Open Season on Charters

Terry Ryan / September 6, 2006

Late summer in Ohio is open season on charter schools. With the release of the Ohio Department of Education's (ODE) state report cards on school achievement, critics have launched repeated volleys aimed at tearing down the state's charter school program. This year's carping is especially vicious as state elections loom in November.

While criticism comes in the form of a slew of reports, articles, and editorials seemingly from a variety of concerned audiences, it's easy to discern a steady, orchestrated refrain: Ohio's charter school program is little more than a "failed experiment" in need of terminating.

The tactic, frequently employed by teacher unions to disparage opponents, is hardly new (see here). The difference this time is that Ohio's charters are in the crosshairs.

Take a recent report from the Ohio Education Association (OEA), which asserts that charter schools pose a grave threat--both academic and financial--to Ohio's education system. Unless halted, "this experiment will continue to put a generation of public school students and charter school students at risk."

The Coalition for Public Education (CPE), funded by the state's teacher unions, is no less vituperative. Coalition researchers (many on loan from the New York and DC bureaus of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association) recently claimed that while vast majorities of district students were proficient in math and reading (86 percent and 80 percent, respectively), charter school students lagged far behind with rates of 29 percent and 21 percent.

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Open Season on Charters

Getting Tough on Weak-Kneed Tests

Quentin Suffren / September 6, 2006

This school year marks the first that Ohio gets serious about the Ohio Graduation Tests (OGT). Students in the class of 2007 will be required to pass the OGT in order to receive a high school diploma. It's a critical first step on the road to ensuring that the state's high school diplomas carry more weight both with universities and with potential employers.

But it's far from the last step. Achieve, Inc. found that the OGT is set at the eighth-grade level, and students must answer just a small percentage of questions in math and reading (36 percent and 52 percent, respectively) to pass. That's one reason we've been keen supporters of Governor Taft's Ohio Core proposal (see here), which, should it pass, would require students to take additional math and science courses and better prepare them for post-secondary opportunities.

Yet a rigorous college preparatory curriculum needs a metric that can effectively evaluate its impact. The OGT isn't it.

Ohio should defer to its southern neighbor for guidance. Kentucky's Board of Education is strongly considering augmenting its high school assessment, the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System (CATS), with ACT questions in reading, writing, math and science. Such a move would increase the rigor of the CATS and add the unique capability to compare performance on state test items with achievement on a national indicator of college readiness.

Kentucky already passed legislation this year requiring all high school juniors to take the ACT, starting in

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Getting Tough on Weak-Kneed Tests

Early Learning in Ohio

Quentin Suffren / September 6, 2006

With elementary and secondary students back at school, attention is turning to the state's youngest pupils. The School Readiness Solutions Group, formed at the behest of the State Board of Education, recently released its recommendations for improving early learning services for Ohio's children aged birth to five.

Each year, almost one-third of the state's 130,000 children entering kindergarten come unprepared to succeed in school. Often, they require intensive remediation or special intervention services, and several thousand are required to repeat kindergarten altogether. The gap between achievers and non-achievers in kindergarten is notoriously difficult to close as students progress through the school system.

Within the report's pages are some valuable recommendations: requiring early learning providers to meet stricter licensing regulations; developing a comprehensive accountability system for providers, including a rating system for early learning programs; requiring teachers to possess at least a bachelor's or associates degree in early childhood learning; and compelling Ohio's school districts to offer full-day kindergarten (though not until 2015).

But the underlying premise of this report--that state-funded early learning services should be offered to all of Ohio's children--lands far from the mark.

While universal access to early learning services for Ohio's youngsters is a laudable goal, it's hardly a practicable solution. For one, the funding component of the plan is more vagary than reality--especially considering Ohio's present budget troubles. The state's K-12 funding system is a shambles, evidenced by four state Supreme Court decisions. And like punch-drunk fighters, school districts across

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Early Learning in Ohio

Involving Families in High School and College Expectations

Jane Schreier Jones / September 6, 2006

At first glance, young Americans' college prospects seem bright. Four in five high-school students expect to complete a college degree, and most parents are behind them, with six out of 10 agreeing a college education is "absolutely necessary" for their child. Sadly, only one-third of all high school students will actually earn a college degree. 

So says this policy brief from the Education Commission of the States (ECS), which examines the gap between students' academic expectations and the realities they face. Bottom line, students are more optimistic about their futures than they probably should be. Several issues complicate their efforts to secure a college degree. For one, students and parents are misinformed about what it takes to prepare for college. Fewer than 12 percent of high-schoolers even know what courses they should take (another reason to support the Ohio Core).

Students whose parents did not go to college are at a particular disadvantage. Just 19 percent were found to be "very qualified" to enroll in a four-year college, compared to 31 percent of students whose parents had completed some college.

In response, ECS recommends that high school students and parents set clear goals, choose challenging high school courses, and learn more about colleges' expectations-all of which will raise students' chances of future success in college. The commission also calls for states to make college more affordable and to require that schools provide parents with annual updates of their children's college readiness.

Though the

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Involving Families in High School and College Expectations

The Bargainer's Handbook: New Attitude--New Opportunity

September 6, 2006

Didn't feel the passion of Labor Day? Not to worry. Just pick up the Ohio Education Association's (OEA) new handbook for collective bargainers--complete with the introduction "Prepare for Battle," a rousing call to arms by OEA's own Dr. Strangelove, researcher Patricia A. Turner.

Enlivening an otherwise mundane read, Ms. Turner declares, "Public education is under siege; losing the battle in Ohio is not an option because the stakes are too high!"  The OEA's "enemies" are many: school boards, charter schools, school voucher programs, high-stakes testing, merit pay schemes, and data-driven initiatives.

Luckily, she outlines seven keys to victory including such maxims as "keep the faith," "remain hopeful," and "understand fear." Bargainers are also warned to ignore the weaknesses in public schools because, after all, there are only "good schools and great schools." In fact, critical thinking is discouraged altogether as Turner cautions, "A healthy mind is one that is not wondering or wandering."

Absent from the handbook is what exactly OEA bargainers should be fighting for--except perhaps that public education "should not be expected to meet the huge number of goals expected in today's society." 

This handbook for "victory" begins with its own admission of defeat.

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The Bargainer's Handbook: New Attitude--New Opportunity

Poor State Standards Need National Attention

September 6, 2006

Ohio's schoolchildren aren't being well served by the state's mediocre (or worse) learning expectations. That's just one of the findings of Fordham's The State of State Standards 2006, a new report which evaluates state academic standards. When the average state grade is a "C-minus", the same as six years earlier (Ohio earned a "D-plus" this go round), what is to be done? Go national. Another new report from Fordham, To Dream the Impossible Dream: Four Approaches to National Standards and Tests for America's Schools, brings together education policy leaders from across the political spectrum to flesh out and evaluate several forms that national standards and testing could take.

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Poor State Standards Need National Attention