Yesterday's Columbus Dispatch featured a compelling story about the worst-performing middle school in all of Ohio, Champion Middle School located on Columbus's Near East Side (Mike references it, too). The achievement numbers are bad enough to make your stomach drop: 11 percent of seventh graders passed the state math test last year; less than one in three seventh graders are proficient in reading. The school's discipline rates make it sound more like a prison than an institution of learning ?there were 2,300 instances of ?discipline? last year alone. (Check out the school's report card for more depressing data.)
The article highlighted the district's last attempt to overhaul the school:
Five years ago, the Columbus City Schools overhauled the school by bringing in a new principal and mostly new staff. The building is sleek, modern and bright inside; it was rebuilt four years ago. But Champion has remained an unworthy opponent for gangs and underliterate kids.
And it discusses the school's next attempt, funded through a federal School Improvement Grant (SIG):
This is what is in store for Champion students this school year: better discipline practices; more technology to capture students' interest; and an emphasis on putting literacy first. Lessons have been revamped to be more hands-on and there is a schoolwide rally to excite students about learning, said Ed Baker, the new principal.
The federal money also will be used to rally the community; pay for more than the typical number of teachers so class sizes can be smaller; fund $4,000 stipends to attract and keep teachers; and pay for mental-health and social-service workers for students who need help.
What the article doesn't include is rightful skepticism that this school overhaul will be any different than the first. I don't want to kick the school while it's down. But successful school turnarounds are rare, and we've been doubtful of the choices of most Ohio SIG-winning schools (including Champion) to choose less rigorous turnaround strategies instead of school closure or the ?restart? option.
Upon reading this article, I thought of what Terry wrote last week about charter management networks across the country winning federal dollars (and some cash from Oprah) to replicate. Among the winners was Mastery Charter Schools in Philadelphia (and now expanding to Camden, New Jersey), a network of charters that include several successful turnarounds. Mastery has taken on some of Philadelphia's toughest schools and is known for both reducing school violence and improving achievement ? two areas where Champion obviously needs some help.
What will it take for Ohio to realize that Mastery-like networks should have a place here? How many failed turnaround attempts will children at Champion (and other schools like it) have to endure before we realize that infusions of cash won't fix broken schools, that some charter networks outside of Ohio have figured out how to serve this population effectively, and that this is a better, more cost effective option? Further, at what point do district schools forfeit the right for another chance to turn themselves around? A new law in Ohio (the academic??death penalty? law) closes perennially underperforming charter schools. To be fair, the bar is quite low, but 12 closed at the end of the 2010 school year, and by the end of this year an additional five must close and another 19 are in jeopardy of closing. (If the same standards were applied to Champion Middle School, it would be forced to close as well.) Ohio should consider that consistently abysmal district schools ? that adversely, and irreversibly, impact the lives of mostly low-income, minority children? might be better off shuttered.
- Jamie Davies O'Leary
