Can mayoral control fix what ails Ohio’s urban school districts?

Terry Ryan / March 27, 2013

Ohio’s urban school districts, like many others across the country, face a slow burning governance crisis. Elected school boards in cities like Columbus, Dayton, Lorain, and Youngstown are proving incapable of providing the leadership their cities, schools, families and children need to be successful. In Dayton, for example, long-time school board member Yvonne Isaacs summed up the challenge when she told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2012, “There is really no continuity in terms of the vision and the direction of the district…I think what we have lost is the ability to collaborate and to set vision.” Youngstown’s dysfunction is legendary: It’s been under state financial control for years and now faces a state academic takeover.

But, no city in Ohio currently displays better the dysfunction of big city elected school boards than does Columbus. Columbus City Schools is a district in turmoil. Mayor Michael Coleman spelled out the challenges in a recent Columbus Dispatch op-ed thusly:

The children of Columbus City Schools need our help. Forty-seven percent of kids enrolled in the district attend schools receiving a D or F grade by the Ohio Department of Education, while just 21 percent go to A or B schools. The district ranks near the very bottom statewide in terms of how much a student learns in a given year.

State and federal investigations into allegations of student-data manipulation hang like a black cloud over the district. The results threaten to further

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Can mayoral control fix what ails Ohio’s urban school districts?

Governance in the Charter School Sector: Time for a Reboot

Terry Ryan / March 27, 2013

“Autonomy, in exchange for accountability” has been the mantra of charter school theorists since before the first charter opened its doors in Minnesota in 1991. But, far too often over the last two decades this mantra has been more ideal than reality. Getting the balance right between autonomy and accountability has been so hard because there has been much confusion over the appropriate roles and responsibilities of the non-profit charter school governing boards, school operators, and authorizers in the autonomy/accountability deal.

Fordham’s new policy brief by Adam Emerson, “Governance in the Charter School Sector: Time for a Reboot,” tackles the governance issue head-on. One section in particular is especially interesting to me because of our role as a charter school authorizer in the Buckeye State. Ohio, and other states with strong charter school networks (both non-profit CMOs and for-profit EMOs), has struggled to balance the power and influence of school operators with that of their non-profit governing board. Too often boards are seen as little more than a necessary evil while operators run the show. It is not at all uncommon for charter school operators in Ohio to “hire” board members, and then use them as a rubber stamp for all school operations. 

As a state approved charter school authorizer in Ohio we have always held a different view. Our position has been that the non-profit governing boards are independent, and clearly in charge of, any outside organization that they engage to

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Governance in the Charter School Sector: Time for a Reboot

Ohio swears in Richard Ross as new state superintendent

Terry Ryan / March 27, 2013

Richard (Dick) Ross was sworn into Monday by State Board of Education President Debe Terhar as Ohio’s 37th State Superintendent of Public Instruction. The ceremony took place at Reynoldsburg City High School (just east of Columbus, where Ross was formerly district superintendent). Dr. Ross takes over the leadership reigns of the Ohio Department of Education after serving as Governor Kasich’s director of 21st Century Education for the last year. While in the Governor’s office Ross helped to craft the state’s A-F report card, the Third Grade Reading Guarantee, and the new school funding plan being debated in the legislature. For more see here.

Congratulations Dr. Ross and we wish you the very best. The children and families of Ohio need you to be successful.

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Ohio swears in Richard Ross as new state superintendent

I don’t forget the parents who beat the odds: Q & A with Dayton Liberty Academy’s T.J. Wallace

Ellen Belcher / March 27, 2013

This Q&A with T.J. Wallace, the executive director for Dayton Liberty Academies, is the sixth of our seven-part series on school leadership. (Please see our Q&A with Dr. Glenda Brown, Andy Boy, Dr. Judy Hennessey, and Hannah Powell Tuney, and Chad Webb.)

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Two years ago T.J. Wallace was recruited to be a principal at the Dayton Leadership Academies. His job was to turn around the Dayton Liberty campus, which was facing possible closure for back-to-back failing state report cards.

At the time, EdisonLearning, Inc., a for-profit management company, was operating his school and a second, known as the Dayton View campus. Both had poor test scores and were plagued by administrative chaos. The schools’ board and their authorizer, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, were out of patience. Fordham and the board took matters into their own hands and chose Wallace, imposing him on their management company.

This year Edison Learning is gone and Wallace is the executive director of both schools.

The 58-year-old former Catholic high school principal is running one school that last year was graded a “C” by the state and a second that received an “F.” The K-8 buildings can hold more than a 1,000 students each, but enrollment has plummeted from 2,500 in 2004 to 735.

