News release from Great Oaks Charter Schools:
Christina Grant of Bridgeport’s Great Oaks Charter School will hold a live, online video chat at 5 p.m. on June 12 (today) to acquaint the Bridgeport community with the city’s newest public school.
“Great Oaks opens in only a few short months. I want to make sure everyone in Bridgeport has an opportunity to ask questions about the city’s newest public school,” Grant said. “We are so happy to bring our proven educational model to Bridgeport, and I’m glad to have another chance to share the good news about Great Oaks with the people of this city.”
The event will be hosted online by the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN) via www.CTEdNews.com at 5 p.m. on June 12. The event is free and open to the public. Participants are invited to ask Grant questions, which she will answer, live.
The Great Oaks Foundation is a non-profit organization that has spearheaded the creation of charter public schools in Newark, New Jersey and New York’s Lower East Side. Earlier this year, the Connecticut State Board of Education approved Great Oaks’ application to organize a middle and high school program that would serve the needs of children and families in Bridgeport. Grant serves as superintendent of the Great Oaks Foundation.
“We believe that our approach, which includes an extended school day, rigorous classroom instruction and several hours of tutoring every day, will prepare students for college and help ensure their future success,” said Grant.
Great Oaks will open with a class of 100 sixth graders in the 2014-15 academic year, with plans to grow by one grade every year thereafter. The instructional model is designed to support students for whom English is a second language–those students will be given priority during the admissions process.
“Great Oaks will be run by educators and built on an instructional model that has proven to be successful. Today, fewer than half of Connecticut’s kids can read at grade level, and in cities like Bridgeport, one-third of students never graduate high school, said ConnCAN CEO Jennifer Alexander. “These results are unacceptable. That’s why thousands of families are waiting for high-quality options. Bringing Great Oaks to Bridgeport is a critical step toward making sure no child is unfairly denied the preparation they need for college and a good career.”
Great Oaks, “Bridgeport’s Newest Public School,” the misleading advertising is already the first sign of the usual charter school propaganda. You are not Bridgeport’s newest public school, you are a state charter school located in the city of Bridgeport. Your application repeatedly states you will focus on English language learners and your major objective is to prepare children for college, however the only school you have any data for is in Newark, NJ. Based on the NJSDE, you have ZERO experience with ELL students, you rank in the BOTTOM 1% in college and career readiness in the entire state of NJ, you have a 35% absentee rate and a 35% suspension rate. This school is going to be a disaster.
Now, Dave? This school is going to be a disaster compared to what? BPS–dropout rate 35%? It is Bridgeport’s newest school open to the public with free tuition. I.e.–public school. If the school does a bad job, no students will go there and the school will go away. Why are you so worried?
The disaster would be if the student achievement outcomes are similar to that of public schools, then we have just wasted valuable resources, time, energy and funding reinventing the wheel. We can applaud ourselves for developing a new concept that produces the same results. Truthfully, schools are merely a microcosm of our society and reflect the broader social inequalities. In order to address the achievement gap it will be necessary to address poverty, unemployment, crime and other maladies. Until then, achievement gaps are likely to remain, sadly.
Actually, the charters are less expensive. So we got the same results for less money. Thereby saving valuable resources, time, energy and funding.
The schools are a microcosm of our society but for different reasons. Those who accept personal responsibility for their own welfare do well. Those who believe their welfare is the responsibility of some outside entity do poorly. This belief system is passed (learned) from parent to child and more prevalent in some socioeconomic groups than others. Education in our country is GUARANTEED to every citizen. We should have said education in our country is OFFERED to every citizen. If you want it, it is your responsibility to come get it.
Sure, less expensive because teachers get paid lower salaries, and they rely on public schools for several services. Using this logic, hell let’s home school every child because it’s cheaper. In some cases charter schools work and in some cases they don’t, they’re not the panacea.
