Dr. Ildi Laczko-Kerr, Chief Academic Officer for the Arizona Charter Schools Association and Center for Student Achievement, recently spoke with KJZZ host Mark Brodie on The Show to discuss new research by the non-partisan Center for Student Achievement and a Yale University researcher. The study found that nearly 1 in 2 K-8 students in Maricopa County don’t attend the district school to which they were assigned based on home address. Find the research here.
Author: acs@@dmin
2017 Arizona Public Charter School of the Year
By Jamar Younger
Painted Rock Academy has established itself as a model of consistency since the public charter school opened its campus six years ago.
The school, operated by Reid Traditional Schools, prides itself on its traditional education model, and believes – given the right tools – all students can achieve success. Students analyze classical literature and develop a love of math, science and technology, using strong foundational skills to explore new concepts and ideas in the upper grades.
Teachers and administrators work hard to ensure that each student will receive the same education experience, regardless of which class they attend.
A stable, committed group of teachers and strong parental involvement are the hallmarks of Painted Rock’s success. Parents play a prominent role on campus: assisting in classrooms, planning school events and supporting the teachers so they can focus on academics.
This consistency and stability has helped Painted Rock cement its reputation as one of the top schools in the state, with A-ratings and AzMERIT scores that rank above the state averages.
It’s also the reason the school has been named the 2017 Arizona Public Charter School of the Year.
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2017 Charter Award Winners
Charter schools have been part of the fabric of Arizona’s public school landscape for over 20 years. Through the hard work and dedication of our teachers, administrators and students, Arizona charter schools are outperforming nearly every state in the country.
The Association is proud to celebrate these success stories through our 2017 Charter Awards, spotlighting outstanding examples of public charter school excellence in teaching, academic leadership, business administration and school-wide success.
“The 2017 Charter Award honorees embody the promise of public charter schools and work tirelessly every day to improve education in schools and communities across Arizona,” said Eileen B. Sigmund, President and CEO of the Arizona Charter Schools Association. “These educators fully represent the quality choices, which are fundamental to Arizona families. Congratulations to this year’s winners!”
Winners and finalists will be honored at a ceremony on December 6 at the Hotel Palomar in Phoenix.
The Arizona Charter Schools Association is proud to announce the hiring of Matthew Simon as its Director of Government Affairs. Simon, a Tucson native, joins the Association after serving as Education Policy Advisory for Senate Majority Staff. During his time at the Arizona State Legislature, Simon developed a wealth of education finance and policy knowledge. Simon is a former high school science teacher and Teach for America corps member. He graduated from Arizona State University with a B.S. in Political Science and is working towards his MBA in 2019.
“As a former teacher, Matthew understands the impact advocacy and policy can have on the classroom,” said Eileen B. Sigmund, President and CEO of the Arizona Charter Schools Association. “Matthew brings another layer of support to Association members and we are thrilled to have his expertise on our team to inform policymakers of the excellent work in Arizona’s public charter schools.”
By Eileen Sigmund
Educational freedom is fundamental for Arizona families.
For nearly 25 years, parents have been given the opportunity to select a school that best meets their child’s needs. No longer do you have to be able to afford a pricey home to attend a great school.
Now we know a little more about the magnitude of those choices: Nearly one out of every two students in Maricopa County participate in school choice through open enrollment or charter schools.
By Kelly Powell and Ildi Laczko-Kerr
A new study[1] that examines student enrollment patterns in Maricopa County found that about 37 percent of district students participate in open enrollment. Given that Arizona school choice options also include public charter schools, the Center for Student Achievement expanded the findings[2] to include charter enrollment data for the attendance zones sampled in the study. This new analysis finds that nearly 50 percent of all students in these attendance zones do not attend their assigned district school. These combined data suggest that traditional school district attendance zones are becoming obsolete.
The chart below shows the percentage of students in the studied attendance zones whose families are choosing a school other than their assigned district school, broken out by district and charter attendance.
Percentage of Total Students NOT Attending Assigned District Schools
ABOUT THE DISTRICT STUDY
Though the study was limited[3] to nine school districts in Maricopa County, the authors’ spatial analysis painstakingly mapped student addresses and school boundaries for about one-third of district elementary school students in the county. The authors restricted their analysis to the elementary grades (K-8) in the 2016 school year. These grades collectively serve over 130,000 students. Students were considered “open enrolled” if they attended a district school outside of their attendance area, including within-district (students attending another school in the same district) and between-district (students attending school in another district) open enrollment.
The impact of within- and between-district open enrollment is striking. Not including charter student enrollment, results ranged from 15 percent to as much as 57 percent of the student population choosing to utilize open enrollment.
SCHOOL CHOICE IN MARICOPA COUNTY
When the Center for Student Achievement combined charter enrollment[4] for charters located within the study’s attendance zone, we found that 47 percent of students attended a school other than the one to which they are assigned based on home address. In one sampled attendance zone, as many as 81 percent of students participated in school choice.
Counts by School Choice Option in Nine Maricopa County Attendance Zones
THE NEW NORM
This analysis points to significant community demand for school choice, given the number of students opting to attend a district school other than the one to which they are assigned, coupled with the high percentage of students attending public charter schools.
