I found something online that I thought people would find this interesting.
There's a Charter School in Newark called the Robert Treat Academy that is the 4th highest rated school in the State of New Jersey. That's according to
www.schooldigger.com. That's not comparing all Charter Schools. That's comparing all public, private, and charter schools. And the enrollment at the Robert Treat Academy is 77% Latino and 19% African-American. Language barriers appear to be of little obstacle to high test scores.
You heard me correct. There is a school in Newark with 96% minority enrollment that is outperforming virtually every public school in northern Bergen County.
To some extent, this particular school must be attracting the best and brightest from all of Newark. And it's located in the Forest Hill District, which is a very good neighborhood. Nevertheless, they must be doing something right to have these kinds of scores within the city limits of Newark.
Here's the link, I hope it'll appear "live".
http://www.schooldigger.com/go/NJ/schools/0002500291/school.aspxI also reviewed their scores on
www.greatschools.net, and found that most grades at the Robert Treat Academy have 100% of all students passing the state standardized tests.
Maybe the school administration there should take what they do, bottle it, and sell it throughout New Jersey.
This has me wondering if it might be better for ENTIRE CITIES to turn over their entire school systems to the Charter System. This alleviates the problem of the Charter Schools draining the Elementary Schools of the families most concerned about quality education, and leaving the Elementary Schools with worse-performing students. I think this would be good public policy for New Jersey's cities. Our illustrious Governor should start with one entire Abbott District, convert it 100% to the Charter System, and see what happens. We already know that state takeover of Abbott Districts has achieved little or nothing, so what about Charter Takeover
?