It is ironic when the personal responsibility argument is thrown around. It usually boils down to people making simplistic global judgments and labeling people they usually don’t know, typically in hindsight (how convenient). Yet if people who use this term actually took the personal responsibility to get to know the lives and circumstances of people, they probably would refrain from such a trite phrase. But of course it is easier to label from afar than taking the responsibility to delve deeper. Now, do some individuals not take responsibility? Sure, absolutely and without a doubt, but I don’t see the practicality in this as an argument except for the fact it gives us permission to distance ourselves from issues that make us uncomfortable.
The issue (or hypocrisy) is when we use trite phrases such as “she is not taking personal responsibility,” it conveniently gives us an excuse to not have to engage (or take responsibility) as citizens to understand social problems (e.g., educational failure). This is because we have framed the problem/misfortune (whatever you want to call it) as the product of another’s choices. In the end, this phrase is often used because it is a form of denial to the fact we truly are self-absorbed and have not taken the responsibility to seek to understand the complexity of issues and possible solutions. And so until this changes, people will continue to say “they don’t take responsibility.”
Not only is homeschooling cheaper, compared to BPT public schools you will get better results. But then why should we bother paying taxes?
As far as ‘personal responsibility’ goes; how long should the taxpayer be ‘on the hook’ for the never-ending litany of bad choices? Usually the ‘easy’ choices. I.e., not doing your homework is easier than doing your homework, while the rest of us have realized the ‘right’ choice is ALWAYS the hard choice. If the right choice were the easy choice, everyone would make the right choice. You can spare us the ‘I failed because my mommy didn’t love me’ spiel. You can never fail to fail. It is the easiest thing to do. The difference between success and failure, poverty and wealth all boils down to the choices we make. If you want to be successful, all you need to do is find a successful person, observe him and do what he does. Everyone has problems. Either you run them or they run you. But that is a choice we make for ourselves.
Would love to know how much these so-called schools spend on marketing. Seems like this one has been spending a bundle using tax dollars and grant money that is supposed to go to education. In some places these charters actually offer prizes if you enroll your kids, like color TVs, I kid you not.
David,
In the first place, State Chartered, City Chartered and traditional Bridgeport Public Schools are funded with PUBLIC MONEY and they are attempting to educate City youths who for a variety of reasons on average have fewer advantages when they come to school than youths living in surrounding towns. Do you find fault with that general statement? Let us all know please.
In the second place, current results for Bridgeport students, on average, fall below those of youth in those surrounding towns. Is that factual?
And in summary, families of Charter School students, though they are required frequently to be active and provide service to the Charter School community are generally happy with the system. Indeed there are waiting lists for these schools.
A student who was born in another country or who is being raised in a home where English is not the principal language spoken (perhaps with the entire family learning English) have a major barrier in addition to any others present in succeeding in school. A school that will focus on that population with its own special needs seems something that would be welcome to families in their new country.
Yet you predict failure or disaster and disparage incentives to modestly influence behavior. Do you wish to tell us how the Grants Budget for the Public School System spent $190,000 on food and entertainment for school events in the 2011 fiscal year? This was not part of the nutrition program. This was not a Charter School expense but a Bridgeport Public School expense and existed in the last full-year Ramos budget. What do you say to that? Time will tell.
