A Mixed Report Card for Charter School

With its computer-filled classrooms, extended school year and fat budget, the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center has become a national symbol for what charter schools can accomplish.

Innovative and trend-setting are among the words that visitors, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, have used to describe the Pacoima elementary school, where trees are pruned, classrooms are colorful and parent-volunteers seem to be everywhere.

But with Vaughn’s original charter up for renewal, and with scores of similar campuses envisioned statewide, a key question remains: Are charter schools really better?

Vaughn’s record would indicate they’re a mixed bag, better off than many campuses, but also as ordinary in many ways.

A review of test scores, attendance rates and other measures of achievement reveals that Vaughn has lived up to part of its promise but has fallen short on some accounts during its initial five years.

The school has failed to raise all test scores by the 15 to 20 points its founders had pledged. Still, its students have performed better than counterparts at nearby campuses--no small feat in a neighborhood where almost all the children are poor enough to qualify for free lunches.

Attendance hovers at an enviable 95%, higher than the district average for elementary schools. And autonomy has allowed campus officials to build 14 new classrooms, add 20 days of instruction and buy dozens of computers.

Yet, despite the freedom from state and school district interference afforded by its charter status, the school’s curriculum and textbooks remain essentially the same as at other campuses.

‘Curve of Improvement’

Educators give Vaughn high marks for its gains.

“I don’t think there’s a more improved school in the state, when you consider where they started,” said Delaine Eastin, the state superintendent of public instruction. “They didn’t go from the bottom 10% to the top 10%, but they’ve gone from the bottom to the middle of the pack. Given their limitations, that’s a very good curve of improvement in five years.”

Vaughn’s extension as a charter program appears likely, but its administrators still must formally ask the Los Angeles Board of Education to continue its mandate. Its founders and those of three other charter schools are scheduled to do that today.

The board will decide in two weeks, after it reviews an outside evaluation of Vaughn, whose progress is widely viewed as a barometer of the charter movement. The program’s renewal would come just as the state has raised the cap on charter schools from 100 to 250 for the 1998-99 academic year--and 100 more every year after.

By most accounts, Vaughn was a mess before becoming a charter school.

The campus was bitterly divided between black and Latino teachers who were feuding over bilingual education, and between teachers and a principal they accused of harassment. Parents--many of them immigrants from Mexico and Central America--said they felt unwelcome.

The turmoil was reflected in test scores that were among the lowest in the district, including reading scores that were in the 5th percentile for second-graders in 1992.

Yvonne Chan, a Chinese immigrant who had been principal at Sylmar Elementary School, arrived in the spring of 1990. She immediately made headlines by pedaling a bicycle along a maze-like route through the campus to demonstrate how it had long been cluttered by a paving project.

The campus began inching toward reform, electing a council of parents, teachers and administrators to make minor instructional and financial decisions.

‘We Wanted Change’

The idea to start a charter school, as Chan acknowledges, originated not with her but with the teachers, after one heard about the nascent reform movement at a professional conference. The notion of a charter campus free from regulatory restraints and rooted in its community seemed tailor-made for Vaughn.

“We wanted change,” said third-grade teacher Emilia Ortiz. “We had nothing to lose, but everything to gain. This seemed like a good opportunity.”

The charter made bold promises:

Test scores would rise by a lofty 15 to 20 percentile points. Attendance would remain at the 95% level. A majority of students would become fluent in English. Parents would actively participate.

Since then, the campus has received two of the most prestigious awards in education: a Blue Ribbon Award from the U.S. Department of Education in 1996, and a California Distinguished Schools award in 1995.

Scores have risen in two-thirds of Vaughn’s classes on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills and the Spanish-language equivalent, Aprenda. But the promised 15- to 20-point increase has yet to materialize for all pupils.

Not all grades have posted consistent gains, and some had lost ground by 1995, the most recent year with complete data available. First-grade scores, for example, dropped 10 points on the reading portion of the Aprenda test between 1991 and 1995, while fourth-grade scores jumped 24 points on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills in math.

Test scores rose for more than twice as many Vaughn classes as for classes in neighboring schools of the northeast Valley. And last year, the school’s students performed well on a new test administered for the first time by the district. Their composite score on the Stanford Nine and the Aprenda reached the 44th percentile, 11 points higher than Vaughn’s neighbors and district elementary schools overall.

“It’s truly hard to say we did meet our charter goals,” Chan told her teachers during a recent faculty meeting as she held a copy of test scores. “However, if you go by comparison, we did pretty well. We have pulled ahead.”

Conflicting Conclusions

A weakness at Vaughn, where more than 80% of pupils speak limited English, has been the rate at which some have been able to be designated “fluent English proficient” and be moved out of the bilingual education program.

In 1991, 2.6% of Vaughn’s limited-English students were reclassified as English-proficient, while 3.3% made the leap districtwide. In 1996, 5.4% of Vaughn’s limited-English students were declared proficient, compared with 6.4% districtwide.

Chan said Vaughn lags because the school has a higher percentage of limited-English speakers.

But comparisons are difficult because Vaughn and the district use different definitions of success.

Chan calculates the percentage of proficient students by comparing them with those who have advanced enough to be taking classes in English. The district, however, calculates the percentage of proficient students by comparing them with all students with limited English skills--whether they are learning in English or in Spanish.

The difference is an example of how Chan’s conclusions often conflict with those of the district, casting doubt among some on their validity.

Last year, the school came under a district investigation after an anonymous tip that answers had been doctored on the Stanford 9 and Aprenda exams. Although Chan’s internal inquiry found no wrongdoing and the district investigation proved inconclusive, some teachers still believe that cheating occurred and that Chan ignored it.

Since then, Chan has begun administering an additional test--Terra Nova--to obtain what she calls an independent measure of her students’ progress.