Wallace is taking over buildings that, for more than a decade, were managed from afar. His board and Fordham have given him two years to stop the enrollment

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I don’t forget the parents who beat the odds: Q & A with Dayton Liberty Academy’s T.J. Wallace

The Common Core, digital transformation, and the Kasich budget proposal

Aaron Churchill / March 27, 2013

Starting in the 2014-15 school year, Ohio’s schools will fully implement the Common Core State Standards and the PARCC exams--online assessments aligned to the Common Core. As the Buckeye State draws nearer to lift off for these new academic standards and tests, school districts are ratcheting up their technological infrastructure and capacity.

Consider a few recent examples of how schools are improving their technological infrastructure in advance of the Common Core and the PARCC exams:

• The Akron Beacon Journal reported that the Akron Public Schools recently approved $300,000 plus in spending to upgrade its computer software and Internet bandwidth. These improvements will ensure that its students are able to take the online PARCC exams.
• Meanwhile on the other side of the Buckeye State, The Lima News reported that Delphos and Ottawa-Glandorf school districts, both located in rural Northwest Ohio, have purchased new computers to ensure that their students will be able to take the PARCC exams.
• Finally, in rural Southeast Ohio, The Marietta Times reported that Morgan Local School District has been piloting Thinkgate. Teachers at Morgan Local will use this digital instructional system to provide real-time feedback to students about how well they are progressing toward meeting the learning expectations of the Common Core.  

In addition to these local efforts, the governor’s budget proposal (see page D-180) also takes steps to improve technology as schools transition to the Common Core and the PARCC exams. In the state’s student

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The Common Core, digital transformation, and the Kasich budget proposal

From gifted-student education to Common Core to charter school quality

March 27, 2013

The Fordham Institute has been engaged in a wide range of conversations recently, ranging from gifted-student education to Common Core to charter school quality. If you’ve missed any of these events or publications, check out the following notes.

• Fordham co-hosted an event with the Ohio Association for Gifted Children to discuss issues around educating Ohio’s best and brightest students. Fordham’s Checker Finn kicked off the even with a presentation of his findings from his recent book Exam Schools: Inside America’s Most Selective Public High Schools. After Checker’s presentation Jennifer Smith Richards of the Columbus Dispatch moderated a panel that included Carol Lockhart, the principal of John Hay Early College High School in Cleveland, one of four Ohio exam schools. While most of the panel agreed that more could be done to serve the needs of gifted students, Lockhart emphasized the breadth and depth of the many exciting opportunities that her students can engage in.
• In Fordham’s recent publication, Searching for Excellence: A Five-City, Cross-State Comparison of Charter School Quality, we found that closing poor-performing charters and scaling quality charters would begin to close achievement gaps. Bryan C. Hassel, co-director of Public Impact—our lead researcher, Parker Baxter of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, and Scott Elliott from the Indianapolis Star have added further commentary on this report. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial also referred to our report, as the Peach State’s General Assembly

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  Charters & Choice / Ohio Policy

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  From gifted-student education to Common Core to charter school quality

From High School to the Future: The Challenge of Senior Year in Chicago Public Schools

Aaron Churchill / March 27, 2013

Springtime is at hand for America’s senior class—and for many of these graduating seniors, spring means daydreaming about college or a first job. Senioritis anyone? In a recent report, From High School to the Future: The Challenge of Senior Year in Chicago Public Schools, The University of Chicago’s Consortium on Chicago School Research tackles the question of whether high school students’ entire senior year is one large case of senioritis. In other words, are senior years generally productive or wasted? To answer this question, the researchers analyzed the course-taking patterns of over 50,000 Chicago Public School graduating seniors, between 2003 and 2009.

The study’s key finding is that, for too many students, the senior year is indeed an unproductive and unchallenging academic year—far from a launching pad into college or gainful employment. In their analysis of student transcripts and follow-up interviews with students, the researchers found that many students chose to take easy elective courses that allowed them to “coast to graduation.” The researchers attribute this senior-year mess to the lack of an “organizing framework or common set of expectations” for what a rigorous and productive senior year looks like—for the college- and vocation-bound student alike.

Perhaps the only silver lining of this report is that the researchers found a solid quarter of CPS students engaged in an Advanced Placement (AP) heavy courseload (taking, on average, nearly two AP courses). Yet, even here, there is substantial variation in AP participation across

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From High School to the Future: The Challenge of Senior Year in Chicago Public Schools

Where’s the beef (literally)?

Angel Gonzalez / March 27, 2013

• Schools are “beefing up cafeteria meals” as the federal government lifted food requirements related to the amount of meat and grains on lunch menus.
• Districts are struggling to meet the technological requirements of the PARCC exams—assessments aligned with the Common Core and set to begin in the spring of 2015.
• Students who attend the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) virtual school earned up to $100 for taking the Ohio Graduation Test on time.
• School officials in the Cincinnati area discuss the impact of students absenteeism. 

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Where’s the beef (literally)?