Frustrate Ohioans shoot down school levies

November 16, 2005

The previous Ohio Gadfly raised an alarm about citizens' dissatisfaction with their public schools. As Halfway Out the Door reported, 59 percent of those surveyed don't think they are getting their money's worth out of public schools. So it should come as no shock that, of the 222 proposed school levies on the ballot November 8, barely half (57 percent) passed. Moreover, most of these were renewals, not new spending measures. Where levies did pass, the margins were usually tight. For example, in the Trotwood-Madison schools in Montgomery County, a $7.8 million levy passed by just 16 votes. In Springfield, voters rejected an emergency levy—the fourth such that citizens have voted down in two years. Now the district must cut $6 million from its budget. These defeats are especially interesting in light of the fact that public school performance has been improving in Ohio, and the state is ground zero for a number of significant reform initiatives. The lesson seems clear: politicians and school leaders need to do a better job of getting the word out about their varied and ongoing efforts to improve the state's schools.

"Faculty, students demoralized," Springfield News-Sun, November 10, 2005

"Halfway Out the Door," by Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, November 2005

"November 2005 Election Results," by Ohio Department of Education, November 9, 2005

"Ohioans Want Better Schools," by Cleveland Plain Dealer, November 12, 2005

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Frustrate Ohioans shoot down school levies

Who's the Boss?

November 16, 2005

Several of Ohio's Big 8 cities elected new mayors last week, but none with more radical school reform ideas than Cincinnati's Mark Mallory. Last February, while serving as a state senator, Mallory proposed a plan to allow Cincinnati's mayor not only to appoint the city's superintendent, but also to name all the school board members. He was, in fact, attempting to make the mayor of Cincinnati that city's "education czar." Mayoral control of the schools is something that has met with mixed results in big cities like New York, Chicago, Boston, and Cleveland. Mallory rescinded his bill when the Cincinnati Public Schools stepped up to the challenge and reduced the district's drop-out rate and earned a state rating of Continuous Improvement. Early in his campaign for mayor, Mallory urged mayoral control of the district, and argued "under my plan, everyone in the city will know who to hold responsible for the success or failure of the schools." Late in the campaign, however, and now as mayor-elect, Mallory has distanced himself from the notion of a mayoral takeover of schools. But, it will be interesting to see if the mayor-elect sits quietly in Town Hall should the recent successes of the Cincinnati Public Schools prove fleeting.

"Mayoral hopefuls want to work with schools," Jennifer Mrozowski, Cincinnati Enquirer, November 2, 2005

"SB46 School District Control," State Senator Mark Mallory, February 3, 2005

"Mark Mallory for Cincinnati: On

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Who's the Boss?

Excellence in Ohio Charter Schools

Terry Ryan / November 16, 2005

How do we foster excellence in Ohio charter schools? That's the key question facing some 250 panelists and participants in the forthcoming "summit," Excellence in Ohio Charter Schools: What it will take and how to get there. The meeting is set for November 17 in Columbus and will be hosted by the governor, senate president, house speaker, and state superintendent. (The event is funded by the Gates, Walton, and Fordham foundations.)

Why a summit on charter school excellence? Why now? Since the first Ohio charter school opened its doors in 1998, rapid growth in school numbers and ceaseless pushback from their opponents has defined the charter movement in the Buckeye State. Charter proponents' first goal was to open lots of schools in lots of places so as to gain a foothold for this promising education reform and to create options for as many kids as possible, while the opportunity lasted. Quality and performance mattered, but what mattered more was getting schools up and running.

Now it's time to focus laser-like on quality. The urgency is underscored by recent changes to Ohio's charter law and the recent release by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools of "Renewing the Compact: A statement by the Task Force on Charter School Quality and Accountability." These are important principles—starting with the blunt assertion that school quality is the top priority—to apply to charter schools in Ohio as well as in other states.

The

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Excellence in Ohio Charter Schools

Value-what?

Kristina Phillips-Schwartz / November 16, 2005

There has been a lot of talk lately about value-added assessment in Ohio (including a high profile conference by Battelle for Kids last month). The day is nearing when the Buckeye State goes "value-added." A pilot run is set for next school year and full-scale implementation is set for 2007-08. Naturally, plenty of questions still surround this new assessment model and what it will mean for students, schools, and district accountability. In an effort to help shed light on this, Gadfly has decided to explore some of the most asked questions about value-added assessment.

