US Department of Education,NCSRC

Advocating for Academic Accountability for Charters & Lessons Learned

March 11, 2015

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Improving Quality … … As We Scale

Five years ago, charter schools in California had a U-shape of performance

UNDERPERFORMING OUTPERFORMING

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2007-08Note: no new academic data in 2013-14 but 34 additional closures excluded, compared with 2013-14 data reported in POM

California Charter Schools’ Distribution of Performance on Percent Predicted API, 2008

That picture has changed substantially (& statistically significantly) for the better

UNDERPERFORMING OUTPERFORMING

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2007-08 vs. 2013-14**Note: no new academic data in 2013-14 but 34 additional closures excluded, compared with 2012-13 data reported in CCSA’s Portrait of the Movement: http://www.calcharters.org/portraitofthemovement

California Charter Schools’ Distribution of Performance on Percent Predicted API, 2013*

The Picture is Even More Positive For Low Income Students

Charter Schools Serving Low Income Students: Statewide Distribution on Percent Predicted API, 2013

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Bottom 5% Bottom 10% Bottom 25% Top 25% Top 10% Top 5%

# 9,533 17,114 27,928 78,606 49,115 35,453

% 6% 11% 18% 52% 32% 23%

Charters outperforming with historically disadvantaged subgroups: low income, English learners, Latinos, and African Americans

CREDO data confirms these trends. Students in poverty (particularly African American and Latinos) and English learners gain several weeks or months of additional learning by enrolling in CA charters.

CREDO confirms strengthening of sector;

closely parallels CCSA’s own findings

California Charter School Impact by Growth Period, CREDO 2014

CREDO’s 2nd year is the date of new CCSA CEO hire. A year when the charter sector performance is generally understood to have deteriorated.

CREDO shows charter sector improving almost exactly as CCSA research shows sector strengthening and as CCSA accountability efforts began.

Unfortunately, CREDO research does not YET take into account the last two years, which CCSA research shows to be our strongest.

2012 2013

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2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14

Growth in Student Enrollment in CA Charters, 2013-14 Growth in every region of the state.

Replications are an increasing proportion of our movement each year.

Replicating schools build on strong performance of their CMO/networks’ existing schools: nearly half are performing in top 10th statewide.

During a period of unprecedented growth, we’re growing what works

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2012-13 New Autonomous Replications are Building on Stellar Performance of Replicating Organizations’ Existing Schools

UNDERPERFORMING OUTPERFORMING

We’re Closing What Doesn’t Work

In the past six years, 177 charter schools have closed in California. Of those with sufficient data, we see that approximately 60% are performing in

the bottom fourth of all schools in the state. CCSA has been involved in the closure of many of the lowest performing

schools, either calling for the schools’ non renewal in the year of closure, or turning up pressure such that schools choose to voluntarily close.

School Year ClosedNumber with

full dataBottom 10% of

schoolsBottom 25% of

schools

2008-09 29 17 10 (59%) 12 (71%)

2009-10 15 4 1 (25%) 2 (50%)

2010-11 30 16 3 (19%) 6 (38%)

2011-12 29 19 1 (58%) 13 (68%)

2012-13 40 25 8 (32%) 15 (60%)

2013-14 34 24 8 (33%) 13 (54%)

Total 177 105 41 (39%) 61 (58%)

How did this happen?

CCSA & the CA charter movement have taken an assertive stand to define minimum accountability standards and advocate for the closure of underperforming schools. Why?

Charters’ success depends on ability to thrive and grow with autonomy; small # of underperforming schools threaten the legislative and policy environment for all.

CA charter school leaders wanted to define accountability for themselves, accounting for the unique needs of charter schools.

Work began spring 2009; involved extensive efforts to identify minimum standards, to broadly communicate, and to advocate on a school-by-school basis for closure of underperforming schools.

Refinements made over time to account for changing landscape.

Lever 1– Creating the Framework

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To qualify for CCSA renewal advocacy support, a school must meet one of these:

A status bar – 25th percentile or above on California’s Academic Performance Index (API); (bar increasing annually) or

A growth bar – 50 points of API growth in the past three years; or

Evidence of acceptable performance controlling for demographics– results on CCSA’s regression-based approach; and finally

A fail-safe – giving all schools the chance to present evidence of growth using individual student growth data, evidence currently not incorporated into California’s API system

Schools missing these minimums are recommended for non-renewal

Lever 2 – Publishing Results

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January of 2011, CCSA releases first annual “Portrait of the Movement” publication showing the performance of all California charter schools and identifying performance trends within the sector. Publication prominently features “Shape of the U.”

October, 2011 the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) names publication national winner for Excellence in Advancing Knowledge.

Annual releases since the original publication.

It isn’t easy, as a charter school association, to come out and say, “These charter schools are failing.” The California Charter School Association took a critical step towards demanding that every charter be a great charter school in the state with Portrait of a Movement.

