Science+Academy,+RSD,+New+Orleans

Science Academy, RSD, New Orleans

One of the 8 schools touted as a successful 'turnaround' by Mass Insight.

School isn't really a turnaround, but a new charter created in 2008. According to Mass Insight literature it "serves a population of students who attended formerly failing district schools."

According to schooldigger, only 54% are eligible for free or reduced lunch, which is way below the 91% free or reduced lunch for the New Orleans RSD. This is the primary reason that this can't be considered a 'miracle school'

http://www.schooldigger.com/go/LA/schools/0013202068/school.aspx?entity=19 http://www.louisianaschools.net/dag/default.aspx

According to the Mass Insight document, in their first year of operation with their first 9th grade class they had 76% proficient and advanced in ELA compared to 34% district and 65% state. Also had 65% proficient and advanced in math compared to 36% district and 61% state.

I'm looking to see if they really have the same population as the rest of their district as a one year miracle is not really likely. As they are a new school, there is really no 'proof' that the students improved. There is just nothing to compare them to. Considering their relatively low free lunch percentage, this can't really be considered a turnaround.

Got $1 million from Oprah in September 2010.

According to the schools website:

"More than half of the ninth-graders who entered Sci Academy's inaugural class had failed state promotional tests, and more than 70 percent read well below the ninth-grade level. The school's principal, Ben Marcovitz, says many of these students had missed a full year of schooling because of Hurricane Katrina and were many grades behind.

By designing a program that both addresses their deficits and accelerates them beyond the average, the freshman class later scored a 76 percent on the state test, making it the third most successful high school in New Orleans."

I'm not sure what these 'state promotional tests' are. Data for New Orleans is impossible to get, so to call this school a successful turnaround is really a stretch.

When Oprah announced the money, the school celebrated while a special ed student had to be detained in a private office, according to this article: http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/2011/09/new-orleans-charter-science-mathematics.html

According to the Mass Insight report there would be 85 9th graders and 85 10th graders during the 2009-2010 school year. When I looked at their school report card, they had what, at first, seemed like impressive scores in 2009-2010 with 79% proficient in ELA and 85% proficient in math. But for 'number of students tested' it only says that 58 of the 170 students actually took the test, though this is listed as 100% tested. Seems that just 9th graders are tested for iLeap tests which means that we don't get any sense of how the students progressed from 9th to 10th grade.