The Worcester Public Schools, according to Title 1 numbers (free and reduced lunch), is 72% low income. SoKA is less than half low income.
Twenty-seven percent of Worcester Public School students are English Language Learners. Seven percent are ELL students at Spirit of Knowledge Academy.
One in five students in the Worcester Public Schools are students with special education requirements. Eight percent at Spirit of Knowledge are on IEPs.The big way that Spirit of Knowledge will of course be measured will be by their MCAS data. So what sort of kids are they starting the year with?
Nearly sixty percent of the the students attending SoKA this year attained advanced or proficient on their math MCAS for 2009; a full 65% attained advanced or proficient on their ELA MCAS for 2009. So that's where they're starting from in educating these kids: two out of three are already in good shape on the MCAS exam.
About the only place SoKA does appear to be close to reflecting Worcester is in ethnic demographics:
...more students of African-American and Asian profiles, fewer of Hispanic, about the same on whites.How does that line up with serving the under-served populations in Worcester?
(UPDATE: you might also find relevant my notes from the Board of Ed approval in January, and the Act Relative to the Achievement Gap, which lays out the requirements of attraction and retention of various student groups. See Section 7, subsection e.)
Un-flippin-believable!
ReplyDeleteWhat still bothers me, in addition, is that the source for the SoKA is actually a billionaire Japanese Buddhist Ideologue!
Jeff covered this well in his post here: http://www.wormtowntaxi.com/2010/04/cult-news-for-worcester-schools.html
ReplyDeletePlus more discussion here:
http://forum.rickross.com/read.php?5,87661,90290
Tracy, This data is interesting, however the figures are not proof that the Spirit Of Knowledge Charter School (the actual name of the school) does not reflect the Worcester Public School districts' population any less than any single school in the WPS system.
ReplyDeleteYou cannot meaningfully compare the demographics of a single 152 student school to those of the entire WPS district. If you were to make the same comparison using ANY SINGLE public school in Worcester, I am sure you would find most of them have demographics that do not match the entire district. There are many schools in the city that have far less than 72% low income students, and far less than the 49% at SOKCS.
Your comments about SOCKS students having an advantage with MCAS scores from the start are a little ridiculous. There are a number of public schools in Worcester that far outperform the rest of the district. These schools also have at least 2 out of 3 students that are already in good shape (probably 4 out of 5). One of the reasons these schools have strong students is because parents CHOOSE these schools for their children (some are magnet schools). Many parents of strong students have chosen SOKCS for their children. Any parent in the city could have made that choice, without city or WPS politics coming into play.
The Spirit of Knowledge Charter School has been open for only 9 days. Why are so many people rushing to tear it down or see it fail? Give it a chance, and give it a REASONABLE amount of time. There is clearly room, and a need in this city for diversity in the education choices we offer our children!
Dave, what you say is actually the point: the DESE very clearly said that this one approved charter school was to serve under-served populations, so these stats should be higher than the WPS average if that were the case. They're significantly lower, in fact. That was the condition under which the charter was granted (and the conditions under which charter schools are operating, per the new ed law).
ReplyDelete(And I think you'd be surprised by the few schools that have lower than 49% low income in Worcester.)
The application was made by and granted to "the Spirit of Knowledge Academy Charter School," per the DESE.
IMHO, the stats are only for children requesting transportation from WPS, we wont have data on the walkers til October. Walkers to Irving ST may have a diffeent demographic profile than what is presented here. Is data available on applicants, that would be interesting. were they required to document outreach activiites to under-served?
ReplyDeleteT, we know that there aren't too many walkers, and there are kids from outlying towns. We'll have that data later this year.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, they were required to document outreach, per the new ed law.