Despite their differences, officials from Vaughn and the district are on common ground when it comes to instruction.

Although Vaughn is free to design its own curriculum, it has patterned its course work after the state guidelines followed by the Los Angeles Unified School District. The school also uses many of the same state-approved textbooks that appear in classrooms elsewhere.

For example, Shelley Feldman’s fourth-graders study California history, like thousands of their counterparts across the state. They read the standard text, “Oh, California.” The class recently observed a fourth-grade tradition by building replicas of a California mission for a lesson on Spanish colonization.

Across campus, Carol Howard’s fifth-graders learn fractions by piecing together colorful plastic pie slices, a method of hands-on instruction popular throughout the district.

“What does it mean when you have a fraction?” Howard asked her students on a recent morning.

“A fraction is a piece,” 11-year-old Ismael Contreras responded.

Financially Resourceful

Chan says Vaughn is no different from other schools: Students must learn the basics.

“We are part of the big system,” she said. “We want to be able to compare ourselves, so skills are transferable.”

Indeed, instructors say it’s not what they teach that makes Vaughn different, but how the school showers resources on its students.

Vaughn has had great success at winning contributions, including a $321,000 grant from the RJR Nabisco Foundation. Its benefactors also include American Express, the Riordan Foundation, the Milken Family Foundation and a variety of businesses and individuals.

The school has successfully fought to recoup several hundred thousand dollars from the school district--for example, gaining nearly $150,000 the district had charged to administer funding for poverty programs. And Vaughn has saved money by cutting bureaucracy and contracting directly with agencies for a variety of services, including payroll and health benefits.

The school now has more than $4 million in the bank.

“Yvonne is very astute on the financial end,” said LAUSD Budget Director Marty Varon. “She knows her stuff.”

With money to spare, the school has hired a librarian, a science teacher and a physical education coach--resources no longer available at other elementary schools.

Class-Size Reduction

Even before Gov. Pete Wilson’s initiative to reduce class sizes two years ago, Vaughn began shrinking the number of students in its classes, aided by the addition of 14 classrooms on adjacent land once occupied by a crack house.

When Wilson announced the state-funded program in 1996 for first and second grades, Vaughn jumped ahead of other Los Angeles schools and immediately reduced class sizes in kindergarten through third grade to the targeted goal of 20 students per teacher.

Now the school is adding another building so it can further reduce grades 4 and 5 to the 20-to-1 ratio, as well as expand its library, open a business co-op and provide a free preschool program.

Meanwhile, Vaughn’s year-round calendar has been eliminated. Instead, all of the 1,140 students attend school together for 200 days, 20 more than the state standard.

The school provides one computer for every four students--compared with one for every 13 students in the district--divided between its classrooms and three computer labs.

A “family center” on campus offers everything from immigration counseling and clothing to medical care and part-time jobs.

‘Dr. Chan Runs School’

Although many Vaughn teachers credit Chan with smart decisions, some accuse her of abandoning the division of power spelled out in the charter.

“Dr. Chan runs the school. That’s the bottom line,” one instructor said. “Whatever she pushes for, that happens.”

Indeed, Chan, who sits on the school’s business committee, sped through a new proposal for teacher pay at a recent meeting amid virtual silence. As Chan ticked off the new pay scale, parents seated at the end of the lunch table rubbed their eyes and looked dazed. One didn’t speak English and missed most of the conversation.

“I don’t understand half of it,” one teacher whispered, cupping her chin in her hands. “That’s why I’m quiet.”

But some parents say they feel they still hold sway at the school. “The power is in my hand,” said Elsa Rojas, a member of the business committee. “If Dr. Chan is doing something I don’t like, she can be fired.”

Chan’s bold style also has alienated some of her senior teachers at the top of the pay scale, who complain that she favors less expensive novices. The campus employs 63 instructors.

‘It’s About Money’

The senior instructors say Chan has done little to help them extend five-year leaves of absence they took from the school district to teach at Vaughn.

Last week, seven teachers--all classroom veterans--decided to resign from Vaughn and return to the district rather than lose their seniority and lifetime health benefits. Nineteen other LAUSD teachers decided to quit the district and stay at Vaughn.

“She looks at us and sees dollar signs,” said one teacher who makes more than $60,000 a year, about twice the base salary of a beginning instructor. “It’s about money.”

But even as the veterans complain, they say the school is far more inviting than before the charter. Teachers regularly collaborate, they say, and parents have become fixtures on campus.

“Certainly there’s a climate of optimism there never was before,” said Stan Stern, a third-grade teacher. “Problems are still there, but you get a feeling they will be solved.”

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Test Scores

Vaughn Compared With Other Schools

This chart compares Vaughn’s fourth-grade test scores for 1996--the last year for which comparable data are available--with the averages in elementary schools nearby and in the entire Los Angeles Unified School District. The students took separate English and Spanish tests.

English

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Vaughn Nearby schools LAUSD Reading 36 29 36 Language Arts 44 32 42 Math 43 37 48

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Spanish

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Vaughn Nearby schools LAUSD Reading 53 40 41 Language Arts 53 40 42 Math 50 24 24

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Test Scores

Promises Versus Results

Before Vaughn became a charter school, Principal Yvonne Chan and teachers promised that student test scores would increase at least 15 percentile points from the results for 1991. This chart compares fourth-grade scores for that year with those recorded in 1996, the last year for which comparable test-score data are available. The students took separate English and Spanish tests.

English

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1991 Chan’s promise 1996 Reading 11 26 36 Language Arts 21 36 44 Math 19 34 43

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Spanish

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1991 Chan’s promise 1996 Reading 30 45 53 Language Arts 25 40 53 Math 11 26 50

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