COMPARABLE? NOT REALLY
In an Idaho Ed News article ("Idaho Charter Schools Underserve Minority and Poor Populations", by Devin Bodkin) last week, the Executive Director of Bluum, an organization devoted to promoting charter schools, had this quote:
“While charters aren’t as diverse as state averages, they are more diverse than the West Ada School district on average and are darn close to Boise district averages.”
Comparing the state charter average for free and reduced lunch with that of the Boise District is, well, apples and oranges. The real question is whether the charters in the school district, two of which purport to have the same boundaries as the entire district, serve student populations similar to that of the District.
In Boise's case there are 3 charters whose data we can analyze - Sage, ANSER, and the Village.
ANSER and Sage have in their charter applications declared their boundaries to be the same as the Boise District. ANSER serves students in grades k-8, and Sage is a k-12 school. To be more than fair, we will use the k-12 averages in the Boise District for comparison for these two schools, and we will look at percentages of free/reduced students, special education (SpEd) students, and Limited English (LEP) students.
The Village has defined their boundaries as roughly east of Eagle Road, south of Fairview Avenue, west of Latah Street (though the boundary is a little further east nearer to the airport), and south to the Boise and West Ada boundary lines.
The Boise elementary schools within the Village boundary are Owyhee (59% free and reduced lunch), Jefferson (82%), Hillcrest (74%), Maple Grove (29%), Amity (28%), and Grace Jordan (68%). There are also a number of West Ada schools - Desert Sage (60%) , Lake Hazel (31%), Silver Sage (39%), and parts of Pepper Ridge. (22%). We calculated an aggregate percentage for these schools to compare with the Village totals.
Here are the comparative numbers and percentages:
ANSER and Sage have in their charter applications declared their boundaries to be the same as the Boise District. ANSER serves students in grades k-8, and Sage is a k-12 school. To be more than fair, we will use the k-12 averages in the Boise District for comparison for these two schools, and we will look at percentages of free/reduced students, special education (SpEd) students, and Limited English (LEP) students.
The Village has defined their boundaries as roughly east of Eagle Road, south of Fairview Avenue, west of Latah Street (though the boundary is a little further east nearer to the airport), and south to the Boise and West Ada boundary lines.
The Boise elementary schools within the Village boundary are Owyhee (59% free and reduced lunch), Jefferson (82%), Hillcrest (74%), Maple Grove (29%), Amity (28%), and Grace Jordan (68%). There are also a number of West Ada schools - Desert Sage (60%) , Lake Hazel (31%), Silver Sage (39%), and parts of Pepper Ridge. (22%). We calculated an aggregate percentage for these schools to compare with the Village totals.
Here are the comparative numbers and percentages:
As reported in the Idaho Ed News articles, charters around the state often have much different demographics than their host districts, especially when it comes to free/reduced lunch percentages and Limited English populations. This applies to the Boise District and its charter schools, as well.
In December, 2015, we provided a comparison between SBAC proficiency percentages at The Village and Sage Charter Schools and demographically comparable schools in the Boise District, showing that the two charter schools achieved no better (and sometimes were much worse) than the comparable schools.
Since charter schools across the state are most often demographically much different from the Districts in their areas of service, and the situation appears not to be changing, these are the most appropriate achievement comparisons. Anser does this comparison with comparable schools annually in their report to the Boise District Board of Trustees Perhaps other charters should follow their lead.
