Ceria M. Travis Academy is a private school that had 486 kindergarten through 12th-grade students as of September in two buildings, one on the west side, one on the north side. Its partner school, Travis Technology High School on the far northwest side, had 214 students.
Atlas Preparatory Academy, also a private school, had 979 kindergarten through 12th-grade students in three locations on the south side.
Few students in either set of schools did well on Wisconsin’s standardized tests in 2011. More than five out of six at both Travis schools either were rated “minimal” in reading and math, the lowest category, or, in unusually large numbers, didn’t take the tests at all. Almost all the required students at Atlas took the tests, but more than 70% were minimal in reading and more than 60% minimal in math.
How many were rated proficient or better? At the Travis schools, it was under 2% in reading, just over 2% in math. At Atlas, it was 4.2% in reading, 5.5% in math.
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MPS schools have elaborate accountability systems and tons of information is available about each school. The accountability systems haven’t been so effective historically, but there are signs of improvement as more low-performing schools are closed. That said, there are still plenty of MPS schools that get results that are not much different from those of Travis and Atlas (and at much higher cost per student).
Milwaukee charter schools also are required to report quite a bit of information publicly and, in many cases, the charter authorizer (at MPS, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee or City Hall) has been pretty effective in holding schools to performance standards, closing quite a few. That said, there are still low-performing c