Analysis Finds Charter School Staffed by Alternate Route Alumni to be Highest Performing in the State

Bruce Baker is a Professor in Rutgers Graduate School of Education’s Department of Educational Theory Policy and Administration. He is well renowned as a scholar in the field of education finance. Baker’s recent ranking of the most efficient, highest performing public and charter schools in NJ has left many shocked. Baker examined changes in standardized test scores over four years at all K-8 publicly funded schools in New Jersey, and published his findings in a post “Top 50 Efficient Producers of Achievement Gains in New Jersey 2012-2014”. The results were especially eye opening:

1. Only 2 of the 50 schools that made it to the top of Baker’s list were charter schools
2. Discovery Charter School of Newark was the highest performing K-8 charter school in New Jersey, placing 9th in the rankings
3. The only other charter school to make it to the top fifty list, placed 50th

After reading these results, we wanted to hear more from Baker. Lucky for us he was more than willing to share details on his analysis.

What inspired you to conduct this research study?

The idea behind the post and analysis was that some schools with aggressive PR departments get all the media attention. But, if we take a step back and evaluate all schools on a level playing field, we might find others that show intriguing results, at least according to the stuff we tend to measure.

How did you set up your research model?

I set up a 3 year model of all NJ schools that have student achievement growth data. I then controlled for their total resource levels (staffing expenditure), student population characteristics and location within the state (which accounts for a bunch of hard to measure differences, for example, in demographics/housing structure, costs, etc. from one area of the state to another). What I got from all of this was a list of schools that showed either greater than expected gains given their resources, students and location, or less than expected gains.

Discovery came out looking really good here. That is, Discovery had much higher than expected gains than most schools and all other charter schools.

What can we learn from your findings?

The model doesn't tell us anything about why certain schools achieved gains that were greater or less than expected. But, it does tell us that we may want to take a closer look at Discovery Charter and other schools that had better than expected gains, given the kids they serve and resources they have. By conducting a deeper investigation, we might learn something or find out that the model simply failed to capture other important differences. That's all part of the exploration. Models and data like this are a starting point (not ending point) to figuring out what works and whether similar things work in different settings or not.

"We have created a human-scale environment where every child is known and every child has ways to contribute. We continually strive to implement curricula, policies, and procedures that are in service of our children and never the other way around. This is a hard and never-ending process." - Denis Cretinon, Past Rutgers Alternate Route Instructor

Following Baker’s advice, we took a closer look at Discovery Charter School and asked its faculty, many of whom are Rutgers Alternate Route alumni, what’s fueling their success.

Why do you think your students"Our curriculum is primarily "teacher-grown" and not so whetted to standards such that the 'tail wags the dog.' Indeed, doing so would only serve to impair and stifle our students' intellectual curiosity. Rather, we view the standards as merely a guide that allows a student's creative process to flourish through a safe learning environment with our teachers and staff. To that extent, our entire staff communicates and meets with parents every day, allowing us to better engage parents in their children's learning, thereby creating a community where we are all true stakeholders in our students' academic success." - Renier Pierantoni, Rutgers Alternate Route Instructor

"There is a flexibility to what we do here, which allows us to tailor content and procedures to meet a child's needs immediately. We look at each child as an individual and not one of many in a classroom. We are also open to alternative ways to problem-solve, which involves using the resources of all stakeholders: students, teachers, parents and staff." - Cheryl Rogers, Rutgers Alternate Route Graduate '11

"The staff operates with clear, purposeful commitments in mind. The school's leadership is exceptionally caring and attentive to the professional development of its teachers. But most importantly, we have the entire week off for Thanksgiving Break." - Mohammed Kabbani, Rutgers Alternate Route Graduate '14

"Because we are small, we are able to focus fairly quickly on our children that are not performing well. We don't need an "interim test" to tell us, we are very present with the children in every class and setting. We share what we are learning about the children as workers and citizens, as well as their accomplishments and strengths regularly with all of the teachers. Children get consistent and firm messages that the adults in the school care about them and their families everyday." - Irene Hall, Rutgers Alternate Route Instructor

Congratulations Discovery Charter School team!