Wednesday, August 20, 2014

PURPOSE OF THIS SITE

This blog was set up as a place for me to share resources and respond to questions and inquiries related to the Sun-Times Op-Ed and article on the gap between the academic growth of public and charter school students. 

One issue I would like to address from the start is in response to a charter school teacher who felt attacked by the Op-Ed.  Here is my response: 
This isn't against you or a question about your dedication or work ethic.  This is not about you.  It is about the inherent flaws of the charter system within which you work.  I work within CPS, but when someone criticizes CPS I don't take it personally because CPS usually deserves it.  To an even greater degree, there are inherently fatal flaws within the charter model for education that will always lead to inferior results; that's a criticism of the system within which you work--not you.  If I were a principal of a for-profit charter school, there is no way I could get the results I am able to get for my students in CPS; the charter model puts up too many roadblocks.  I hope to make these roadblocks clear in the public debate that will follow.  For now, check out the first set of links on the pages linked to below--particularly the first sets of videos--and you should be able to recognize how the system in which you work does not support the practices and strategies that create great schools and great school systems.  Again, it's not about us as individuals; it is about the systems in which we work.  I hope this will aid our collective efforts to focus on education strategies that work as opposed to the consistent distractions the business/private sectors and their political allies continue to throw into the education debate to distract us from simple strategies that have been proven in world's highest performing school systems.  http://www.aapplecpaa.com/research-base.html


QUESTIONS
I will attempt to build an FAQ page based on your questions.  Feel free to submit your questions through the comments section of this blog or by emailing me directly at troylaraviere7@gmail.com
CLICK HERE to access the FAQ page.


RESOURCES
  • CLICK HERE for an eye-opening interactive comparison of student attainment and growth in public, charter, and turnaround schools.
  • CLICK HERE for the original Sun-Times article on the growth disparity between public schools and charter schools.
  • In the article, I defer to the Sun-Times analysis.  If you are interested in looking at my original analysis CLICK HERE for access to the original data files and intermediate data tools that were used to conduct that analysis.