Richard Garcia can still remember his freshman year--the gang fights, impersonal staff and disorganization--at his public high school in East San Jose. "There was a lot of chaos," says Garcia, now 18.
On the advice of friends, Garcia transferred in his sophomore year to Latino College Preparatory Academy, a charter school. Friends attending Latino Academy told him about the structure and learning environment offered there.
On the advice of friends, Garcia transferred in his sophomore year to Latino College Preparatory Academy, a charter school. Friends attending Latino Academy told him about the structure and learning environment offered there.
Garcia is just one of the growing number of students leaving public high schools in the East Side Union High School District for smaller charter high schools. From 2002 to 2005, enrollment in East Side charter high schools grew from 74 to 832. During the same time, the number of charter high schools increased from two to five, according to the California Department of Education.
Many of the students enrolling in charter high schools, especially in the East Side, come from low-income minority families. Charter schools such as Latino Academy and Leadership Public School-San Jose have a majority population of Latino students.
Some think the increased interest in charter schools is an answer to the problems they see in public schools. Others say charter schools won't necessarily help students who haven't done well in public schools.
Alicia Ross, staff organizer for People Acting in Community Together (PACT), a grassroots organization that works to improve communities, says many students and families have expressed dissatisfaction with public schools. She says the focus is lost in some public schools where many students don't succeed. "High schools are designed like mass factories," she said.
One former charter school official agrees. Christina Castillo, former enrollment coordinator for Leadership Public School-East Side, says that the individual advising at charter schools allows for more personalized attention that can lead to a student's success. "If they have the support that they need, then it empowers them to uncover the idea of going on to a university," Castillo said.
The student-to-teacher ratio at charter schools in East San Jose is lower than that of the public schools in the district. According to the California Department of Education, the overall student-to-teacher ratio in East Side charter high schools is 15.5-to-1, compared with a 22.7-to-1 ratio in public high schools in the same district.
However, public officials at the East Side district schools do not necessarily see the growing number of students opting to attend charter schools as a sign that public schools are failing. The fault is not the lack of support services offered at public schools, but rather, that students may not be prepared to attend larger public schools, they say. Several members of the board governing the East Side Union High School District declined to comment.
One East Side public school official, Ana Lomas, said she believes that public schools do offer resources for students that are low-performing. Such programs as Avid, Puente, Upward Bound and magnet academies that assist students in preparing for college are all readily available resources for students who may be struggling. She added that public schools could be improved to provide more such programs, however.
Whether charter schools teach students as well as public schools do is another issue some debate. Lomas said charter schools do not have to meet the same academic standards as public schools do. "Public [schools] tend to be more rigorous," said Lomas, who is the director of professional development in the East Side district.
Student Sandy Vasquez, who transferred out of Latino Academy after two years because she was not getting an academically competitive curriculum, agreed that public schools provide more academically. At the charter school, she said she felt "backtracked,'' because she had to take Algebra I again, despite having taken and passed a more advanced class, Geometry, in her eighth-grade year. She said she was also upset about the lack of Advanced Placement courses that can help students get admitted to top universities. She wanted to take AP English, but her school did not offer it.
After her sophomore year, Vasquez decided to transfer to a public school, Accel Middle College, from which she recently graduated, and she will attend the University of California-Berkeley in the fall.
Sonya Torres, media relations manager for the California Charter School Association, said she believes that charter schools are more rigorous than public schools, and have with higher expectations from teachers and parents for students.
Comparisons of student scores on the Academic Performance Index (API) tests show that East Side charter schools score lower than public high schools. Three of the five charter high schools have reported API scores, and their overall average in 2005 was 543 - more than 150 points lower than the average API score, 698, for the district's public high schools.
David Lopez, president of National Hispanic University, which oversees the Latino Academy, said it is not fair to compare API scores from charter schools with scores from public high schools because of differences in student populations. He said that if scores from Latino students in the district's public schools are compared to Latino students from charter schools, the scores from charter schools would be much more comparable.
Lan Nguyen, vice president of the board of trustees at the East Side school district, said charter schools still need to improve. "They should be performing better than they are now," he said.
Nevertheless, the number of students attending charter schools in San Jose's East Side district is expected to grow. "They're here to stay and will continue to increase," Lopez said.