The “surrounding towns” do not hold the title of the most underfunded district in CT, however Bridgeport does. Bridgeport is underfunded by at least $43 million per year. Neither Stratford, Fairfield or Trumbull has a single charter school that siphons millions more away from their public school system each year, however Bridgeport does. The charter schools claim they have 1,000 students on waiting lists, however over 4,000 students were denied access to magnet schools because of unavailable seating. The vast majority of parents want magnet school expansion and why shouldn’t they? After all, every magnet school in Bridgeport significantly outperforms every state charter school located in Bridgeport. The two focuses of Great Oaks application is servicing ELL students and their claim to prepare students for college, however the only school they have any data for is in Newark NJ. This school significantly underserves Hispanic and ELL students when compared to the Newark Public Schools. They have ZERO experience or data with ELL students because they serve none. BPS’s ELL population is 13.3% and Great Oaks claims 25% of their students will be ELL, not even double the ELL population in the BPS. Great Oaks repeatedly claims they will prepare every child for college yet they are ranked in the bottom 1% in college and career readiness in the entire state of NJ. It is not what you say you can do, it is what you deliver. In regards to the $180,000 dollar for “food,” those funds are from the Title I grant which has a specific amount allocated to each school for parent engagement. Just about every parent event/meeting is held in the evening so every parent can attend after work. Supplying a modest meal for the parents and children who attend is reasonable and appropriate. You are worried about $180,000 for over 20,000 students, but are you equally concerned Great Oaks has budgeted $1,350,000 over the next five years for “housing costs” for their employees? This for a school that will have only 500 students.
David,
Since you raise the subject of parent engagement, let’s talk about that. What variety of meetings are included in “parent engagement?” How many “parent” organizations are there in Bridgeport? How often do they meet? How many folks participate actively? How many are signed as “members?”
I understand there was an all-day meeting this week at the Holiday Inn with a program and speakers that was a sellout. That is a promising development. However, how far is the “reach” into family members who are parenting the 20,000 students by the organizations? Perhaps you can indicate the total funds budgeted for parent engagement, how they are currently spent and what outcomes are working. Time will tell.
The only “Parent Organization” recognized by the Bridgeport Public Schools is the Parent Advisory Council (PAC). It has existed for over 40 years. Each school gets $7 per child from the Title I grant and each school PAC receives 10% of that amount for parent engagement activities. Each school is required to have elected parent representatives who in turn must hold at least one parent meeting per month. Each PAC president or vice-president is required to attend a monthly meeting held at the Parent Center. Schools organize tons of events to promote parent engagement, like Dr. Seuss nights, recycling events, clean-up days, health events, bullying prevention events, etc.
Thank you for your response.
20,000 students x $7 per student equals $140,000 available for Parent Engagement though more money than this was spent in the year I mentioned. How is attendance at these events? Who monitors activity and $$ for the system and Title I reporting? Have you been personally active in these events? Appreciate your sharing info. Time will tell.
www .state.nj.us/education/pr/2013/80/806053917.pdf
Here is the same school in NJ. This school’s academic performance is very high when compared to schools across the state. This school outperforms 100% of schools statewide. 82% of the students are economically disadvantaged.
But: This school is 85% black and 18% Hispanic with only 4.2% whose primary language is Spanish. The BPT and NJ school do not compare as far as ELL is concerned.
BOE SPY, here is the most current data for Great Oaks Charter School in Newark NJ.
www .state.nj.us/education/pr/1213/80/806053917.pdf
The school is 6-8 grade now. They perform better than 82% of the schools in their “Peer Group” that includes schools throughout NJ, not just Newark. They perform better than 46% of schools statewide. They now rank in the bottom 10% statewide in “College and Career Readiness.” This school is the epitome of segregation as the entire school is defined as 99% minority. They serve ZERO ELL students. As I stated previously, 35% of their students were absent 11 or more days and 35% of their students were suspended at least once. They ranked #26 out of the 32 schools in their “Peer Group.” They performed better than 75% of their “Peer Group” in Language Arts but only 30% statewide. They performed better than 88% of their “Peer Group” in math but only 62% statewide.
