In Harlem, New York, not one primary school has more than 55% of hits students reading at grade level. 75% of 14-year-olds cannot read at grade level. Therefore, Harlem parents are leaving the system. Where to go?
Harlem started charter schools within the government school system, and now has the most per mile of any place in America. At one of these, called Harlem Success Academic Charter School, tests taken at the beginning of the 2006-2007 school year showed only 11% of six-year-olds at their grade level in mathematics. By the end of the year, 86% were. How? Among other causes:
a. The school groups student by ability rather than by age;
b. Parents have to read six books a week to their children.
Result: 5000 people attended Harlem Success’ lottery to fill attendance slots, and 3,600 applied for 600 available places. 900 applied for 11 open slots in the second grade.
Joel Klein, chancellor of New York City’s schools, says he thinks the system is getting better, but this charter-school appeal transforms vision to ‘charterize’ the city’s whole school system of 1.1 million children.
Harlem Success will open three new schools this year. About 40% of all kindergarten children in Harlem applied for admission at Harlem Success.
Meanwhile, of course, some politicians are against charter schools, try to stop them, limit them, refuse to let them share buildings with public schools, demand that they unionize (which harms them as it does the public schools).
Chicago had some of the worst schools in America. Mayor Richard Daley announced Renaissance 2010 (‘Ren 10’) to bring 100 new schools to Chicago’s worst areas. Chicago’s business leaders formed the Renaissance Schools Fund, and recently conferred to discuss a ‘new market of public education’ to welcome ‘education entrepreneurs’ tostart schools, run them most as they choose, usually with longer days and sometimes with their own salary structure, and sets standards they must meet. Schools receive money on a per-pupil basis. Chicago is trying to bring Ren Ten’s flexibility to two new models: ‘performance’ schools, where teachers are unionized; ‘contract’ schools, which may hire non-union teachers but must still abide by some district rules. Chicago’s Office of New Schools says a good school needs reviews by local parents, educators and national experts, strong leaders, neighborhood outreach and a rigorous curriculum based on a clear mission. For instance, Urban Prep Charter Academy is designed to help local boys get to college. Longer school days give teachers more time to help students catch up in their ‘job’ of being a pupil. RSF chooses schools most likely to succeed, gives them start-up funds over 30 months, looks for sound management and uses data to aid performance. They test students every six weeks. Every five years, they assess each new school to decide whether to renew their contract or not. So far, 55 schools have opened: 32 charters, 19 performance schools and four contract schools. As they get close to their goal of 100, the state Senate might raise the cap, but of course the teacher unions might try to block it, claiming it creates a two-tiered system and mocks its attempts to ‘apply business models to students.’ Meanwhile, demand increases and, as gang violence increases in regular schools, many more parents want their kids at the charters.
At Urban Prep Charter Academy, 300 boys, 80% of them poor, each wearing a blazer and red tie, stand in straight lines in the gym, shout, ‘We believe. We are the young men of Urban Prep. We are college-bound.’ In 2006, 4% of the student began the school year reading at grade level; in 2007, 11%. In 2006, 87% were from poverty; in 2007, 83%. Groups of parents now visit local neighborhoods to tell parents about new schools and how to send their kids there. Now, parents have a choice.
Some black students who study hard get accused of ‘acting white’. Teachers know this. Roland Fryer asked many public school kids to name their friends. He counted it only if both parties named each other. For white pupils, the higher their grades, the more popular; for blacks, the reverse: ‘studiousness was stigmatized among black schoolchildren’. He gave cash—a nine-year-old kid completing an exam gets $5, for doing well, he gets more—can earn $250 this way. He also gave free mobile phones, which don’t work during school hours., and students can recharge them wthh call minutes only by studying (phone companies helped).
Universities recruit black scholars, admitting them with lower test scores than required for whites or Asians, but the most blatant racial preferences were outlawed in 2003, and more states are barring them altogether. Academic preferences hinder students who undeservingly get them because they get admitted to institutions where they can’t cope. ‘Many who drop out of top-tier colleges might have thrived at slightly less competitive ones….the net effect of pro-black preferences was actually to reduce the number of blacks who passed the bar exam. That is, racial preferences for black law students result in fewer black lawyers’ and ‘lowering the bar for blacks also reduces their incentive to excel at school’ (Economist, 2008 May 10, p32). This same phenomenon would be true of any race, tribe or caste.
