Here’s an email from LDH, defending her school:

http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation/2010/04/media-darlinghammond-tells-her-version.html

The couple of stories I've seen, especially one from the New York Times, were riddled with errors.  I thought you might want to have the facts. 

I was one of a number of people who helped to start the high school in 2001 at the district's request, because they lost their only community high school during desegregation and the students were bussed out.  I was a faculty advisor until spring of 2008 when I left the board while working on the Obama campaign and later transition.  I have just returned to the Stanford New Schools board as an advisor to the high school, and am getting up to speed myself on the last couple of years of its work.

The high school has made great progress over the years since it was founded. It has created a strong, highly personalized college-going program and currently has a graduation rate of 86 percent, far above the state average. In addition, 96 percent of graduates are admitted to college (including 53 percent to four-year colleges) - twice the rate of African American and Latino students in the state as a whole.  Over the last seven years, the high school increased its API score by 180 points.  An Early College program now enrolls 125 students a year (half the students in the school) who earned 550 college credits this past year.  40% of students earn "A's" in their college courses (a better track record than the college has among its own students) and many graduate with close to a full year of college credits under their belts.

A few years ago the state required the charter to add elementary grades because the district is an elementary district (one of the weird things in California's school governance structure). The brand new elementary was only 3 years old and had only 2 years of data for a few grades when the 5 year charter renewal came up last week.   I was not involved in the elementary school, and most of this work occurred when I was away from the board. The elementary grades' test scores were lower than the high school and those of other more established elementary schools in the district.  They were averaged in with the high school because the 2 schools exist as a single charter.   This brought down the average API of the high school as well.

The Ravenswood board was clear that their concern was about the elementary school and they wanted to strongly support the continuation of the high school, which takes all comers - including many students who transfer in after having been unsuccessful in other schools -- and changes their trajectories. The board voted 3-2 not to approve the five-year charter proposal and then voted  4-1 to consider a modification of the current charter for a shorter term to allow the school to continue until a re-appraisal, which is currently being worked out.