NEW ORLEANS CHARTERS SCORE BETTER ON LEAP THAN TRADITIONAL SCHOOLS
The Times-Picayune - By Darran Simon [7/31/2007]

"At Sophie B. Wright, one of many New Orleans charter schools that outperformed most traditional public schools on this year's LEAP test, the faculty makes academic achievement a daily competition.

In scores released this week, charter schools such as Wright posted higher scores at every grade level, with some showing vast improvement over their pre-Katrina, pre-charter performance under the Orleans Parish School Board.

At Wright, a Recovery District charter school, children on the honor roll get T-shirts with their names embroidered on the back, a color signifying each marking period. Teachers get a monetary bonus when their students perform well on the state's high-stakes assessment test.

Students at the school, once one of the system's lowest-performing campuses, posted far better results this year, with 71 percent of fourth-graders scoring "basic" or higher on the English portion and 80 percent meeting that standard in math. Though eighth-graders didn't do as well, they scored far better than past eighth-grade classes there.

Head of the class

In the first test scores offering a meaningful comparison between charter and traditional public schools in New Orleans, charters clustered near the top of the rankings, while traditional schools -- particularly those run by the state-run Recovery School District -- in some cases had more than half their students fail the test. At many Recovery District schools, fewer than 20 percent of students scored basic or above.

Some of the difference in results, however, likely stems from the fact that the Recovery District schools faced obstacles charters did not. The charters, for instance, were allowed to limit their enrollments, while the Recovery District schools took in a steady stream of late-arriving students, many who experienced trauma associated with Katrina. Charters hired teachers much sooner as well, draining the talent pool. The Recovery District administration, by contrast, scrambled to fill classrooms at the last minute, creating start-of-school chaos.

In a ranking of the city's schools by percentage of students scoring at basic or above in English and math, the state's barometer for acceptable performance, 17 of the top 20 New Orleans schools are charters.

Among schools controlled by the School Board or the state-run Recovery District, charters posted the highest scores in every grade level. On both the fourth- and eighth-grade LEAP tests, eight of the top-10 schools in both grades are charters, a mix of schools overseen by the Orleans Parish School Board, the Recovery District, the Algiers Charter School Association and the state board of education.

In the high school graduation exam, six of the top-10 schools are charters.

Built around academics

Wright Principal Sharon Clark attributed the school's success to the autonomy over hiring and academic programs that the charter school law affords faculties.

"When your entire environment revolves around academics, winning, achieving and progressing, that becomes part of the life of the school," said Clark. She has been principal of the school since it was chartered by Southern University of New Orleans. Wright is one of 31 charters in a city that had only a handful before Katrina.

Fourth- and eighth-graders are typically required to pass the LEAP in order to advance to the next grade. The requirement was suspended in the year following Katrina, but it was reinstated for this year's test.

In some cases, the highest-scoring schools have selective admissions and scored high before they became charter schools. But Wright and Martin Behrman Elementary, which is part of the Algiers Charter School Association, showed striking improvement under the new charter model after years of posting failing or below-average scores.

"The improvement at Sophie B. Wright is inspirational," said Leslie Jacobs, a member of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. "The people at Sophie B. Wright felt ownership. I think it empowered them."

Clark, a counselor and the assistant principal met with all students taking the LEAP tests to let them know where they stood academically. The administration showed the students old test scores, along with results of pilot tests, and made tutoring mandatory, she said.

Wright was a middle school before the storm, so its fourth-graders can't be compared with past classes. However, the school's eighth-graders scored far better this year than in 2005. Then, on the English portion of the LEAP test, 41 percent of students scored at the lowest level, unsatisfactory, and 43 percent scored approaching basic, the second-lowest category.

This year, just 12 percent scored unsatisfactory; 46 percent scored approaching basic; and 37 percent scored basic.

98% success

At Behrman, 98 percent of fourth-grade students scored basic or above in English and 96 percent in math. That compared favorably with scores at Lusher Charter School, a selective-admissions school with a history of achievement.

In 2005, while still under the control of the School Board, 65 percent of Behrman students failed the basic level in English, while 73 percent of the students scored lower than basic in math.

In many cases, apples-to-apples comparisons of an individual school's performance before the charters remain impossible, given drastic changes to schools after Katrina. But Brian Riedlinger, president of the Algiers Charter School Association, said that although Behrman has fewer than half of its original students, the population still mirrors the previous student body. More than 90 percent of Behrman's students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a common measure of poverty in schools.

Riedlinger said the school has a support team of master teachers who train other teachers. Also, Behrman's principal, Rene Lewis-Carter, started LEAP tutoring in October and had students' regular teachers tutor them after school. And Carter conducted academic audits and brought parents, teachers and students together to let them know where they stood academically, Riedlinger said.

"One of the things we know about successful schools is that they have successful principals," he said.

'We teach for life'

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Charter School for Science and Technology has continued to surge since becoming a charter school, test scores show. More than 80 percent of King's fourth-grade students scored basic or above on the English, while 77 percent scored basic or above in math. In the eighth-grade portion, 67 percent of King's students scored basic or above in English while 62 percent scored basic or above in math.

"We don't normally go into teaching for LEAP. We teach for life, and if we teach well and we teach for understanding, our kids are going to be okay," said Doris Hicks, King's principal.

The success of Recovery District charters is particularly encouraging, Jacobs said, because none of those schools has selective admissions, unlike some of the magnet schools chartered by the School Board. They're succeeding in educating students who likely arrived at their doorstep needing intensive help. "I am excited that we have already turned around some failing schools," she said.

Recovery District Superintendent Paul Vallas said the scores will improve. "It's not rocket science to figure out what needs to be done to have a quality school," he said.



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