CST Spring South

CST Southern Edition

CHARTER SCHOOLS TODAY

Spring 2009

www.charterschoolstoday.com

Closing the Achievement Gap Kinston Charter Academy

Rebuilding After Disaster

Lafayette Academy Charter School

Investing in Quality

Houston Gateway Academy THE MAG A ZINE FO R CH ARTER SCH O O L E X ECU TIVES

Editorial Editor in Chief: Alonzo Ellis

Managing Editor: Rebecca Czarnecki

Production Director: Hayley Gold

Contributing Editors: Dr. Tiffany Griffin

Project Directors: Eric Gunn Hanim Samara Todd Rodgers

Correspondents:

Shelley Seyler, Senior Staff Writer Holly Alexander Jim Barlow Jacqueline Bodnar Prem Desai Lauren Muscarella

Letter from the Editor Our country is witnessing a historic moment. While global leaders seek to aid the economy, charter school leaders are seeking to reform education in America. It is an exciting time for educators­; our new president, despite having inherited an economy that requires domestic and international tailoring, is elevating the importance of education and encouraging innovation in our nation’s schools.

Thanks to President Obama’s attention, education is in the midst of the discussion about how to move the country through the undeniable challenges it presently faces. Charter schools in particular are poised to have significant influence. The spring issue of Charter Schools Today delves into the successes of 7 charter schools within the South and the ideas and philosophies that help them reach their students. It will also highlight topical issues facing the movement as we begin a new era of our nation’s history.

All across the South, our journal looks to capture those sometimes fleeting moments that can leave indelible marks on our students.

Bull Run Media Executive Team Kalena Alston-Griffin, Partner Keyla Carr, Partner Alonzo Ellis, Partner

Publisher:

Kalena Alston-Griffin, Partner

Executive Editor: Keyla Carr, Partner

Design Department:

Sheryvonn McDonald, Senior Designer Julie Hudak, Graphic Designer Ashish Kansara Jay Vandewani

Operations

Karyn Dowty, Director of Operations Daniella Gonzales Kelly Matlock

Advertising Sales & Marketing Department:

Escambia Charter School in Florida focuses on the "whole person concept" and gives atrisk children a chance to rise to the occasion and achieve their very best.

Johnnie Forrest Lyles had a mission: to improve the educational system in Kinston, North Carolina for minority students. Kinston Charter Academy is working towards being an honor school and educates by giving students something to look forward to.

In Louisiana, Lafayette Academy Charter has reopened its doors after having been devastated by hurricane Katrina. It's success makes it stand out as a beacon of hope in the area.

We are excited to see the successful implementation of ground-breaking ideas serving students and out-growing the mold of traditional education. And yet, we know that many challenges remain; this edition addresses current issues in a discussion on how we can overcome these barriers.

From school expansion to unique learning curriculum and instruction, charter schools around the country are also listening. As a movement, we are listening and waiting to see how the new administration will re-draw education in America.

As we continue to monitor these developments, we hope you enjoy and share what we included in the pages of the spring edition of Charter Schools Today. We will continue to serve as a voice in these undefined times and we are elated to see innovative and improving trends for our students’ and our country’s future. ~CST

Bjorn Michals William Lee Yin

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Contents

Cover Story Investing in Quality Houston Gateway Academy When Houston Gateway Academy (HGA) was founded in August 1999 by a small group of state politicians and businessmen, little was known about charter schools and their intended design. A decade later, after growing pains and deep financial challenges, the Texas school, now offering Pre-kindergarten through 9th-grade, is on solid ground and about to move its middle school into new facilities.

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Spotlights 6

Dealing With the Financial Crisis in Your Classroom Learning how to make the most of what you have.

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Ipods in School-Turning Toys Into Tools Teaching with technology and making the most of it.

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Time Management Organize your time with the building blocks of productivity.

Op-Ed: American Education Is the dream slipping away?

Technology in Schools The back to school cell phone craze is booming.

Charter Schools Today

Spring 2009

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Facilities Financing Some tools for the never-ending challenge.

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Workplace Performance Improve your workers' productivity and reduce sick days.

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Regional Spotlight: New England An overview of New England charter schools.

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President Obama and Charters Looking at the president's stance on charters from what he said on the campaign trail to their inclusion in the stimulus.

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American Education in a Globalizing World How the American education system measures up to the rest of the world and the influence of charter schools.

Features South

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Giving Children a Chance to Be Their Very Best Escambia Charter School, FL

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Rebuilding After Disaster Lafayette Academy Charter School, LA

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Closing the Achievement Gap Kinston Charter Academy, NC

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Establishing Reading as an Academic Backbone St. Mary's Academy, TX

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Partnerships with Parents and the Community Gateway Charter Academy, TX

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Investing in Quality Houston Gateway Academy, TX

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Exposing Students to New Challenges Arlington Classics Academy, TX

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Spotlight: Your Charter as a Business Resolving employee morale issues so you can have a happier and more vibrant workplace.

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State Caps on Charter Schools Examining the argument for removing caps and the positive impact it would have on the charter school movement.

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Spotlight on Behavior Teaching anger management and emotional control to children.

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Spotlights

Dealing With the Financial Crisis in Your Classroom: Learning How to Make the Most of What You Have Almost every sector is affected by the economic crisis in one way or another, and the Education sector is no exception. Classrooms all over the country if not the world are being affected by budget cuts. Teaching materials are scarce, after school services are being eliminated, and layoffs are becoming inevitable. Do you have less teaching materials to use in your classroom?

Are your planned activities not as engaging as they used to be as a result?

Here are a few suggestions that will help bring back the enthusiasm and a full engagement from your students in your classroom again.

The most basic thing you can do is to recycle your old teaching materials.

For example, you can adapt materials that were used 2 or 3 years ago with your 5th grade class to plan activities for your current 7th grade class.

The next option is to literally raid your colleagues’ closets. Fellow teachers are a great resource for teaching materials. Teachers are known to keep all types of materials including decorative materials years after years. It is common knowledge that teachers have a hard of getting rid of their teaching materials hoping that such materials will be somehow reused in the future.

Teachers have always used their imagination and skills in their classroom.

Teacher-created materials as it is known are materials that teachers create to be used in their classrooms for specific lessons. The financial crisis and the challenges that it brings is a great opportunity for you to put your imagination to use. This is a great time to pull out your construction paper, scissors, markers, etc. Your imagination is the limit.

Finally, have you ever thought about swapping or selling your teaching materials? As mentioned above, most teachers have accumulated a lot of materials over the years that are either sitting in their closets or that they no longer have any use for. Do you have any used materials that other teachers can use in their classrooms? That activity book that you used 5 years ago with your New York City 3rd grade class can certainly be of use to a 3rd grade teacher in Kansas this fall. In return, you will gain access to materials needed for your current assignment. Swap it, sell it, and use it.

The economic crisis is inevitably affecting American classrooms. Budget cuts make teaching materials more and more scarce nowadays. In order to keep your lessons interesting to your students, you need to be very imaginative.

Recycle, create your own materials, swap or sell your old teaching materials.

About the Author: Gia Theodore is the founder of http://www.swapboards4teachers. com and Educationow. Educationow is a resource for educators, scholars, researchers, and others seeking to improve and raise the level of educational standards in the world.

Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/k-12-education-articles/dealingwith-the-financial-crisis-in-your-classroom-707931.html

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Charter Schools Today

Spring 2009

Ipods in SchoolTurning Toys Into Tools: Teaching With Technology Everywhere you go in the world today, you see people with iPods connected to them. Do you ever wonder what they are listening to?

Maybe you assume they have some crazy music pumping into their brain? What if they are listening to award-winning works of literature?

Reading is imperative to becoming a successful and productive citizen.

for students to hear and see words multiple times. Research tells us that effective fluency instruction begins with modeled reading. Audioassisted reading can provide unlimited practice for students, while silent independent reading alone has not shown to increase reading fluency. Finally, audio books create motivated readers.

Students who struggle with reading will struggle in most subject areas in school and in many avenues of life. Using audio books to improve reading fluency with all readers promotes success for students in most areas of life. Intervening early improves student achievement along with self-esteem.

There are at least four ways iPods in school increases student achievement and motivation; independent reading, shared or smallgroup reading, whole class listening, and lending out the audio books for home use.

Audio books are an excellent solution for teachers to use when attempting to instruct students of differing ability levels and with different learning challenges such as struggling, reluctant, below-grade readers, bilingual students, special needs children as well as those children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorders or Dyslexia.

The iPods in School program started at DeKeyser Elementary in early 2007 with 25 iPod Shuffles and some audio books. Children in second and third grades check out the book and the iPod for use outside of school. Students document whether they read along with the audio book, or just listen, and whether they discuss the book with their parent after listening. These books and iPods are in great demand within these two grade levels. The excitement for reading is immense and parents and children report pleasure in the project.

In addition to listening to books commonly found in the library, I would like to expand the program to include the textbooks from different classes and grade levels to help those students who need to either hear the text again, or are struggling to read it the first time.

Research (from Boston Public Schools) proves that audio books accelerate reading gains. Data shows that audio books can improve reading comprehension by 34% as it bridges the gap for students attempting to read text above their individual reading level. Listening to oral reading is also proven to help students acquire new vocabulary while stimulating vocabulary development by allowing opportunities

“Do you have any brand new audio books?” “Which one is your favorite?” “Have you listened to this one? It has a great person with lots of expression reading!” These are common questions from seven-, eight-, and nine-year old children engaged in our iPods in School program. In addition to improvement in reading scores and motivation for reading, seeing the eager children begging for iPods and audio books to check out of the library makes the program extremely worthwhile.

With the cost of the iPod Shuffle decreasing to just $49, this cost of implementing this program is not extreme. The benefits far outweigh the cost.

Excite your students and have them begging to listen to quality literature!

About the Author: Join Kathy and a group of educators dedicated to improving student learning through technology in the Mastermind Group of Educators http:// mastermindgroupofeducators.com for continued support, resources, book discounts and community in educational technology. Kathy Cothran is an elementary media specialist committed to helping teachers engage students through the uses of technology. Her vast teaching experience ranges from preschool through Master’s level education classes. For years Kathy has been a “Gadget Girl.” She loves technology! Tie that to her extensive teaching background and she has been able to interest, invigorate, and inspire children and teachers to use technology in a rich, exciting manner.

Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/k-12-education-articles/ipods-inschool-turning-toys-into-tools-teaching-with-technology-727107.html

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Spotlights

Time Management Organize Your Time with the Building Blocks of Productivity An effective daily schedule can be constructed with three types of blocks.

Structuring each day starts with locating a space for large block, followed by several medium blocks of grouped activities. How much you can pile on (your productivity) each day depends on how well you organize your time.

productive when you can focus on one type of task rather than switching back and forth among assorted tasks. Constant multi-tasking slows you down. Activities that can be grouped include returning non-urgent telephone calls, processing your email inbox, filing, and reading.

What lessons you can learn from small children! One day I was watching two youngsters, ages 3 and 5, playing with “bricks” constructed out of heavy cardboard. The brick blocks came in three sizes: a 10” x 16” rectangle, a 10” square, and the standard 3” x 10” brick size. Over time they spent hours creating structures. At the beginning there was no understanding of larger pieces providing a stronger foundation for the smaller pieces and so things would come tumbling down without using all of the bricks. With lots of trial and error the children discovered that if they started with the biggest size, they were more likely to be able to use all of the bricks.

The length of this session depends on the work. If you average about five phone calls at a time, you may only need to block out ten to fifteen minutes. With email, you might need to spend thirty minutes at a time.

Any of these can be repeated during the day. For instance, you might quickly check your email first thing in the morning for ten minutes to handle urgent issues, then spend thirty minutes before lunch and thirty minutes again later in the afternoon. Stick to the amount of time that you have originally allotted rather than letting it trail on. That will keep you focused on the task at hand and will increase your productivity.

Move what you do not complete to the next block of time.

