CCSA Targets Ten "Underperforming" Charter Schools

CSDC Concerns with CCSA's SSM Methodology and Tactics

CSDC has many concerns with CCSA’s SSM-based methodology and the tactics they are using.  Some of the major concerns include the following:
	Inciting school district to ignore letter and intent of California’s charter law.  California’s charter schools laws call for charter schools to meet renewal targets specified in the law along with meeting additional school-specific goals contained in each school’s charter.  CCSA, however, is now attempting to impose a new, extra-legal set of criteria, above and beyond what is specified in law, and states that it will urge school districts to follow its SSM criteria rather than the law.
	Narrow and unstable ranking methodology.  CCSA’s methodology relies exclusively on California’s unstable standardized testing data.  California’s testing system suffers from many widely-recognized flaws, including the inability to compare test scores across grades, thwarting the ability to gauge growth in student achievement over time.   The SSM also relies heavily on very unstable, self-reported parent education data, variable free lunch eligibility data, and other volatile factors.  As such, both the state’s and CCSA’s school performance metrics fail to measure growth and punish schools that serve transient populations and/or narrow grade spans that rapidly turn-over.  The SSM methodology also punishes charter schools that reach out and serve substantial numbers of challenged students (e.g., adjudicated, truant, dropout, and other similarly-challenged students, etc.).
	Unsound tactics and process.  Though CSDC is not familiar with the details of all of the schools on the list, we are familiar with a few.   One school on the list is primarily a dropout recovery program and qualifies for the state’s Alternative Schools Accountability Model.  As such, the school should have been excluded from the list per CCSA’s own methodology, but presumably was included by mistake.  A second school had already voluntarily opted to close the school at the end of this year and had begun to implement a delicate school closure plan.  The onslaught of negative publicity triggered by CCSA’s heavy-handed media blitz has made this already-challenging process even more difficult, undermining the school’s ability to successfully transition its students and staff.  A third school serves a very small population, growing from 36 to 84 students tested over the prior three testing cycles.  Per California Department of Education guidelines, API data for any school below 100 students is “less reliable and, therefore, should be carefully interpreted.”  This school also serves an unusually high proportion of special education students (25 percent of students tested).  Even so, the school has more than exceeded the state Academic Performance Index targets for the past two years, including a 50-point net increase in its API scores.

Multiple and Moving Targets

The CCSA’s SSM model is but one of many efforts by the Association to use standardized testing data to shutter low-scoring schools.  Some others include the following:
	Sponsoring an ill-crafted trio of controversial bills earlier this year that would have substantially increased the current charter renewal requirements, eventually forcing a large proportion of California’s charter schools to undergo an additional, complex layer of state review and operate under truncated 3-year charter terms (current law specifies a 5-year term).  The bills stalled late in this year’s legislative session and now appear dead.
	Supporting a set of controversial regulations that force the state board and state superintendent to review test data for charter schools scoring in the lowest decile on the state’s 10-point state ranking system.

Each of these efforts is based on a different methodology, but all rely exclusively on California’s flawed standardized testing data and ignore the goals specified in the charter law and individual school’s charters.  They also punish those charter schools that serve high proportions of challenging students—many of whom were unsuccessful in traditional public schools.

CSDC's Position

CSDC does support strong accountability and oversight of charter schools and has a long track record for both training and supporting charter oversight staff and also pressing low performing charter schools to improve or shut down.  CSDC also supports and continues to advocate for reform of California’s charter-granting and oversight laws, building on a growing understanding of alternative charter authorizing models from other states.  We cannot, however, support CCSA’s unsound and extra-legal methodologies and insensitive attacks and suggest that charter-granting districts to disregard CCSA’s recommendations except to the extent that they parallel the provisions of individual schools’ charters. 

California, the second state to enact charter legislation, was once at the leading edge of charter school reform efforts.  It now lags many other states in the quality of its charter-granting and oversight laws by relying on conflicted school districts who often lack experienced or capable staff.  The solution to this challenge is not to implement unsound, formulaic accountability methods, but instead to learn from other states with more sophisticated and effective charter authorizing and oversight laws and support common-sense authorizing in California.