BOE SPY, in reading the Great Oaks Charter School application, they repeatedly claim they will prepare every child for college and they will be an “ELL Focus” school. However, they only have a single school in which to analyze data from in order to support their claims. Although they did open an ELL Focus school in Chinatown NY this past fall, there is no data for that school. Therefore we can only look at their Newark NJ school. In the two areas in which they claim they will deliver, they have either no data or poor data to support their claims of excellence. It doesn’t matter what they say in an application, it is what they actually accomplish. If I apply for a position that requires me to increase sales by 15% over a three-year period and train and promote 25% of my staff in the same three-year period, I can certainly say to a prospective employer I am your guy and I am confident I can reach your goals and expectations, however if the prospective employer does some research and discovers in my current position my sales remained flat for the last three years and I had a 50% employee turnover and only promoted 2% of my staff; why should I receive the job? It doesn’t matter what Great Oaks says it can do, their own data demonstrates otherwise and they have absolutely no basis for their claims. As I stated previously, they significantly underserve the Hispanic population, which in turn has caused them to serve no ELL students and they are ranked in the bottom 10% in the entire state of NJ for college and career readiness.
BOE SPY, a state charter school located in Bridgeport is not a Bridgeport Public School as defined by CT State Statute. Every child who resides in Bridgeport who attends a state charter school is not a BPS student as defined by CT State Statute. Each charter school in Bridgeport has its own separate and distinct charter school district as defined by CT State Statute. Therefore, it is NOT “Bridgeport’s Newest Public School,” it is “One of Connecticut’s Newest Charter Schools” that happens to be located in Bridgeport. If charter schools are so fabulous why doesn’t their advertisement state “Bridgeport’s Newest Public CHARTER School?” The only possible reason is they are trying to mislead the public.
Re the NJ State report cited by the SPY: Not enough to go on, unless you’re the SPY!
Top of page 1:
“This school’s college and career readiness significantly lags in comparison to schools across the state … [and] to its peers.” (page 1)
1. This report is only for grades 6 and 7.
2. Throughout this report … lots of empty fields–probably because the school opened in 2011 (see idealist.org).
3. Student body includes “0%” special ed (page 11) and “0%” ELL (pages 2 and 11) with 95.8% of enrolled students speaking English as their primary language at home (page 2). That’s not at all reflective of Newark or of Bridgeport’s public school population. Hmmm?
4. 59% of students were absent more than 15 days (page 8)–placing it around middle of the pack among “peer school percentile ranks” for chronic absenteeism.
Note:
“In Bridgeport [public schools], 25 percent of all students are chronically absent …”
Source: ctlatinonews.com/2014/05/20/bridgeport-and-hartford-high-number-of-students-skip-school/
… for K-3rd grade, about 16%
Source: discovery.wcgmf.org/sites/default/files/resources/Bridgeport%202013%20Measures%20of%20Success.pdf
Fair comparison with Newark charter’s 6-7 shallow data?
Ask the SPY!
Now, you are not comparing apples to apples. This is a school in NJ and you have to compare its absenteeism to NJ.
The data Dave and I posted says non-English 4.2% and Hispanic population of the school 18% with black being 85%. The career readiness (whatever that means) is poor. It does have 13% students with disabilities. I could not find the info you quoted from page 11. This is not an ELL school, so the ELL data is irrelevant. On page 10 it says 20% chronic absenteeism.
People are free to read the report themselves. You read it and found a lot of bad things that are true. It is not Darien High School. However, this school is a good choice among all the choices someone in Newark NJ would have and it has only been open for 3-4 years (2011) depending on what month we are in now and when it opened. The Newark BOE has been around for decades to centuries. It looks like the kids who get in this school are winning and the school is doing the work for less than the BOE.
The Newark Public Schools is comprised of a 50% black student population and 40% Hispanic. Great Oaks in Newark is 78% black and 21% Hispanic. They are underserving the Hispanic population by 19% which would certainly explain why they are not serving their fair share of ELL students. However they are doing their fair share with special education students, Newark Public Schools has a 10% special ed. population and Great Oaks has a 13% special ed. student population. BOE SPY, can you please post the per-pupil expenditure for NPS and Great Oaks you reviewed that supports your claim this school spends less money per pupil than the traditional public schools in Newark? Can you please list if the NPS is required to fund any charter school expenses such as transportation, special ed. services, etc.
