Stephen Dyer, former legislator and current fellow at Progress Ohio, reviews the latest CREDO report on Ohio charters and agrees with the overall conclusion that the performance of these schools is stagnant. A remarkable number are failing.
The Fordham Institute, which gets a hefty rebate as an authorizer of charter schools in Ohio, executes statistical backflips to spin the CREDO report and renew its report for more state funding.
But as Dyer shows, the charter sector in Ohio has an astonishing number of low-performing schools. They are getting better faster because their performance is rock bottom.
If Ohio had wise leadership, it would pull the plug on this failed experiment and not listen to self-interested lobbyists who are paid to advocate for more charter funding. It is his job, so you can’t blame him for trying, but his employer gets a cut for every student who enrolls in one of its charters.
There is good news in Ohio. The number of charter schools is declining as is enrollment in charter schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What a shock! — the Venture Capital Vampire model just keeps sucking when it comes to serving the public interest …
This link does not get me to Stephen Dyer’s report. I did the read the report and is filled with the usual CREDO efforts to put lipstick on a pig and also make statistical leaps through thin air. Even so, the report shows the dismal performance of charters in Ohio.
Once again, we can’t “measure” [sic] schools by test scores when it suits our convenience and then get upset when the same “measures” are applied to public schools. Test scores are – across the board – an invalid “measure” of school “performance”, whether charter or public, for all the many reasons regularly discussed on this blog.
Not to mention, using the “failing schools” meme against charters only legitimizes that charge against public schools. Schools don’t fail – they are inanimate buildings. The kids in schools “fail” to “pass” tests, and the reasons for that “failure” are many and complex, starting with the fact that the tests themselves are invalid – to the extent they “measure” anything, it’s socio-economic status.
I get the appeal of hoisting charters on their own petards and pointing out how they have “failed” by their own standards, but there are many better reasons to oppose charters than that they fail to raise test scores.
Fordham should be hung in effigy on the Ohio Statehouse grounds.
(sp) hanged 😉
There are already enough obscenities on the Ohio Statehouse grounds …
Could you check the link in this message. I can’t get it to work and I would like to include his data in my school board report.
Sincerely Patrick Schymanski Legislative Liaison Elida Local Schools
Sent from my iPhone
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There’s absolutely no reflection at Fordham over what has happened in Ohio. They learned nothing. They have an op ed up about how West Virginia could learn from Ohio when creating a charter sector.
My God, you read this stuff and just marvel.
NO ONE should imitate Ohio on ed reform. That’s insane. Do ANYTHING but what Ohio did. West Virginia should RUN, not walk, away from anything Fordham advises.
Great line: MY God, you read this stuff and just marvel.