Camden charter schools see record enrollment

By JOSEPH GIDJUNIS
Courier-Post Staff

The number of parents enrolling students in charter schools within Camden nearly has quadrupled in the last decade, siphoning more than $35 million from the city schools next year alone.

A projected 2,763 kindergarten through 12th-grade students will enroll in one of the city’s seven charter schools next year, according to state Department of Education statistics. Just a decade ago, the total charter school population was 743 in two schools, LEAP Academy University and Camden’s Promise.

Since 2001, five charter schools have opened in the city, each growing in size almost every year. The state received an application last month to create an eighth facility. All the while, the Camden City School enrollment — at one time more than 20,000 students — next year will dwindle to 11,500, not including pre-school children.

Officials in the most popular charter schools characterize this enrollment explosion as a sign that parents have been dissatisfied with the traditional public system. However, Camden City School Board President Sara Davis said the charter schools are not performing better than the city’s programs and are stealing money from the district.

Camden City School Board members focused a spotlight on charter schools this month after they were ordered by the state to send an additional $4 million to charter schools, a nearly 12 percent jump in one year. This comes at a time when the district’s state funding decreased by more than $5 million and 90 jobs are to be lost.

“It’s no secret I’m no supporter of charter schools. I haven’t been able to see where they’ve done any better than the public schools,” Davis said. “There has been an increase in achievement in children in the city’s public schools. I just don’t understand how we receive a reduction in aid on one hand and increase the aid to charter schools on the other hand.”

Competition between the public schools and charters was minimal during boom times in the economy because both sides had enough money and demand, officials said. But the national recession has exacerbated the tension in an already tenuous cooperation and the city could see more intense recruitment efforts.

Heather Ngoma, director of the Charter School Resource Center at Rutgers University said Davis can’t assume the students are the district’s anymore.

“They’re not seeing their money slip out. They’re seeing their children leave and seeing their families choose charter schools,” Ngoma said.

Misconceptions about charter schools are prevalent, said Gloria Bonilla-Santiago, LEAP Academy University founder and board president.

Charter schools are public schools open to all students. They are not allowed to “cream” for the best students. Students apply by a lottery and they must abide by the same rules, take the same tests and report the same issues as a public school. The main difference is the charter school has its own board members and administration. However, its money comes through the local school district from the state and local taxpayers.

Across New Jersey, 62 charter schools enroll more than 17,000 students. In all, the state provided $247.9 million in state aid to these facilities. Another six are slated to come online in September. Newark has the most charter schools, with 10.

Each charter school has to apply to the state and be reviewed for renewal every five years based on regulations approved by the Charter School Program Act of 1995.

The first charter school in Camden was the LEAP Academy in 1997. The school has expanded every year by adding grade levels and a high school facility. It was followed a year later by Camden’s Promise.

“It’s definitely fair to say the charter schools are attracting students of parents who are dissatisfied with performance in the district and others flock to charter schools because of a safety factor,” Ngoma said. “Others are just attracted because of their unique missions. There could be an environment goal or a performance arts focus. Parents want to see their kids in those environments.”

According to state education officials, Camden is the only place in the tri-county area where charter schools exist.

Part of the reason also may be funding. By regulation, the money to educate a child follows the student, but only 90 percent of it reaches the charter school. The home district may keep 10 percent, or in Camden officials said they take 15 percent to run busing and other administrative services. Charter school officials call this “a 15 percent bonus” to the city schools every time the charters take another child.

Nationwide, New Jersey offers charter schools more money per child than any other state, just over $12,500, according to The Center for Education Reforms, a Washington, D.C.-based pro-charter organization.

Innovative model

President Barack Obama called on the innovative charter model as one of his key components for reforming the nation’s education system during a speech in March. He asked states to relax limits and barriers to charter school creation and success.

Some of the components include longer school days, more parental involvement, social services and a different attitude about student expectations.

Most of Camden’s charter schools have longer school days and attend school more days of the year, 186 compared to 180, for example.

