Newark Charter School’s Greg Meece Boasting About High “Smarter” Scores After Meltdown Over News Journal Exclusion

No less than five people sent me this email yesterday.  Apparently, Newark Charter School Head Greg Meece had a hissy-fit of epic proportions that NCS wasn’t included in the original News Journal story about the Smarter Balanced Assessment results.  As a result, he got this email out to parents yesterday:

From: Newark Charter School <notifications@schoolconnectsweb.com>
Date: Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 12:00 PM
Subject: NCS Smarter Balanced Test Scores
To:

Dear NCS Families,

Yesterday the Delaware Department of Education released all public schools’ Smarter Balanced test results for the 2014-2015 school year. The News Journal printed a three page report of these scores in this morning’s paper. Unfortunately, for some reason they omitted all of Newark Charter School’s data. I understand they will print a correction in tomorrow’s paper. Also, the correct information is included on delawareonline.

Because of the omission in the newspaper I am sending you all of Newark Charter School’s Smarter Balanced test results in this attachment. It includes comparisons to the State of Delaware results. The wonderful news is that Newark Charter School’s average proficiency rates across all grades are the highest in Delaware!  Our students’ math scores are 116.8% higher than the state average and their English Language Arts scores are 79.4% higher than the state average.

WE are so proud of our students’ performance and very grateful to our teachers for all their hard work in preparing our kids to do their best.

Thank you for all you do to support this great school.

With much appreciation,

Greg Meece

I guess I would be upset too if my school got great results and wasn’t included. But you have to be careful what you ask for, because while his school did great, we have to add the charter school “special sauce” to the stew. On the DOE website, they list the school profiles for each school or district. This is Newark Charter School’s demographics. Compared to most Wilmington schools, these are very low percentages. With the exception being certain other charter schools and magnets in the area.

Enrollment by Race/Ethnicity

2013-14 2014-15 African American 11.0% 11.4% American Indian 0.2% 0.3% Asian 13.4% 12.9% Hispanic/Latino 4.0% 4.4% White 65.8% 65.2% Multi-Racial 5.6% 5.6

Other Student Characteristics

2013-14 2014-15 English Language Learner 2.7% 2.5% Low Income 8.4% 7.2% Special Education 5.7% 5.6% Enrolled for Full Year 100.0% N/A

I guess we could all do awesome on high-stakes testing with these kinds of students! And lest we forget, this school has a “lottery”. And I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’m willing to sell at a cheap price…

Say, isn’t the Enrollment Preference Task Force report coming out at the end of the month?

UPDATED, 2:23pm, 9/4/15: A commenter suggested I use Christina School District as comparison data, which is an excellent idea!  Keep in mind, most students who don’t go to Newark Charter School or other charters in the area would go to their feeder pattern in the Christina School District, which has their demographics below.

Enrollment by Race/Ethnicity

2013-14 2014-15 African American 40.6% 39.8% American Indian 0.3% 0.2% Asian 4.4% 4.4% Hawaiian 0.1% 0.1% Hispanic/Latino 18.8% 20.4% White 32.8% 31.7% Multi-Racial 2.9% 3.4%

Other Student Characteristics

2013-14 2014-15 English Language Learner 8.5% 8.3% Low Income 43.6% 41.0% Special Education 17.0% 17.9% Enrolled for Full Year 100.0% N/A