Tuesday, March 05, 2013

Mayoral Academies ARE Interesting Experiments

I'd guess nearly half of the parents of incoming PPSD kindergartners checked the box to "apply" to AFPMA, given that there were 1,150 applicants, 85% of the selected students were from Providence, and the size of the current PPSD third grade cadre (to pick one) is about 1,900.

To be clear, given the PPSD's overall choice system, for parents who don't have older children in a school they like, it is pretty much a no-brainer to apply and accept a AFPMA enrollment until you get your final PPSD assignment.

Based on casting that wide a net, a heavy preference for high-poverty neighborhoods, and being sited in a dangerous neighborhood, they really should end up with a population that's close to the rest of the PPSD, at least in kindergarten (1st grade parents had to be as informed and motivated to enroll as for any other charter). They should have a lot more parents not really sure what they signed up for. They'll probably have fewer students with severe special education needs, and nobody, say, just arriving in the city or US in the next six months, etc. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

My beef with this is that Rhode Island apparently needed to destroy its experiment in integrated regional charter schools to create this intentionally segregated one. But I think they might at least achieve their segregationist goal!

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