City charter school beats suburbs

Posted at: 01/20/2010 5:24 PM | Updated at: 01/20/2010 6:50 PM
By: Ray Levato | WHEC.com

Students at a Rochester charter school are getting exceptionally high grades. And Mayor Bob Duffy says it is proof city kids can learn as well as their suburban counterparts.

While True North Rochester Preparatory Charter School has the word charter in its name, the people who run it say they are as different from other charter schools as they are public schools.

True North doesn't get all the best students. The children are chosen by lottery. The focus is on academics and college prep, with a structured and fun environment. Homerooms are named after colleges, and college banners hang on the walls.

Moving from class to class is single file, orderly, and quick, only about 90 seconds.

True North Principal David McBride said, "You think of a regular school with three, four, five minutes between bells, so if we've saved two or three minutes every transition for every class, that's 30 classes a week -- all that time goes towards academics."

How good are these kids?

Today's 8th graders last year scored 100-percent proficiency on the 2009 state E.L.A. tests, beating out suburban districts like Pittsford and Brighton. In fact, they scored higher than all the suburban districts, and doubled the performance of Rochester city schools.

True North Chief Operating Officer Dan Deckman said, "There's a level of teacher quality here that we're just very proud of. And I think it's a huge deal breaker in terms of our success."

True North is part of a network called Uncommon Schools. Expectations are high. The school day is long -- from 7:40 a.m. to 4:40 p.m.

Eight-grader Davida Hawkes struggled with math when she came to True North as a 5th grader, but she was just accepted for high school at Mercy. "I like the fact that it challenges me. The teachers won't just let us get by. They'll make us do more than we have to. I think that college would be a nice experience. You know, teach me a lot."

The kids at the charter school are on a par academically with other city 5th graders when they come to True North. But the performance gap widens dramatically by 8th-grade, a critical time when kids who are behind may want to drop out.

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