Rep. Melcher scheduled a 2 hour promotional session with the joint education committees yesterday for a charter school based out of Arizona. Did you know that the Carpe Diem charter district and school administrative costs are DOUBLE that of Kansas public schools – 9% charter v 4% to 5% Kansas public schools? 33% of their staff are administrators/CEOs (see Carpe Diem’s own report). Did you know that Rep. Melcher’s own school districts already implement this innovative blended learning model? (http://www.kansascity.com/2014/02/12/4819785/the-flip-side-of-learning-new.html)
Did you know that the charter school has no empirically valid data on student outcomes? CEO/Founder Rick Ogston compares his students to all students in Arizona: Apples/Arizona: 45% free/reduced lunch, 75% graduation rate, ranks 42nd in US on student achievement. Doing better than the state is not much of a challenge.
Oranges/Charter: CEO provides no student demographic data for comparison, but openly reports that “students not ready, not up for the challenge, leave” indicating that his student body is not comparable to the entire state of Arizona.