Greg Miller
My fellow charter operators, lend me your ear!!
I have been writing this column now since 2004. Just when I think that I have run out of things to say, another issue, idea, situation, or incident pops up to save my bacon. Today I want to talk about two of them. But before I do, let’s give a big ol’ shout-out to our Association and the great 2011 state conference they put on for us all.
We were at the last ASBCS meeting on 11/24 along with about 50 other interested parties, including ABC Channel 15’s “Investigative Reporters.” There were some dicey issues on the ASBCS’s agenda: renewals for four schools; Notice of Intent to Revoke a charter; 10% withholding for (a) 20 schools due to audits that were not submitted on time (one for the fifth straight year; Come on! Get a new auditor, and get it in on time!), (b) SPED compliance, and (c) fingerprinting documentation; a replication request; change in mission and transfer sponsor requests. Lots of good stuff!!
Two of the charters making renewal requests were required to make a lengthy presentation to the ASBCS to justify their renewal application. One of them was denied: Chester Newton Charter & Montessori School. The school had many serious issues, but one stood out like a laser beam: cheating on the AIMS tests!!
All of the 2011 testing results for Chester Newton were invalidated by ADE due to systemic administrative cheating on the students’ results: sitting high-achieving and struggling students together while not alternating the test document and asking them to work together on their tests; changing answers from wrong to right on finalized tests, etc. Ugly!!!! Now, just how would this have been handled in the district model? Well, for starters, the school would not have been closed. Instead the “educational professionals” would have gone through “professional development” training and everyone would have had their hand slapped! But in our world of accountability the owners lost their charter (as they should have) and are out of business (as they should be).
Any critic of charter schools and especially those of the “Wild West of Arizona’s charter schools” should take note: It is not easy to be renewed. Charter schools and operators are held accountable, and student academic achievement (both growth and performance) is the holy grail of our existence.
The second issue is the gathering storm over the Common Core Standards. Once considered the next major step in increasing student academic achievement, they are now under attack by the likes of the Goldwater Institute, the Pioneer Institute, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, the Cato Institute, the Brookings Institution, and a lot of academic and political policymakers across this country. In a counter-manifesto to the Shanker Manifesto, which supports the Common Core Standards, they outline their concerns – concerns that seem to coalesce around the following five points:
- There is neither a constitutional nor a statutory basis for national standards, assessments or curriculum.
- There is no consistent evidence that a national curriculum leads to high academic achievement.
- National standards, on which the Obama Administration is planning to base a national curriculum, are inadequate. One size does not fit all. (Sound familiar, charter operators?)
- There is no body of evidence for a “Best” design for curriculum sequences in any given subject area.
- There is no evidence to justify a single high school curriculum for all students.
The counter-manifesto concludes that “the Shanker Manifesto does not make a convincing case for a national curriculum. It manifests serious shortcomings in its discussion of curricular alignment and coherence, the quality of Common Core’s national standards, course sequence and design, academic content, student mobility, sensitivity to pluralism, constitutionality and legality, transparency and accountability, diverse pedagogical needs, and the absence of consensus on all these questions.
This has made me take a step back and take a second look at Arizona’s Education Reform program, based on the Common Core Standards, and will prompt me to ensure as we move forward that we don’t “Race to the Middle.” And we haven’t even talked about money yet. What is the cost going to be? Can we afford it? Is it going to achieve the results our children deserve? More than a few questions to still answer!
As always, be safe out there! And just what have you been doing for fun lately?
Greg Miller is CEO of Challenge Charter School, Inc., and is a member of the Arizona State Board of Education. Feedback? Contact Greg through the following email address: jkrygier@resolutions-esp.com. All emails – good and bad – will be forwarded on to him
