Email discussion with Gary Rubenstein about Green Dot and Locke High School

At the end of his response to the lamp/bulb analogy, Gary wrote "I don't think that any charter system is willing to put their reputation on the line and attempt to take over a failing school by keeping all the same kids."  So, I told him about Green Dot's takeover of Locke High School in LA and, after Gary expressed skepticism about what happened there, I put him in touch with Green Dot's President and CEO, Marco Petruzzi.  Here's what Marco wrote and below is the full exchange:

 

The first thing I did was read the link below from the guy who "researched" Green Dot and I had to laugh.  The problem with blogger/researchers is that they can claim whatever they want and if they write decently and with authority people think that they are credible.  Now, you certainly don't have to believe me either, but we do have UCLA doing an independent study on Locke and the results are very encouraging. 

 

The most incorrect claim in the blogger's article and the guy he quotes are that we dumped all the students, and that we spent outrageous sums of money.  We kept all the students.  We obviously no longer had the old 12th graders, who graduated, and we got a new batch of 9th graders, but we basically had the similar trends in enrollment than years before in terms of incoming population from the attendance area.  This was not a choice school, but their school of default, and everyone basically showed up. In terms of spend, please note that Locke is 3,000 students.  We did get $15 million for the first 4 years and then we will break even with public funds.  Note that that adds up to $1,250 per year per student for the first 4 years.  Note that as a charter we get about $7,800/student, which happens to be about $1,500 less per student that LAUSD got before.  So we really are just getting close, but below, what the District previously got and then we go back to having a $1,500 gap.  And note that we are below the $11,000 average for the US and below the $16-18,000 that NY gets.  Our critics apparently can't do 5th grade math. In any case, after 3 years at Locke here's where we are (and I can tell you we are not a 90-90-90 school yet):

 

- Our biggest impact has been on student retention.  If you look at the data prior to Green Dot taking over, you would see entering 9th grade classes of around 1,200-1,300 students that would quickly go down to about 250 graduates 4 years later. However, the data is not perfect as LAUSD has the nasty habit of counting in the 9th grade not only incoming 9th graders but also "returning 9th graders", students who didn't drop out but basically failed the majority of their freshman courses and therefore had to stay another year in 9th grade. Anecdotally, from teachers from the old Locke that stayed with Green Dot, almost all of the returning 9th graders would eventually drop out.  In any case, from records we can tell that the actual graduating rate of "new" 9th graders, who were approx. 1,000, only 250 graduated and of those only 85 did with a college prep diploma (California still allows two types of diplomas, the good one and the useless ones). Since you are a teacher, I'll let you do the math of the devastation that that school was creating in that community.  Our entering 9th grade class the first year was approx. 900 students. 

 

A-ha, you might say, why 100 students less? Are you not accepting all the students? Demographic trends will show you that the population in South Central Los Angeles has been declining steadily for the past 10 years and that the trend will continue.  The decline has actually accelerated in the past 3 years with the crisis, due to less immigration in general, less undocumented immigration specifically, and the lack of jobs for people with no high school degree in the area, who have all had to move out.

 

Anyway, what has happened to the incoming 9th graders?  The majority are still with us, and we believe that if the trends hold, by the fourth year we will graduate approx. 600-700 students, all of which will have taken the college prep curriculum.  Is it perfect? No.  Are there still some drop outs? No doubt. But a marked improvement in retention.  We did it by throwing the kitchen sink at credit recovery and intervention courses and doing whatever it takes for every child.  This year, after 3 years we had 560 graduates from a class that didn't start with us with 100 more that are still enrolled for one more year (mostly ELL and Sped) with high likelihood of achieving all their credits

 

- The second impact has been in access to more rigorous courses.  This was easy as we put everyone on a college prep track, no exception, no excuses.

 

- The third impact was achievement.  This has proven as you can imagine the most difficult one, and the main reason we cannot claim "we did it" just yet. While we have doubled or tripled the number of proficient students in most subjects the percentages are still low.  We suffer from a "double impact" a numerator impact and a denominator impact. The numerator problem is that Locke started so low - 4% proficiency in math - that even when you triple that, it still sucks. We're not there yet.  The second problem is that with our amazing success in retention, guess who you keep as a student? The lowest performing ones.  They rarely contribute to your numerator, at least not right away. So we have a long way to go.  Our biggest issue here is that the actual entry level of the students is so darn low, coming from the K-8 system reading at about 4-5th grade that it is difficult to accelerate them so much.

 

In any case, Gary, if you're ever around, I'd be happy to show you Locke.  I think all of this nonsense will disappear when the country fully embraces value added measures.  When we start measuring schools by how much they move their students up, independent from their point of entry, we will actually possess data to do true comparisons.  In the meantime, many of our critics will continue to muddle the arguments and get us nowhere.

Email discussion with Gary Rubenstein about Green Dot and Locke High School

 

Gary's email: Re. the Green Dot Miracle.  I haven't fully researched it myself, but others have. http://www.markgarrison.net/archives/977

 

Marco Petruzzi's reply: The first thing I did was read the link below from the guy who "researched" Green Dot and I had to laugh.  The problem with blogger/researchers is that they can claim whatever they want and if they write decently and with authority people think that they are credible.  Now, you certainly don't have to believe me either, but we do have UCLA doing an independent study on Locke and the results are very encouraging. 