BOE SPY, you put up a link to the School Performance Report for 2011/2012 not for 2012/2013. In 2012, this school only had 6-7 grade. In this year alone, 67% percent of their students missed 11 or more days of school and 52% of their students were suspended at least once. Although Great Oaks had an extended school day and year, they finished 23 out of 32 in their “Peer Group” that is made up of 32 schools located throughout NJ, not specifically Newark NJ. The 4.2% Hispanic population identified at this specific school in no way represents the actual percentage of Hispanic students in the city of Newark. Great Oaks is only a 6-8 grade school so you certainly have no “dropout” data to compare to the BPS. I received an email from a friend who just told me Great Oaks Charter School has purchased a billboard off the Route 8 connector. That must have cost a pretty penny.
BOE SPY, I don’t agree the absentee rate of a charter school in Newark cannot be compared with the absentee rate of the BPS. They are both urban cities with both a high minority and impoverished population. That being said, can you please post the absenteeism rate for the city of Newark for the exact same timeframe? A school is not required to be an ELL Focus School to serve ELL students. If the Newark Public Schools serves a 13% ELL student population, so should a Newark Charter School. To say not serving ELL students is “irrelevant” is saying ELL students are “irrelevant.” These students perform significantly worse on standardized tests, therefore, if your school does not serve them it inflates that school’s standardized test scores. You stated “the school is doing the work for less than the BOE,” which means you have analyzed the per-pupil expenditure for this charter school when compared to the Newark Public Schools. It would also mean you researched whether the local public school district has to allocate funding to cover the charter schools’ expenses. Can you please post all that information for us?
No, you can’t say it will be a bad ILL school in BPT when it is not an ILL school in NJ. When I said the ILL data is irrelevant I meant there is no basis for comparison.
NOW, Double-Standard Dave. You are willing to compare absenteeism between the two schools and not test scores?
People can read it for themselves. Make an informed choice. I read it and got one thing and you got another. I have a kid who needs to go to school in this town. You seem concerned about union issues. We may be looking at the issue from different perspectives.
*** THE MORE CHOICES FOR CHILDREN’S EDUCATION, THE BETTER! ***
BOE SPY, absenteeism is very clear cut, you either attended school on Monday or you did not. There is no difference on how to define “absenteeism” from state to state. However, each state develops standardized tests and makes decisions about the data they are seeking, the rating system and areas of focus, therefore you cannot compare tests scores from state to state. The only way a test could be compared state to state is if it is a national test with the exact same tested subjects, questions and rating system. The state of NJ took control of the Newark Public Schools in 1995. There is an elected “advisory” BOE that has absolutely no teeth or real decision-making ability. The state Commissioner of Education has full authority over the Newark Public Schools. I reviewed my comments and am unable to find a single comment regarding “union issues.”
There was this one: These individuals who only represent the 1% are doing everything in their power to control politicians, our government, privatize education and end collective bargaining.
You have made a number of anti-privatizing comments.
Your comment on why the unions should be able to support political causes and others should not. American Federation of Teachers represents the interests of 1.5 million middle-class workers.
National Education Association represents the interests of 3.6 million middle-class teachers.
Absenteeism is not that clear cut. The NJ data says “absenteeism regardless of excused or not.’ So a kid with leukemia is treated the same as a kid who arbitrarily chose to not go to school. Newark is 24 square miles and BPT only 16. Kids could have a lot farther to travel. Our winter was bad but it was worse for Newark. Traveling to school could have been prohibitively difficult for some students. Transportation may have been an issue.
A school has little or no control over if a student comes to school. The school cannot ‘make’ the student show up. It is actually a credit to the school they did so well and have a number of students who do not even show up. If you assume those students did very poorly the rest must have done well to ‘average out’ the way the school did. I.e., if you took out the students who commonly do not come to school, the school’s scores would have been higher.
The schools do have control over how a student does on a test. The school is supposed to be preparing the students to pass the test. These are ‘grade level’ tests, the kind of stuff a kid in that grade is supposed to know. Regardless of what state they are in or who made the test.