Given this analysis, Arizona policymakers should take into account the widespread use and popularity of school choice at the local and state level when developing education policies and making budgetary decisions.
References and Footnotes
[1] “State of Open Enrollment in Maricopa County Oct 26th” manuscript by Matthew Hom and Patrick Cizek, October 26, 2017.
[2] The authors provided matched charter school K-8 enrollments within their sample of attendance zones.
[3] Besides limiting the number of participating Districts, the authors limited their analysis to the elementary grades. Their rationale to limit the analysis to K-8 was based in the fact that mobility patterns seemed to differ significantly in elementary and secondary levels, and without corresponding high school data for participating elementary districts, results would be difficult to interpret.
[4] An additional 25,503 students enrolled in charter schools located in the attendance zones of participating districts were included in the analysis. Enrollment counts were from the 2016 school year and were limited to kindergarten through grade 8 for “brick and mortar” schools. Online schools were not included in charter counts.
By Arizona Charter Schools Association Staff
Former Arizona State Board of Education Chair Greg Miller died unexpectedly on Tuesday, Oct. 24. Greg and his wife, Pam Miller, founded Challenge Charter School in 1996.
Their Glendale elementary school has been recognized as a National Blue Ribbon School, National Charter School of the Year by the Center for Education Reform and is consistently ranked among the state’s top public schools.
Because of both Greg and Pam Miller’s servitude and contribution to Arizona’s charter movement, the Arizona Charter Schools Association honored the Millers with its 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award.
By Jamar Younger
Public charter schools are required to admit all students, including special education pupils.
The State Board for Charter Schools has issued guidance for charters clarifying whether schools can cap or limit admission for special education students.
In short, charter schools are required to accept all special education students and offer the same services, and make the same accommodations for those students as school districts.
The Charter Board cites information from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, and Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. The Arizona Department of Education, Exceptional Student Services can also provide resources for charters.
You can view the Charter Board’s guidance here.
The Association also created an enrollment and admissions fact sheet to address questions and misconceptions about charter school enrollment policies. Click here to view the fact sheet.
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What you need to know on A-F
By Eileen Sigmund
This week, Arizona issued its first “A-F” letter grades in three years. This is what you need to know about these grades and what the Association is doing on behalf of Arizona’s public charter schools to ensure our unique campuses are rated fairly and accurately:
- First, keep in mind these grades remain preliminary and are subject to change. More than half of all charter schools in Arizona have yet to receive any grade whatsoever. One of the biggest problems is that the rating system assumes every school is either K-8 or 9-12 and does not account for non-traditional models. Additionally, many schools received an initial grade that they are appealing.
- The Association believes strongly the new letter grade formula needs to be improved, and we are vigorously advocating for Arizona policymakers to immediately revisit the formula before parents are misled and schools are further harmed.
If you are one of the many Arizonans wondering what to make of last month’s release of the 2017 AzMERIT results, then the Association’s school-by-school dashboard will help to provide meaningful context. The dashboard ranks each school in Arizona based on overall pass rates in Mathematics and English Language Arts, and results can be filtered by city and free and reduced lunch rate. Click the image to see the full interactive dashboard.
HOW TO USE THE DASHBOARD
- Each icon on the scatterplot represents a school. Hover over an icon to see more information about the school, such as its district/charter holder, its overall pass rate on the ELA or Math exam, or its state rank based on those pass rates.
- Use the sliding filter for FRL to examine schools by their reported Free and Reduced Lunch rates. Use the clickable “Sector” and “Alternative” filters to toggle charter schools/district schools, or alternative/traditional schools. The scatterplot icons as well as the lists at the bottom of the dashboard will update to include only the schools that are within the parameters of the filters.
- Use the “City” filter to see only the schools that are within a certain city. The scatterplot icons as well as the lists at the bottom of the dashboard will update to include only the schools that are within the given city.
METHODOLOGY
- This dashboard assigns each school in the 2017 AzMERIT file to a city, based on that school’s physical address.
- Ties in pass rate resulted in the same ranking being assigned to each tied school, and subsequent schools being ranked based on how many schools were tied in the group ahead of them. Example: If the top five schools in the state were tied for first with a 90% pass rate, those five schools would all be assigned a ranking of “1st”, while the school or schools with the next-best pass rate in the state would be assigned a ranking of “6th”.
- The pass rates of schools with fewer than 11 students tested were redacted from the state file. Such schools were not included in the rankings, and are not shown in the scatterplot, as they do not have reported pass rates for ELA or Math.
- Some schools have pass rates listed as as “>=98%” or “<2%” in the state-released file. Such schools were coded with pass rates of “99%” and “1%”, respectively, and included in the rankings. This small adjustment in the reported pass rates is the reason why the x- and y-axes are listed as “Math Pass Rate Proxy” and “ELA Pass Rate Proxy”.
- Free and Reduced Lunch rates are sometimes reported to ADE as ranges, such as “40-49%”. Such reported FRL rates were recoded with an “FRL Proxy” that is a number, such as 45%. Additionally, several schools in the state do not report FRL rates. These schools were assigned an FRL Proxy of 0%.