Rankings on standardized tests, reading levels, even a student's ability to recognize math patterns and sound out words - all are prominently posted in hallways and classrooms, for everyone to see.Īnd everything - from the student-teacher ratio to the schools' layout - has been designed to be cost-effective and efficient, so that it can be easily replicated across the country. Teachers use data points gleaned from educational software programs, as well as their own pen-and-paper assessments, to determine classroom work. Related: Glued to the screen: A third-grade class where students spend 75 percent of the day on iPads Lunch and recess together are a total of 40 minutes. Once students are back in their classrooms, some receive yet more time in front of laptops, adding to their total daily screen time. Students at these elementary schools can spend up to 90 minutes a day inside computer labs, although administrators say they increasingly try to break up some of that time with music and art classes. A kindergartner whose uniform pants were falling down was told to "dress for success," and an administrator boasted that a first-grade teacher "was maniacal about not wasting time" with her young charges. Students were often spoken to using language more common in corporate offices than elementary schools. On a recent visit, there were no pretend kitchens, boxes of wooden blocks or easels to be seen in the classrooms. They continue to position their schools as Silicon Valley's answer to the educational divide.Īnd Fuerza Community Prep looks and feels like a Silicon Valley creation, with its brightly lit classrooms almost entirely devoid of the low-tech educational toys of other elementary schools. Rocketship leaders say their own internal number-crunching shows significantly more improvement than the more dated California-wide comparisons suggest. "But they have not shown they can deliver on all that they are promising." Lurie College of Education at San Jose State University. "They are really phenomenal at marketing their schools," said Roxana Marachi, an associate professor in the Connie L. But in 2013 - the last year that California published reading and math scores - four of Rocketship's elementary schools showed significant dips in state reading scores. In math, a relatively high percentage of its students routinely score well on state exams. (Close to 88 percent of the schools' students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and 60.5 percent are English-language learners.)īut as the network has grown, it has encountered challenges, losing key staff members and struggling with its reading program. The attraction is its innovative approach, which promises that intensive online work and a rigorous curriculum will help disadvantaged children make up ground quickly and gain parity with their better-off peers. Rocketship is perhaps the nation's most celebrated pioneer of online learning, having received millions of dollars from outside funders, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Obama administration, as well as financing from former tennis star Andre Agassi's real estate fund. But, she says, "The question is, how efficient should you be when you're dealing with little human beings?" Kate Mehr, a former Rocketship executive who now runs the Baltimore outpost of another charter network, says Rocketship's "stripped-down efficiency model" has much going for it. Related: How a Silicon Valley-based Teach For America program dives into blended learning "I'm proud of that."īut for some former teachers and parents, the Rocketship computer lab tells a different story - of a charter network too reliant on "screen time," too light on free play and too obsessed with test scores. "We feel a great responsibility to get our kids, who are often behind, up to grade level," said Smith, who oversees 11 tech-heavy elementary schools, including one in Nashville and one in Milwaukee. This is where they spend up to 90 minutes a day.įor Preston Smith, a co-founder of Rocketship Education, the San Jose-based charter network that runs the school, that computer lab exemplifies what the chain is good at: harnessing technology to teach at-risk students. One sunny morning last spring, they could be spotted inside the school's spacious computer lab, headphones strapped on their ears, eyes scrutinizing mini-laptop screens, plowing through online books about Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed and practicing online math exercises. – Looking for first-graders at Fuerza Community Prep?
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