of the old selective enrollment schools in Simeon.
I personally will bet on Simeon AKA the warehouse pimps.

[Skalinder]

I have never intended to imply that an open lottery system is unfair, or that any kind of selection process is necessarily a bad thing. Value judgements aside, I'm frustrated with how schools are described when attempts are made to compare schools. The terminology we use to describe schools - and we usually are describing schools in order to compare them or or categorize them into like groups - is inadequate.

A school that actively selects students based on test scores is different from a school that actively selects students based on latent potential for arts performance. Any actively selective school is different from a passively selective school. And passively selective schools are different from truly non-selective schools. And non-selective schools with capped enrollment are different than non-selective schools without capped enrollment. And so on.

I don't personally feel comparing schools is a useful task, but if it's going to be done I at least want the descriptions and comparisons to be honest and explicit. All too often there is a hidden agenda behind the descriptions, comparisons, and analysis.

Analysis of education can devolve into a competition between charters and neighborhood schools and magnets and so on. That's not right. It's about what works for different students in different communities in different circumstances in different neighborhoods and finding what's going to work right for *our* students, regardless of where they happen to live or attend school.

Blah.

[1.04]

Dear 6:10

I only wanted everyone to know that selective enrollment is nothing
New.

[HS Checklist]

So if you're keeping track of Chicago public high school types:

1) Active, Exam-based, Selective Enrollment High Schools originally conceived as Selective Enrollment High Schools (Payton, North Side College Prep)

2) An Active, Exam-based Selective Enrollment High School originally conceived as a non-exam Magnet High School (Whitney Young)

3) An Active, Exam-based Selective Enrollment High School originally conceived as a Commercial High School (Jones)

4) Active, Exam-based Selective Enrollment High Schools originally conceived as "Tech" High Schools (Lane Tech, Lindblom)

5) An Active, Exam-based Selective Enrollment High School originally conceived as a Catholic High School (Brooks/Mendel-?)

6) A hybrid neighborhood/magnet high school originally conceived as a magnet high school (Curie)

7) Several Passively Selective "Career Academies" originally conceived as "Vocational" high schools (CVS/CVCA, Dunbar, Simeon, Prosser)

8) A Passively Selective, Non-Exam Magnet high school originally conceived as a middle school (Michelle Clark)

9) A makeshift high school originally conceived as a middle school (Douglass)

10)A neighborhood high school originally conceived as a "Tech School" (Tilden)

11) Neighborhood high schools that have large passively selective programs (Mather, Steinmetz, Amundsen, Taft, Hubbard, Lake View, Morgan Park, Hyde Park, and many more)

12) Neigborhood high schools that have few or no passively selective programs (Crane, Clemente, and a few others)

14) Grade 9-12 passively selective, lottery-based Charter high schools with multiple campuses (Noble Street)

15) Grade 9-12 passively selective, lottery-based Charter high schools with a single campus (Young Women's, Ace Tech Charter)

16) Grade 6-12 passively selective, lottery-based Charter high schools with a multiple campuses (CICS, Perspectives)

17) Grade 6-12 passively selective, lottery-based Charter high schools with a single campus (CMSA, ACT)

18) A grade 7-12 passively selective Ren10 Performance high school (Uplift)

19) At least one grade 9-12 passively selective Ren10 Performance high school (Al Raby)

20) Grade 9-12 Ren10 Contract high schools (Al Raby, Chicago Academy)

21) Pre-Ren10 small high schools sharing former neighborhood high school facilities with their Pre-Ren10 small high school counterparts (three small high schools at Orr, four small high schools at Bowen, four small high schools at South Shore, three small high schools at DuSable)

22) Military Academy high schools (Rickover Naval, Phoenix, Chicago Military HS/formerly Bronzeville Military, Carver Military HS/former Carver high school, the new Marine Miliary Academy sharing the old Grant school facility with Phoenix, recently relocated from Orr)

23) Charter Alternative high schools (Youth Connections and one or two others)

24) Non-Charter Alternative high schools

25) Non-Charter "Special Education" high schools (probably not the correct term; sometimes referred to as Occupational schools such as Vaughn, Graham, Southside Occ, Northside Learning, Las Casas)

[Re: Calumet High School]

1:09 knew completely what he or she was writing about. Simeon helped completely destroy Calumet. I taught at Calumet and saw the process first hand. I would only add that putting the new Julian High on the other side of Calumet also added to the destruction of Calumet.

Of course we also need to note that Calumet was also one of the very few High Schools dominated by the Stones gang. This added to its destruction. So in a very sad way Calumet was selective also, if you lived in a non-Stones community you could not safely attend Calumet. So in that way it was slective of members of a street gang or youth that lived in neighborhoods dominated by Stones.

[George Schmidt]

"...The [Simeon] building was a total dump and the worst death trap the board ever created. Any fire would have made The Our Lady of the Angles a minor footnote. By 1970 the Board had created several classes of High School..." (Sept 13, 2007. 5:45)

The old Simeon was a death trap with or without a fire. Check the life expectancy of the coaches who worked out their teams in those asbestos filled basement hallways during the months when nobody could work out outdoors. How many surviving Simeon administrators or coaches have lived past age 65?

While CPS had a number of schools with these problems, CPS was adept at covering them up. The toxicity below grade at Carver High School (now Carver Military Academy) would have been a major scandal in any other city. And many engineers remember how Paul Vallas solved the lingering problems with the asbestos?

He simply dumped all the reports -- as in the dumpsters that partolled Pershing Road as people were packing to move to 125 S. Clark St.

Any Simeon veterans (now retired) interested in pursuing this nasty story, I'm interested in publishing the details.

Simeon has had a long and checkered history (as the relationship with Calumet shows, and for many other reasns, right down to the present day, as many people know).

But the men (mostly) who created Simeon and helped burnish its many sports legends shouldn't have faced that problem for decades when they were giving their own time and often money to help those student athletes excel.

George, are you feeling alright?

[1.04]

The Office

During the 1980’s and early 90’s four people who worked in the same
Office at Simeon all died of cancer. None of them was over 50