What does value-added assessment really mean?  

It's a method of analyzing individual student test scores over time. The statistics used in value-added assessment virtually eliminate non-school factors that affect student achievement, providing a reasonably accurate indication of how effective schools are at "adding value" to the academic performance of their students. It does not, however, focus on whether or not students have reached proficiency on state standards.  Some schools may measure high on growth indicators but low on achievement indicators (say, a high school with lots of students who start out far behind but make great progress over time, yet still are not up to standards). Under No Child Left Behind, and Ohio's current accountability system, such schools are punished. One may wonder whether that's fair. (But one may also wonder whether it's fair to praise a school for adding value if its students are still not

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Value-what?

Parent and Student Voices on the First Year of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program

Michael J. Petrilli / November 10, 2005

School Choice Demonstration Project, Georgetown University
Thomas Stewart, Ph.D., Patrick J. Wolf, Ph.D., and Stephen Q. Cornman, Esq.
October 2005

While choice opponents sometimes argue cynically that poor parents cannot be trusted to make good decisions for their children, these Georgetown researchers (and their funders at the Annie E. Casey Foundation) respected parents enough to ask them (in a series of focus groups) about their experiences in Washington, D.C.'s new, federally funded voucher program. Their answers are illuminating. Most families' and students' experiences with the program were overwhelmingly positive, and many parents reported that, after receiving an Opportunity Scholarship their children were more confident, performed better academically, and demonstrated increased enthusiasm for school. Says one elementary school parent: "This is what I tell my kids. I tell them that this is an opportunity for you to strive, do your best, take advantage of it, that's what I tell my children." Parents were especially enthusiastic about the rigorous standards of their children's new schools and the opportunity to get involved, though both presented challenges. Says one Hispanic parent, "For us there was a significant change more than anything because we were forced to go to English school to learn English ... when I realized all the homework was in English, so I had to stay awake all night with a translator and a dictionary." There have been bumps, such as the incident in which a teacher told a scholarship student (whose involvement

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Parent and Student Voices on the First Year of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program

Driving More Money into the Classroom: The Promise of Shared Services

Theda Sampson / November 16, 2005

In Ohio, approximately 42 percent of school districts have student enrollments less than 1,500. (Most of the state's 250 plus charter schools are even smaller.) For these districts, meeting a reasonable target of spending 60 percent of their budgets on instruction and 40 percent on administration proves difficult, due to mounting costs for health insurance, fuel for buses, education specialists, and other non-instructional items. Large districts can defray costs by spreading them over several schools. Small districts don't have that luxury. A new report from Deloitte describes ways for small districts to set up partnerships that allow them to benefit from economies of scale resulting from sharing services such as accounting, building maintenance, and school nursing. If cost sharing is executed well, the report notes, districts can benefit from scale and still maintain control over important matters like curricula, professional development, and teacher hiring. This report should serve as bedside reading for school administrators (in small districts and charter schools) who face increasing costs and shrinking or static budgets. You can read it here.

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Driving More Money into the Classroom: The Promise of Shared Services

Updated charter school data now available on our website

November 16, 2005

We seek to make information about school choice more accessible. Toward that end, we now have an Excel spreadsheet that lists charter school information for Dayton, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland. It contains the schools' contact information, latest student counts, financial data, and academic ratings. We plan to update it quarterly and eventually expand it to other cities in Ohio, but if you see information you know is incorrect, we welcome the feedback.

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Updated charter school data now available on our website

Charter school organization seeks help

November 16, 2005

The National Association of Charter School Authorizers is looking for talent. They are forming National Advisory Panels "to help shape our response to challenges facing the charter school authorizer profession." Additionally, NACSA is looking for a Chief Operating Officer. For a description of the position and directions on how to apply, please follow this link.

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Charter school organization seeks help

Correction

November 16, 2005

In the first issue of the Ohio Gadfly, we said that the Thomas B. Fordham Institute is a charter school sponsor; in fact, it's the Institute's organizational cousin, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, that's responsible for our efforts on that front.

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Correction