 

The most incorrect claim in the blogger's article and the guy he quotes are that we dumped all the students, and that we spent outrageous sums of money.  We kept all the students.  We obviously no longer had the old 12th graders, who graduated, and we got a new batch of 9th graders, but we basically had the similar trends in enrollment than years before in terms of incoming population from the attendance area.  This was not a choice school, but their school of default, and everyone basically showed up. In terms of spend, please note that Locke is 3,000 students.  We did get $15 million for the first 4 years and then we will break even with public funds.  Note that that adds up to $1,250 per year per student for the first 4 years.  Note that as a charter we get about $7,800/student, which happens to be about $1,500 less per student that LAUSD got before.  So we really are just getting close, but below, what the District previously got and then we go back to having a $1,500 gap.  And note that we are below the $11,000 average for the US and below the $16-18,000 that NY gets.  Our critics apparently can't do 5th grade math. In any case, after 3 years at Locke here's where we are (and I can tell you we are not a 90-90-90 school yet):

 

- Our biggest impact has been on student retention.  If you look at the data prior to Green Dot taking over, you would see entering 9th grade classes of around 1,200-1,300 students that would quickly go down to about 250 graduates 4 years later. However, the data is not perfect as LAUSD has the nasty habit of counting in the 9th grade not only incoming 9th graders but also "returning 9th graders", students who didn't drop out but basically failed the majority of their freshman courses and therefore had to stay another year in 9th grade. Anecdotally, from teachers from the old Locke that stayed with Green Dot, almost all of the returning 9th graders would eventually drop out.  In any case, from records we can tell that the actual graduating rate of "new" 9th graders, who were approx. 1,000, only 250 graduated and of those only 85 did with a college prep diploma (California still allows two types of diplomas, the good one and the useless ones). Since you are a teacher, I'll let you do the math of the devastation that that school was creating in that community.  Our entering 9th grade class the first year was approx. 900 students. 

 

A-ha, you might say, why 100 students less? Are you not accepting all the students? Demographic trends will show you that the population in South Central Los Angeles has been declining steadily for the past 10 years and that the trend will continue.  The decline has actually accelerated in the past 3 years with the crisis, due to less immigration in general, less undocumented immigration specifically, and the lack of jobs for people with no high school degree in the area, who have all had to move out.

 

Anyway, what has happened to the incoming 9th graders?  The majority are still with us, and we believe that if the trends hold, by the fourth year we will graduate approx. 600-700 students, all of which will have taken the college prep curriculum.  Is it perfect? No.  Are there still some drop outs? No doubt. But a marked improvement in retention.  We did it by throwing the kitchen sink at credit recovery and intervention courses and doing whatever it takes for every child.  This year, after 3 years we had 560 graduates from a class that didn't start with us with 100 more that are still enrolled for one more year (mostly ELL and Sped) with high likelihood of achieving all their credits

 

- The second impact has been in access to more rigorous courses.  This was easy as we put everyone on a college prep track, no exception, no excuses.

 

- The third impact was achievement.  This has proven as you can imagine the most difficult one, and the main reason we cannot claim "we did it" just yet. While we have doubled or tripled the number of proficient students in most subjects the percentages are still low.  We suffer from a "double impact" a numerator impact and a denominator impact. The numerator problem is that Locke started so low - 4% proficiency in math - that even when you triple that, it still sucks. We're not there yet.  The second problem is that with our amazing success in retention, guess who you keep as a student? The lowest performing ones.  They rarely contribute to your numerator, at least not right away. So we have a long way to go.  Our biggest issue here is that the actual entry level of the students is so darn low, coming from the K-8 system reading at about 4-5th grade that it is difficult to accelerate them so much.

 

In any case, Gary, if you're ever around, I'd be happy to show you Locke.  I think all of this nonsense will disappear when the country fully embraces value added measures.  When we start measuring schools by how much they move their students up, independent from their point of entry, we will actually possess data to do true comparisons.  In the meantime, many of our critics will continue to muddle the arguments and get us nowhere.

 

Gary's reply: Marco, from what you've described, I'm very pleased that you have what I'd call a 'great' school.  Note that I call it 'great', but not a 'miracle' (a 90-90-90 school).  This is fine since, as you know from your experience, you can be great without achieving the 90-90-90 metrics.

 

You were off my 'debunking' radar because no politician that I had heard used your results as proof that their reforms were working.  This is a shame since your school sounds like a model for what is possible and for what a realistic time-table for success is.  So not being a 'miracle' school is not an insult or a bad thing.  There is no need for me to 'debunk' your school since you so candidly 'debunked' yourself with an honest explanation of your impressive successes.

 

I wish a politician would point to your school about what sorts of improvements can happen.  If everyone knew what realistic improvement looks like, we would have fewer teachers getting fired and schools getting shut down for having test scores comparable to yours.  Please believe that I am being sincere when I say 'Keep up the good work.'

 

Here's my question:

Which of these two statements is more accurate about your school, and why?

1)  We have some outstanding teachers at our school.  If they were replaced by average teachers, our school would fall apart.

2)  We have some outstanding teachers at our school.  If they were replaced by average teachers, our school would still be successful because of some of the other things that make us great.

 

Marco's reply: Hmmm...not sure I know how to answer this.  While I do think that teacher effectiveness is one of the most, if not the most, important element of building a great school, I think that there are other elements as well that go hand in hand with that.  Certainly, of equal importance, is the quality of the principal leadership.  Never seen a great school without a great leader.  Needless to say these elements are self-reinforcing.  Great leaders build a great team and great teachers seldom would follow a weak leader.  I can tell you that besides bringing in more effective people on average, we did a lot of other things, like bring in new programs, better professional development, better safety and culture building programs, etc.  But certainly all these wouldn't have taken without a more effective and aligned team on campus.  Hope that answers your question.