Distinguished Performance at Youth Connection Charter School

Sheila Venson and visitor from South Korea

On top of opening their doors to students that high schools won’t take (or have pushed out) and having to constantly weave together ever-changing funding sources, alternative schools have to constantly fight against accountability systems designed around a factory model.  As one practitioner told me, “If we made AYP then we would know we are doing something wrong.”

In Chicago, the Youth Connection Charter School (YCCS) has just emerged victorious in a battle with the Chicago Public Schools regarding their performance.  YCCS is an incredibly innovative model in which multiple schools join together under one charter, providing the on-ramp for students in Chicago.  In 2012, Chicago Public Schools declared YCCS a failing school, impeding their contract renewal. Now 18 months later, YCCS received a Distinguished, the highest performance rating given out by CPS.

So what’s different? 

According to YCCS it was a combination of documentation, presentations to educate CPS about alternative schools, co-designing new evaluation methods that recognize that students are entering with tremendous academic gaps, and basic advocacy. 

After the Spring 2012 announcement by CPS that YCCS was a failing school, YCCS launched a campaign to prove to CPS and its communities that the allegation was false.  Documentation showing the evaluation and performance levels at each of its campuses were presented in meetings with CPS throughout Summer and Fall 2012.  YCCS also initiated efforts to assist CPS in developing evaluation methods that measured academic growth and development of at risk and former out of school youth who return to school with academic competencies several years below their grade level. Additionally, current and former YCCS students, their families and community leaders showed widespread support for YCCS by placing phone calls to CPS staffers and elected officials, signing online petitions, and participating in an October 2012 voter registration drive in Daley Plaza.  

Under the new CPS School Quality Rating Policy YCCS is considered an Option, a category for alternative high schools. Option schools are evaluated based on nine performance indicators:

•  Average student growth percentile on STAR Reading 
•  Average student growth percentile on STAR Math
•  Percentage of students meeting growth target on STAR Reading
•  Percentage of students meeting growth target on STAR Math
•  One-year graduation rate
•  Credit attainment
•  Stabilization rate
•  Average daily attendance rate
•  Growth in attendance rate 

The new rating system will be applied to each individual Youth Connection Charter School campus, as well as Youth Connection Charter School as a whole starting in the 2013-2014 school year. 

Sheila Venson, Executive Director of YCCS said, "This is a victory for high school dropouts who are seeking a way to get back into school and get their lives on track.  This performance validates our compelling and nuanced story of what we have learned and are doing to educate off-track and re-enrolled young people.  This story is written everyday in YCCS' classrooms, where we are changing the odds, graduating students who would not have otherwise graduated, and saving lives in the process.”

This is also a lesson for all of us of what we can do if we engage our own constituencies, parents and students, in demanding a right to education.