An effective daily schedule can also be constructed with three types of blocks. How much you can pile on (your productivity) each day depends on how well you organize your time.

Large Blocks - Your Day’s Foundation Make your day’s foundation an uninterrupted block of time when you can focus on difficult, involved projects. The ideal length is an hour and a half, approximately twenty percent of an eight-hour day. If you cannot possibly find that length of time, try for an hour. Even with 45 minutes of uninterrupted time you can get a significant amount of work completed because you are not requiring twenty additional minutes after each interruption to get back into the “flow.” As you develop this routine, aim for the hour and a half each day.

During this time, do not answer every phone call. Turn off your general email alerts. If you want to ensure that a certain person or message gets through immediately, set up your software rules to notify you of that specific message. When you can block twenty percent of your time, you will accomplish about eighty percent of your work for the day.

You recognize instinctively that having uninterrupted time is effective when you arrive at work an hour early or stay for a couple of extra hours at the end of a day, knowing you will get so much done in that quiet time. Why not become more productive by including that quiet time within your day instead of adding extra hours in order to get the same amount of work done?

Medium Blocks (Grouping Blocks) -- Multi-Tasking Isn’t Always The Best Option Group as many like activities as possible since you are four times more

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Charter Schools Today

Spring 2009

Small Blocks - The New Items and Lower Priority Tasks To Be Handles New items and lower priority tasks can be worked on between the other blocks. These might include requests for help from a colleague, quick answers to questions, filling out forms, and other project components that did not fit into your major blocks, but that you still have time to work on.

Structuring each day starts with locating a space for that large block, followed by several medium blocks of grouped activities. Small blocks are then added. If you do the reverse, which means coming in to work and clearing out the small items before you find a time for the most important work, you may wrap up the day without handling your priorities.

Why spend extra hours in the evenings on work that you could have fit into the day with the right construction of your schedule?

About the Author: As a productivity trainer, organizing specialist, and owner of Key Organization Systems, Inc., Denise Landers has spent years speaking, training, consulting, and coaching on the topics of time management and effective workflow. If you’d like to attend an organizing seminar but do not have the time, Landers now provides you with the full benefits of corporate training in managing time, paper, and email while listening at your own convenience. Get The Productivity Series at: http://www.keyorganization.com/cds.asp Article Source: www.businesshighlight.org

Op-Ed: American Education Is the Dream Slipping Away?

The American Dream is also slipping in the K-12 systems throughout the country. Too few students are prepared to function in a world that is filled with computer technology. Students need exposure to technology early. Some say that analyzing the changes in the American Dream by looking at elementary school is not appropriate. The country needs to take a long term look at how each citizen is prepared for future employment demands. The types of jobs that K-12 students must fill will require different types of abilities which must be an integral part of their current education.

There is a sea of changes happening in the financial markets that provided families with funding to pay for K-12 education and college.

Individuals who have a decent income are finding it more difficult to obtain a loan with a good interest rate. It is putting a greater pressure on families to save more money. Unfortunately, saving money can be difficult when a couple is living in a major city. The inability to obtain fair interest rates may force students to take out loans with higher interest rates that will last 30 years.

People all over the world still come to the United States with the expectation of the American dream. The dream that they can start new lives and have greater freedom continues to draw them to this country. They understand that having access to education will increase their children’s employability. It’s important that the country uses the talents of every citizen that is here. America needs to prepare for an increasing diversity in the workforce of the 21st century.

There was a time when each American generation thought that the next generation would do better than themselves. A good college education would lead to employment in a company for thirty years. The dream of an American education is slipping away due to the rising cost of post-secondary education. Now it seems that a college education does not guarantee sufficient income. Some college graduates are returning home because they cannot afford student loans and the cost of living.

Students who have to work to pay for college are finding it difficult to keep pace with the cost of living. It is not uncommon to have a book cost $100.00 or more. Students do not get much in return for selling their book back to the bookstore. The cost of room and board is rising steadily as the price for food, electric and gas continue to increase.

The recent changes in minimum wage also lag behind the typical living expenses. Students are facing financial challenges outside of the classroom that are causing them to sit out for a semester or two.

The American Dream is what the citizens make it. It takes everyone working together toward a common cause. Some K-12 schools and colleges are enduring difficult times keeping up with the rapid changes in society. Students are using the internet to communicate their changing perceptions of America’s commitment to their dreams and desires. They realize the amount of debt that they will accrue to pay for college. Some students are asking is it worth getting a college degree if they cannot get a basic job after graduation. America must rethink how it will invest in providing every student who wants to experience a college education with the financial aid resources to do it.

About Dr. Stephen Jones: For twenty-six years, Dr. Jones has delivered presentations on numerous topics including how to study, leadership, effective communication, and innovative management practices. He is the author of two books one is titled “Seven Secrets of How to Study” and the second is the “Parent’s Ultimate Education Guide.” The book provides an easy understanding of the seven pillars that are essential to learning effective study techniques. His URL is http://www.sevenbooks.net.

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Spotlights

Technology in Schools The Back to School Cell Phone Craze is Booming When students and parents start their shopping list for the new school year one item on the top of their list is a cell phone.

How times have changed. The idea of searching for paper and pencils is taking a back seat to modern technology. The cell phone companies have caught on and they are releasing so many new cell phones each month that it is hard for anyone to catch up. Cell phones have reached epidemic proportions throughout American society.

You cannot go to a city or countryside road without finding someone who is using a cell phone.

A growing phenomenon among parents and students is text messaging. The ringing of the phone has been silenced by the tapping of alphabetic keys. Messages between cell phones can be transferred instantaneously.

Students are using text messaging to respond to each other and to communicate with their parents. Abbreviations are often used when text messages are sent. It represents a form of communication that has broad implications

for society. Text messaging can take up time that a student would normally spend studying. At the same time students can send a reminder that a homework assignment is due. It has become a two edged sword that allows parents to pick up a child from football practice or to plan a trip to a movie.

Communicating fast has become an even faster way of keeping parents in touch with their student. Parents realize that when their son/daughter goes back to school putting down the cell phone to focus will require real discipline. Students are too easily disrupted by the buzz of their cell phones. The speed at which a student communicates can cause a chain reaction of positive or negative results for a student who has a test on the next day. Peer pressure can even occur when one student yields to the temptation to respond to a cell phone call rather than study.

Communication by way of the cell phone is here to stay. School districts are forced to come up with strong statements about

when the cell phone may be used during the school day. Students try to find creative ways to ignore the rules. Parents are frustrated when they must go to school to retrieve their son/daughters cell phone. Learning by way of the cell phone has been a challenge for most schools. Cell phone use is not easily incorporated into class instruction like an actual computer. Some professionals have found ways to download papers to the cell phone and read them while they are traveling but this is not a priority for students.

Some students are using their cell phones to discuss assignments and presentations they are giving. Students can save some of the major points of their presentation on their cell phone. Students can send a reminder that a quiz is occurring tomorrow to a friend.

Messages like it’s time to get prepared. Some students put reminders in their cell phone and the phone makes a funny noise to remind them to start preparation for a major test. The calendar can also be used as a way to manage time.

During the twenty first century technology will continue to influence the back to school journey. Schools that use laptop computers to educate students are already springing up all over the country. Cell phones do offer news, television and the internet but most students do not have access to these services.

Moving forward bringing the cost down and increasing the services will make the versatility of the cell phone a total learning experience. It is apparent that going back to school will never be the same.

About Dr. Stephen Jones: For twenty years, Dr. Jones has delivered presentations on topics including how to study, leadership, effective communication, and innovative education practices. Working with students has enabled Dr. Jones to have a complete understanding of the challenges their facing http://www.sevenbooks.net.

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Spring 2009

Facilities Financing Some Tools for the Never-Ending Challenge Written by Holly Alexander Facilities are almost always a challenge for charter schools. A high proportion are required to lease rather than own facilities, and funding is highly competitive. In addition, many districts provide little or no facilities funding to their public charter schools, so many charters need to pull some of their facilities money from per-pupil operating funds, and raise additional dollars from foundations or other sources. The unfortunate reality is that per-pupil operating funds for charter schools are almost always lower than those for traditional public schools in their districts. Currently, charter schools receive per-pupil operating funds at an average of only 73 percent of the amount given to traditional public schools in the same districts.

Only a handful of states have provided perpupil facilities funding to public charter schools, though 26 states provide some state aid, such as the use of vacant school district buildings, while 14 states provide no facilities assistance of any kind for charters.

However, there are some bright spots in government funding and private sector partnerships and resources.

Several types of opportunities for school funding in the new economic stimulus plan, officially the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), signed by President Barack Obama on March 6, are of interest.

The bill first addresses the fact that there are major funding problems on all fronts as states and communities, which must operate with balanced budgets, have begun slashing education funds. The bill allots $48 billion for general education spending to state and local governments. It requires that 81.8 percent of that be used to restore recent cuts, including higher education. This may be especially important to charter schools since they already need to stretch their per-pupil funds so far.

The remaining 18.2 percent of the funding may be used to support instruction, although it can also go to other state and local needs, including modernizing schools. The report accompanying the bill recognizes charter schools as beneficiaries of the funding, so they can’t be overlooked when distributing the funding; however, it doesn’t mandate any funding, either.

Governors have been able to request ARRA funding since April 1. For the discretionary money as well as other parts of the act directed toward school facilities funding, projects that are ready to go have a significant advantage, since the goal is to stimulate the economy as quickly as possible and monies must be spent

by December 31, 2010.

Some states and communities say they may prefer to spend the unrestricted portion of the stimulus money on facilities or technology upgrades rather than operating costs, because

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Spotlights

they don’t want to increase general school funding that they won’t be able to continue after 2010.

The ARRA also offers several tax programs that can benefit public charter schools, including $1.4 billion in new funding to Qualified Zone Academy Bonds, $22 billion for a school construction bond program, $10 billion to the New Markets Tax Credit Program and $25 billion in Recovery Zone Bonds, all of which might be tapped for school facilities.

These are all bond programs, not grants. They generally require a package of funding through community development agencies, who in turn work with banks and other financial institutions to issue, sell and manage the bond issues. Foundation and other grants may be combined with these funds.

Administered by the U.S. Department of Education, the Qualified Zone Academy Bonds is a revival of a federal program funded in 1999 - 2004, and can only be used for schools.

It may not be used for new construction, but can underwrite renovating school buildings, purchasing equipment, developing curricula and/or training school personnel.

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The newly authorized school construction bonds will provide $22 billion, $11 billion in 2009 and the remaining $11 billion next year.

They, along with other public-entity bonds, use a new structure with a mix of traditional non-taxable bonds and taxable bonds offering above-average returns. The bond money will be distributed to states, the 100 “large local education agencies” recognized by the federal government, and to Native American tribes based on the number of people aged 5 to 18 in their populations.

Charter schools have built facilities with funding assistance from the New Markets Tax Credits Program since its inception in 2002.

Directed to building projects in low-income communities, most of the funding goes to housing, but community and business projects can be funded, too.

One such project is $14 million to refinance facility debt for the Thurgood Marshall Public Charter School in Washington, D.C., put together by City First Bank. The school says the bonds will save $50,000 per year, with a total value of $5.5 million, and allow it to begin spending all donor money on education for the first time in its history. The high school’s new building, completed in January, includes

13 classrooms, three science labs, a library and media center, and a moot courtroom. January was a great month – Thurgood Marshall was also named the most-improved school in D.C.

by Business Week magazine and the Council of Great City Schools.

City First Bank put together a similar package for the E.L. Haynes Public Charter School, also in D.C., which allowed it to purchase property and build a new 46,000-square-foot building to serve 468 K - 8 students. The new $21 million facility opened in 2008. In addition to two classrooms for each grade, the building has a large cafeteria/auditorium space, regulationsize gym, a state-of-the-art science laboratory, and both art and music rooms.

