Buffalo Charter Schools

While at the park this past season I heard many parents conversing rather loudly and hoping their child would be excepted into Tapestry Charter School. Then later int he season the conversion changed to how happy they were to be excepted. I have heard this school is one of the better charter schools in the area but I could not fine any real ranking lists. Local schools are often ranked according to their enrollment and student/teacher ratio. Personally I think there are many things to judge a school on including if my child is happy there.

I have had three other people ask me what schools I liked. But I was not sure.

I looked around on the net to see if anyone did a comparison on something other then student/teacher ratios. I found 2 so far. I do not know how great the data is. It is based on test scores in different subjects and is adjust for reasons described below. Here is an example:

City-data.com

Tapestry Charter School

"City-data.com school rating (weighted overall 2006 test average compared to other schools in New York) from 0 (worst) to 100 (best) is 68.
(Our score takes into account sex and racial score differences and it is weighed according to the number of students taking the test)"

Putting them in order from 100 (best)-0 (worst):

68 Tapestry Charter School
58 Westminster Charter School
40 South Buffalo Charter School
29 Buffalo Academy of Science Charter School
27 Buffalo United Charter School
24 Oracle Charter School
21 Global Concepts Charter School
19 King Center Charter School
05 Kipp Sankofa Charter School
04 Pinnacle Charter School

Elmwood Village Charter School - There was no info

To give my readers a comparison.

City Honors, City of Buffalo, public, scored an 89. It is ranked # 4 in the nation.
Hutchinson Central Technical School, City of Buffalo, public, 62.
Orchard Park High School, small town suburb, public, had a score of 81 and is in the top 5% in the nation.

I didn't find any ranking for private schools on this site.

To give you a different raking with the same schools I found the School Digger list.

In order of ranked in all of the state and over all NYS assessment test.

1294 & 144.7 Tapestry Charter School
1488 & 135.7 Westminster Community Charter School
1796 & 116.0 King Center Charter School
1857 & 110.7 South Buffalo Charter School
1882 & 108.3 Global Concepts Charter School
2069 & 092.0 Buffalo United Charter School
2226 & 063.0 Stepping Stone Charter School

O.k. That is good enough. The rank is out of 2274 total school and the NYS assessment test is out of 200.

Either way Tapestry and Westminster are the winners for Buffalo charter schools.

I think this should be taken further and compare the charter schools to the Olmsted schools for gifted and talented. Olmsted is known to be a feeder school for City Honors. And that is more then good enough.

750 & 163.0 Fredrick Olmsted #64, public

I would like to point out that math and English language skills are not the only thing kids should be learning in school. Foreign languages, public speaking, music, art, physical/nutrition education, even how to balance a check book are all important skills. When I was in 5th grade my teacher showed us how to fill out a check. I took classes in Spanish, Latin, architecture, drafting/CAD, public speaking, advanced art, world literature, ecology, astronomy and even a Canadian Studies class in high school. Were these all important? I think so. I would not be successful and most of all happy with my life if it were not for my teachers.