I put up a link to a video about the great turn around in the Locke High Charter School in Los Angeles yesterday.
I should have mentioned that this school is being run as a “Green Dot” school. Green Dot is a management organization similar to the KIPP Academy program. It is having great success in its charters in LA.
The reason I mention Green Dot is that when House Bill 176 was being discussed, Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday offered Green Dot as an example of the type of school management system that might be set up in Kentucky if that bill were enacted. You may recall that HB 176 was enacted, but with the glaring omission of any charter school provision.
Well, I called the folks at Green Dot at that time to see if they would be interested in working in Kentucky without having charter school legislation. Just like the KIPP organization (who I also called) you can forget seeing Green Dot managed schools in our state so long as we refuse to create the flexible structure of charter schools that both KIPP and Green Dot require.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Locke High Charter School – a footnote
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3 comments:
Be careful for what you wish for. Locke is in no measure a success in Los Angeles.
Hi Richard Innes. Actually, Locke High School's test scores went down after Green Dot took over. And almost all of Green Dot's other schools are very low-achieving too -- the very highest is still only so-so.
Green Dot gets great press, but only when the press doesn't check the achievement statistics. I would suggest that you and Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday do so before inviting them in to manage any schools, though.
Caroline, what a one-sided view.
Locke with Green Dot is only halfway through it's second year. It's not a typical charter school that takes only those that apply, it took the entire school and every kid in district attends Locke.
The first year they had 38% more kids take the state test at the end of the year. That should be considered a huge success.
Don't you think having those 38% take tests for the first time instead of chronically missing school would lower the average a little.
See http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/19/opinion/ed-locke19
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