Friday, May 29, 2009
Christel House Academy Response to IPS comparison
What follows is a response to today's editorial in the Indianapolis Star from Superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools, Dr. Eugene White.
You can read his original message and the public comments here.Superintendent Dr. Eugene White chose to focus on Christel House Academy (“CHA”) for purposes of comparison with IPS in his May 29 Indianapolis Star posting, and I feel compelled to provide information and data to correct possible misconceptions.
We concur with Dr. White that IPS has achieved success with certain initiatives, and he and the schools deserve credit for that. IPS has been faced with enormous challenges, ranging from declining enrollment triggered by a movement to township schools, to the second worst high school graduation rate in the country, (Cities in Crisis 2009; Report by America’s Promise, 2009) to low ISTEP scores. I very much appreciate Dr. White acknowledging the impact of competition from the charter school movement in stimulating improvements in the traditional public school setting. All the more reason to continue to let competition drive continuous improvement for all public schools— traditional and charter schools. In business, competition leads to more choices and to better results—and its impact on education demonstrates that this field is no exception.Because students entering charter schools are shown to be further behind that their public school counterparts, and at greater risk of failure, it is not comparable to evaluate gains achieved by charter schools to those of traditional public schools. Nonetheless, CHA’s ISTEP performance is significantly ahead of IPS, with CHA students scoring 77.1% in math, and 67.2% in language arts, compared to the IPS students’ scores of 58.1% in math and 52.7% in language arts. The socio-economic profile of CHA students is also similar to that of IPS. Approximately 89% of CHA students receive free and reduced lunch. Christel House Academy has made Adequate Yearly Progress (“AYP”) under No Child Left Behind every year of its operation, and has been rated as an “Exemplary” school by the Indiana Department of Education for four consecutive years.When comparing performance results, it is also important to look at the rate of growth achieved over time. ISTEP scores at CHA have improved 154% since the first test administration in 2002. In fact, in its first year of operation Christel House Academy rated as the worst performing school in Indiana, when students took ISTEP exams 3 weeks after the school opened. This clearly demonstrated how far behind our students were when they arrived at Christel House Academy. In a recent study performed by the Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning (“CELL”), researchers found, when controlling for gender, ethnicity and initial level of performance, charter school students showed a 22% greater increase in Reading, an 18% greater increase in Math, and a 25% greater increase in Language Usage. (A Comparison of Student Academic Growth between Indiana Charter Schools and Traditional Public Schools; Report by the Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning, University of Indianapolis; January, 2009) While all schools should strive to continuously improve student achievement, research shows that charter schools are closing the achievement gap at a faster rate than traditional public schools.
The schools Dr. White identified as comparing favorably with Christel House Academy deserve much praise and recognition; however, many schools in IPS do not meet this standard. With high expectations of students, teachers, parents and administrators, and rigorous accountability, it is possible to produce excellent academic results in an inner-city environment with an at-risk population. All of our children deserve this, regardless of whether they attend a traditional or charter public school.
Carey Dahncke Principal,
Christel House Academy
posted by Christel House USA @
3:04 PM
