Top non-profit charter school models leave Ohio behind

Mike Lafferty / January 13, 2010

Both Lighthouse Academies and Building Excellent Schools – two national, top-flight, nonprofit charter-school management organizations – never wanted to come to Ohio, but both did and both regret the decision. 

“It’s unlikely we would come back to Ohio in the near future,” said Lighthouse President Michael Ronan, citing severe structural issues and a hostile political environment. Lighthouse is headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts. Linda Brown, executive director of the Boston-based Building Excellent Schools organization, is even sourer on Ohio. There is no way her organization will ever open another school in the state.

“We never thought Ohio was going to be a good fit. We were encouraged by several people and funders,” Brown said. “We were sweet talked into working [in] Cleveland.”

The organization opened two schools in Cleveland – Entrepreneurship Prep in 2006 and Village Prep in 2009. It founded the Columbus Collegiate Academy in Columbus in 2008 (one of six schools that the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation authorizes).

Ohio has about 330 charter schools enrolling more than 89,000 students. As charter schools spread nationally, there are more than 1.5 million students attending over 4,900 public charter schools in 39 states and the District of Columbia, the Buckeye State seems intent on making it hard for these schools to open and operate successfully. During the state budget battle in 2009, charters would have been all but eliminated by the governor and House of Representatives but were

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Top non-profit charter school models leave Ohio behind

Keeping Cleveland from going the way of Detroit

January 13, 2010

Last week Cleveland Metropolitan School District CEO Eugene Sanders released his long-awaited district transformation plan. It is an ambitious proposal that seeks a substantial reorganization of CMSD and looks to spur innovation for the long-suffering urban district.

One hardly needs to make a case for reform in Cleveland’s public schools. A dwindling manufacturing base, high rate of home foreclosures, abandoned neighborhoods, and the current economic recession put the city at risk of becoming the next Detroit. Its population and student enrollment have declined exponentially over the last decades, and as a result many school buildings remained under-utilized or empty. Cleveland’s academic performance is arguably one of the worst in the nation. As we noted previously (see here and here), the district’s performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (aka, the Nation’s Report Card) has been alarmingly low and remained stagnant. For example, Cleveland is the only urban district in NAEP’s Trial of Urban Districts that has not seen academic achievement gains in reading or math since 2003. Graduation rates have not exceeded 62 percent in the past decade, and the city has been rated “Academic Watch” (a D) by the state or below by the state for nine of the last 10 years.

The transformation plan’s primary goal is ambitious – within five years no district school will be rated below “Continuous Improvement” (a C) by the state and at least half of the district’s schools will be

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Keeping Cleveland from going the way of Detroit

If Ohio wins $200 to $400 million in Race to the Top dollars, who will benefit?

Jamie Davies O'Leary / January 13, 2010

To be eligible for a portion of $200 to $400 million in Race to the Top money (should Ohio win), Local Education Agencies (LEAs) – school districts and charter schools – were required to submit memorandums of understanding (MOUs) to the Ohio Department of Education by last week.

We previously speculated on Flypaper that Ohio, unlike states with more contentious applications, might see hundreds of LEAs signing up. This, in turn, might threaten to diminish the intention of Race to the Top, as spreading funds far and wide across the state would result in very few dollars with which districts could make any real changes.

Indeed, over a third (250) of Ohio’s 613 districts signed the MOU, including many large urban districts -- Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, and Akron. (It’s a shame that Dayton [facing a $5 million hole in its budget] and Youngstown [the state’s lowest performing school district] decided to sit this one out.) Of 332 charter schools, 187 signed on to the provisions of Race to the Top.

In terms of student enrollment, the discrepancy between districts and charter schools is stark. If Ohio wins a portion of Race to the Top funding, 46 percent of students enrolled in district public schools attend a school eligible for the money, compared to 72 percent of students enrolled in charter schools. The graphs below show that a far larger share of children in the state’s charters than in district schools have

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If Ohio wins $200 to $400 million in Race to the Top dollars, who will benefit?

ODE sets charter accountability sights on district conversion schools

Emmy L. Partin / January 13, 2010

Enrollment in Buckeye State charter schools was up eight percent last year, to 89,000 students statewide, according to the Ohio Department of Education’s annual report to the governor about the state’s community schools.

The report and accompanying tables include demographic and historical academic performance data for all charter schools, a map of charter school locations, school enrollment numbers, information about sponsors, analysis of charter school performance, and a recap of legislation (from the past year and previous years) impacting charter schools. This year’s report also features a section examining district conversion schools.

Conversion charter schools are those in which all or part of an existing traditional public school has been transformed into a charter school. These schools may be sponsored by any public school district in the state. Fifty-two of the 332 charter schools operating last school year were conversion schools.

ODE staff visited 36 conversion schools last year to gain information ranging from the schools’ educational programs, admissions processes, and staffing to their independence from their sponsoring districts. The department found that many conversion charter schools do not operate as independent, autonomous entities and instead operate more like district programs.

Independent governance of the school and integrity of the sponsor’s fiscal monitoring functions could not be assured for 34 of the 36 schools visited. Likewise, independent operation of the school could not be assured for nearly half of the schools. Smaller numbers of schools had other problems, including not providing instruction in

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ODE sets charter accountability sights on district conversion schools

Issue Brief: Common Standards: The Time is Now

January 13, 2010

Alliance For Excellent Education
Bob Rothman
December 2009

This brief provides a summary of why America’s public schools need not just higher academic standards, but common (“national”) standards. A mere six pages in length, the brief is worth a read if only to remind you why Ohio’s recent decision to fully adopt the Common Core standards in mathematics and English language arts is so significant. 

