As Washington State public charter schools continue to battle Democrats and special interests for survival, supporters are pointing to facts that demonstrate the schools’ success. Two public charter schools in Tacoma, which have used various strategies to stay open, are reporting positive gains for students reflected in test scores. Via the News Tribune,
Summit reports that on the nationally norm-referenced Measures of Academic Progress test, Tacoma’s Summit Olympus students:
▪ More than doubled the national average growth in reading and more than tripled the national average growth in math.
▪ Placed in the top third of schools in the nation in terms of math growth.
The growth occurred even though nearly half of Summit Olympus students entered school in the fall an average of four years below grade-level in reading and math, Summit officials said.
At Destiny Charter Middle School, officials report:
▪ 80 percent of students started the school year reading below grade level. But in three months, more than a third of students grew a grade level or two on the nationally normed Scholastic Reading Inventory.
▪ 30 percent of students left the school’s math intervention program by the start of the second semester.
Public charter schools offer underprivileged students an advantage they otherwise would not have in an education system that Democrats let the Washington Education Association (WEA) control. Unfortunately, the WEA and far too many Democrats appear more concerned with the prospect of losing money (for the WEA via forced union dues and for Democrats via loss of campaign funding) than with helping children succeed.
Democrats claim that they are concerned with closing the “education opportunity gap.” If that is truly the case, they would be better off supporting public charter schools that the state Supreme Court have bizarrely ruled unconstitutional, rather than blind obedience to the WEA’s agenda.
cjsmall says
Results like this would only matter if high quality education was the goal. Since that has nothing to do with government indoctrination (cough cough) I mean “education,” there is nothing to see here. Move along.