DesertFox
06-04-2005, 09:56 PM
Ryan Sager
City Journal
Spring 2005
"Who are we proud to be?”
“Amistad Academy!”
“And why are we here?”
“To push ourselves, to learn, to achieve our very best.”
“And who is responsible for your success?”
“We are responsible for our actions; we control our destinies.”
“And what will it take to succeed?”
“Work, hard work!”
This encouraging scene—the “circle chant,” it’s called—is taking place in “morning circle” in the gym of what has swiftly become New Haven’s superstar middle school. The six-year-old Amistad Academy is a charter school, meaning that it’s publicly funded but privately run, so it’s free from some of the centrally imposed strictures, such as union work rules and curricular requirements, that stunt the city’s traditional public schools. Amistad has won national acclaim for blasting the test scores of some of Connecticut’s neediest kids through the roof. While state testing in 2003 showed that only 23 percent of New Haven’s traditional public school eighth-graders achieved mastery in math and that 31 percent mastered English, Amistad had 66 percent of its eighth-graders demonstrating math mastery and 71 percent English mastery—beating even the statewide averages.
How is Amistad getting such spectacular results? Critics charge that it’s just skimming the city’s best students from the public school system. But that’s unlikely. Selected by lottery from all over New Haven, the students enter the school performing, on average, two years below grade level. Nearly all of Amistad’s 220 students are black or Hispanic, and they come from poor families—84 percent are eligible for the free-lunch program. Nor is Amistad spending oodles on them: charter schools in Connecticut, as in most states, get less funding per pupil than traditional public schools, and not a cent for facilities.
More (http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_2_sndgs04.html)
City Journal
Spring 2005
"Who are we proud to be?”
“Amistad Academy!”
“And why are we here?”
“To push ourselves, to learn, to achieve our very best.”
“And who is responsible for your success?”
“We are responsible for our actions; we control our destinies.”
“And what will it take to succeed?”
“Work, hard work!”
This encouraging scene—the “circle chant,” it’s called—is taking place in “morning circle” in the gym of what has swiftly become New Haven’s superstar middle school. The six-year-old Amistad Academy is a charter school, meaning that it’s publicly funded but privately run, so it’s free from some of the centrally imposed strictures, such as union work rules and curricular requirements, that stunt the city’s traditional public schools. Amistad has won national acclaim for blasting the test scores of some of Connecticut’s neediest kids through the roof. While state testing in 2003 showed that only 23 percent of New Haven’s traditional public school eighth-graders achieved mastery in math and that 31 percent mastered English, Amistad had 66 percent of its eighth-graders demonstrating math mastery and 71 percent English mastery—beating even the statewide averages.
How is Amistad getting such spectacular results? Critics charge that it’s just skimming the city’s best students from the public school system. But that’s unlikely. Selected by lottery from all over New Haven, the students enter the school performing, on average, two years below grade level. Nearly all of Amistad’s 220 students are black or Hispanic, and they come from poor families—84 percent are eligible for the free-lunch program. Nor is Amistad spending oodles on them: charter schools in Connecticut, as in most states, get less funding per pupil than traditional public schools, and not a cent for facilities.
More (http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_2_sndgs04.html)