re: Woke NYT writer sent kid to troubled schools as a sacrifice, it did not go as planned

quote:

---

That's pretty insanely arrogant

---

Maybe, but Im tired of supporting people's poor choices through taxation.

quote:

---

LINK lmk if this is paywalled and I’ll share a pdf.

---

Kind of a long meandering article. You are obviously more familiar with the Cypress story than am I.

I did search for facts outside the New Yorker piece though, such as Cypress classroom models actually employed (vs intended), student population, budgeting, shortfalls etc. Suffice it to say there is substantial variance in the info out there in all those areas. E.g., sources claim anything from 105 to 188 enrollment in K-4. 150 seems a reasonable number to run with ( cited by Henderson Lewis).

At those levels of enrollment, as Bob Berk alluded, there are significant issues with fixed (non-teacher) costs and economies of scale. A school with enrollment of 105 has a principal, and a school with enrollment of 1005 has a principal. But in terms of total budget, the latter is a much lower proportional cost. The same would hold for cafeteria, custodial, utilities, building/maintenance, etc. In any enterprise, inefficiency is a killer. It sounds like 300-400 students is the sweetspot in economic terms.

So the question is why the slow enrollment growth. Catchment area? Community awareness? Quality of education? It appears Cypress Academy ranked in the bottom 50% of Louisiana schools for overall test scores (math proficiency - bottom 50%, and reading proficiency - bottom 50%).
The percentage of students achieving proficiency in math was 55-59% (Louisiana average - 64%). The percentage of students achieving proficiency in reading/language arts was 65-69% (which was lower than the Louisiana state average of 70%). So quality of education might be part of the answer, except area schools were actually significantly underperforming those Cypress numbers.

Regardless, the issue comes down to budgeting. Their fed/sate/local provision per student was ~$11.9K (plus tiered special ed money for >30 SES's). Cypress registered a ~$320K deficit in its last year, and projected a $600K the next. $600K is in the neighborhood of a 30% deficit and is clearly unsustainable.

The solution would have been a merger, altered business model, or some sort of shared resources arrangement. Berk et all couldn't pull that off so they closed the school to much public angst. When Berk announced the closure, it was at the end of application deadline for school change, and the district's most desirable public schools were already full. The intention was to roll the students into Lafayette Academy (now also closed), but eventually those who did not choose to go elsewhere ended up at Foundation Prep (both of which were academically inferior to Cypress from a test results standpoint). So my gestalt is that parental angst/panic and dissatisfaction with residual options, as much as anything, drove the story.

From a business model perspective, success in this instance would be based on performance (Cypress was marginal) and a rapid build-up to 300-500 students (Cypress failed), maximizing efficiencies while seeking lower overhead options such as outsourced food service vs in-house, facility rental vs purchase, philanthropic start-up donations, etc.

quote:

---

Kind of a long meandering article.

---

true, it’s not really investigative as much as commentary about how school choice can still reading in “good schools” closing even with happy customers.

quote:

---

E.g., sources claim anything from 105 to 188 enrollment in K-4.

---

It was open for 3 or 4 years. Official data from the LDOE confirm those enrollment numbers.

quote:

---

So the question is why the slow enrollment growth. Catchment area? Community awareness? Quality of education?

---

here, charter schools seem to prefer to open with a founding kindergarten class adding an additional grade level every year until a full student body is established. Cypress intended to follow that model but couldn’t enroll enough kindergarten students so it opened with founding K and 1st grade classes.

quote:

---

It appears Cypress Academy ranked in the bottom 50% of Louisiana schools for overall test scores (math proficiency - bottom 50%, and reading proficiency - bottom 50%).

---

I’m not sure about this. It only had an SPS score for one year because new schools are given grace the first two years they are opened, meaning the state doesn’t publish their SPS scores during those years. The only score it ever earned was a C. I don’t have the data in front of me, but I’ll verify that in a couple of hours and compare their scores against other NO and LA schools. My recollection is that it outperformed its district.

quote:

---

From a business model perspective, success in this instance would be based on performance (Cypress was marginal) and a rapid build-up to 300-500 students (Cypress failed), maximizing efficiencies while seeking lower overhead options such as outsourced food service vs in-house, facility rental vs purchase, philanthropic start-up donations, etc.

---

These recommendations don’t address the philosophical question at the heart of the issue: students and families were happy with the school. The school outperformed the average NO charter school on the state test despite having an abnormally high sped population, which costs more to educate.