View Park Preparatory Accelerated Charter Schools in the Crenshaw area of South Los Angeles were the first to be financed by the Los Angeles Charter School New Markets (LACSNM) fund. View Park’s latest funding award is for its high school, which will build a new, three-story, 19,000 square-foot building, including 12 regular classrooms plus one for performing arts, a college center, administrative offices, a cafeteria, storage areas and underground parking. View Park is one of a number of Inner City Education Foundation

Public Schools (ICEF) in Los Angeles.

Another of its partners is the New Schools Venture Fund, which raises venture capital for projects focused on low-income and minority children in urban communities, and has put together funding packages for both individual and groups of charter schools across the nation.

The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, dedicated to improving urban education, has been another contributor, and donated to many more charter schools organizations, including the California Charter Schools Association, Green Dot Public Schools in Los Angeles (which opened a school in New York in 2008), Aspire Public Schools in Oakland, California, and YES Prep Public Schools in Houston, Texas.

California, the District of Columbia, Minnesota and Utah are generally far ahead of other states in funding charter school buildings because they were originally the only states eligible for a federal program called the State Charter Schools Facilities Incentive Grants Program, which awarded five-year grants in 2004, but was never funded again. Funding

was limited to the states and the District that provided state per-pupil funding for charter schools, and they were the only four that did so.

While it isn’t part of the stimulus bill, it should also be noted that some of the most significant funding for charter school facilities to date was provided by a federal grant program titled the Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities, which has assisted a much broader group of charter schools since 2002. Grant funds are used to help charter schools improve their credit rating, which in turn help them borrow and leverage money for facilities.

In 2008, credit enhancement funds went to Civic Builders, Inc., which received $8.3 million to help build and renovate charter schools in New York and New Jersey. In 2007, $36.5 million in funding went to Housing Partnership Inc. in Boston, the Illinois Facilities Fund, the Low Income Investment Fund in San Francisco and the Michigan Public Educational Facilities Authority.

Previous enhancement fund winners were America’s Charter (now part of Building Hope), Center for Community Self-Help,

Charter Schools Development Corporation, Community Loan Fund of New Jersey, Inc., Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Raza Development Fund and Reinvestment Fund.

These and other organizations and businesses interested in charter schools are developing additional facilities resources for charter schools. Individual businesses have also helped charter school facility needs with resources including donated faculties, low-cost leases for buildings and direct grants to a school’s capital campaign. Some businesses have provided loans, or loan guarantees similar to the federal credit enhancement program.

The fourth bond program in the stimulus bill, Recovery Zones Bonds, will be awarded to states based on their decrease in employment as compared to the national rate. Each state will be required to allocate money to counties and municipalities with populations of 100,000 or more, based on how much their decrease in employment exceeds the state average. These bonds may be used for whatever economic recovery priorities the state, county or municipality may choose.

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Workplace Performance Improve Your Workers' Productivity and Reduce Sick Days Have you asked your employees what their New Year’s Resolution is?

If the answers are similar to my informal survey this year, chances are that around 25% of your employees want to lose some weight and get into shape this year. Obviously, it is in your company’s best interests for them to achieve their health goal because their improved health will generally translate to improved efficiency and less sick days off.

So what is your company doing to support the health goals of your employees?

To support the health objectives of your work colleagues the human resources manager just needs to get in touch with the staff and find out what their health goals are. You can do this in casual conversation or in a staff memo or email.

Have a follow up conversation with the work colleagues who do want to get into shape and ask them how your company could help them achieve their goal.

At the suggestion of this, some human resource managers defensively reply, “We already provide discounted gym memberships and health insurance.”

But is this what your work colleagues want?

Low participation rates in many so called Corporate Wellness programs seem to suggest that many corporate wellness programs are not so interested in improving the health of their work force. For one, the large majority of companies do not even measure the fitness or health of their staff. It would be easy to conclude that it is a greater priority for the company to be seen to be supporting the health of the work force than delivering actual results.

But how can you measure health results of your employees?

I suggest three ways to measure results...

The first is to have an annual physical. This could include a standard blood test (by a wellness-based doctor), fitness test (at the local gym with a trainer) and a postural assessment/spinal screening (by a chiropractor).

I recommend a doctor with training in wellness and prevention to do and interpret the blood test because they often request a more thorough blood analysis of certain biomarkers of health rather than the standard cholesterol and blood sugar levels.

It is important to monitor your fitness levels because it is a reliable indicator of how well workers will be able to maintain your energy at work. There are a variety of fitness tests that can be performed. When I studied exercise physiology at the University of Adelaide, we compared different fitness tests that estimated your fitness level (Your VO2 max) to the actual accurate measurement of your fitness (VO2 max). The problem is that this test requires you to exercise to exhaustion while being connected to all sorts of machines and monitors.

We found that different fitness tests were not an accurate measure of your actual fitness but we did find that if you continue to do the same fitness test over time, the results are an accurate indication of your fitness progress. So when you measure your fitness with these tests that

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estimate your fitness, don’t worry what fitness level it says that you are.

Just use the results to monitor your progress and beat your previous result.

Getting a spinal screening and postural evaluation is one of the most important things to get measured because aches, pains and injuries are one of the most costly ailments for business. It is essential that these evaluations are performed by a chiropractor because they are the best trained in detecting potential weak spots and imbalances that can cause injury in the future.

Many companies and schools have had nurses or physical therapists do a spinal check by getting them to bend forward and that’s it. Because their training is more on rehabilitating injuries than prevention, using such professionals has resulted in failing to prevent so many injuries that have been waiting to happen.

Since back pain is one of the biggest costs to business you want to be checked by the profession that has the best record in dealing with back pain.

Secondly you should ask your employee to rate their health. I can recall many years ago that an article published in a major medical journal shocked the medical profession. The study concluded that doctors should actually listen to what the patients were saying because if you asked the patients how they were, typically their answers were quite accurate.

You just need to ask your team to rate their health on a scale of 0 -100.

Then ask them what needs to happen to their health in order to get them their score to 100. This presents the perfect opportunity to ask how your company can support them in this goal.

Thirdly you should monitor their lifestyle with a simple lifestyle evaluation form. That way you can identify potentially harmful lifestyle habits and direct them to healthier alternatives and advice.

With many people making New Year resolutions to get into shape, the start of the New Year is the ideal time to assist your employees with their health goals because they are often more motivated at that time.

In reality you can start any time.

The fact that you even ask your employees about their health and are interested in their health shows your employees that the company cares about them. Not only will this help the health of your employees and confer productivity benefits to your company, the fact that your company shows that you care will create loyalty and produce work productivity benefits on their own.

About the Author: Dr. Paul Lanthois is the director of The Work Life Balance Foundation, www.WorkLifeBalanceFoundation.com, that develops personalized health improvement strategies for company employees that result in greater productivity, energy, stress relief and less days absent through illness.

Article Source: http://human-resources-mgt bestmanagementarticles.com

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Spotlights

Regional Spotlight: New England An Overview of New England Charter Schools Written by Lauren Muscarella In late February 2009 during an address to a Joint Session of Congress, President Barack Obama said, “We know that our schools don’t just need more resources. They need more reform. That is why this budget creates new incentives for teacher performance, pathways for advancement, and rewards for success. We’ll invest in innovative programs that are already helping schools meet high standards and close achievement gaps, and we will expand our commitment to charter schools.”

16 | Charter Schools Today

Spring 2009

Obama has consistently urged states to lift limits on charter schools and some have been more responsive than others. New England’s six states, though close in proximity, have varying levels of engagement on the issue of charter schools.

Currently, state law caps charter school enrollment in individual communities. Rep. Eugene O’Flaherty D-Mass., and Sen. Jack Hart D-Mass. both filed legislation that would lift the cap and allow more charter schools to open in high-need communities.

In Massachusetts, a state that boasts 63 active charter schools, some legislators see charter schools serving the inner-city, low-income, minority students and want to encourage more of the same. Others fervently disagree.

Another piece of legislation introduced by Rep. Karyn Polito, R-Mass., would change how charter schools in Massachusetts are funded. According to the Massachusetts Association for Public Charter Schools

(MAPCS), the proposal would shift onehalf of charter public schools’ funding out of the Chapter 70 formula and into a separate budget line-item, exposing half of charter school funding to annual attacks by the teachers union, superintendents and school committees.

Taking this course of action would be a sharp deviation from Massachusetts’ consistent generosity and support of charter schools.

The state currently sends money back to the districts after students leave. Replenishing the funding is a sign that Massachusetts recognizes there are fixed costs and gives those districts time to adjust their budgets or back fill seats, in which case they don’t lose state aid.

Its neighbor, New Hampshire, a state with 12 active charter schools, has been confronted by similar legislation. Recently, the House passed an amendment that would jeopardize the state’s public charter school program if it was made into law. According to the New Hampshire Center for Innovative Schools (NHCIS), the amendment limits start up funding, adds redundancy to the approval process to become a charter and extends the moratorium on state-approved charter schools for two additional years to June 2011. This amendment would harm New Hampshire’s ability to compete for federal start up grants by showing a lack of support for charter schools and further confusing or micro managing the state’s charter school law.

The NHCIS released this statement after the amendment passed, “At a time when New Hampshire is taking positive steps to streamline charter school authorization encourage local authorization and applying for potentially millions of dollars in federal aid, this amendment is unnecessary, adds another layer of bureaucracy and can be harmful to the public charter school program in New Hampshire.”

While debates heat up in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont do not have any active charter schools.

With tough economic times prevailing, many public schools are losing funding and shutting down. Educators see these closings as an opportunity to open charter schools to curb high school dropout rates that have run rampant, in Maine especially.

While Vermonters have been somewhat

divided on the issue, charter schools have garnered substantial support over the past few years in Maine. Maine is currently in the planning stages and will soon submit a bill modeled after the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) in Washington, D.C., to finally bring charter schools to the state. According to the Maine Association for Charter Schools, MACS, the bill will “seek to expand learning opportunities for disengaged students who are underserved by the current system,” turn failing public schools into charter schools, provide teachers with an active role and voice in students’ academic goals, grant eligibility for funding from the Federal Charter School Grant Program, FCSGP, and allow Maine to accept students from out-of-state on a space-available basis while charging them tuition.

The outcome from the varying degree of advocacy for charter schools can only be measured in time. There are, however, several studies being conducted in states that show the benefit of charter schools, especially for those in areas of distress. The Massachusetts Charter Public School Association (MCPSA) is engaged in a federally-funded, three-year endeavor called Keeping the

Promise: the Massachusetts Charter School Dissemination and Replication Project (KTP). Through KTP, MCPSA studied five high-performing urban schools, documented their keys to success, produced papers, a book, and a film, and offered study tours. The goal was documentation, dissemination, and replication of critical and common practices in high-performing urban charter schools.

The results showed improved retention rates and standardized test scores, two of the several reasons many educators continue to support charter school expansion.

In some states expansion has been stunted by a resounding lack of support. Both Connecticut and Rhode Island, each with less than 20 active charter schools, have hit a similar wall of issues as their geographic counterparts regarding funding and legislation.

Despite these challenges there have been measurable successes. Many educators support charter schools because they are run by independent boards, make skillful use of longer school days and enhance curricula.

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Escambia Charter School Giving Children a Chance to Be Their Very Best Produced by Eric Gunn & Written by Shelley Seyler Founded in 1996, Escambia Charter School is the first charter high school in the state of Florida and can be found in the town of Cantonment. The school is run by Principal Jerome Chisolm who is motivated by a very important belief. “I believe in giving kids the opportunity to become their own best selves.”

Rooted in this belief, Jerome knows he had a lot of love and support that allowed him to have the ability and desire to give back.

Not sure he wanted to become involved with education, he was in the Army for 20 years and eventually decided “it was my calling to give back.” Coming from a family of educators, Jerome knows what it takes to instill an effective education program and is an advocate of the “whole person concept.”

