New MAP scores show CPS students made more progress than charter school students

It’s news that is sure to re-kindle the ever-burning debate over charter schools vs. neighborhood schools in the nation’s third largest school district.

Recently released Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) data shows that students at neighborhood public schools in Chicago made more progress in reading and math last year than their peers at charter schools did.

Chicago Sun-Times reporters Art Golab, Becky Schlikerman and Lauren FitzPatrick have more on the MAP scores:

Chicago’s public neighborhood elementary schools improved greatly in reading and slightly in math, outpacing average charter school growth last year, according to a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of recently released testing data.

Though neighborhood schools scored just a hair higher than charters in 2014 scores — landing in the 49th percentile nationally for reading and math compared with the 48th for charters — Chicago Public Schools’ open-enrollment schools made much better progress than charters in reading over 2013, according to the analysis of the Northwest Evaluation Association Measures of Academic Progress test data.

CPS schools, on average, scored better than 75 percent of all schools nationwide in reading growth.

By contrast, reading growth was about 27 percentile points lower, meaning charters scored better than 48.2 percent of all schools nationwide, among charter schools with available testing data.

In math, the growth gap was much smaller, as neighborhood schools squeaked past charter schools — in the 54.9th percentile versus the 49.5th percentile, according to the analysis, which weighted the scores according to the number of kids who took the test.

Troy LaRaviere, a Lake View principal who has been critical of charters, said the similar attainment scores could result from charter schools starting with students who are more motivated.

“They’re just getting students that perform at a higher level, but they’re doing far less with them in terms of fostering growth in the students they get,” LaRaviere said.

LaRaviere says the results show CPS students learned more in one year than charter school students, and he says why that is in an op-ed in the Sun-Times:

Writes LaRaviere:

I reached this conclusion after analyzing this year’s MAP scores and I shared my results with several local reporters. Soon afterward, the Chicago Sun-Times conducted their own analysis for a story that was published on Sunday, Aug. 31. Their results differ from mine because they used a slightly different methodology, but the overall conclusions are the same: student growth in reading in neighborhood schools far outpaces growth in charters.

MAP stands for Measures of Academic Progress. Public and charter school students across the city took this national assessment in 2013. Each child got an individual score to serve as a baseline. By calculating the difference between that score and the 2014 score, CPS can determine the amount of learning growth each child attained in the year between the exams.

Until now, schools were judged on student attainment scores, not student growth. This is important because — like magnet schools — charter schools lean heavily on their ability to enroll students who are more likely to have higher attainment than their neighborhood peers by virtue of the degree of parent involvement needed to enter a child into a charter school lottery. Chicago’s charter schools also expel students at more than 12 times the rate of our public schools, which calls into question their own confidence in their ability to effectively teach the most difficult-to-reach children. When you consider those factors, the attainment of charter school students could be more a result of their admissions and expulsion policies than their teaching.

A call for a more sensible academic schedule

As CPS students begin classes in the first quarter of the school year, a look at the academic calendar reveals students won’t reach the halfway point of the school year until January, after winter break. That’s a common schedule for many high school districts in Illinois, but not for Barrington High School. Starting this year, the school moved up the schedule so the first semester ends before winter break begins.

It’s a move the Daily Herald editorial board agrees with because it “makes sense for all the right reasons.”

From the editorial board:

This year, Barrington High School became the latest to join the growing list of suburban schools to change their calendar so first-semester exams are taken before, not after, winter break.

High schools that made the change years ago include Grant, Mundelein and Warren Township. More recent converts include the high schools in Elgin Area Unit District U-46 and Carpentersville-based Unit District 300.

Maine Township High School District 207 will switch next year.

“We think teachers can be more efficient with instruction this way because they won’t need to reteach material that may have become a little hazy because of the two-week interruption that happens with winter break,” District 207 Communications Director Dave Beery told the Daily Herald’s Melissa Silverberg.

Supporters of the revised academic calendar offer plenty of reasons why it works in addition to dispensing with finals before a two-week break. They range from having more days of instruction before standardized and Advance Placement testing in the spring to creating more productive classes in the days leading up to winter break.

Students would even get out of school earlier in the spring and get a jump on finding and starting summer jobs and other endeavors.

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