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Dec 10 2012

Ohio House School Funding Hearing – The Good, The Bad, The Charter Schools | Part 1

Four of the pillars of American conservative education reform – Eric Hanushek of the Hoover Institution, Rick Hess from the American Enterprise Institute, Students First (Michelle Rhee’s group) and Marguerite Roza of the Center for Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington – which provided the blueprint for the Cleveland Plan – testified before the Ohio House Finance Committee Dec. 6. While I commend Chairman Ron Amstutz for holding these hearings, the fact he has not heard from any comparably strong voices on the public education side of things, such as Diane Ravitch or Linda Darling-Hammond, should be a cause of concern for Ohioans. We need to get school funding right. But not all the answers on school funding come from the right. Today, I want to recount a few positive take-aways from last week’s testimony. I’ll follow-up tomorrow with some of the more troubling items from the hearing.
  • Each of these witnesses made some pretty good points. They talked about the state giving flexibility to local officials to spend money as they choose, so long as they perform. That’s pretty much what we were going to do with the Evidence Based Model – giving the more successful districts flexibility on spending guidelines, while having less successful districts adhere more closely to the elements that research indicated would improve student achievement. This was an idea championed by former State Superintendent and current Assistant U.S. Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education Deb Delisle.
  • The witnesses said the formula should account for poverty, Special Education and English Language Learners.
  • They agreed that Early Childhood Education and wraparound services should be emphasized, especially in high poverty districts. The members of the committee seemed to be in agreement on this, with state Rep. Vernon Sykes, D-Akron, speaking most passionately about it. Sykes actually chastised Hanushek for not mentioning the great bang for the buck early childhood education brings. Hanushek apologized for not bringing it up. Quite a moment.
  • Students First, which has caused quite a stir recently by claiming bipartisan bona fides while contributing big money to Republican lawmakers at about the same rate the NRA does, actually talked about how charter schools should have the same level of accountability as traditional public schools – quite in the mainstream nationally, but a new concept in Ohio. Again, this should demonstrate just how far outside the mainstream Ohio’s Charter School movement is.
While I felt very good about these portions, there were significant problems with much of what was said Wednesday. Stay tuned. Tomorrow: Non-Charter School Issues  

Written by Stephen Dyer · Categorized: Innovation Station, K-12 Education · Tagged: Charter Schools, Ohio, Public Education, Vernon Sykes

Oct 30 2012

IO Fellow: Public Schools in Ohio Get the Shaft When Pupils Leave District for Charters, Vouchers

IO Education Fellow Steve Dyer has been on the road participating in school funding forums. Today’s Vindicator has coverage of a forum in Austintown last night, “What Does School Choice Cost Community Taxpayers?” From their story:
When a student leaves a public school district, “the amount transferred is almost always more than the state would have given to the district for that pupil,” said Steve Dyer, education policy fellow at Innovation Ohio. Dyer said the state’s per-pupil contribution averages $7,004 for charter schools, $6,320 for online schools, $4,971 for vouchers and $3,033 for local school districts. “This is a problem,” he said. “… And it’s up to grassroots activists to go down to Columbus and change the system.”

Written by ronsylvester · Categorized: Innovation Station, K-12 Education · Tagged: Charter Schools, Ohio, Steve Dyer, Vouchers

Oct 18 2012

Charter Schools Still Outperformed by Public Schools

The Ohio Department of Education put out their full report card data yesterday, without the bells and whistles, pending an ongoing, and increasingly suspect, investigation of data manipulation being done by the Ohio Auditor. The information release yesterday reveals that once again, charter schools are outperformed by their public school counterparts. Significantly. Just a few highlights:
  • On the state’s performance index score, charter schools score an average of 78. That is a lower score than 92% of Ohio’s 3,070 traditional public school buildings that receive a performance index score. So the average charter school would rate in the bottom 8% of traditional school buildings and only 5, not 5%, 5 (or .8%) of school districts.
  • Ohio’s traditional public schools graduate nearly 90% of their students, on average. Charter Schools graduate barely 30% on average.
  • The average proficiency rate in an Ohio school district on the 24 subjects tested is 85% while only in 4 of the 24 subjects does the average School District have a proficiency rate below 80%. Meanwhile, charter schools score above 70% proficient in exactly 2 of the 24 tested subjects (they score exactly 70% on one).The average proficiency rate in a Charter School is about 60%.
  • The average building in the Big 8 Urban districts (Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown) has a higher performance index score than the average charter. Again, proficiencies are linked almost perfectly with poverty, as demonstrated here and here. Yet the Big 8 is able to outperform charters, even though buildings in the Big 8 have significantly higher poverty rates.
[Read more…]

Written by Stephen Dyer · Categorized: Innovation Station, K-12 Education · Tagged: Charter Schools, Ohio Public Education, Public Schools, State Report Cards

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