Motivated by the needs of at-risk youth, Escambia Charter’s student body is diverse in many respects. Students often face challenges beyond their years. Some have recently been uprooted, some are living with extended families, and some even have kids of their own. Working until midnight or one o’clock in the morning is a challenge for anyone but is especially so for those students who have to get up at four thirty to get to school on time.

Because Escambia Charter services students from all surrounding areas of Escambia County, many have to travel great distances to attend; but this doesn’t stop them.

Programs that Elevate The importance of the high school years truly can’t be exaggerated. They are defining whether one attends a private school in a wealthy neighborhood or struggles to pass the necessary tests required to graduate.

“All kids have the ability to learn but some don’t learn at the same pace that everyone else does. The landscape of education changes a lot because there are many external factors that we have to solve,” explained Jerome.

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With a budget of $850,000, the school serves the needs of 130 students with 13 staff, six of whom are instructional. Placing a special focus on community service, the school won the regional award “Make a Difference Day for Florida” in 2000. Though these programs are not mandatory, students benefit from them. “A lot of these kids could use the assistance themselves but they are very giving,” said Jerome.

Most recently, the school completed a clothing drive for Waterfront Mission, a homeless shelter. The students collected, sorted, and packaged the clothes for delivery to the Mission. Escambia Charter tries to have at least one major volunteer event a year.

“Any teacher here becomes a therapy parent. We have to deliver passion and obedience. We have to motivate these kids." ~Jerome Chisolm

More Than a Test Working with at-risk students means that programs like No Child Left Behind does not apply as it does for other schools.

“Any teacher here becomes a therapy parent.

We have to deliver passion and obedience.

We have to motivate these kids. When you look at at-risk charter schools, they do a lot more than regular school,” explained Jerome.

“Realistically, NCLB should not apply to these kids who have been left behind.”

This lack of applicability also relates to NCLB’s yearly progress formula. Many students come in three or four years behind,

so motivating them to learn is the first challenge we face. Escambia Charter recently performed seven percent higher in math, with 45 percent passing and 64 percent passing the writing test. Compared to the rest of the state, Jerome admits, “these numbers are small.” However, Escambia Charter is not like other regular public schools.

“I think the Department of Education needs to develop other accountability factors when evaluating schools that work with these kids.

Standards should not be the same as for regular public schools.”

Progress is tangible, despite these grave challenges. Escambia Charter graduates are proving the skills of the school’s administrators and teachers. One student who came to class and sat in the corner performed noticeably well on placement tests.

The school had him take college placement tests and the ACT. This student received a Bright Future’s Scholarship. He is currently enrolled in Pensacola Junior College and will attend the University of West Florida (UWF) this fall. Another student recently

received the magna cum laude honors from the UWF and is now attending a program at the University of South Alabama to become a physician’s assistant.

On Discipline and Parental Involvement Discipline is also an important tenet of Escambia Charter’s approach and is embodied in what Jerome calls “Character Building.” Teaching students that there are consequences if they do not manage their time well. Tardiness is responded to with required after-school work details such as raking or mowing the lawn.

The philosophy is, “if you don’t manage your time wisely, someone will manage your time for you,” said Jerome.

The importance of parental involvement is not over looked, but is especially difficult with many parents working long hours and therefore unable to be involved in their students’ lives.

Escambia Charter does have some “loyal folks,” however, and the students often put on programs to foster increased involvement.

Educational systems vary state-to-state and county-to-county. Unfortunately, the reality for some is nearly as grim as the economy. “The only place we can go is up. The educational landscape has changed so much. We are very diverse. We have to bring back some vocational training, interaction, and exciting hands-on education for those who don’t want to go to college,” recommended Jerome.

Though the economy may slow some future plans for Escambia Charter, Jerome hopes to be in a brand-new facility within the next five years. The school is also working hard to build their alumni base.

It remains an unfortunate reality that many students face challenges harder than others, pushing the importance of school far from their minds. Escambia Charter staff walks the delicate balance of discipline and acting as surrogate parents. With students attending school and improving their abilities, Escambia Charter is proving that this is more than possible.

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Lafayette Academy Charter School Rebuilding After Disaster Produced by Eric Gunn & Written by Jim Barlow Head of school Mickey Landry took over New Orleans’ Lafayette Academy in July 2007 just after the failing school had reopened as a charter school in 2006-2007. “It was terrible,” he says. “They had very low teacher morale. In the year before my arrival the school had lost 20 out of 50 teachers before Christmas. The tiles on the floor were gone. The place was filthy - you could smell the human waste on the floors of the hallways. The toilets hadn’t been flushed much less cleaned. There were 324 window missing window panes. It was a wreck but I knew they had a core group of great people at the school and that we could build the school around them.”

“I see the pain that my children are going through the level of transience they experience because they have to move a lot, the lack of resources they have in the city right now. We just try to help any way we can.” ~Mickey Landry

Since taking over from a for-profit company in 2007, Landry and his 92 staff have used their $9 million budget to significantly improve conditions for the 750 students in pre-K to seventh grade. “We’ve come along way. The building looks magnificent.

Everyone who comes in it thinks it’s just the brightest cheeriest place. But we have a long way to go - our kids can do a lot more and we want to get there as quickly as we can.”

Landry returned to New Orleans, where he grew up, after several years heading independent schools in New Hampshire and Colorado. “I saw post-Katrina New Orleans and wanted to do something for it,” he says of his return. And he has implemented a unique approach to teaching.

“From my own experience of running schools that were failing and had to be turned around, the key element is getting all of the adults pulling in the same direction. It either happens or it doesn’t happen with individual teachers. My experience is that a school is going nowhere unless all the adults are on the same page.” They

20 | Charter Schools Today

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have an extensive professional development program, with weekly meetings and consultants to work with teachers Lafayette also has a wide-ranging teaching technique: “We’re using what we call a total instructional alignment approach by which our teachers focus very carefully on state standards; we assess frequently, and use that data to re-teach standards that were not learned well or to plan for the next standards that our kids need to know. We use a lot of guided practice with immediate coaching feedback - that’s very important.”

Standardized tests for students don’t have a big impact on the curriculum.

But No Child Left Behind’s highly qualified teacher’s stipulations and AYP measure are stifling. ‘I think a lot of teachers find it very confining and very humiliating that their profession has been reduced to a test score and that’s got to change,” says Landry. “The 22 years prior to my returning to NO I ran independent schools around the country,” he explains. “There are no restrictions there, and we were able to get the best teachers we could find, no matter what--people who had a depth of knowledge of the subject matter and who we could train to teach the way we want to teach. Those are the types of schools that are leading the United States in terms of test scores and almost everything else. That’s the model I’m used to and that’s what I would prefer because we just found better teachers that way.”

The school sticks to an intensive counseling program for misconduct,

South with social workers on campus. They also support parents and families if needed and have a special positive behavior reward scheme. “The one the kids would tell you about first is something called Superstore. Kids can earn super tickets to spend in the super store once a week and buy things that are donated to us - everything from trinkets to iPods. They can earn those with good behavior and good academic work.”

If suspensions are required, they’re in school and have a counseling element. Expulsions come after a hearing and with help for families just one of the outreach projects the school runs. “Our social workers and administrators will visit homes. We have a lot of meetings and open

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Spring 2009

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South houses, literacy nights and math nights, things like that. One of the most powerful things we do is a health fair for the community by which lots of the social work and mental health agencies came on campus and the whole community comes.”

“Mostly,” adds Landry, “we’ve just been hunkering down and trying to get the fundamentals of a well functioning school together. But they have found time to get a pen-pal program for 5th graders going with a school in California. Students from that school came to visit this year, and they hope to raise the money to send Lafayette kids to the west coast next year.

For the moment, around $500,000 has been spent on renovations.

They’re consulting with architects and contractors and hope to take plans, including a new gymnasium, to the state for private public partnership funding. “In five years’ time we’ll be pretty close to a 90, 90, 90 school and still a happy productive welcoming place for students and the community,” says Landry. “I think our community relations program will be developed better by then - there’ll be a kind of blurring of the lines between the community and the school.

What keeps him awake at night at the moment though, is a postHurricane New Orleans. “I see the pain that my children are going through.” he says. “The level of transience they experience because they have to move a lot, the lack of resources they have in the city right now.

We just try to help any way we can.”

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Spring 2009

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Kinston Charter Academy Closing the Achievement Gap Produced by Eric Gunn & Written by Shelley Seyler Johnnie Forrest Lyles had a mission: to improve the educational system in Kinston, North Carolina for minority students.

As a member of the Lenoir County board of education, Johnnie saw the achievement gap affecting minority students, particularly the African American and Hispanic populations, and was concerned that these students were not getting a proper education. With progressive ideas on how to best improve this, Johnnie ran into opposition and realized he would be able to accomplish more on his own.

“He felt he could do a better job so he went out and organized people, put together a plan for a charter school, and did it,” said Ozie Hall, Principal of Kinston Charter Academy.

Kinston Charter Academy was founded in 2003 and today has an annual budget of $2.5 million with 360 students, 45 staff members,

and an average class size of 18.

In its first few years, Kinston Charter operated on a 200-day school year. When the school ran into some financial troubles, Ozie was brought in to assess the situation and help enact the change Kinston desperately needed. One of the biggest alterations involved transitioning from their 200-day school year to a 180-day school year with each day extended by 45 minutes. This gave the school 22 extra days while still decreasing the costs to the school.

The Best Kind of Improvement “Charter schools may appear to under perform state or local district public schools but when you control for economic disadvantage, the numbers for charter schools outperform the same population,” explained Ozie.

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Kinston Charter Academy not only aims to improve the achievement gap for minority students but also sets this bar high: they want their students to be performing in the 95th percentile. “We want to be an honor school,” stated Ozie.

engaged with their education. One of these is cultural responsive teaching to inspire and motivate the students to learn. Culturally responsive teachers respect all students’ cultural, racial and linguistic backgrounds and use these backgrounds to inspire learning. Kinston also uses multiple intelligences theory which recognizes that each student has different strengths. Teachers then cater to the varying learning styles to reach each individual.

With Kinston’s student body being comprised of 90 percent Title I students, their performance consistently comes out on top of other local schools on “We try to do things regularly to encourstandardized tests when the same groups of students are compared. age students and give them something One example of these numerous to look forward to. We want all of our performances is their fourth-grade students to be greater than 95 percent; to reading score of 75 percent with be at or above their grade level."

64, 68.3, and 63 as the scores for their competition.

~Ozie

Where the Credit Belongs

Attributing this performance in part to their more efficient use of time, Kinston Charter’s teachers, instruction methods, and board of directors also deserve recognition.

“We have targeted instruction and remediation with individual students to focus on things they didn’t get,” explained Ozie.

The school also employs various methods to keep students

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Spring 2009

Kinston’s teachers and board of directors also play an intrinsic role in improving the school’s performance.

“We have a committed staff and several retired teachers who brought a wealth of wisdom and experience,” said Ozie.

The board of directors includes Hall an attorney, business owner, a plant manager, and a university professor from East Carolina University. “We have always had a board but it was not as diverse.

Each person brings a different set of skills to the table and gives us a lot of guidance from many sources.”

Integrated into Kinston’s curriculum are initiatives to give students exposure to the global landscape from the classroom. The school uses currencies from around the world to talk about financial literacy and foster math skills. International exchange rates allow teachers

to discuss math issues and expose students to other cultures as they examine currencies. “We use that to expose students to a global culture and talk about what is happening in other countries,” said Ozie.

Kinston recently conducted a rocket launch to teach students about geometry. Plotting lines, points, right angles, obtuse triangles, and other related geometric challenges allowed the students to get a true hands-on lesson and see geometry in action. “They were able to see how these things translated into a rocket launch,” explained Ozie.

The school also has a national junior beta club and fourth grade honor society to keep the students engaged. “We try to do things regularly to encourage students and give them something to look forward to. We want all our students to be greater than 95 percent; to be at or above their grade level.”

