The UFT Charter School: Reactions to the SUNY Report

We had two questions after reading SUNY’s lukewarm renewal report for the UFT Charter School: What did the UFT Charter School get on its Progress Reports? And, a smaller point – didn’t Randi Weingarten claim that the UFT Charter School was especially good at social studies on Morning Joe? We did some digging, and the answers are below.

Progress Reports. Although scores were not available for the school’s first three years, we found that in 2007-2008, the UFT Charter School received a raw Progress Report score that put it in the bottom 15% of all schools in New York City. In 2008-2009, despite the fact that the school’s grade rose from a C to a B, its raw Progress Report Score actually put it in the bottom 6% of schools citywide. Only two other charter schools—the Peninsula Preparatory Academy Charter School and Harriet Tubman Charter School—have remained in the bottom 15% for two or more years. This spreadsheet explains our calculations.

Social Studies. In January, Randi Weingarten Morning Joe to defend the union’s role in preventing the charter cap from being lifted. During her interview, she claimed that 95% of 5th graders at the UFT Charter School had aced the Social Studies exam (watch in the clip below). SUNY’s Renewal Report does not list any data for 5th grade social studies results, but it does state that only 38% of 8th graders scored proficient or higher on their social studies exams in 2008-2009, well below the school’s target range.

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Comments

[GCB]

Did you see Joe demolish the teacher union's State Senate lackey a few weeks back?

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/morning-joe-charter-school-debate-a-lesson-for-parents-teachers-and-cable-news/

[Tory Burch Outlet]

"When I [author Clara Hemphill] visited 30 schools in District 7 in the South Bronx as a reporter for the Insideschools.org website early in Mayor Bloomberg's first term, the schools, with a few noteworthy exceptions, were in a sorry state. I met principals who routinely called for an ambulance to take an out-of-control child to the nearest psychiatric emergenc