Stephen Dyer of Innovation Ohio has been a thoughtful critic of charter schools in Ohio. He has written about, documented, and publicized their low performance and lack of transparency and accountability. He helped to create the informative website, KnowYourCharter.com, which allows citizens to compare charter performance to that of public schools.
In this post, he describes how he worked collaboratively with charter advocates to shape a bill to regulate charters.
“On Wednesday, everybody’s hard work paid off with the most sweeping, comprehensive and meaningful reform of Ohio’s charter school system since the program began in the late 1990s. It will keep track of Ohio’s operators, letting the public know where they operate and how they perform. It will force sponsors to do their job and hold schools to account, or else they won’t be able to sponsor schools. It will open up the mostly opaque world of charter schools so the public can better track the now $1 billion a year in state money that goes to charter schools.
“It is not perfect. It doesn’t directly close poor performing charters, choosing instead to force sponsors to do that. It doesn’t address the funding issues that force districts to have to backfill the lost state money with local money. And it relies on an Ohio Department of Education in disarray.
“But man, it does a lot. As a first step, this one is a Lulu (apologies to B. Bunny).”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
How do I send you details on the massive use of test prep in Florida
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Stuart,
Write a post and email to me
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Stephen Dyer is first rate education policy analyst and strategist. His work, coupled with that provided by staff at the Ohio Education Association, and Sandy Theis at Progress Ohio, were the combined moving forces that brought to light the sad state of charter school affairs in Ohio. Their work was over one year in the making. The web site, “Know Your Charter”, is their collective work. It also should be noted that the resulting legislation was bipartisan. Numerous Republican state legislators stepped up to enact this law. Remaining work to be done: fixing the broken system of state/local funding for Ohio charter schools.
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I think Ohio state lawmakers spend way, way too much time on charters and vouchers and not nearly enough time supporting the public schools that actually do a better job than the charter system. I get that they have hopes that charter schools will improve with this new bill, but this exclusive focus on the charter and private schools that (many) of them prefer is not warranted either by the number of children in the “choice” system or the performance of the choice system.
This is a piece about a public school district where the public schools outperform 85% of the charter schools. This has been going on for 15 years. Although the public schools do better than the charter schools, the public schools receive no support from their elected officials. They are actually banding together to demand that lawmakers take their schools into account when the system is “flooded” with charters.
It is ridiculous that they have to force the people who are paid to run public schools in this state to consider public schools. This can’t continue. Public schools can’t be an afterthought, a safety net, for the charter system. Those public schools are being harmed, and those children deserve representation in Columbus too. That they are not supported while doing a BETTER job than the charters is just the icing on the ed reform cake.
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2015/10/08/much-money-send-charters/73540490/
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Goose and gander! If it is good to demand accountability from charter schools (which is good!) then it must be equally good to demand accountability from public schools.
If not, why not?
The way accountability is measured must be the same, no matter which system is used.
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Public schools have a complete evaluation system in Ohio under state law and regulations. Charter schools do not. That was one of the provisions of the new law. All you have to do is take note of the $71 million funding award from the Duncan-led USDOE to Ohio that did NOT even take note of the misrepresentations in the Ohio application regarding evaluation of Ohio charter schools.
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The leader of education in the Senate said she is relying on the new federal charter schools being higher quality and then markets will work and the lower quality charters will, I don’t know, go away.
Nothing has changed about this mindset. 17 years later they’re still relying on flooding the market with charter schools. Of course, no where in either the Obama Administration statements or the statements of Ohio lawmakers will you find a WORD about the effect of all this on existing public schools. It’s as if those schools aren’t there. If they are planning on expanding charter schools SOMETHING HAPPENS to the public schools that are already there. This ridiculous denial that public schools have to be considered is just amazing to me. They are wearing blinders.
We need someone in state government who works for public schools, who doesn’t consider them a default that can be ignored. Those schools have value. They need an advocate.
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Our political system is not perfect. Many of your comments are spot on. In a state where the entire electoral system is dominated by huge Republican majorities, then you issue organize and achieve the positive constructive change that you can accomplish. Keeping the faith has never been easy. Having a Governor who is a proven, articulate advocate of community public schools is a big help. 2018 is the year in Ohio.
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Let’s hope they come up with a good model that other states will replicate. Charters need regulations and accountability, both financial and academic.
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So if public schools outperform charter schools in this state and still we have focused on opening charter schools for the last 15 years, how much better would the public schools be doing without the “choice” focus in this state?
Public schools held their own with no support. Might they actually have improved if my entire state government hadn’t been captured by the ed reform “movement”? This is a particularly important question because that’s how ed reform was sold in this state- they would “improve” public schools. Have they improved public schools? Or are public schools just hanging on while the ed reform crowd chases charter schools?
There’s 2 months left in the year. We’ll see if anyone in Ohio state government can find some time to work for the public schools 93% of kids in the state attend. Public schools could really use support right now because ed reformers 1. cut their budgets, 2. added a huge unfunded Common Core mandate.
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In Ohio, they have not “held their own”. They have failed miserably and overwhelmingly. Take the time to review what data that does exist on their horrific performance. As the web site is entitled, “Know Your Charter”.
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Thank you, but I was talking about public schools. Public schools have survived the market experiment with charters- they’ve done better than survive- they outperform charters.
This is a fact yet our state government just spent another year regulating, promoting and increasing funding to charter schools.
That’s ridiculous. The tail is wagging the dog.
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I understand fully your point and acknowledged it. In this political environment, the sledding is tough but the fight must be continued. The recent charter school bill passage is evidence that change can happen even in this kind of environment.
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Part of this bill has a provision to study the effects of student demographics and challenges when ranking schools. While the whole VAM-based, A-F approach is fundamentally flawed and merely highlights wealth differences, the acknowledgement that we should at least consider these factors is a step towards sanity. What is obvious to teachers – outside influences can affect the student in the classroom – apparently is a revelation to legislators.
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