For basic office supplies and other necessary products, the school turns to Reliable Supply for their affordable services.

Among Their Challenges Looking to set the bar at or above 95 percent means the school needs to attract top-notch teachers. For traditional public schools, this is often easier as their teacher positions are state-allocated and they can offer a higher salary to those with advanced degrees. “We are just trying to manage to get the highest quality possible,” commented Ozie.

The disparity allows public schools lottery money and capital funding, with charter schools struggling to meet basic needs such as transportation. Not granted access to the transportation information system that public schools are privy to, Kinston plotted their own bus routes and created their own schedule.

Despite these challenges, Kinston is working hard to improve the environment for their students. The school is hoping to bring their food preparation on campus from its current remote location, though the kitchen facilities will require some renovations for this endeavor.

Aiming to replace their HVAC units, improving their playground, and eventually moving to a 14-acre site, Kinston is gearing up to do some serious fundraising.

“A lot of schools target specific students, trying to get those who are already academically proficient. We don’t take that approach…We have a mix of students because that is the reality of the school system.

We don’t want high scores by manipulating we want those scores because we have good programs and can reach all our students,” explained Ozie.

Kinston Charter Academy dreams big and with their teaching methods and drive to become among to top performers in the state, students and society at large can only benefit from the school’s initiatives.

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St. Mary's Academy Establishing Reading as an Academic Backbone Produced by Todd Rodgers & Written by Jim Barlow If one thing drives St. Mary’s Academy Charter School in Beeville, Texas, it is reading, says Stan Simonson, principal, director and chief executive officer. That goes for both students and teachers.

Despite ever-present financial challenges, the school’s progress suggests that foundation works.

Of the school’s 330 kindergarten through eighth-grade students, 80 percent come from economically disadvantaged families.

In Some classes, up to 20 percent have at a parent in prison – there are four nearby, a fact that underlies a major transition for a rural South Texas community that once hosted a U.S. Navy base. Beeville is midway between Corpus Christi and San Antonio.

Funding is a hurdle for St. Mary’s, founded as a Texas Open Enrollment Charter School in 2001. It rents space from the St. Mary’s Catholic Church, which built the area’s first school at the same location in the 1890s. As a charter school, Simonson said, St. Mary’s receives some $1,800 less per pupil than other schools toward its $2.5 million budget.

“Sometimes I worry about money,” he said. “We were notified in October that the state was recouping $100,000 from the just-closed budget year. This irritates me, because we had closed out the budget, including the audit. Fortunately, we manage our money pretty well and have reserves.” Some of the payback is coming from reserves; the remainder through monthly allotments in the current school year.

Through fund-raising, private donations and savings, the school recently launched a $1.5 million expansion on a multipurpose building with 3,000 square feet of airconditioned space and an adjoining 8,000 square feet of covered space for an outdoor

30 | Charter Schools Today

Spring 2009

gymnasium and playground. A 10-year plan calls for adding 10 classrooms.

federal Blue Ribbon school. This is the first time charter schools in Texas received the nomination.

Reading, however, is the academic backbone of St. Mary’s mission to offer a challenging curriculum taught in a safe, nurturing, educational environment where children are free to reach their fullest potential, Simonson said.

Simonson says he’s fine with federal NCLB guidelines. “It would be nice to have more flexibility in hiring, but we made a commitment,” he said. “We get federal funds, and we don’t want them to be taken away. It has been a challenge to get there, but by getting there, I actually think it has improved the quality of our instruction.”

“Because of the kids we serve, we are a Reading First campus,” he said. “Every child by third grade needs to be reading well.

That serves us well. If children can read well, they can do the other subjects well. We have made Reading First work for us, although we work harder on the comprehension aspect of reading with help from our master’s program for our teachers.”

To get its teachers and paraprofessionals highly qualified, the school board “As a consumer or parent or grandparent, I want provided for three hours a to see some objective measure that tells me that week release time, plus tuition, kids have learned everything they should have for teachers and para’s to learned. That part of standardized testing I like." study at Beeville Community College or meet with faculty from Texas A&M University, ~Stan Simonson Corpus Christi. Under a special agreement, Texas A&M Corpus Christi faculty travel to St. Mary’s twice weekly to offer classes towards a Masters St. Mary’s 20 teachers, including Simonson, a science teacher, are in Reading. As a result, St. Mary’s teachers are paid to earn master’s “highly qualified” under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The degrees in reading. Under another arrangement, parents of St. Mary’s school recently won the governor’s Educator Excellence Award for students can take undergraduate college reading courses. the third year in a row, and the Texas State Business & Education Coalition Award in 2007. The school is a nominee to become a Based on annual achievement-test results, teachers also receive as-

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South needed instruction. “One year we had problems in science, so we had a summer science institute where the teachers came in and got intensive training – how to teach and hands-on help,” Simonson said. “Our science scores have gone up. We’ve done the same thing in math.”

State assessment tests are taken seriously, he said. Covering the necessary material to ensure that students are ready for them has forced the school to drastically reduce time and energy on non-core interdisciplinary courses that were once popular for teachers and students, such as sections on rain forests and ocean floors.

“As a consumer or parent or grandparent,” Simonson said, “I want to see some objective measure that tells me that kids have learned everything they should have learned. That part of standardized testing, I like. There is a danger with teachers that they will tailor their lessons to in effect teach the test; I don’t like that. We hope we’ve achieved a balance of making sure that we are teaching subjects well, and by adding test-taking skills and strategies our kids know what these state tests will look like.”

The school is active in science and math competitions, and works with various community organizations on after-school programs, including the federal 21st Century Learning Program, specialized summer camps and a new summer high-school program in which eighth-grade through high-school students earn high school and/or college credits.

32 | Charter Schools Today

Spring 2009

“We are trying to work together with the community to serve the needs of all our kids,” he said. By way of a grant with other schools in the area, he added, St. Mary’s will be part of a new, Early College High School program opening next fall at Coastal Bend College, where area students, including those who graduate from St. Mary’s, can earn associates or vocational degrees while still in high school.

St. Mary’s last year joined the LEGO League program, a hands-on international science program offered by the College of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. “By teaching our kids about robotics, it helps to get them interested in math and science,” Simonson said.

“We are seeing some very positive things happening with our kids,” Simonson said. “We are happy with the direction we are going.”

A looming challenge, however, is the makeup of St. Mary’s faculty, which consists of recent college graduates or near- or past-retirement age teachers in their 70s, said Simonson, who is 62. “We don’t have that solid middle core. That is a problem that we recognize, and our board and administrative team have been looking at our options.”

St. Mary’s pay scale is not competitive for instructors with a number of years of service. So young teachers and retirees are the bulk of the staff. Mid career professionals often require additional money and need to go to higher paying district jobs. Retirees often value the atmosphere of the charter school and are willing to extend their careers.

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Gateway Charter Academy

Partnerships with Parents and the Community Produced by Eric Gunn & Written by Jim Barlow school has accomplished in its eight years and about his decision to stay in education. “I never wanted to be a teacher. I never wanted to be a principal,” he said. “I never wanted to be an administrator. I was called into the ministry at 18 years of age.”

Less than a decade ago, Robbie L. Moore, superintendent of Gateway Charter Academy in Dallas, Texas, wanted to walk away from education and pursue another field. However, his life took another turn and this May he will watch a handful of students walk for graduation at the charter school he founded in 2000 and opened a year later.

Five of the eight candidates for graduation enrolled in the school when it opened in 2001 with 90 students in K-6th grade classes in the south Dallas church, where Moore had attended a youngster. At least two of the five students are headed off to college in the fall. Next year, 60 students will be eligible to graduate.

Gateway Charter today is a two-campus complex with about 700 students and a $7 million annual budget overseen by a fivemember board of trustees. Kindergarten and elementary students still attend classes in the church building, while the middle and high-school grades are in rented facilities not far away. A new $10 million middle/high school with 46,000 square-feet of learning spaces, including science and computer labs, a band room, and an area for performing arts, is scheduled to open in the fall. The school employs 45 teachers among its 95 member staff.

Moore admits that he is proud of what the

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To that end, he earned degrees from Dallas Baptist University, Dallas Theological Seminary and Trinity University, but the call he answered was from a pastor in Arlington, Texas, who asked him to teach third grade at a private school. After a one-year commitment, he was named principal. Five years later, ready to move on, he was asked by fellow teachers to consider founding a charter school to meet “a huge need” in the Dallas area. “I had to learn what a charter school was,” he recalled.

When the school opened, many in the initial student body, kindergarten through sixth grade, were at-risk students already struggling and under-performing at public schools. Today, Gateway Charter’s student body is about 95 percent African-American, with the remainder being white and Latino.

Some 85 percent of the students are from low socioeconomic families and eligible for reduced meals.

The mission of Gateway Charter Academy is to “provide, in partnership with parents and the community, a multicultural, safe and friendly environment in which children of all ethnic groups are equally respected, educated in basic skills and core content, expected to follow school behavioral guidelines, extended opportunities to express their special talents, and encouraged to maintain and enrich their own unique cultural heritage,” according its Web site.

“We’re about taking students as they are,” Moore said. “We are determined to make each student a productive person not only inside the classroom but as a citizen. Five years after graduation, when we see one of our former students, we want to be proud of that student. We want students to be productive after high school, go to college and do very well in college. That’s our goal -- to prepare our students for college. We want to get in our students’ minds that they aren’t just here to make good grades; they are here to prepare for college.”

Gateway Charter aligns its curricula with standards set by the Texas Education Agency.

The school’s Web site features those standards

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South Gateway Charter Academy Finds Success with Online Credit Recovery Flexible, successful, and cost-effective intervention solutions are critical to ensuring at-risk students recover credits, stay in school, and graduate.

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Visit www.plato.com/GatewayAcademy.aspx to download other customers’ success stories or call 800.44.PLATO to connect immediately to a representative.

Copyright © 2009 PLATO Learning, Inc. All rights reserved. PLATO®, Straight Curve®, and Academic Systems® are registered trademarks of PLATO Learning, Inc. PLATO Learning is a trademark of PLATO Learning, Inc. PLATO, Inc. is a PLATO Learning, Inc. company. Printed in U.S.A.

yPLATO revLearning oceRprovides tiderK–adult C ee-learning nilnO instruction htiw sseccuS sdniF ymedacA ret rahC yawetaG to districts and schools across the country—working downloadable documents outlining grade-bylacitirc era snoitulos noitnevretni evitceffe-tsoc dna ,luprominently, fsseccus including ,elbixelF consultatively to ensure solutions are cost-effective grade expectations of the Texas Essentials of Knowledge and Skills .and etau darg dna ,seamlessly loohcs ni while yats achieving ,stiderc rreplicable evocer stneduts(TEKS), ksir-tawhich gnirumeet sneassessment ot implemented requirements of the federal No Child ® results. remmus rieht ni snoituloS yrevoceR tiderC OTALP gnisu morf mets stluLeft ser eBehind lbarusaeAct. m s’yThe aweschool taG is listed by the TEA as “Acceptable.” .raey loohcs raluger eht otni margorp eht etargetni ot meht gnidael—margorp loohcs

“I think accountability [as measured by TEKS] is necessary, but I think Customers, like Gateway eCharter moh ro looAcademy, hcs ta stidercknow nrae ot stneduts rof ssecca enilno ysaE • too often that should not be the determining factor on if a school is that PLATO Learning is a leader in credit recovery, deriuqer ecnatsissa rehcaet laminiM • doing well or not,” Moore said. “I think you should look at how much intervention, and online learning. They also know slaitnetop noitargetni moorssalC • gain is being done. Has a school made gains? And how have we done secivreS troppuS ylemit dna lufpleH • they can successfully utilize a single online courseware with these struggling students who come in underperforming. Have subscription to facilitate achievement across multiple oriS digressed. I think you need to look at gains :stluser students elbacilprogressed per ,ralim programs—summer school, regular school year, and over two years. We don’t work miracles. I don’t know any district that does.

