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2 New Case Studies: Opening Blended-Learning Charter Schools

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What do Phalen Leadership Academy and Carpe Diem-Meridian have in common? These Indianapolis charter schools share a belief in great teachers, the power of blended learning to back up those teachers and individualize each student’s instruction, and the support of the Indiana Charter School Board (ICSB).

Two case studies out now from Public Impact examine the schools’ approaches to blended learning in their first years. Commissioned by the ICSB, the reports provide lessons for potential school leaders considering similar schools.

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Creating a Statewide Turnaround District: Early Lessons from 5 States

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When states consider taking over chronically underperforming schools or districts by creating “extraordinary authority districts,” they have few examples to follow. Since Louisiana first established a statewide turnaround district in 2003, though, a small but increasing number of states have created “EADs,” providing lessons others can follow in planning their own turnaround approach.

A wide-ranging discussion at a 2013 convening of leaders of five early-implementing EADs–Connecticut, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Tennessee–yielded many lessons, as well as demonstrating the variety of options available to states thinking about an EAD. In “Extraordinary Authority Districts”: Design Considerations—Framework and Takeaways, Public Impact, in partnership with America Achieves, offers these EADs’ key takeaways. States just contemplating an EAD will find insights into policy areas to pursue; states implementing EADs now will find practical lessons on operations and strategies.

The brief considers a four-part framework of EAD design choices: political and legislative context; strategies for using takeover authority, timelines, and sustainability; structure of the EAD’s “central office” and within the state’s education authority; and the capacity needed within the EAD and from external partners to carry out the turnaround.

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For More High-Quality Charters, Focus on Policy, Authorizer Changes

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Charter school quality has become a mixed bag: Despite some great schools across the country, most are on par with traditional district schools, and too many underperform. Given the increasing evidence showing that schools that start strong, stay strong, it’s time for policymakers and authorizers to implement the policies and practices needed to grow the great schools and shutter the worst.

Replicating Quality: Policy Recommendations to Support the Replication and Growth of High-Performing Charter Schools and Networks, a new report by Public Impact for the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) and the Charter School Growth Fund, argues that these changes could pave the way for a dramatic shift in K–12 quality, creating excellent opportunities for a million more students over the next decade.

The report offers detailed recommendations that legislators, authorizers, and state education agencies can use to build a policy environment that will substantially increase the prevalence and impact of high-quality charter schools—and set an example for how public school systems could be run.

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Fixing Failing Charters: “Restarts” Offer Student-Focused Option

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When a charter school doesn’t uphold its end of the charter bargain—autonomy for accountability—and fails to produce strong student learning, must closing the school be the only option? Scattering its students—especially when they have no other high-quality schools available nearby—may disrupt an already-fragile community unnecessarily, if a better option exists. One promising alternative: Introduce new adults who have the will and skill to help struggling students achieve, and let the students stay.

A new report by Public Impact’s Daniela Doyle and Tim Field, The Role of Charter Restarts in School Reform: Honoring our Commitments to Students and Public Accountability explores a variation on school closure in which a charter school’s operator and board change, while the school continues to serve the same students.

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Rocketship Education: Bringing Tech Closer to Teachers

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When Rocketship Education, a pioneering, rapidly expanding charter school network, looked at its results, it could have rested on its laurels. After all, with seven schools in California together ranking as the top public school system for low-income elementary students, Rocketship had proof that its blended-learning model— combining online learning with face-to-face instruction—works.

But next year, Rocketship leaders will fix a disconnect they see between what happens in the online learning lab and the classroom, to give teachers more control over the students’ digital learning and further individualize the teaching.

Instead of reporting to a separate computer lab, fourth- and fifth-graders will move within an open, flexible classroom between digital learning and in-person instruction, with those moves based on their individual needs and the roles that specific teachers are best suited to play—similar to the Opportunity Culture Time-Technology Swap—Flex model and the Role Specialization model.

In the latest Opportunity Culture case study from Public Impact, Rocketship Education: Pioneering Charter Network Innovates Again, Bringing Tech Closer to Teachers, we look at what Rocketship has done so far to achieve its top results, and where it’s headed.  In 2011–12, 82 percent of Rocketship’s students scored “proficient” or “advanced” on the California Standards Test for math, compared with 87 percent of students in California’s high-income districts, and far higher than in low-income schools. Rocketship schools aim for an average of 1.5 years of student learning growth annually to achieve these outcomes with so many students who start out behind.

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In the News: Opportunity Culture Appearances

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Recent Opportunity Culture appearances:

Strong Results at New Higher-Paying, Reach-Extending Charter

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What do you get when you combine an experienced charter school leader with a new model that mixes multi-classroom leaders and blended learning in a high-need school? At charter management organization Touchstone Education, you get nimble teachers, quick to adjust their models as needed, and some great student results.

“We have learned that the one most important thing we can do to positively impact the learning of a child is to consistently provide them with a great teacher,” says Ben Rayer, Touchstone’s founder and CEO, and former president of Mastery Charter Schools. “In our model, we have reframed what teachers do and how they are developed.”

Touchstone opened its first site in fall 2012, Merit Preparatory Charter School in Newark, N.J. The school started small, with 84 sixth-graders, so it could quickly adjust and learn from its efforts. In its first year, with a student population that is 90 percent low-income and was generally several years behind grade level, Merit Prep Newark showed great growth in reading and science: By March 2013 tests, students already demonstrated two years of growth in reading and 1.25 years of growth in science.

Tiffany_McAfeeIts reading scores came out of an English language arts program led by a “master teacher,” an excellent teacher who taught with and led a first-year teacher. In Public Impact’s latest Opportunity Culture case study, Touchstone Education: New Charter With Experienced Leader Learns From Extending Teachers’ Reach, we look at how this teacher, Tiffany McAfee (at right), led the school’s teachers in their focus on literacy, and how the school combined her leadership with online instruction.

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New from Public Impact

Identifying Schools Achieving Great Results with Highest-Need Students—Needs Index
Working paper explains the methodology for measuring the extent of support that students need to thrive academically, and how to apply the resulting School Needs Index.

Employment Opportunities—Opportunity Culture Operations Coordinators
Public Impact is seeking candidates for Opportunity Culture operations coordinators to provide support for the Opportunity Culture team.

Learning in Real Time—How Charter Schools Served Students During Covid-19 Closures
Profiles highlight how charter schools were able to respond quickly to school closures during the pandemic and continue to serve their students well.

Building an Effective Staff—Profiles of Leaders of Color
Three-part series looks at how being a person of color affected the ways in which successful charter school leaders built schools where students, families, and staff learn, grow, and thrive.

Engaging Families—Profiles of Leaders of Color
Three-part series looks at how being a person of color affected the ways in which successful charter school leaders built schools where students, families, and staff learn, grow, and thrive.

Building a Strong School Culture—Profiles of Leaders of Color
Three-part series looks at how being a person of color affected the ways in which successful charter school leaders built schools where students, families, and staff learn, grow, and thrive.

The Impact of School Restarts—Lessons from Four Indianapolis Schools
Report analyzes how enrollment, demographic, and student performance data changed following the restarts of four charter schools in Indianapolis, IN.