The Achievement Gap: Comparing Charters and LAUSD on African American Students' Performance

At the School Board meeting this past Tuesday, the board had a miniature melt down over the data for under-served subgroups in LAUSD. One of the main points that set them off was the data for African American students, who average significantly below peer groups across the district.

Is this challenge affecting charter schools as well?

For African American students, Charter Schools (both independent and affiliated) outperform LAUSD schools when it comes to English. But in math, African American students at independent charters perform at basically the same level as LAUSD.

The data is much more depressing when you look at school data.

In math, there are 20 LAUSD schools and 3 charter schools where 0% of African American students met standards.

One of those three charter schools is Animo College Preparatory which is run by Green Dot. Green Dot is one of the largest charter operators in the city, whose founder is going to be running for Mayor next year. Despite all the hype about Green Dot, if you look at the bottom 11 charter schools for African American students in Math, 6 of them are run by Green Dot:

• Animo College Prep
• Locke High
• Animo South LA
• Animo Phyllis Wheatley
• Animo Mae Jemison
• Animo James B. Taylor

However, even at higher performing charter schools, the achievement gap still exists.

PUC Community Charter High School has the highest UC Acceptance Rate in Los Angeles. But in English, their African American students significantly under perform compared to their whole student body.

The problem is pervasive.The achievement gap extends beyond LAUSD and deep into charter schools as well. When reform advocates speak about educational change and the achievement gap, I think this fact is often lost: Charter Schools have not solved the ethnic achievement gap problem either.