Stephen Dyer said that the for-profit charter school in Cleveland where Donald Trump spoke is a failing school, based on its letter grades. The conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which is an official authorizer of charters in Ohio (though not this one), said that Dyer was wrong. As you may know, the A-F report card idea was invented by Jeb Bush in Florida and has spread to accountability-obsessed states like Ohio. It tends to be an accurate measure of family income. Dyer points out that Fordham was gung-ho to adopt the A-F grades, but doesn’t like them so much now. Ron Packard, the owner of the charter in Cleveland, was previously CEO at the online charter corporation K12, where he was paid $5 million annually. His background is McKinsey and Goldman Sachs. K12 Inc. gets bad reviews for its terrible education record, even from charter advocates.
Dyer responds here:
As you know, Donald Trump came to Cleveland to visit a charter school and announce a massive federal infusion of dollars for school choice programs. Regardless of the wisdom of that plan, I found it curious that he would visit a school with an F grade from the state on student growth — considered the most important metric by many charter school advocates. So I called the grade “failing” in several news accounts.
The Fordham Insitute took me to task for that today. So I felt I needed to respond bceause I actually agree that school performance needs more nuanced measures than the simple test regime we have today. But I found it amazing that Fordham, which pushed for Ohio to go to an A-F report card system because it would give parenhts more transparency about how their schools performed so they could then choose whether a charter would be a better option, is now saying that the F grade at the Cleveland Arts and Social Sciences Academy doesn’t actually mean it’s failing. Especially given that Fordham said the drop in grades this year (due to PARCC and Common Core) gave Ohioans a more accurate assessment of how kids are “actually doing.”
Here’s my response: http://bit.ly/2cJ7PpM
Best Regards,
Stephen Dyer
Education Policy Fellow
Innovation Ohio
35 E. Gay St.
Columbus, Ohio 43215
330-338-1486
http://www.innovationohio.org
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Because the ideological, market-based argument for “choice” doesn’t require that schools be “better” (by any measure) – it just requires that parents have “choice”.
It’s one of the reasons public schools can’t win this argument in ed reform. If they’re “better” using the A-F grade scale they still can’t meet the “choice” requirement.
Ed reformers already know this. You see it with vouchers in Ohio. If private schools aren’t “better”, they simply go to Argument B, which is “choice”.
That’s actually Trump’s argument. He doesn’t mention any objective measure of “better”- he says introducing competition is the point- reason ENOUGH.
We’re hearing a lot of taxpayer funded advertisements for Ohio’s giant cybercharter sector. They aren’t claiming the schools are “better” (they can’t, that’s not true)- they’re arguing the schools are different. Choice.
I could certainly be wrong, but when ed reform started in this state, 20 years ago, I don’t believe the public were aware we could end up where people can “buy” a group of schools. Instead I believe the public were told the lobbyists and politicians in this “movement” would “improve public schools”:
“Packard, a prominent figure in the charter-schools market, in 2015 bought the Cleveland Arts and Social Sciences Academy and other schools as part of an expansion into the Ohio education marketplace, The Plain Dealer has reported.”
Remarkable. He bought a set of “public” schools in Ohio when they chased him out of California. I guess under the right conditions he could buy my son’s school, with our without public consent.
http://www.cleveland.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/09/donald_trump_proposes_expanded.html
Chiara: Here, here. that’s about as close to the point as you can get. No one can be run out of a state just to move to another state and buy a public school.
And BTW, if parents understand what’s at stake, they can CHOOSE to demand that their public schools be “reformed and continually improved.”
So, we can know if a public school is failing by looking at the school grade or student test scores, but such criteria cannot tell us if a charter school is really failing. Rank hypocrisy.
The same group of ed reform lobbyists assured the public last year that they would “improve” the charter sector.
They’re improving the charter sector by selling schools to Packard?
He has expansion plans. How many for-profit charter schools are they planning on opening in this state?
