The Fordham Institute sends out hearty congratulations to Mayor Frank Jackson and his staff, Cleveland Metropolitan School District CEO Eric Gordon, the city’s business community, district supporters, teachers, students, and the voters of Cleveland on the passage of the district’s levy—a key component of the Plan for Transforming Schools. It was a hard-fought campaign that was successful in the end due to the day-to-day and door-to-door diligence of its supporters.
As Fordham’s Ohio VP Terry Ryan wrote on this very blog back in February, this effort to make Cleveland one of the nation's school-reform leaders – with its sights fixed firmly on finding, funding, and nurturing what works in education for the sake of the students themselves—is a significant step forward for all Cleveland families. And on this morning of November 7, implementation is now at hand.
All involved with that implementation must be mindful of what was promised and what must be delivered:
Increasing the number of high-performing schools, both district and charter, while closing failing schools;
Maximizing enrollment in Cleveland’s existing high-performing district and public charter schools;
Investing in promising schools by giving their leaders additional resources, the freedom to build high-performing teams, and the ability to make financial and instructional decisions based on their students’ needs;
Seeking (and finding) flexibility in the hiring, retention, and remuneration of teachers; and
Sustaining both district and public charter transformation schools.
We applaud the work done to create and to pass the plan and look forward to assisting in any way possible its effective and successful implementation. The kids of Cleveland need the plan to work.
When Ohio Governor John Kasich released his “Achievement Everywhere” school funding plan in late February it was widely criticized for “stealing from the poor and giving to the rich.”
The Columbus Dispatch is reporting today that Gahanna-Jefferson Public Schools will be discontinuing their experiment with charter school creation at the end of this school year. The school of 110 students in grades 9-12 will be absorbed into the district. The main reason cited: once start-up funds ran out ($450,000 from the federal government’s Public Charter School Program), Gahanna Community School’s board and staff were unable to maintain operations with the fractional per-pupil funding provided monthly by the state to all charter schools. Upper Arlington closed a charter school for similar reasons last year.
While it is tempting for me to snark about “unscrupulous charter operators” (believe me, I wrote that blog post and it was really funny) and to rage that the federal government should get its start-up money back from Gahanna-Jefferson and Upper Arlington too, I think it is more important to talk about the object lesson that this situation presents.
The fiscal picture painted by the board and staff of GSC is the daily reality of almost all charter schools across the state: once the start-up funds are spent, the per pupil funding provided for school operations by the state – with no local funds and no facility dollars – is at least a third less than what is available to even the poorest of public districts in Ohio. Gahanna cites the savings that will be had by not having to pay $85,000 for filing separate state data and paying for separate financial services between the community school and the district. And this was with the district Treasurer doing the work!
Charter schools have to report data to the state monthly while districts only have to do it twice a year (something that the current state budget will hopefully change), and well run charters often bid out their work to get the best price, share services with other schools, and even train some staff do double duty. Thus keeping costs down. All hands on deck, for certain.
GSC has been housed within Gahanna Lincoln High School since its inception, Wickliffe in Upper Arlington was within a building the district already owned, so neither school ever had to worry about paying rent or figuring out where to hold classes. That is not the reality of charter start-ups who have to identify facilities and then pay rent and often times repair costs to get the buildings up to code.
Subscribe to the Ohio Gadfly Daily