If You Think Ending Charter Co-location is a Good Idea, Read This!

Posted this morning at Memphis Schools Matter:

A headline by Chalkbeat Tennessee would lead us assume that public schools have scored a big victory: Shelby County to pull kids from schools shared with ASD: Co-location to end next Fall.   

The story attached to the headline, however, clearly shows that assumption to be wrong.  

If this new plan goes forward, ASD charters will get the ENTIRE BUILDING where they are now co-located, and the hundreds of public school students will be moved into segregated testing containment camps run by I-Zone.

Teachers and parents must be at the November 18 meeting in large numbers to make sure this giveaway of public space to corporate reform schools does NOT happen.

Shelby County Schools next fall will slam the brakes on its practice of sharing buildings with Achievement School District charter schools, pulling hundreds of students out of up to 10 schools that otherwise would be co-located with charters, Chalkbeat has learned.

District administrators say the move to end colocation is academically motivated. But it could also benefit the school district by slowing the steady exodus of students from SCS schools to the state-controlled ASD charters. It would also uproot several well-established school communities throughout Memphis and leave some school buildings with just a handful of charter school students in them.

Some ASD charter school operators take over low-performing schools a grade at a time. This practice, known as “phasing in,”allows charters to adjust their teaching model to local conditions as needed, and to share innovative strategies with traditional public school educators, according to charter leaders. . . . 

[Comment: Charters have one strategy, and it is not innovative but, rather, criminally abusive to both students and teachers.]

But colocation has led to morale, recruitment and retention problems among principals and teachers who work for traditional public schools, and who know their jobs will be phased out, said Brad Leon, the district’s chief innovation officer. This has hurt test scores in those schools, Leon said.

“We want our staff focused on student achievement,” Leon said. “We want them focused on the task at hand.”

Ending the colocation practice next year means a significant portion of students and teachers at Shannon, Westwood and Spring Hill elementary schools and Cory and Lester middle schools will be moved to other campuses.

If the ASD follows through with taking over Airways, A. Maceo Walker middle schools and Hawkins Mill, Brookmeade and Denver Elementary schools–all schools in which charter operators are considering phasing in at a grade at a time – students and teachers in the upper grades at those schools now will also be moved.

SCS administrators will present a proposal to board members at the next board meeting,  Nov. 18, detailing plans for those students.

ASD officials said they will not back away from its plans to phase-in charter schools, even if there will be no other students in the building.