Put Students, not Achievement, First

There are multiple reasons for the Elementary and Secondary Board to reject the request of Achievement First, a private corporation controlled by a private board, to increase the number of charter schools in Providence:  fiscal, educational and cultural.  The fiscal logic is overwhelming.  RIDE estimates that the Providence Public Schools will lose about $35 million dollars a year if Achievement First expands to 3,000 students.  When this taxpayer money is removed from public education into the private sector, it will also be removed from public oversight.  Privatization of public services replaces the public interest with private interest and control. 

From an educational perspective, there are two main problems.  First, according to InfoWorks, 28% of AF teachers at the Providence Mayoral Academy are not considered highly qualified, versus 3% of the state.  RIDE has developed a rigorous teacher certification system that AF has been allowed to ignore.  Second, while AF touts higher scores on standardized tests, these results are based on a narrow curriculum mostly confined to preparing for tests.  As a former AF teacher from Connecticut wrote in a recent blog, “It is much easier to teach behavioral management tactics than to foster deep passion and knowledge about an academic field.” 

Related to that is Achievement First’s focus on discipline.  The 2014-2015 rate of suspension for AF was 7.8 elementary students per 100, which is twice as high as the statewide average of 3.8 per 100.  According to the Civil Rights Project (2016), “there is a wealth of research indicating that the frequent use of suspensions…contributes to chronic absenteeism, is correlated with lower achievement, and predicts lower graduation rates, heightened risk for grade retention, delinquent behavior, and costly involvement in the juvenile justice system.” 

Even more disturbing is the lack of cultural responsiveness in a school where most students are youth of color.  In Linda Borg’s feature article two weeks ago, a senior leader at AF was quoted as saying, “We live in a white culture, so it’s important to learn these skills—making eye contact, shaking hands, speaking loudly and clearly.” Appropriate expectations for behavior are essential to student learning, but these behaviors should not be coded as white, nor should they be narrowly defined.  Students from diverse cultures have diverse cultural norms.

Finally, any expansion of schools should be based on multiple measures, which are currently unavailable on InfoWorks.  As a purely business proposition, it makes no sense to expand when there is not enough data to determine whether these schools are successful. Test scores are not indicators of child well-being, and the limited data available on the two AF schools in Rhode Island do not indicate that AF is significantly better than the rest of the state in most measures.

In order for significant positive change to happen in public schools, state and district leaders need to acknowledge that results will not change unless conditions change.  Blaming students for not meeting standards and teachers for student failures is misguided.  Research shows that poverty negatively impacts child well-being and ability to learn.  Furthermore, using test score data to measure student outcomes widens—not narrows—the opportunity gap.  This state is full of educators, researchers, parents and youth who are eager to find creative and culturally responsive ways to support learning for all children, and there are plenty of local and national public school success stories that can serve as models.