Report cards for charters go public

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

by Patrick Cobbs

A moment charter schools in Philadelphia have been dreading arrived last Wednesday when District officials made their first public presentation of a school rating system many charters think is a mess.

It’s called the School Performance Index (SPI), and the District has used a version of it to decide which low-performing traditional schools should be restructured under Superintendent Arlene Ackerman’s Imagine 2014 program.

The District has been working on a similar measure comparing charter schools and public schools since August, which it says will be used to determine charter renewals and expansion requests.

But this process has been a rocky road.

This story continues on the NewsWorks website; it is a product of a reporting collaboration between the Notebook and WHYY.