As advocates for public education, The Learning Community has grave concerns about the RI-CAN school report cards that evaluate every Rhode Island public school based on faulty methodology. RI-CAN claims that their report cards “are designed to help families in Rhode Island access online information about their local schools” when in truth the report cards spread misinformation to concerned citizens. Instead of providing access to accurate data, RI-CAN summarizes a school’s performance by using only one grade level’s achievement on state standardized tests and mathematically incorrect calculations.
No efforts at holding schools accountable will succeed unless the measures used are fair and accurate. It is worth mentioning that we are expressing our strong opposition to the report cards despite the fact that The Learning Community ranked in the Top 10 schools in Rhode Island on 7 of the 14 indicators.
The methodological deficiencies of the RI-CAN report cards render them at best useless and, at worst, harmful to our state’s efforts to support the education of every child.
Heh. Indeed.
Rhode Island charter school politics are a little... different, and apparently that's starting to break out in public. So now not only has RI-CAN presented its opponents with an opportunity to ding its credibility by publishing this transparently slipshod analysis, but The Learning Community has generously offered to cover your flank against the "supporter of the status quo" and/or "defender of lousy schools" counter-attack by letting you respond that "even the high-performing Central Falls charter school The Learning Community" thinks your rankings are crap.
To be honest, I have serious doubts that the unions are even capable of rousing themselves enough to get an equally pointed response into the press. Let alone the Broad-infested PPSD.
Nonetheless, great work by The Learning Community!
I especially liked this part:
If you are curious about the RI-CAN system but do not want to sign up to “be a member of RI-CAN,” feel free to log on as:
Username: thesetwohands
Password: thesetwohands
1 comment:
This smart response from the Learning Community's was so satisfying and useful.
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