We beyond. stned utdo s 0make 00,1gains, some faster than others. We are proud of what RA ,retneC gninraeL detareleccA kcoR elttiL we are doing. detaudarg We are taking what is given to us. We’re not making lemonade with that, we’re making a factory. We work hard day in and With over 6,000 hours of objective-based, problemni esaercni %01 out.” solving courseware, plus assessment, alignment, Hand O ,sloohcS cilbuday P su bmuloC setar noitaudarg curriculum management tools, we make standardsGateway’s teachers offer tutoring throughout the day, including stiderc 58 6,3 based curriculum that XThelps ,tcirtsfacilitate iD loohcSlearning tnednepeand dnI enidlA evenings, and on Saturdays.

Some of the school’s federal funds are used dedrawa school improvement. to support efforts to raise performance of struggling students. They We understand education.stluand ser tcepknow xe dna noitulos noalso itnevare retnused i thgfor ir ehrecruiting t esoohC high qualified teachers, especially in science and math, or to get “good teachers” identified by the school into classes technology. And believe that when combined, ’sremotsuc rehto daolnwod ot xpsa.ymedacAyawethat taG/lead moc.to otatheir lp.ww w tisiV certification as highly qualified. students.eare vitatafforded neserper aan ot yalternative letaidemmi troute cennoctoot OTALP.44.008 llac ro seirots sseccus success. Please visit www.plato.com.

While Gateway uses a variety of teaching methods, the most useful

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tool has been Plato Learning, a long-running technology-driven system offering help in intervention and credit recovery. “Plato brings in a visual dimension and gives our teachers options to find new ways to address struggles students are having meeting objectives, especially in math,” Moore said.

Using Plato, teachers can use Web-based programming to design individualized assignments or develop whole-class projects. “Plato has been a great plus for us. We use in the summer as well, especially in math. Our students respond better with technology. Plato has helped us in our math, science and reading. It works for us in all grades.”

“It’s the little things that will give us our distinction,” Moore says, and he envisions Gateway being a pilot school for other charter schools in throughout the state.

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Houston Gateway Academy Investing in Quality

Produced by Todd Rodgers & Written by Jim Barlow When Houston Gateway Academy (HGA) was founded in August 1999 by a small group of state politicians and businessmen, little was known about charter schools and their intended design. A decade later, after growing pains and deep financial challenges, the Texas school, now offering Pre-kindergarten through 9th-grade, is on solid ground and about to move its middle school into new facilities.

HGA began in a local shopping center and eventually grew into a prefabricated building with several trailers as classrooms. Grade levels K through 3 grew into K through 5 at that first campus in southeast Houston. The school expanded in 2002 by creating a middle school in rented facilities nearby.

The early days were bittersweet financially as the school was operated by two out-of-state education management companies, said Richard Garza, HGA’s chief executive officer and superintendent since 2006. Monthly management fees and policy and governance challenges facing the school’s board of trustees, made up of volunteer businessmen, women and parents, proved difficult. The school went through two management companies, two superintendents and four principals from January 2000 to February 2006.

When Garza was hired a month later, the school was in serious financial trouble. “Our employees were running to the banks to cash their payroll checks,” he said. Garza, an accountant for 25 years before entering education as a controller at another charter school, changed the fortunes for HGA’s.

The school, with a staff of 75, now has $1.8 million in cash on hand, $3.2 million in net assets, a $6.5 million budget, and is expanding its educational programs. “Once you’ve turned the finances around, you have the dollars to invest in quality teachers, quality resources and materials, and then you can really start concentrating on the academic side,” said Garza.

The 756 students in grades pre-K through 9 are spread out over two campuses, and the school is currently in the pre-construction phase of building a new $10 million facility. For the first time in HGA history, financing for the construction loan was easily acquired

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“The key thing in the turnaround is challenging the teachers and raising the bar,” he said. “Every week, there are no excuses for failure. We have to succeed. There isn’t ‘I can’t do this’ or ‘I don’t know how to do this.’

What is it going to take for us to get the job done? And I think that has raised the bar in the expectations for teachers and raised the bar in the expectations for the students and we keep continuing to challenge.”

In the 2007-2008 school years, HGA was commended by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for its 8th-grade social studies scores on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge & Skills (TAKS), which meets the requirements of No Child Left Behind. Reading scores, recently given an unacceptable rating by the TEA, have risen to achieve state standards thanks to a grant from Reading First that allowed for the implementation of Open Court, a program offered to need-based schools by education-publishing giant McGraw-Hill.

TAKS results for 2007-08 showed HGA’s 3rd through 8th graders with solid scores, exceeding statewide averages in some areas. Garza’s goal is to exceed current state regulations in all areas. “We make it mandatory that students have to pass their TAKS in every subject as well as their own class curriculum subjects to be promoted,” Garza said. “Lots of schools don’t do that; you can fail your TAKS but somehow pass your class curriculum and get promoted. We feel they both have to go hand in hand.”

“That may seem a little harsh because a student may fail their TAKS test by missing only one point, but we do as much as we can to get a student prepared for success. That’s why I implemented our mandatory After School Program based on benchmarks. If a student’s scores are 85 percent or above, they get enrichment; if they are below, they attend mandatory tutorials specifically in the area they are having trouble in.

In addition to that, individual students who are still having trouble get pulled out of their ancillary or recess classes for extra one-on-one instruction from their teacher,” explains Garza.

“We have a very strict environment, a well managed environment. And we continue preaching to the students that they have to be responsible and make responsible choices.” ~Richard Garza

To add to that end, there is an extensive focus on staff development.

Every Friday HGA dismisses students early and conducts in-service training for almost two hours. The school has cross-curriculum training -- often with an outside professional. “For example, McGraw Hill will come in and send their representative to provide training in Open Court,” Garza said. “Sometimes HGA will just have grade-level meetings and talk about strategies for specific challenges students are having.”

HGA is also pioneering a scheme in which teachers move up with their grades. This year the 4th-grade team moved up to 5th grade. “That’s been a big plus,” he said, “because as far as discipline is concerned they already know the students and they already know the parents. Teachers also know where student weaknesses are so there’s not that learning curve you have at the beginning of every school year. Teachers are getting to

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South know their students and students are not challenging their teachers. You avoid the ‘this-is-a-new-teacher, let-me-see-what-I-can-get-away-with’ situation.”

Garza maintains the old adage “it takes a community to raise a child, everyone is responsible for that child’s welfare.” To make this happen, he implemented required home visits. The entire school’s mission is reinforced through the mandatory home visits that each teacher has to conduct at the beginning of each academic school year. The home visits are an opportunity for the teacher to introduce themselves to the family and to enlighten them on all the services offered. Teachers get thoroughly trained at the school’s beginning of the year in-service training as to all the school’s programs and services.

This way, when they conduct the home visit, they are required to inform the parents of additional services which include the After School Program, the Adult Literacy Program, the schools’ partnership with Rice University for the Intensive Summer Program and the Partnership with Sylvan Learning Centers that provide additional free tutoring for students who are still struggling after these intensive services.

Other partnerships include the Mariners Sea Scouts program, the Boys and Girl Scouts program, our partnership with IBC bank, McDonalds

Restaurants, the Gulf Coast Community Services Association, Laredo National Bank, Met Life, and many others. The intended result is to get the parents motivated and involved with the school and with their child’s education. This makes it easier for them to fulfill their requirement of serving 36 volunteer hours every year.

The school maintains a strict environment in which students must wear uniforms, behave responsively and make responsible choices. A guidance program, administered by school counselors, helps promote and enhance the learning process. Character development is also high on the list of requisites for HGA students. Mr. Garza is so determined to help students succeed in all areas of their life that he implemented mandatory random drug testing and searches for students. He even went as far as making them mandatory for all teachers, administrators and staff. This keeps everyone motivated to stay away from drugs and prevents anyone from falling into a bad lifestyle.

The curriculum is set in meetings and modified and applied through a rigorous system, Garza said. “Our lesson plans have to be kept in a notebook and checked once a week by the lead teacher and every other week by the principal. This way when 4th-grade teachers go to 5th grade, they’re given the book and the whole curriculum and lesson plans are in place. They just need to modify it based on the students they have that

particular year. So we really try to have everything in a systematic way that is easy for everybody. If a system is working, we keep it in place; if the system is not working, we modify it or we change it.”

HGA’s goal is to be “Exemplary” at both campuses. The Evergreen Campus, with grades Pre-K through grade 6, will eventually be rebuilt in some fashion to move away from classrooms that now meet in trailers.

The Coral Campus, with its impending new construction, will add 10th grade after the new building is completed, “We’ll be adding one grade a year up to that within two to three years we’ll probably be opening up a third campus,” Garza said. “There’s a huge need here in the southeast end of the city.”

Houston Gateway is always looking to expand their services to the Hispanic community. “Plans are now being formulated to eventually provide Housing Services to first-time buyers where we will construct single-family homes for our community as well as a Child Placing Agency that will license and certify foster homes to care for children who are abused and or neglected. We are an agency that wants to serve our community and bring about change for the betterment of everyone involved. We want to show the world that Houston Gateway Academy is a force to reckon with and is here to stay.”

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Arlington Classics Academy Exposing Students to New Challenges Produced by Eric Gunn & Written by Jacqueline Bodnar Arlington Classics Academy, a charter school located in Arlington, Texas, was started by a group of parents who felt local schools were not challenging enough for their children.

While seeking a more structured and dynamic educational setting, parents were also interested in an education that would incorporate the Core Knowledge Sequence with the Texas Essential Skills (TEKS), which allows students exposure to a larger variety of subjects such as art, music, and Spanish. These parents founded Arlington Classics Academy in 1999 and created what they were looking for.

At the Helm Today, the Academy is home to 460 K-6

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students. Working from an annual budget of $2.7 million and 45 personnel, the school successfully strives to meet the goals they set for themselves, as well as those set for them by governing bodies. The school is led by Ken Simon, the Director of Education, who is in his sixth year at the school.

“They [the board] like my combination of educational and management skills,” says Simon. “I love going to work every day and would not want to be anywhere else.”

Equipped with his master’s degree, Simon had worked for seven years as a high school teacher during the 1970s before leaving the teaching field to seek something more lucrative in order to help care for his

growing family. He went on to work for 14 years at Fidelity Investments as Director of Training and Call Center Manager in Dallas.

Although the experiences he had outside the field of education gave him great insight, he was happy to be able to return to education.

Inside the Academy Unlike many other charter schools, ACA is unique in that they are not put off by the elements of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) standards that trouble other charters. They believe that “highly qualified” is something that you can achieve, and they don’t take issue, for the most part, with the yearly progress formula used by NCLB.

“We’re not your typical charter school,” adds Simon. “Our population is not heavily Title I; we’re more of a typical suburban school. Many of the issues we face are not the same as for other charters.”

Additionally, they are not concerned with standardized test results being the primary factor in accountability for schools. As Simon reports, their students do extremely well, and they are currently an exemplary school with some of the highest ratings in Texas.

Using the TEKS/Core Knowledge method of teaching, they cover the main traditional areas that schools cover in addition to placing an emphasis on fine arts. One of their interests is to help students understand the intricate history of the United States. This helps them lay the foundation for life-long learning, building upon things that many people take for granted in common conversation. For example, saying you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink may seem like a common saying; however, if you are not familiar with the saying, it can be quite confusing. The school tries to make sure that the kids are familiar with such things, in order to better understand the world around them.

“This school was founded by parents. You can tell the difference between the kids whose parents are and are not involved. Any charter school out there is living or dying through involvement." ~Ken Simon

ACA students also participate in learning computers, Spanish, physical education, chess, dance, choir, flag team, student council and yearbook, as well as taking field trips, such as a recent one to the Kimbell Art Museum.

Teachers Make the Grade Hiring the teachers at ACA is what Simon refers to as a group effort.

