69% of Charter Middle Schools Earned A’s on Progress Reports, Compared to 30% of All Middle Schools Citywide
KIPP Infinity Charter School in Washington Heights Received the Highest Score of All Elementary and Middle Schools Citywide on its 2007-2008 Progress Report
Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein today congratulated charter schools for their excellent results on the public school Progress Reports released yesterday by the Department of Education. Charter school performance especially outpaced schools citywide at the middle-school level, where 69% of charter middle schools received an A, compared to 30% of all middle schools citywide. Overall, half of the City’s 42 charter schools receiving Progress Report grades earned an A, compared to 38% of all elementary and middle schools citywide. Among other charter schools, 12 got a B (29%), five got a C (12%), two got a D (5%), and two got an F (5%). KIPP Infinity, a charter middle school in Harlem, earned an A and received a score of 106 points, making it the top performer of the 1,043 elementary, middle, and K-8 schools that received Progress Report grades earlier this week.
“The progress reports this year show once again that charter schools are a powerful way to deliver public education to children regardless of their backgrounds,” Chancellor Klein said. “The strong performance of charter middle schools is especially notable given the difficulty New York City and districts across the country have had in raising student achievement in those grades.”
“These progress reports point to one unassailable reality: public charter schools are by and large working for the tens of thousands of children who attend them,” James Merriman, Chief Executive Officer of the New York City Center for Charter School Excellence, said. “This record of achievement is a credit to the board members, school leaders, teachers, and students who welcome the kind of accountability that comes with these progress reports and are in turn given the autonomy to make their schools work.”
Along with KIPP Infinity, Excellence Charter School of Bedford Stuyvesant was another of only three elementary, middle, and K-8 schools that scored 100 points or more on their Progress Reports. Additionally, every charter school run by charter management organizations Uncommon Schools and Achievement First also received A grades. The Renaissance Charter School and The Bronx Lighthouse Charter School both improved from a C last year to an A this year.
The DOE Progress Reports give each school a letter grade from A to F based on the academic achievement and progress of students as well as the results of surveys taken by parents, students, and teachers last spring. Progress Reports are the centerpiece of the City’s effort to provide greater transparency to parents about the quality of education their children are receiving, and to hold schools accountable for student outcomes. Of the elementary, middle, and K-8 schools that received Progress Reports earlier this week, 394 received an A (38%), 423 received a B (41%), 158 received a C (15%), 50 received a D (5%), and 18 received an F (2%).