- Greg Richmond, NACSA CEO

Lever 3 – Empowering Parents and the Public with Better Data

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Interactive Maps Showing School Performance

Regional Reports

Dedicated Website with Public Data Files Showing Performance of all Schools

Lever 4 – Holding up a Mirror to Schools and Categories of Schools

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School Accountability Report Cards and Early Warnings Provided to all California Charter Schools

School Attribute Report Showing Performance of Different School Types

(ie Classroom Based Schools vsNon-Classroom Based Schools)

Lever 5 – Behind the Scenes Efforts

CCSA has worked extensively with schools below CCSA’s minimum criteria and has encouraged them to voluntarily close (some have chosen to do so).

CCSA has helped facilitate partnership agreements where schools have reconstituted with new leadership or structural arrangements leading to fundamentally better student outcomes

CCSA has persuaded chronically underperforming schools to delay or halt replication efforts until such time as their flagship school has improved its performance.

Lever 6 – Calling for the Closure of Underperforming Charter Schools,

beginning in 2011-12

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After 2 and ½ Years of Engagement and Testing of the Framework, CCSA Went Public Calling for Non Renewals

Extensive Materials Made Available to Members and the Public

Video Produced Explaining Decision to Members and other Stakeholders

Lever 7 – Media Strategies

CCSA has called for the closure of low performing schools and is advocating for their closure.

Statewide media efforts accompanied our calls for closure, including op-eds in several publications including the LA Times in December.

The Association has a long standing media campaign in place to raise awareness about the need for improved accountability systems for charter schools

In 2013-14 we expanded our quality work to begin opposing the replications of low performing schools

Cautions: The effort has its costs

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Member support for CCSA accountability work declined from a high of 64% to a low of 51%; but is now rebounding

30 schools have terminated membership in CCSA citing disagreement with the Association’s accountability efforts, resulting in somewhat reduced membership revenue

That said, CCSA is now seeing membership rates for CA independent charter schools approach all-time highs.

Results suggest that state associations can and must play a lead role in ensuring accountability because of their unique role in the landscape to generate the deep buy-in from charter school stakeholders needed to support assertive accountability efforts.

Lessons Learned

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If you are a membership association doing this work, have your high performing members from a variety of school types lead the work.

Way over communicate with your constituencies on sensitive accountability matters. No matter how thoroughly you do it, you will be accused of not having done enough.

Own your data! Maintaining credibility is essential, and you can only do that if you have the systems and research capacity to know more than virtually anyone else in the space.

Prepare for accusations that you are unfairly targeting schools serving high need students by having data showing other schools serving those exact students doing far better.

Move forward with urgency, but build in time for pilots and pressure testing as those process steps are important to retaining buy-in. Develop tools such as report cards and early warning systems that allow you to engage with members proactively and repeatedly.

Avoid static performance criteria. All boats tend to rise with state accountability systems. Make sure your measures rise with all boats. Again, this requires staying on top of your data.

Have a principled, data-justified basis for all accountability decisions. As tempting as it is to make opportunistic exceptions – both toward greater assertiveness and leniency – never do it as your credibility can evaporate in an instant.

Have a multi-faceted strategy and be nimble. This is difficult work. You don’t know which pathway will prove viable. Be prepared to move down whatever path opens up.

A Moment of Risk: the Transition to Common Core

California state accountability is moving to a system of multiple measures & emphasizing local decision-making.

New system may take several years to finalize (could be 2017-18).

Implications for California charter schools:- Creating too many measures or delaying accountability entirely would leave

charter schools open to differing treatment depending on the local political climate. Authorizers could find one measure among many to justify renewing chronically failing schools or to close high performing charters.

- In the meantime, we already see authorizers beginning to create their own, highly varying frameworks and rules for renewal and replications.

- Lack of uniform statewide standards may create a climate of unequal treatment and uncertainty that could threaten charter schools’ renewals, access to financing and future growth plans.

A Moment of Opportunity: the Transition to Common Core

CCSA is working with its Member Council, CA charters and a National Advisory Committee to revise its accountability framework to align to Common Core and postsecondary readiness standards.

Desire to maintain momentum on accountability given its positive impact on California charter sector.

Opportunity to develop a framework that will be more directly applicable to vast sections of the nation, something that was not the case previously.

Leading to potential for greater nationwide impact.

Discussion Questions

1. What is the state of charter accountability in your state?- Are underperforming charters appropriately closed?- Are conditions predictable enough to allow high performers to

thrive and replicate?

2. Are minimum academic standards in place for charter reauthorization in your state? If yes, are they simple, clear, and appropriately nuanced to account for different charter types?

3. Are you facing generalized anti-testing, anti-accountability sentiment in your state and if so, how are you handling it?

4. How have you retooled (or initially designed) your state accountability standards for charters to account for Common Core standards (if applicable), postsecondary readiness, and other relevant outcome data?

Discussion Questions

5. Multiple measures have pros and cons:

Can present a more holistic view of a school’s performance

– But it can also mean multiple “trip up” points to keep high performing charters from being reauthorized, or multiple “excuses” to allow an authorizer to allow underperforming charters to continue.

– Also, multiple measures often include metrics that are more input-focused than outcome-oriented (e.g. student engagement, parent involvement, credentialed teachers are all important and interesting to measure but ultimately less impactful than a charters’ outcomes for students).

Have you seen any trend toward this in your state and how are you handling?