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South In the first step of the process, he meets with the candidates on his own, to explore what they think about the school’s philosophy and to discover if they connect to the school’s mission. He also delves into their views about the Core Knowledge program. Once he narrows the field candidates then meet with current teachers at the school. This gives veteran teachers a chance to influence who will join them on the team. It also lays the foundation for them all to work together to meet the school’s mission once the new person is hired.

Arlington Classics Academy also takes measures to ensure that their teachers continue their professional development. They are given the opportunity to attend regional service centers, where they receive additional training. In addition, they are provided with in-service training each year.

“The teachers really have a lot of freedom on the amount of additional training they undertake,” says Simon.

Challenges and More One of the challenges the school faces, like many others, is that of parental involvement. At ACA, they see this crucial relationship as a triangle, where the parents, kids and teachers make up the three sides.

“This school was founded by parents. You can tell the difference between the kids whose parents are and are not involved,” says Simon.

“Any charter school out there is living or dying through involvement.”

To encourage parental involvement, the school recommends a certain number of hours they should volunteer each year. It offers a list of jobs and volunteer opportunities that they can choose from, and many of those positions can be completed from home. The school also gives busy parents the option of donating to the school, at a rate of $25 per month.

Looking Ahead Students at ACA also regularly take part in character-building volunteer activities. Some of the many opportunities they have for involvement each year include collecting coats and canned goods for those in need, as well as holding a penny drive to benefit cystic fibrosis.

“We think it’s an important part of educating the whole child and fostering a spirit of service,” adds Simon. “We are teaching them to give back.”

As the students continue their studies at Arlington Classics Academy, Ken Simon and the board he works with are busy planning what the future will look like. Their goal is to expand, offering a junior high as soon as possible. They haven’t been able to make it happen yet, but they are optimistic about this plan reaching fruition in the future.

They are currently held back by one of the biggest challenges plaguing schools across the country today: funding.

“The funding for charter schools is less, quite a bit less,” says Simon.

“Funding becomes a real issue for us. The junior high is in our future.

We just haven’t been able to make it happen, quite yet.”

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Spotlights

President Obama and Charters

From the Campaign Trail to the Stimulus Written by Shelley Seyler The long road that led President Barack Obama to the White House began what seems like eons ago. While on the campaign trail, education was certainly a important topic of debate and one in which his opponents were less apt to attack his experience: in the 20 years since he arrived in Chicago, the public school system became one of the most improved in the nation. He also pumped $150 million into the education budget and served on two education boards at the University of Chicago.

Though never untouchable on the subject, President Obama has, since the beginning, proven his knowledge of the complicated and often personal subject. Many who have listened to his speeches, whether as a candidate or as president, gained insight into why he is as intelligent and hard-working as he is. Even if one did not vote for him, these two facts do seem undeniable.

His openness revealed this story: his mom used to wake him at 4:30 in the morning, before school started, to tutor him. When young Barack complained, she said simply, “this is no picnic for me either, Buster.”

Campaign to Policy Thus, the importance of education fostered in him since a young age, President Obama makes his deep concern with the nation’s educational system known; and he is already taking steps to correct it.

While still a candidate for president, Barack Obama promised to double federal funding for public charter schools while holding those with poor records accountable. Now that he has ascended to the oval office, recent education news is heavily in favor of charters, and concrete policy reforms are beginning to take shape.

Setting the tone in mid-December for his education reform, President Obama appointed Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education. Duncan served for seven years as chief executive of Chicago public schools, the third-largest school district in the country. During President Obama’s Chicago days, Duncan and the then senator would hold frequent and inquisitive discussions on education policy.

In late February, the administration included increased support for high-quality charter schools in its fiscal year plan for 2010. The exact numbers will not be released until April but the administration’s favorable attitude toward the movement in certainly positive progress.

The budget also calls for increased transparency around results for teachers and principal preparation programs.

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Spotlights

Most recently, Duncan laid out how the government hopes states will spend their stimulus money: reform. “More money will be dedicated to charters than ever before,” he said, warning that if states don’t do some innovative thinking on the money’s usage, “we’re going to come down like a ton of bricks.”

The president has also, on more than one occasion, called on those states that currently have caps on the numbers and size of charters to lift these restrictions. The administration is “promoting innovation and excellence in America’s schools,” and believes that charter schools are “one of the places where much of that innovation occurs.”

Limiting their growth, the president continued, “isn’t good for our children, our economy, or our country.”

The President’s Biggest Challenge With much of the news surrounding the president revolving around the economy, it is important to note the inclusion of education financing in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the stimulus plan, drawn up to fix the economy. With the markets in sustained disarray, many are commenting that this may be his biggest challenge.

Though the jury is still out on exactly how each dollar will be allocated, it is clear that, in the education stipulations in the ARRA, there is potential for improvement in the charter school market. Duncan has $5 billion of this fund available to shape school reform and reward states that push for classroom innovation, $650 million of which will support partnerships between schools, or schools and non-profits.

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During a visit to a charter school in Washington, DC, the president spoke of “rewarding innovation the way it’s taking place here.”

All this positive talk is certainly reason to hope for increased federal support of this innovative and forward-thinking movement. With a president who genuinely values and understands the importance of education, the future certainly looks bright.

Sources:

Brooks, David. “No Picnic for Me Either,” The New York Times. March 12, 2009: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/opinion/13brooks. html?scp=30&sq=obama%20charter%20schools&st=cse Dillon, Sam. “Obama Looks to Lessons from Chicago in his National Education Plan,” The New York Times. Sept. 9, 2008: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/us/politics/10educate.html Dillon, Sam. “Obama Picks Arne Duncan for Education Post,” The New York Times. Dec. 15, 2009: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/15/obama-picksarne-duncan-for-education-post/?scp=44&sq=obama%20 charter%20schools&st=cse Glod, Maria. “Stimulus Billions May Spur School Reform,” CBS News.

March 26, 2009:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/26/politics/

washingtonpost/main4894098.shtml

American Education in a Globalizing World: Where We Are and How Charters Can Help Written by Jim Barlow How does the United States stand in educating youth for the world stage?

Numerous studies in the last decade paint a muddy landscape. Americans tend to do well in reading at an early age, overall, but they barely rank in the top 25 percent among industrialized countries in math and science.

In general, a review of numerous published reports says the U.S. is lagging in all areas.

U.S. fourth-graders were behind Russia, Scotland and France in reading, according to a 2006 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). Twelve percent

of U.S. fourth-graders achieved the highest performance benchmark. The results were in a report comparing the U.S. with other members of the Group of Eight countries published in March by U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.

Girls did better than boys in all countries.

However, 70 percent of U.S. eighth-graders cannot read at grade level “and most will never catch up,” noted the Broad Foundation.

In math and science, regardless of the studies reviewed, the United States is not in the foreground.

Most recent findings, released in the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS), found Japan’s fourth- and eighth-graders dramatically led the Group of Eight (G8) which includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These eight countries participate in international studies and meetings to compare and discuss educational performance and policy issues. The study found that 26 percent of Japanese eighthgraders achieved the highest benchmark targeted. U.S. students were in the middle, at

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Spotlights 6 percent, among the other countries, whose proficiencies ranged from 8 percent (Russia) to 3 percent (Italy).

In science, the TIMMS findings in 2007 found Japan again leading the Group of Eight, with their students rising to the top by eighth grade. U.S. 8th-grade boys outperformed their female counterparts Americans finished in the middle. The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), in 2006, found 15-year-olds in Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany ahead of U.S. students. More troubling was one-quarter of U.S. 15-year-olds scored at or below proficiency levels on combined science literacy.

In 2005, a study by the Paris-based Organization for Cooperation and Development found that U.S. 15-yearolds were below average in their ability to apply math skills to everyday life, ranking far below Finland, Korea, the Netherlands, Japan, Canada and Belgium at the top of the rankings. The Broad Foundation’s chart on the study shows that America’s top math students, overall, rank 25th, with U.S. students falling two years behind grade level by eighth grade.

Janet Mertz’s study led by the University of Wisconsin, published in the October 2008 issue of Notices of the American Mathematical Society, added another level of fuzziness to U.S. performances in math.

U.S. culture, she found, discourages girls from exceeding in math and the girls who do succeed are almost always immigrants or daughters of immigrants from countries where math is a priority.

Mertz’s study examined data tracking U.S. high-school students’ performance from the nation’s most competitive contests such as the International Mathematics Olympiads and the Putnam Mathematical Competition.

A common thread surfaces in the studies reviewed, including those cited here.

Something happens in the transition years of middle school, showing itself through declining scores in the 8th grade in the United States.

The Center for Public Education argues that the U.S. is not failing as media coverage of international comparisons suggest. However,

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a statement at the organization’s Web site notes: “Knowing where the U.S. stands is the first step. A closer look into the data will help us better understand how the U.S. compares to other countries and uncover what other countries seem to be doing well that might apply here in the United States.” The center also noted the marked performance drop.

Where do charter schools fit in? Many are putting an emphasis on exploring instructional techniques that boost students’ overall performance with the goal of seeing their students successfully go on to college. Many have special science and math programs. Their approaches and success stories surface in the profiles appearing in this magazine. Charter school administrators often note how their schools accept students who had been struggling -- many insufficiently challenged -- in traditional schools.

Where do charter schools fit in? Many are putting an emphasis on exploring instructional techniques that boost overall performance with the goal of seeing students successfully go on to college.

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools recently featured two such success stories. The first took place at Independence Charter School in Philadelphia. The school this year won the Goldman Sachs Foundation Prize for Excellence in International Education, which carries a $25,000 prize and recognizes efforts in cultural awareness, world history and a global curriculum. The 700-student K-12 school requires all students to study Spanish, Japanese and Arabic in addition to core academic subjects. A diverse offering of world geography courses are also among the school’s courses.

Another success story: Last fall, Luke Andraka, an 8th grader from Chesapeake Science Point (CSP) charter school, finished fourth in the nation in the U.S. Middle School Science Competition, the country’s biggest national science fair. Luke’s story rises to the top because the school pinpointed an untapped scientific potential during his

initial assessment at the school. “CSP took a boy who was unsure of himself and doubted his abilities, and gave him the opportunity to start believing in himself,” Luke’s mother told the alliance. “I know for a fact that he would never ever have been successful in math and science without the amazing staff at CSP.” In Salt Lake City, the science-and-mathoriented Beehive Academy, provides its teachers with professional training from the California-based Accord Institute for Education Research. Concepts learned in the training help teachers prepare students for the Math Olympics and are used in afterschool tutoring programs. Numerous charter schools have science and math at the top of their priorities.

“Despite its fundamental importance to our society, we’ve lost our way on education,” wrote Thomas J. Donohue, president and chief executive officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in October. In his column, he called for more charter schools and increased funding for them. “The statistics don’t lie: 1.2 million students drop out of high school every year. Seventy percent of eighth graders cannot read at grade level. Fewer than 10 out of every 100 low-income students will ultimately graduate from college. And if that’s not enough, the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2008–2009 ranked the quality of primary education in such countries as Estonia (11th), Tunisia (21st), and Slovenia (24th) ahead of the United States (25th). Something must be done to reverse this trend.”

Donohue’s comments were in response to the newly published report by the chamber’s Institute for a Competitive Workforce. He wrote that that charter schools “are designed to provide tuition-free public education for students and their parents, liberate teachers and administrators from red tape, and allow more innovation in the classroom. In exchange for this flexibility, charter schools accept high accountability, knowing that they can be closed if they fail to live up to their promises.”

Donohue urged business support of outstanding charter schools, saying that the private sector can help build a supply of high-quality new schools and help provide qualified people to lead the schools. He also called for “charter-friendly public policies” to emerge from state and local lawmakers.

Spotlight: Your Charter as a Business How to Resolve the Employee Morale Issue Emerson states, "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." A majority of the issues related to worker productivity stem from enthusiasm or the lack thereof. Individuals simply go to work despite their abhorrence of their employer, the monotony, and the products. There is no passion or pride.

