Family & Community Alternative Learning
1997 Test Results from
Massachusetts Charter Schools

Student Assessment Profile

Neighborhood House Charter Public School

School Description: The Neighborhood House Charter School is located in Dorchester and serves 104 students in grades K through 5. The school, which began as an outgrowth of the Federated Dorchester Neighborhood Houses, Inc., features small class sizes, individualized learning, and a focus on literacy, science/technology, and the creative arts.

Years in operation: 2

School-level Accountability: Neighborhood House Charter School (NHCS), has developed a set of standards, known as "Succeed Anywhere Standards," that it hopes will prepare its students to compete with students in the highest performing districts in the state. Students participate in the state assessment system and mirror the Boston Public Schools by taking the Stanford-9.

Students are also assessed individually before school begins in August and teachers spend upwards of an hour with each parent and child to develop an Individual Learning Plan that will guide the student's work throughout the year. These ILPs are based on the "Succeed Anywhere Standards" in mathematics, English, social studies and science. For example, in the principal's office their is a "Test-Yourself-Shelf" from which students can borrow an age-appropriate book to see whether she is reading at grade level.

Analysis:

What is the academic performance level of students entering this charter school?
Average.

1st and 2nd grade students (with the exception of second grade reading) performed on par with students in the middle to lower third of schools in the Boston Public Schools. 3rd grade students, who have been in NHCS for a year or more, are performing on par with students in the upper third of BPS; 5th grade students, who have just arrived in the school this fall, are performing on par with those schools in the middle third of BPS.

In sum, it appears that the students that entered the Neighborhood House Charter School in grades 1, 2 and 5 were generally performing at or below the performance levels of students in the Boston Public Schools. There is some evidence to suggest that students in grade 3 entered NHCS performing at a reasonably high level since their scores in grade 2 were also strong relative to the Boston schools.

Have the students in this charter school made academic gains?
Insufficient Data.

It is not possible to show gains relative to national norms because different tests were used from one year to the next and not enough data was available from the various grade levels. It is not possible to show gains relative to the distribution of district scores either. Boston Public Schools reported Stanford-9 scores for students in the third and fifth grades in the spring of 1996. NHCS did not have these grades at that time. Although Neighborhood House added these grades, and these students were subsequently tested in fall, 1996, there are not two complete sets of BPS and NHCS data against which to compare.

In sum, the gains for Neighborhood House Charter School are inconclusive due to a lack of comparable data. Successive Stanford-9 scores in the years to come will provide comparable data from which to measure academic gains.

Neighborhood House Charter School Test Scores

Notes:
* Grades 4 and 5 were added in the fall of 1996, and are therefore, a better entering student sample to compare to BPS. Grades 1-3 have been in the school for over a year.

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