Tempest Over Templates

Quentin Suffren / July 12, 2006

In the latest adaptation of a familiar argument, Ohio Board of Education members recently discussed a proposal to create "templates" for teaching scientific topics such as evolution, stem-cell research, and cloning. Strongsville's Colleen D. Grady called for the measure, insisting that teachers want guidance on how to explain issues that elicit "widely divergent opinions." The move comes just five months after the state board vetoed language in the state's tenth grade science standards requiring a critical analysis of evolutionary theory, a requirement Grady supported. The template proposal will be taken up for formal consideration at September's board meeting.

Critics denounced the move as another thinly-veiled attempt to insert aspects of "intelligent design" theory and creationism into the state's science curriculum standards. Yet no one should be surprised at the latest effort to chip away at Darwin's theory. Call it the "natural evolution" of an ongoing struggle.

"Darwin Faces Another Challenge," by Catherine Candisky, The Columbus Dispatch, July 11, 2006.

"State School Board Urged to Add Guide for Hot-Button Discussions," by Laura A. Bischoff, The Dayton Daily News, July 11, 2006.

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Tempest Over Templates

Plan Would Put Flexibility in School Funding

Eric Osberg / July 12, 2006

Ohio's school-funding system is a mess. In recent years, the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional four times, levies have become an annual event in many districts and charter schools are pitted against each other and against districts for access to state dollars. On top of that, like other states, Ohio faces severe inequities between rich and poor schools, stifling bureaucracy, bloated costs and rigid structures that limit school choice and innovation.

Any number of ideas are circulating for reforming public-school finance systems, from requiring schools to spend 65 percent of their dollars "in the classroom," to mandating that states provide "adequate" (i.e., vast) sums of money to schools. Some of these schemes may have merit, many do not, but none does what is needed: fundamentally and thoroughly overhaul the basic mechanisms by which public education dollars are disbursed to schools on behalf of their children. Weighted student funding does that.

Under this system, an idea attracting wide, bipartisan support, children receive set amounts of education funding and all of these dollars follow them to the public schools of their choice, including district-operated and charter schools. If youngsters have extra educational needs--because of poverty, disability, English as a second language, or other disadvantage, extra funds are attached to their education. And when these dollars arrive at a child's school, the principal has the authority to spend them according to students' needs. Principals could choose longer school days and additional tutors,

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Plan Would Put Flexibility in School Funding

Setting the Record Straight: Quality Charter School Sponsorship Costs Money

Terry Ryan / July 12, 2006

A July 3^rd Toledo Blade article, and a later editorial, suggested that all charter school operators and sponsors in Ohio are in the business to make money. Wrong. The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation sponsors nine schools in southwest Ohio (we sponsored ten for most of the 2005-06 school year, but one left us in May because we were too demanding), and I can say definitively that quality sponsorship costs significantly more, at least in the first few years, than schools pay in fees. Sponsors can receive up to three percent of their basic state per-pupil payment, though most sponsors charge less.

Sponsors are the organizations that "license" charters on the state's behalf. These organizations are crucial for monitoring, guiding, and supporting schools--as well as for holding schools accountable for their academic performance and financial stewardship. There are at least three reasons why sponsorship in Ohio is not a simple money-maker for sponsoring organizations.

First, as is the case with charter schools, quality sponsors incur start-up costs that no public dollars cover. For example, in becoming a charter sponsor, Fordham spent a full year exploring the responsibilities, risks, and costs of quality sponsorship before signing a contract with the Ohio Board of Education. This entailed traveling to five other states to learn their best practices. Additionally, a quality sponsor has to spend significant sums of upfront money on legal help to determine its legal obligations and liabilities (including those of individual board

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Setting the Record Straight: Quality Charter School Sponsorship Costs Money

Quality Control?

Quentin Suffren / July 12, 2006

Schools routinely blame socio-economic factors when their charges under-perform. And too many critics nod in agreement. Not those at The Education Trust, whose new study Teaching Inequality points the finger at districts that routinely pair economically disadvantaged students with inexperienced or out-of-field teachers. 

Does it matter? You bet. William L. Sanders has shown that students with three consecutive years of highly effective instruction outperform peers with ineffective teachers by more than 50 percentage points--even when children began with the same score.

One of the report's three case studies comes from Ohio, where the state's distribution of "highly-qualified" educators was evaluated. In our schools with the highest rates of children in poverty and minority enrollments, roughly 40 percent of teachers are not highly qualified. The rate is half that in wealthier, less racially diverse schools. In our highest-poverty high schools, almost 25 percent of math teachers are not highly qualified; that number's just 5 percent in the lowest poverty high schools.

No wonder achievement gaps are so wide.

Yet "highly qualified" is hardly a gold standard in this state. To be so designated in Ohio, teachers must have either a major or at least 30 hours in their teaching field, or demonstrate subject matter knowledge by passing a test. Not exactly a paragon of rigor.

Worse, veteran teachers can attain the "highly qualified" status simply by filling out a checklist of past activities and professional development. With enough years in the system, large numbers of

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Quality Control?

School Facilities for Children, Not Districts

Quentin Suffren , Terry Ryan / July 12, 2006

Charter schools in Ohio struggle to find the resources necessary to build new facilities or expand existing ones. This is not just an Ohio problem, though. Across the nation, tales abound of charter school leaders maxing out credit cards and borrowing against their homes to house students. Meanwhile, traditional districts are spending millions in state dollars to renovate existing facilities and construct new ones-often despite deeply pessimistic enrollment forecasts.

This makes little sense for communities or taxpayers. Ohio needs to fund the schools children attend rather than the construction of new buildings in the hope that students will fill them.

One solution is to encourage school districts to "sponsor" free and independent charter schools, making these schools eligible for state facilities funding, so long as the following conditions are met:

• Such schools must be "true" charters--i.e., non-profit organizations with their own boards that enter into contracts with districts and have the right to end those contracts and/or seek new sponsors.
  
• Districts counting charter school students for purposes of construction/renovation funding must make suitable facilities available to those schools at no cost to them.
  
• Districts must agree that, if such a charter school opts to change sponsors, it can continue to lease its facility from the district for (at least) 10-15 years at prevailing market rates. (This provision keeps the charter school from being held hostage by the district or from being closed down should political winds shift on the district school board.)

Ohio

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School Facilities for Children, Not Districts