Charleston Development Academy a Charter That Works

Good news continues to issue from Charleston Development Academy, a charter (horrors!) school located in the midst of Gadsden-Green public housing, one of the poorest areas in CCSD. When educrats wave jargon, such as "small learning communities," around, they should be pointing to effective small schools like CDA, rather than parroting the usual claptrap coming out of schools of education.  Friday's P & C's story on an academic summer camp at CDA is a case in point.

Of course, it's very nice for SC State University to "enable 12 of the third-grade class's 19 students . . . to participate in the camp that uses technology to teach content and test-taking strategies" in anticipation of the coming year's achievement testing.  But, as careful reading of the article shows, the real news is that in this truly disadvantaged community 12 of the 19 students are at or above grade level. Maybe that doesn't sound like victory to you, but does anyone believe that another 12 students of similar background selected at random from CCSD's regular elementary schools would meet or exceed the standards as these 12 do?

You're not likely to see CCSD celebrating the achievements of this school, unfortunately. Oh, and in case you're worried about the other seven students, they have their own program that remediates their differing needs.