Cypress’s educational model and its business model aren’t necessarily the same thing. If a school produces comparatively good outcomes for an unusually expensive student population but cannot produce those outcomes within an administratively determined per-pupil reimbursement, has the market demonstrated that the educational model is inefficient, or only that it is financially unsustainable at the price government has assigned to it?

quote:

---

It appears Cypress Academy ranked in the bottom 50% of Louisiana schools for overall test scores (math proficiency - bottom 50%, and reading proficiency - bottom 50%).
---

I’m not sure about this

---

I meant to link those for you.
Cypress

Foundation Prep
Lafayette

quote:

---

Hate it for the kid, but I have to give Mom credit for walking the walk.
99% of other Progs virtue signal about this while their kids are in the best schools.

---

frick that. A real parent never sacrifices their children for the collective. You protect and put them in the best position possible.

quote:

---

“We believed strongly that if families like ours went into schools like this one, it would challenge other families with similar values to do the same.

---

The overinflated sense of self is

quote:

---

students and families were happy with the school

---

Indeed.
But as I pointed out, whether they were happy-happy, or just satisfied, when the closure was announced, they were locked out of all but lower end choices.

Given that comparator, Cypress became Ben Franklin or St. Paul's in their eyes. To prevent its closure, it was going to get presented as the second coming of the Phillips Exeter Academy.

The choice (or lack thereof) of replacement schools, which they were handed, stunk. So they raised hell, as anyone would.

quote:

---

an unusually expensive student population

---

They received extra comp for SES's.

Ordinary elementary student $7,495
SPED Tier 1 + $1,499
SPED Tier 2 + $8,807
SPED Tier 3 + $14,053
SPED Tier 4 + $16,302
SPED Tier 5 + $22,485

So for a SES T5 fed/state/local remuneration would run ~$30K

quote:

---

has the market demonstrated that the educational model is inefficient, or only that it is financially unsustainable at the price government has assigned to it?

---

Well, we know 100-150 students is never going to maximize efficiency. I think they are trying to push Foundation Prep toward the 300 student level, albeit with apparently lesser academic performance.

Surprisingly, LA public school funding ranks kind of middling among the 50 states (25th-30th). But until recently, academic results badly lagged the bucks paying for it.

quote:

---

Cubs seemed to imply it was rule rather than exception.

---

I spoke about my experience with the schools in this district, which is what informed my decisions about enrolling my children in schools in this district. I even made the distinction that my private high school experience was much more rigorous than my K-8 experience.

A stranger's kids thriving in their private grammar school in Virginia or Texas or Colorado or even Baton Rouge had no bearing on my decision to enroll my kids in public grammar schools in New Orleans.

quote:

---

But as I pointed out, whether they were happy-happy, or just satisfied, when the closure was announced, they were locked out of all but lower end choices.

---

Which is antithetical to many of the arguments promoting school choice and neoliberal education policies. This is also a very good example of community exclusion from the decisions that directly impact them and their children and the community response to organize immediately and demand inclusion in this decision, although they ultimately did not achieve their desired outcome. In the typical school choice/charter school model, parental choice functions as a demand signal but parents don't necessarily have corresponding authority or influence over provider exit.

quote:

---

The choice (or lack thereof) of replacement schools, which they were handed, stunk. So they raised hell, as anyone would.

---

Yes. The model in NOLA mandates that when a failing school closes, the students enrolled in that failing school get priority in the One App (common application for public schools). But because Cypress wasn't actually a failing school, the students didn't trigger enrollment priority. They got cheated on multiple levels. After pushback, the Superintendent ultimately relented and gave students exiting Cypress One App priority.

quote:

---

They received extra comp for SES's.

---

Yes, the reimbursement rates were tiered, but the price was still administratively determined. BESE established differentiated funding according to student needs, rather than Cypress determining the price necessary to provide its particular service model and families deciding whether that service was worth the price. So Cypress was operating with one part of a market mechanism, consumer choice, while another central market mechanism, price, remained publicly determined. That's the tragic disconnect that, imo, renders our way of making "school choice" work in this quasi-socialist economic funding mechanism. The charter school model depends on market-driven efficiency without the benefits of market-driven funding.

quote:

---

Well, we know 100-150 students is never going to maximize efficiency.

---

When they closed, I believe they only had K-4 grades. Had they continued with their goal of adding a grade every year, presumably Cypress would eventually had doubled their enrollment by having grades K-8.

quote:

---

I do feel lucky to have my office, the baby's daycare and the big kids school within 2.5 miles of my house.

---

When my parents wanted their kids to go to school close to where they lived they were called "racist".