Much of this issue stems from practices embedded within an organizational culture affecting morale and productivity. These include:

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Leadership not serving as exemplars - some leaders today are narcissists, demeaning and ruthless. More importantly, leaders’ salaries can exceed employee pay by 425 times the average worker. Leaders need to act in harmony with employees and ensure equal treatment of all. Cultures where this practice occurs frequently include McDonalds, Fed Ex and UPS where employees and management are one.

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Little or no accountability - The United States economic system is currently in financial turmoil and no one is accountable. Employees need to know that mistakes may count for learning but criminals are punished for repeat offenses.

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Career planning and succession planning is null - simply put there is no succession planning. Most CEOs and senior managers join an organization from competitive industries and companies. Whatever happened to the mailroom climb?

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Too many silos and departmental infighting - Companies are in business for one reason- to create clients. End the infighting and focus on the most vital asset! When the fighting ends (and everybody understands their reason for being employed) perhaps harmony arrives.

Causes of low morale correlate to the organization, its culture, and its management. After 25 years of research in this area, we find five factors contributing to organizational morale. A study by the Corporate Leadership Council reveals the tremendous impact managers have on an employee’s level of commitment. It is imperative to note that individuals do not leave companies - they leave poor managers. Organizational mismanagement contributes to negative morale. As recent as 2006 the Gallup Organization estimated there were 32 million actively disengaged employees costing the American economy up to $350 billion per year in lost productivity.

Such loss includes absenteeism, tardiness, and poor work.

To dilute the productivity impact, research shows that taking time to build relationships with employees through personal interaction, is a key step managers can take to keep morale high.

Employees need to feel trust and respect from their managers.

Employees desire feedback from management to understand their work matters.

Ending the morale issue is not easy but there are cures.

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Spotlights 1. Begin with talent acquisition - Start with the right people. No firm we work with ever hires on a proactive basis. Most firms conduct employment searches reactively. Seek employees that fit with the organizational culture and with the obligatory skills. Never wait!

2. Hire for skill - Talent is innate. Organizations hire for personality and behavior first and skill second. Skill is not interchangeable, behavior is. A great hire might have a wonderful temperament and lack the skill to plug a socket into an outlet. I recall a five star hotel that sought advice to correct housekeeping flaws. After five minutes, it was easy enough to terminate staff and find those without flaws.

3. Look at best practices from best people - Management focuses on "fixing those that cannot" rather than "improving those that can." Icons of performance exist in your organization. Discover what they do right and encourage others to emulate it.

4. Passion - In the 1980’s Sylvester Stallone appeared again as Rocky this time with a theme, "Eye of the Tiger." What a great metaphor for valuable talent. Seek to acquire talent that truly loves work. Passion too is innate. Employees must love what they do and how they do it. When passion is high so too is morale.

5. Focus on the Customer - Managers, the organization, and the employees must vehemently focus on the customer. Remember Winnie the Pooh, try finding Eeyore amongst staff at Disney; Southwest Airlines and FedEx, all intensely focus on servicing the client.

Lastly, managers must constantly strive to provide feedback to employees. Feedback is not an annual performance review event. It is imperative that daily communication exists for good information and improvement. Coaching, counseling, and mentoring are components of organizational morale. In addition, many attend church and hear the words, "It is right to give thanks and praise."

Many watch professional sports and view coaches coddling athletes.

We can learn something here; simple words of thanks and praise constantly improve morale and employee relationships.

Finally, the first item terminated during economic volatility is training.

Research finds that employees are assets and require that treatment.

Never stop training; this improves productivity and morale at all times.

Issues of low morale and productivity are onerous, volatile, and difficult to control. There is a need for management, the organization, and the individual to assist with success factors.

Much is dependent on the desire to change; methods chosen and consistent follow through. However, if you do nothing you still have a morale issue. Take the time, seek remedies, and keep morale high. Doing so, lowers attrition, improves productivity, increases profitability and most importantly- reduces stress. Š 2008. Drew J. Stevens Ph.D. All rights reserved.

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State Caps on Charter Schools The Argument to Remove Them Written by Jim Barlow Calls for removing caps that limit start ups of new charter schools have landed support this year from two important voices, including that of President Barack Obama, who, in March, cited the innovation charter schools bring to the country’s educational landscape.

The other important voice was that of Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who in January urged New York and other states to drop their caps and increase funding. He too cited educational innovation and improved teacher effectiveness as benefits of the charter-school movement.

Charter school caps challenge these benefits.

They limit the number of charter schools allowed in a state and place restrictions on individual authorizers of charters; still

other caps restrict the numbers of students a charter school can have. Considered arbitrary by professionals in the movement, caps fail to take into consideration school quality, academic achievement and progress of students enrolled in charter schools and proponents of charter schools worry that caps will stymie efforts to improve public education.

Why we Have Caps Existing caps can be traced to early opponents of charter schools: public school boards, their administrators and financial managers feared a draining of quality students and significant loss of public funds; teacher unions worried that non-unionized teachers would gain an advantage; and politicians were concerned

about threats to the traditional public funding mission of government. All worried that students of low socioeconomic families and the disabled would be turned away from charter schools, when, in fact, the opposite is the case.

In some states, if not all, caps also exist to limit charters’ share of money. While the pros and cons are debated about the repercussions of caps, the important questions about charter schools are overshadowed, their growth and improvement stunted, and their benefits overlooked.

According to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS), 26 states and the District of Columbia currently have caps. The number of schools allowed in each state is often

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Spotlights tied to political motivations such as policymakers being concerned with how charter schools will affect school districts as a whole.

Arguments most often cited in cap debates don’t go deep enough, noted Andrew J. Rotherham in “Smart Charter School Caps,” a study published in September 2007 by Education Sector, an independent education policy think tank in Washington, D.C. “Unfortunately, the debate about charter schools rarely accounts for such performance variation, just as charter caps do not differentiate between good schools and lousy schools,” he wrote.

Rotherham’s conclusions call for the removal of the politically and emotionally charged caps now in force and the implementation of “smart caps,” in which charter school successes and failures would be monitored.

“Smart charter caps,” he wrote, would allow “for deliberate capacity-driven growth, would direct new resources to high-achieving schools and “work within today’s political reality.” Poor-achieving or financially troubled schools, under such an approach, could be shut down to maintain efficient charter-school numbers within jurisdictions.

Benefits of Removal While arguments to maintain caps reappear repeatedly in media coverage, supporting data to do so is rarely offered that compares academic assessments of traditional public and charter schools. Such studies have provided conflicting results or failed to find significant differences.

Charter school supporters say their schools offer a diversity of schooling options, reduce public funding because they receive on average 22 percent less than traditional schools, provide comparable or superior instruction, cater to minority students and meet demands by parents. Caps have only stifled these improvements from reaching more students and led to waiting lists of thousands of students, particularly in Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina and Texas.

According to a national poll cited by the NAPCS and conducted in April 2008, 77 percent of registered voters favored giving parents more options for where to send their children to school. Removing caps on

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charters would only increase these options as the numbers of charters grow within each state.

Another surfacing argument to remove caps is that competition for students will drive overall improvement in schools across the board. This argument also appeared in North Carolina’s General Assembly in March, when a trio of Democrats, responding to a Republican call to lift or expand the state’s cap, said they would support the move if existing schools were shown to be functioning fully, reported the Durham Herald-Sun. “It will remove some money from our traditional schools, but these are public schools,” said State Rep. Verla Insko about the proposal. “The traditional [school districts] should not be afraid of the competition from charter schools.”

President Obama’s vision for education includes the removal of caps. In his March speech to the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, he criticized state caps that limit new charter schools without consideration of student progress. “That isn’t good for our children, our economy or our country,” he said.

Nelson Smith, NAPCS president and chief

executive officer, praised Obama’s remarks: “With 365,000 students on charter waiting lists, there is no excuse for state laws that stifle the growth of these schools. President Obama has taken a bold step by challenging states to get on the reform bandwagon.

He’s right to couple the promise of growth with a demand for accountability -- and nowhere will you find stronger support for high-quality chartering than in the charter movement itself.”

With support from our new president, charter caps may yet begin to go by the wayside. Were this to happen, increased charter school numbers would not be the only benefit. Administrators and others could then focus more energy on accountability, improving charters already innovative service to education in America.

Sources: • • • • • •

http://www.publiccharters.org about schools/ factsheet http://www.publiccharters.org http://www.publiccharters.org/node/786 http://www.educationsector.org http://www.gatesfoundation.org/annual-letter/ Pages/2009-bill-gates-annual-letter.aspx http://cell.uindy.edu/transformingeducation/ charterschoolstudy.php

Spotlight on Behavior Teaching Anger Management and Emotional Control to Children These days, anger management is a hot topic among educators. More and more, we see angry students committing acts of violence against classmates. Educating the public on the topic of anger management is the best way to help children manage their anger in an appropriate way.

The secret to anger management is to intervene early. Most children use anger because it is their only coping mechanism for daily stress.

What is anger?

Angry feelings are normal emotional reactions to daily stresses in our lives that range from irritated to enraged. It’s natural for children to experience emotions of anger but it’s critical to teach them proper coping mechanisms so that they do not express these feelings in an uncontrollable manner.

The goal as a parent is not to completely stop the angry emotion since they are hardwired into our brain. The goal is to teach the children to develop self-control and make appropriate choices regarding how to handle these feelings.

Strategies for teach children to handling anger appropriately: 1. Lead by example – Research shows that children model their parents so if the parent blows up in fits of rage in front of a child. The child will learn to use anger as a coping mechanism for their situations in their lives.

2. Teach empathy and tolerance. Empathy is the ability to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. Children that understand the feelings of others deal better with disagreements with other children.

3. Remain calm – Yelling at angry children to control themselves will only increase the intensity of the outburst. Remaining calm yourself will assist the child caught by the anger bee.

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Spotlights 4. Use positive self-talk – Teach children to stay in control by saying affirmations. Affirmations are simple positive messages that the child can say to themselves in stressful situations. For example, here’s a few that a child could learn: “Stop and calm down”, “Take a deep breath”, “Stay in control”, or “I can handle this”. Suggest a few to your child and practice it with them. The more you practice it with them the more likely they will use it during an anger driven situation.

5. Teach them deep breathing – During an angry episode, our breathing changes to quick short breathes. This breathing causes a cascade of physiological changes in our body that creates anger. By learning to controlled, deep breathing, children can short circuit the angry response. Teach your child to inhale to a 5 counts, then hold for a 2 counts, and exhale for a 5 counts. For young kids, I call this breathing exercise “Dragon’s breath”. Have them pretend that they are breathing out fire with the exhale and that the fire is the anger leaving the body.

6. Identify anger triggers – Most children respond to specific triggers that cause anger. Ask your child “What situations make you angry?” The answer will vary from frustrations over homework to bullying at school. Then, talk about solutions that are more appropriate to the problem situation. You can

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even rehearse the scenario by role-playing.

7. Watch for the warning signs – When anger starts to arise, they will show signs. Tell your child that it’s important to listen to the warning signs. Ask your child what the specific warning signs that show that they are getting upset. Some examples of signs could be talking louder, heart pounding, face getting red, clenching fists, or breathing faster. Once you identify the signs, start pointing them out when they show signs of getting upset. For example, “I see your breathing fast” “Looks like you are getting anger” “You’re clenching your fist. Are you getting upset.” This self-awareness will snap the child back into reality and help them manage the anger early – before it’s out of control.

The secret to successful anger management is to intervene early. Most children use anger because it is their only coping mechanism for daily stress. By identifying problem situations and providing them new techniques for coping, you will keep the anger bee from grabbing hold of your child.

Author: Tim Rosanelli

"It is the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without accepting it."

-Aristotle

"A mind Once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions."

-Anonymous

"The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards."

-Anatole France

"Teachers open the door but you must enter by yourself."

-Chinese Proverb

"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge."

-Albert Einstein