UFT'S CHARTER SCHOOL SCORES FALL UNDER COMMON CORE

Lots of meat in this piece. I wonder if there are figures on pushouts and teacher turnover. Just askin'. Isn't Evelyn DeJesus a district or borough rep? Gee, I wish she didn't have to take time away from dealing with member eval issues to deal with the charter school stuff.

See Gotham: http://gothamschools.org/2013/02/28/in-a-twist-uft-gets-attacked-over-its-charter-school-co-location/

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BY ELIZA SHAPIRO

3:38 pm Nov. 6, 2013

The U.F.T. Charter School, a Brooklyn charter run by the teachers' union, announced Wednesday that while test scores fell across subjects under the new Common Core standards, the school graduated 93 percent of its first senior class last year.
In a letter sent home to parents today, Evelyn DeJesus, the school's board president, wrote that the U.F.T.'s school test scores dropped in both English and math under the new Common Core tests. The school's elementary division scored in the top quarter in mathematics tests for its district, however, and in the top half for English.
DeJesus described middle school grades as "a constant source of concern." To try to address the issue, the school has moved its 6th, 7th, and 8th grades from a high school building into an elementary school building to build off the existing success of the elementary program.
New Common Core standards have been a hot-button subject for the union; as U.F.T President Michael Mulgrew has called for a moratorium on high-stakes consequences for the tests, and has criticized the roll out of the new standards while insisting that the Common Core is still good for teachers and students.
DeJesus also released the school's first graduation rate: 93 percent of the school's first batch of seniors graduated in June.
"With your help, our goal is to see that all our students leave the U.F.T. charter school prepared for college or for a career," she wrote.
The U.F.T. school recently announced that it would opt out of the city's controversial new teacher evaluation system, one of 80 schools able to opt out after rejecting federal Race to the Top funding.