Chiara: It seems the “reform” movement has a great stake in making sure that public schools are substantially degraded, or at least get constant bad press.
It is the old “double standard” that most women have to tolerate, just ask Hillary. If she makes one critical comment, it becomes the topic “du jour,” but Trump’s outrageous lies and assertions go unnoticed.
We were told that Ohio would start regulating the charter sector. Yet the charter profiteer who was chased out of California in disgrace is buying up more and more schools in Ohio:
“Packard helped build K12 into the largest provider of online classes, with e-schools in multiple states. Those include Ohio Virtual Academy, the second-largest online school in Ohio, with 13,000 students.
But Packard left K12 in 2014 and founded Pansophic Learning to create the new ACCEL Schools charter school network.
Last year, he bought management rights to 12 schools from controversial charter operator White Hat Management and several schools, including CASSA, from the financially-struggling but higher-performing Mosaica network.
Included in that group was Mosaica’s highly-rated Columbus Preparatory Academy, which regularly is among the top-scoring charter schools on Ohio’s state tests.
“By purchasing both of these entities, it gave us a base business to build off of,” Packard said late last year. “It’s just very hard to start from nothing. We will open a lot of new schools, but this gave us a critical operating mass from which to build on.”
Is there anyone in Columbus who works on behalf of the public who pay them? How is expanding Packard’s ownership of Ohio charter schools improving charter schools?
Why does Ohio consistently get the worst actors in ed reform? Is there an adult who has the courage to stop this before they ruin all the public schools in the state?
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2016/09/owner_of_charter_school_hosting_donald_trump_today_is_a_national_charter_figure_with_a_growing_ohio_presence.html
What should scare people in Ohio is not charter schools.
What should scare people in Ohio is Fordham is hugely influential regarding every public school in the state.
We don’t actually have a “choice”. Our lawmakers are so completely and utterly captured we get ed reform “movement” dogma whether we “choose” a charter school or not.
This is the ed reform book they’re all pushing (including the Obama Administration) :
http://thefounders.the74million.org/
I would just ask that people in Ohio read this book and compare this rosy picture of charters to the reality of Packard buying up “public” schools to start a “base business”
Come on. Do they think people in these unfashionable states are stupid? This national narrative has absolutely nothing to do with reality in this state.
Ed reform has a lousy record in Ohio. They’ve not only created a commercial sector where schools are bought and sold, they’ve damaged every PUBLIC school in the state.
“. . . is a failing school, based on its letter grades.”
That evaluation is based on bullshit then, eh!
“. . .is now saying that the F grade at the Cleveland Arts and Social Sciences Academy doesn’t actually mean it’s failing.”
And I would have to agree with that statement.
Do public school F grades really mean they are failing? Or does this reassessment apply only to charter schools?
Those grades mean nothing, that is they are onto-epistemologically error filled and lacking in solid logical foundation, for whatever sector they are applied.
In other words, they are a crock of crap for all.
Abigail,
When public schools get an F, they are failing and ready for closure. When charter schools get an F, that means something is wrong with the methodology.
This whole A-F grading scheme is ridiculous, cooked up by Jeb Bush to pave the way for school closures, charters and vouchers.
I personally am going to evaluate the charter based on its decision to let Donald Trump near the children: Fail.
Epic fail.
He congratulated the for-profit owner of the school in his speech.
That has to be a first for an ed reform politician- the usual practice is to pretend the for-profit owner doesn’t exist.
I don’t even know that school can REFUSE a Trump visit. Packard says he owns the school. I don’t know who owns it. I know who paid for it, though. We did.
Are Ohio lawmakers upset that Mr. Packard says he owns a public school? Was it their intent fund a private asset with public funds?
Maybe they could have let us know that’s how they spend tax dollars in Columbus.
They purchase a school with our money and give it to Mr. Packard? Is that where our state taxes go? To build this guy’s empire?
No wonder they keep cutting public school budgets. They’re using it to create wealth for this individual.