San Jose, California: Not all charter schools succeeding

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Sharon Noguchi, of the San Jose Mercury News, reported today:

Locally, MACSA Academia Calmecac in San Jose and MACSA El Portal Leadership Academy in Gilroy had their charters revoked last year for financial irregularities. Two other schools were threatened with revocation this year. In perhaps the most embarrassing example, Stanford New Schools in East Palo Alto, a venture of the vaunted university's school of education, two weeks ago was denied a renewal by the Ravenswood City School District.

Charter schools have steadily multiplied, with 809 this year in California, including 34 in Santa Clara County and 16 in San Mateo County.

But the same independence that fosters charter success also hinders outside intervention when schools are flailing.

Take the case of South Bay Preparatory in San Jose, which won a charter two years ago for grades sixth-ninth. The school's opening was delayed a year because it couldn't find a facility. It finally opened last fall with 65 students instead of the 200 planned.

Then South Bay's sponsor, the Santa Clara County Office of Education, determined the converted church auditorium the school was using wasn't appropriate for classes. While South Bay looked for another location, its entire staff resigned or was fired amid infighting and a financial squeeze, and enrollment fell to 39. Students transferring to other schools were denied credit for their studies at South Bay. And the school reported that its $25,000 debt could grow to $75,000 by June.

And sadly, that great local university known as Stanford suffered an epic fail in the charter business:

But even schools that pass the facilities hurdle face tough challenges.

Stanford University had all the predictors of success when, in 2001, it opened a high school serving East Palo Alto and eastern Menlo Park — where no public high school had existed for decades. It added an elementary school in 2006. The purpose, said Dean Deborah Stipek of Stanford's school of education, was to provide practical experience, "so when we're training teachers and school leaders, our work is well grounded in the realities out there."

But the school posted test scores so low that it landed on a list of the bottom 5 percent of schools in the state. It's in its third year on a federal watch list known as Program Improvement.

Last year, Stanford New School students scored 605 on the state's academic performance index, nearly 200 points below the state's goal of 800 for all schools.

Full story: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_14978039