Public education in Morgan Hill for many students isn’t performing at acceptable levels – charters can help boost performance overall
Dear Editor,
What parent, if their child was sick and the medication to cure them was available, would say, “I’ll wait.”
Not one parent.
That’s exactly how hundreds of parents in Morgan Hill feel when they review their children’s academic achievement information. They believe that they can’t wait for the current system to enact change fast enough to ensure their children are ready for the university. Their children need help now.
That’s why these parents approached Navigator Schools, which runs the high-performing Gilroy Prep School. We applaud these parents for realizing the urgency of their situation. They do not want their children to be the ones dropping out or graduating from high school unable to succeed in a four-year university.
The accompanying graph depicts this clearly. Navigator came into existence because a group of local educators and concerned parents sensed the same urgency. We did not want to wait any longer for districts to improve the performance of English Language Learners and low socioeconomic children who were being left behind.
We all know the results of this in our community: low skilled youth; teenage pregnancies; gang violence; welfare families and growing prisons filled with under-educated Latino and African American youth. The cost to our entire society is enormous when students leave our schools without college-or career-ready skills. Morgan Hill is no exception and at what cost?
Algebra is widely regarded as gateway course for success in college. Look at the academic performance data for the Latino students in Algebra 1. Out of 606 Latino students (20 classrooms) that took Algebra 1 in 2013, only 86 students were proficient (www.cde.ca.gov). That is equivalent to three of the classrooms being full of students that met the state standard and 17 classrooms full of students that didn’t reach proficiency. It would take four full-time teachers to teach this many students at a cost of approximately $300,000. Was that money well spent when 520 students failed to make the grade?
We know there are great people working in the Morgan Hill Unified district. There are excellent teachers and principals. However, for certain populations of students, the results are unacceptable. The low-performing students are the population of kids that the Navigator Schools instructional model was designed to serve. Moreover, these strategies can be replicated in other schools.
For example, we are currently co-located on the R.O. Hardin School campus in Hollister. After a few weeks, the two schools are now working closely together to improve the education for students in both schools. We are also sharing our technology, hardware, coaching staff, resources, and curriculum. Morgan Hill Prep School would exist to do the same. We are asking to co-locate on a low-performing campus and we desire to collaborate with the dynamic school leadership and staff of Morgan Hill. Working together, traditional public schools and charter schools can bring about the close of the achievement gap and make college success a reality for all students.
James Dent and Sharon Waller, founders of Navigator Schools