The Time is Now points out that between 2005 and 2007, seven states lowered their standards for eighth-grade reading; nine states also lowered their standards for eighth-grade math proficiency. This trend could not come at a worse time. Changes to the American economy have led to a vanishing of low-skill jobs; students increasingly must possess a college degree in order to acquire prosperity. In fact, the nation’s future depends on the college readiness of our students; to remain globally competitive, America’s workforce must be prepared to work with their minds – not with their backs.

Yet state-by-state improvements to academic standards will be insufficient, as allowing states to set their own proficiency bar leads to variations in academic content, quality, and college readiness among graduates. A 2009 Fordham report found that schools’ ability to make federally mandated Adequate Yearly Progress depended entirely on the state within which they were located. That’s why the Common Core State Standards initiative, led by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices,

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Issue Brief: Common Standards: The Time is Now

Charter School Performance in New York City

Kathryn Mullen Upton, Esq. / January 13, 2010

Center for Research on Education Outcomes
January 2010 

This brief report supplements CREDO’s June 2009 national study on charter performance in 15 states and the District of Columbia. The January 2010 report focuses on the school years 2003-04 through 2008-09, and looks at roughly 20,000 students in grades 3-8 across 49 New York City charter schools.

The results of the New York City report show significantly better results for most students and student subgroups in math (with the exception of students with disabilities, Limited English Proficient students, retained students, and students in poverty) and better results for students in reading (students enrolled for 1 year, students with disabilities, Limited English Proficient students, and retained students).

Although there are a number of differences between the national study and the NYC study – including vastly different results in mathematics, wherein more than half of the NYC charter schools showed statistically significant growth in math, as compared to just seventeen percent in the national study – one common theme is that students enrolled in charters seem to perform better over time. Specifically, the New York City report indicates that after three years in a NYC charter school, students showed a four point advantage in reading and 15 point advantage in math as compared with students in traditional public schools. Copies of both the New York City and national reports are available here.

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Charter School Performance in New York City

Bankrupt of logic: Dayton's teachers union rejects Race to the Top, despite $5 million deficit

Terry Ryan / January 13, 2010

The Dayton Public Schools, in Fordham’s hometown, rang out 2009 with an announcement that it faces a $5 million budget shortfall caused by rising home foreclosures and delinquent property taxes. A mere two weeks later the head of the Dayton Education Association announced that she couldn’t support the district’s participation in the state’s “Race to the Top” application. Her logic, “The requirements of the grant itself ask for too much….Too many strings.” …This is like a starving man refusing a steak because he is asked to cook it for himself. Read the full post here.

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Bankrupt of logic: Dayton's teachers union rejects Race to the Top, despite $5 million deficit

If Duncan hosted Race to the Top "show-and-tell" for states, Ohio would be embarrassed

Jamie Davies O'Leary / January 13, 2010

The news coverage around Race to the Top and the efforts states are making to become more competitive seems to now dominate much of the conversation around education. With so many state leaders moving into action (or at least using aggressive reform rhetoric), Ohio is like the kid in show-and-tell who forgets to bring something cool and shows off a piece of pocket lint while classmates hold up crystal geodes, model airplanes, and Indian arrowheads. Read more here.

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If Duncan hosted Race to the Top "show-and-tell" for states, Ohio would be embarrassed

News of the weird: Paranoia and espionage in Ohio urban education

Emmy L. Partin / January 13, 2010

Ohio Auditor of State Mary Taylor recently released special audits as part of an investigation into Daniel Burns, a former district administrator at the Toledo and Cleveland school districts who is accused of stealing $820,000 from the two districts over the course of eight years…. One can’t help but wonder if there is a “Deep Throat” somewhere lurking in the shadows of Cleveland or Toledo waiting to tell all. If you are out there, Gadfly would love to hear from you. Read the full post here.

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News of the weird: Paranoia and espionage in Ohio urban education

This week's extras

January 13, 2010

Welcome to Ohio Education Gadfly’s newest section, “Editor’s Extras,” where you can catch up on important education news that you might have missed over the past two weeks.

Editor’s Extras

• The Ohio School Funding Advisory Council, the 28-member panel tasked with recommending how to improve the evidence-based funding model, met for the first time last week. See Gongwer’s coverage of its first meeting, and a Columbus Dispatch editorial exploring who’s on the panel and why they might be inclined to spend more.
• The U.S. Department of Education is challenging states to develop a “common assessments” model that can be used to evaluate student performance in alignment with common standards. Be sure to check out Fordham President Chester E. Finn, Jr.’s National Review Online piece describing how federal dollars could accelerate the development of a mandatory, national-scale test.
• How do grit and perseverance measure up as predictors of teacher success? This piece from The Atlantic explores Teach For America’s efforts to evaluate teachers and to determine which attributes (education level, experience with low-income students, or even “grit and perseverance”) best explain some teachers’ ability to lead students to dramatic gains in test scores over the course of a single year.

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This week's extras

Follow the Ohio Education Gadfly on Facebook and Twitter

January 13, 2010

Can’t wait two weeks for more news and analysis from the Ohio Education Gadfly? Then check us out on Facebook and Twitter!

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Follow the Ohio Education Gadfly on Facebook and Twitter