Sheila Venson

For twelve years, YCCS, the collective YCCS, has worked to create quality education options for Chicago’s at-risk students. We are the only charter in Chicago to take on the toughest challenge in urban education – students who have failed in or have been failed by the current educational system. We have worked relentlessly to not only take on a tough “job” but to close the achievement gap and graduation gap for this vulnerable student population. Alternative schools under YCCS have worked to change the perception and the reality of alternative schools being viewed as a place for “bad kids”, to one in which alternative education, in perception and in reality, represent a quality option for students who have the resiliency to overcome the odds and complete their education.

YCCS is succeeding in this mission, and we have the data to prove it. Catalyst’s use and interpretation of YCCS’ data is wrong. The author’s definitive statement that there is a lack of quality in alternative schools seems to be based on the number of students who enrolled in and graduated from all alternative schools in the last 10 years. While Catalyst references all alternative schools – YCCS and others – YCCS’ is the only data used to construct the claim that only 23% of the students graduate.

However, here are the facts. YCCS enrolled a total of 21,965 students during this period (nowhere near the 31,861 reported). Of those 21,965 students enrolled 3,395 transferred and 1849 continued into the next year, leaving an unduplicated enrollment base of 16,721. There were 8126 graduates (this figure would be 8285, but 159 were “graduates pending ACT Test completion” – students who had completed the course/credit work, but had not completed the ISBE-required ACT Test, within the timeframe for that year’s data snapshot). This would give us a graduation percentage of 49%, computing 8126/16,721. (It would be 50%., counting the additional 159 students who completed the ACT requirement later in the fall, computing 8285/16,721).  Hence, it is not 1 in 4 students who have graduated from YCCS alternative schools in Chicago. It is 2 in 4 students who have graduated from YCCS alternative schools, putting YCCS at the national norm (approximating CPS’ graduation rate) and competitive with other cities, including New York (even though YCCS’ population consists of 100% dropouts).

This alone makes the entire article along with its conclusions, not only suspect, but lacking credibility.

The writer points to another indicator signaling YCCS’ supposed lack of quality – that of the mobility of our student population “being a stunning 166%.”There is nothing stunning about this figure, as YCCS has had an open entry/open exit policy for 10 years of our 12 year history. Mobility is defined by CPS as “the number of enrollments in and transfers out of a school after October 1^st, divided by the October 1^st membership.”  In an agreement with the District, we allow students to enroll whenever there is a vacancy due to student withdrawal, transfer, or graduation. Under these conditions, it is expected that our mobility rate would be higher.

The writer made her judgment about the quality of Chicago’s alternative schools based primarily on a flawed analysis of YCCS data.  It appears that the writer was quick to come to this conclusion without researching and substantiating the information. The writer was also quick to draw this conclusion without a thorough reporting on other indicators of performance which were available through the public record and through interviews with YCCS.

For instance, YCCS’ attendance rate average for the time period was 79%, an accomplishment for students who were chronically truant in their former school (by and large, they were not attending school). The writer references the low skills of students entering YCCS, but fails to note that YCCS students on average increase 2 levels in reading and math for every year of attendance. Had the writer chosen to look deeper into PSAE data, she would have found that, while YCCS did not meet or exceed state standards on the PSAE in 2008, we did compare favorably to other schools with rankings in the upper 37% of all high schools and the upper 15% of all neighborhood schools. We ranked number two when compared with vocational schools; number one when compared with other district alternative schools; number three when compared with small schools; and at 50% when ranked with other charter schools.

Had the writer been thorough in her review of the quality issue, they would have noted YCCS’ 85% teacher certification rate and our efforts to recruit and retain good teachers, or our 98% parent satisfaction rate, or our 79% college and/or employment postsecondary placement rate, the author would have discovered that YCCS has students from several campus schools currently enrolled in dual credit programs at the City Colleges of Chicago and has an aggressive agenda to increase  that participation significantly in the future.

While the article references the SchoolWorks (a third-party evaluator contracted by CPS to assess school quality) report done on YCCS in 2007, it fails to report the main conclusion of the SchoolWorks evaluators (individuals who actually spent time in the schools and classrooms) that YCCS has “created the conditions for student achievement to occur at high levels”.  The claim the “YCCS does not have a standard curriculum for all schools” is not true. YCCS has instituted a curriculum framework (the YCCS Essential Skills Framework) that organizes instruction around the skills development, and we are moving towards a skills-based graduation requirement to ensure that a student who graduates from YCCS can be competitive in post-secondary endeavors. All YCCS campuses have aligned their courses to the YCCS Essential Skills Framework which is on file at CPS.

The author of these articles spends a considerable number of words describing the difficult student population in alternative schools and references Ron Huberman’s report citing that the 30 percent of students who are most at-risk of being involved in violence are enrolled in alternative schools. A deeper analysis of this issue will show that while YCCS had a large percentage of these students, only .04% were actually victims of violence and no students were the perpetrators of the violence. Further, while we have a very high-risk population with approximately 25%-35% of the students being gang-involved and 53% of our students having some contact with the justice system, there have been no shootings or major incidents in alternative schools in 12 years. Walk into any YCCS alternative school, and take note that the “Culture of Calm” that Ron Huberman talks about is prevalent and common in YCCS campuses.

This is the real story—the story of how alternative schools in Chicago under YCCS have not only stepped up to the challenge of working with students who have been disenfranchised from the public education system but are succeeding where others have failed.

The deficit model framing of the issues surrounding these students put forth by the writer has failed to tell a story of resilient students and dedicated schools that are succeeding. Had the author chosen to fully engage YCCS in the research and preparation of the Alternate Route, the framing might have been different. Perhaps the author would have written a piece on our (YCCS) conceptualization and evolution of a diversified portfolio of quality alternative education campuses that provide multiple pathways to graduation similar to New York City’s, as well as other solution driven strategies around changing the paradigm of urban education for these students. YCCS is doing innovative work in this area and is ahead of the curve compared to other cities.

Why Catalyst chose to ignore these and other indicators, are only known by its writer and editors. Why Catalyst chose to declare with certainty that Chicago alternative schools have failed to meet quality standards is another unknown, because the facts do not support their conclusion. However, what is clear is that Catalyst has missed an opportunity to tell a more compelling and nuanced story of an issue that is germane to urban school reform The real story and lessons in urban school reform can be gleaned from what we in the alternative school community have learned and are doing to educate off-track and re-enrolled young people. Thankfully, this story is written every day in every YCCS alternative education classroom where we are changing the odds, graduating students who otherwise would not have graduated, and saving lives in the process.