1. Arise is a school led by an OUSD “crony: (taken from a post on another category)? There scores are horrible , but I thibk that the charter process will point that their closure in imminent.
2. American Indian schools- what are their Asian population numbers? I know they are as high as their scores, but why?
(C’mon- you know the deal with Asian students. They do perform better).
3. Many charters are overall doing well, so what can be learned from them. Isin’t that the cencept behind the original charter school concept? They are here and instead of being bashed, lets see what works.

The same goes for other school types.

4. Aviation is a terrible concept for a charter in Oakland. I laughed when it was first approved and I doubt it will survive, but am sure it should not!

Anyway, a few random though after reading Katy’s posting.

Thank you for post #5…all Charters are not equal and they are not all bad. The failing ones should be shut down (OUSD probably has too many), just like the failing district schools. There is often a lot of negative entries on the blog toward all of the charters, but it is nice to hear that others recognize that some of them are really are helping students succeed.

Many charters operate on a lottery system. Many charter schools do not have an application, they simply have a student interest form. Once a spot opens up, the next family on the list is called.

There is a false belief that all charter schools hand pick students. This is not fair and discredits all of the positive impact that they have. Large schools like Berkeley High and Oakland Tech do very little to serve a large proportion of their students. Charter schools step in to do the work that these schools have failed to do.

Stop lumping all charter schools together in one category. You could have stated, “Some charter schools.”

Um, so the union dominated unreformed mainstream schools in Oakland shouldn’t be judged on how well or poorly their student’s performed?

I’m all for charters that do not perform to be shut down.

But so should the noncharters that fail to educate, and unfortunately — that’s not on the school board’s agenda. And it’s the students who pay the price of those failures.

June 23, 2010
Dear Superintendent Smith and Directors of the Oakland Unified School District,

On behalf of the board and staff of ARISE High School, we are requesting to materially revise the term of our charter to reflect the term of our school’s operating history.

While our charter was submitted and approved in June of 2006, in both our charter and in OUSD’s own staff report, the opening date of the school is listed as August, 2007. We are requesting that the term of our five-year charter commence July 1, 2007 and end June 30, 2012.

Charter leaders like to talk about how important test scores are. Live by the sword, die by the sword.