charter – RI Future

June 10, 2013January 14, 2015

Blackstone Academy: great charter school; can it be scaled?

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Blackstone Academy, a charter school serving 165 high school students from Central Falls and Pawtucket, looks a lot like what I wish the entire public education system looked like.

Students are encouraged to pursue their passions within, and sometimes a bit outside of, the constructs of the curriculum. Everyone has individualized plans for success. Teachers are highly engaged with their students, their learning styles and their personal struggles. Educators develop community service projects for their classes. There’s a vegetable garden out from and students and teachers all call each other by their first names.

I went the the school’s graduation ceremony on Friday and nearly every senior was going to college. This from a school who 86 percent of the students are eligible for free and reduced lunch. Not all publicly financed charter schools in Rhode Island are outperforming their public school counterparts, But Blackstone sure is.

How does Blackstone do it? Here’s what my lifelong friend John Horton joked to the graduates on Friday.

Horton is a 14 year veteran of teaching with a degree from U Penn. He’s also one of the smartest, nicest and most compassionate people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. There’s certainly something to this; Blackstone does have a great staff of teachers. My brother, a former teacher, is their attorney.

What makes Blackstone different?

Here’s what school principal Kyleen Carpenter told Julia Steiny in GoLocalProv last week.

“No one wants to hear this, which is why I really want to say: Our school culture kicks butt. Everyone’s here to learn; no one’s here to screw around. And we will achieve at a high level, whatever that takes. I used to have a line outside my door with kids who said ‘F you’ to a teacher, or did something wrong. No more. You can’t buy culture; you can’t make it. You have to have consistent expectations in every single class, and to celebrate achievement.”

“As corny as it sounds, a great culture is a commitment to relentless happiness. Also, throw ‘no excuses’ out the door. These kids have plenty of excuses. But we help them address and remove those excuses so they can get to work. We do not pretend they don’t exist. No, it’s not all roses and puppy dogs. But we talk about the problems and don’t hide them.”

Ah, I see … great teachers AND great culture!

So if have great teachers in our all of our schools, do we have great culture? If not, what can we learn about how Blackstone Academy has created its great culture? Rhode Island is diverting funding from traditional public schools, in part, so that charter schools can act as living laboratories for everyone. Is RIDE monitoring and helping to export the success stories? Or is it only diverting resources from the many to the few?

And here’s the million dollar question: whatever it is that Blackstone Academy is doing to help poor kids from Central Falls and Pawtucket great a great education, can it be scaled to work elsewhere?

January 30, 2013January 30, 2013

RI’s Charter First To Codify Religious Freedom

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A “lively experiment” indeed.

Rhode Island’s colonial charter, which celebrates its 350 anniversary this June, “holds a unique place in the evolution of human rights in the modern world,” says Rhode Island College emeritus professor Dr. Stanley Lemons.

“When King Charles II approved the Charter in July 1663,” Lemons writes, “it marked the first time in modern history that a monarch signed a charter guaranteeing that individuals within a society were free to practice the religion of their choice without any interference from the government.”

Pieter Rods, of the Newport Restoration Society, calls our colonial charter, “the first document anywhere in the history of the English empire that guarantees freedom of religion as a matter of law. Religious freedom and separation of church and state both things that we think of as being very important american values and here they are first set forth in a Rhode Island document.”

Both historians share their thoughts on our world-changing charter as Governor Chafee sets to unveil the state’s plans to honor its birthday today at the State House. Hat tip to Andy Cutler for posting this video to Facebook yesterday.

According to a press release:

The activities to be announced include creating a new exhibit space in the State House, a State House gala, a series of educational events, as well as plans for the conservation and preservation of the Charter. Color guards, colonial militia, and an actor playing the role of Roger Williams will also be on hand for tomorrow’s event.

The press release about the announcement notes the charter is the “source of the phrase ‘lively experiment.'” Chafee uses this phrase often when combating the Christian dogma that often invades modern Rhode Island’s political debate.

The announcement also comes one day after two RI Future correspondents (read them here and here) took issue with a GoLocal piece that said Roger Williams would be a Republican.

August 16, 2012April 12, 2014

Corporate Agenda Behind Public Charter Schools

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This investor dude is making big dollars for himself and his rich clients by taking money out of your public school system. But no, the charter movement is totally progressive.

Here’s the setup. CNBC is interviewing David Brain, head of a major investment trust, about why charter schools are such phenomenal money-makers for investors like him. Here’s the transcript.

Anchor: Charter schools have become very popular as parents seek more choice in educating their children. But are charter schools a wise addition to your investment portfolio? Well let’s ask David Brain, President and CEO of Entertainment Properties Trust. David, why would I want to add charter schools into my portfolio?

DB: Well I think it’s a very stable business, very recession-resistant. It’s a high-demand product. There’s 400,000 kids on waiting lists for charter schools, the industry’s growing about 12-14% a year. So it’s a high-growth, very stable, recession-resistant business. It’s a public payer, the state is the payer on this category, and if you do business with states with solid treasuries then it’s a very solid business.

Anchor: Well let me ask you about potential risks, here, to your charter school portfolio, because I understand that three of your nine “Imagine” schools are scheduled to actually lose their charters for the next school year. Does this pose a risk to investors?

DB: Well, occasionally—our Imagine arrangement’s on a master lease, so there’s no loss of rents to the company, although occasionally there are losses of charters in certain areas and they’re used to peculiar, particular circumstances. In this case it’s a combination of relationship with the supervisory authorities and educational quality; sometimes the educational quality is very difficult to change in one, two, or three years. It’s a long-term proposition, so there are some of these that occur, but we’ve structured our affairs so this is not going to impact our rent-roll and in fact you see this is maybe even a good experience as the industry thins out some of the less-performing schools and we move on to the best-performing schools.

Anchor: David there has been somewhat of a backlash to charter schools in some areas given their use of public money, as you noted. Any risk to the growth of charter schools generally?

DB: I don’t—there’s not a lost of risk, there’s probably risk to everything but the fact is this has bipartisan support. It’s part of the Republican platform and Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education in the Obama Administration, has been very high on it throughout their work in public education. So we have both political parties are solidly behind it, you have high demand, high growth, you have performance across the board, most studies have charter schools at even or better than district public education. So, I think it has some risk because it’s new and it’s emerging and it is a high-growth category. But at the same time I think much more’s going forward so it’s still a safe area for investment.

Anchor: You’ve invested in retail centers, ski parks, you’ve got charter schools, you’ve got movie theaters. If you could buy one thing right now, David, one type of asset in real estate, what would it be?

DB: Well, probably the charter school business. We said it’s our highest growth and most appealing sector right now of the portfolio. It’s the most high in demand, it’s the most recession-resistant. And a great opportunity set with 500 schools starting every year. It’s a two and a half billion dollar opportunity set annually.

Two and a half billion dollar opportunity set annually.