At LEAP, days extend until 4 p.m. At Distinctions in Urban Education, better known as DUE Season Charter School, all 11th-grade students will have additional test preparation every other Saturday from October until March, said school founder and Chief Education Officer Doris Carpenter. Saturday classes are regular at other schools, too, including Freedom Academy Charter School.

Parental involvement, by law, cannot be required, but Bonilla-Santiago candidly said parents are encouraged strongly to volunteer hours at the school and take a more active role in their child’s academic career. One way to get parents into the school is to offer something more, including access to full-service health clinics and other social needs, said Bonilla-Santiago, adding the school has a partnership with Cooper Hospital.

All of the charters profess a different attitude and approach to teaching than the public schools, and setting the right expectations.

What parents like about Carpenter’s school and other charters is their reputation for security. Her school occupies portions of the third, fourth and fifth floors of Virtua’s Health Center in the city, where students and parents must pass hospital security and school security before they reach a child.

“If you asked our parents about what appeals to them most, it’s the safety issue for the kids,” said Carpenter, who served as a Camden City school principal from 1976 to 1996. “There is a better way.”

Standardized testing

The city’s two largest charter schools, LEAP and DUE Season, said testing is important, but they stress there is more to learning than test results.

“Success cannot be measured by test scores. We have to be measured by the outcomes. These are the results of many things we are producing here. You look at the results,” Bonilla-Santiago said.

LEAP has been able to place its graduates over the past four years in colleges and 9 of 10 of those students are still in college today. At DUE Season, students receive more of a creative focus from teachers with artistic, dancing and creative writing backgrounds.

Students at LEAP and DUE Season are two of the lower test performers when compared to their local charter counterparts. Still, they outperform most Camden City schools in several test areas, according to a random selection of the most recent results from the NJ ASK and HSPA testing for grades 3, 5, 8 and 11.

In grade 8 language arts and math testing, the best city school results were at Bonsall and Coopers Poynt with 49.2 and 36.5 percent of its students scoring at or above proficiency.

Charter school students usually tested better. Camden’s Promise earned the top overall scores, with 86.4 and 63.2 percent testing at or above proficiency, and it accomplished these scores with a higher student population than Bonsall and Coopers Poynt. LEAP Academy produced the lowest charter school performance, but even its scores of 47.3 in language arts and 28.8 in math nearly match the best results in the city.

City perks

City schools spokesman Bart Leff said the charter school success is overblown because Camden’s public schools are making improvements every year.

“I think the charter schools believe that they are offering an advanced curriculum and smaller class sizes and specialized instruction. That’s what they believe they’re doing. However, in our elementary, middle and high schools, you’ll find essentially the same curriculum with the same class size and the same specialized instruction,” Leff said. “The reality is the charter schools over the years have not made any more progress that we have.”

He added that Camden City’s schools offer more advanced placement, after-school curricular and sports team opportunities than charter schools. Because of the smaller size of the charter schools, they often don’t have enough demand for certain sports teams or specialized classes, but they still can play within the city.

For example, a student at LEAP Academy who wants to play football must play with one of the comprehensive high schools. LEAP does have its own basketball team. Students such as Robert Ransom, 17, a senior, conceded he can’t rally school spirit behind athletics. But there are plenty of other groups and associations bringing pride to the school and there is plenty of parent involvement.

Leff wouldn’t speak to the safety comparison between the city and charter schools, saying he does not know how the charters report their data. He added, however, that Camden gets a bad reputation.

“I know that our schools, to date, have had a pretty good track record for safety and security,” Leff said. “We rarely see evidence of extreme negative behavior. When we do, we act on it.”

While the number of families choosing charter schools continue to rise, he said the city is likely to pull them back as more modern schools come online.

The state has two new elementary schools — H.B. Wilson and Dudley — opening this September and more schools have been promised by 2012, including a new Camden High School, Lanning Square Elementary and Morgan Village Middle School.

“We’re opening up new schools. With the advent of new educational facilities, we believe a percentage of those children in the charters will come back to us,” Leff said.

Reach Joseph Gidjunis at (856) 486-2604 or jgidjunis@gannett.com