Pub. 7 2017-2018 Issue 1

4 WELCOME Message BY ROYCE VAN TASSELL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF UAPCS S chool grades and SAGE scores for last year are out. Proficiency scores on SAGE are down statewide, and new cut scores for school grades meant most schools got lower school grades. To the extent that SAGE tests offer a meaningful lens through which to evaluate how and what students at all Utah schools are learning – and that’s a very big if – all of public education needs to identify how to improve. Part of the problem with current statewide assessments is that the data itself is of dubious quality. State law allows parents to choose whether their children take SAGE tests. Statisticians refer to this opt out provision as a self-selection bias. It alters the data in unknown ways because the test results do not come from anything resembling a sample representative of the whole. Perhaps the students opting out of statewide assessments score better than their peers; perhaps the reverse is true. We don’t know, nor can we know, and that inevitably makes the data unreliable. Moreover, there is strong evidence that many students who do take the test, especially among secondary students, do not take the test seriously. They know that their individual performance on the test affects them not at all, so at least some students make no effort to demonstrate through the test what they know and are able to do. This bias also makes SAGE scores less than reliable. Recognizing all of those caveats, it is critical that Utah charter schools not excuse themselves for less than stellar academic performance. A large part of the promise of charter schools is academic success. We are nimble, which allows us to change to fit the shifting needs of our diverse students. We cannot allow ourselves to fall victim to some varia- tion of the all too common trope, “Our students are hard to educate; we’re doing the best we can.” Many of you have heard me say this before, and I will never tire of saying it again: demographics is not destiny. Every child can learn. Every student yearns to learn. By nature children seek and learn in all they do. A large part of our role in public education is to create conditions where our students’ natural desire to learn and grow prepares them to learn what brings them happiness now and in the future. Admittedly, it is not always easy to make times tables exciting. And I recall, with a mixture of laughter and tears, when a then 5-year-old neighbor friend cried in frustration when I insisted that he read the actual words in a Dr. Seuss book, rather than just inferring what he expected them to say. I also take some pleasure in having played a tiny part in his education, particularly as he described to my wife and I this week, the 5000-word high school essay he researched and wrote on how Aaron Copland created the modern American sound. We are not in charter schools because it is easy. We are here to make profound differences in the lives of children their parents entrust to our instruction, judgment, and care. Every child can and needs to learn. We entered education full of hopes and dreams, believing that we can change the world. Now we must grasp the abundant opportunities and resources before us, and raise our expectations. We must use our collective and individual training and skills to inspire joy in learning in every student in our classrooms. They deserve no less, and we can accept no less.