Stephen Dyer writes about a new report from the White House, detailing state achievement gaps.

“Recently, the White House put out a report outlining the country’s student achievement gap, and the news wasn’t great for Ohio.

“We had the nation’s ninth largest reading gap between our highest and lowest performing schools, the second-largest math achievement gap, and the fourth largest graduation gap. While much of this difference can be explained by the high performance of our highest performing schools, the gap is and should be a serious concern for Ohio’s educators, parents and policy makers.

“What the data show, however, is that far from being a solution to the achievement gap issue here, Ohio’s charter schools are part of the problem.”

He writes:

“Here are what the data tell us:

“Despite making up 8% of all Ohio school buildings, charters represent 13% of the worst-performing math buildings, 31% of the worst-performing reading buildings, and 78% of the buildings with the worst graduation rates.

“Ohio’s achievement gap is 6% bigger in math, 8% bigger in reading and a whopping 23% bigger in graduation rates than they would be if the analysis included just local public schools.

“And while the state’s achievement gap is still too large, in all three cases, eliminating charters from the calculation drops Ohio’s achievement gap ranking. Math drops from second to fourth greatest. Reading falls from ninth to 11th greatest. And the state’s graduation rate gap tumbles from fourth to 14th highest.

“The achievement gap is greater in charter schools for math than it is in the local public schools.”

Dyer warns:

“Folks in Youngstown and other places should take note of this federal data: Relying on charter schools to close achievement gaps in Ohio has not worked. In fact, it has led to greater gaps in student achievement overall. So before the new CEO in Youngstown decides to turn all of that city’s schools into charters or something, here’s hoping he or she looks at the evidence first and carefully considers district options.”

The post includes specific data and is worth a read.

Despite a flood of charter school scandals in Ohio, the lobbyists for the big-money charter operators are working hard to torpedo any reform of the charter industry.

Stephen Dyer of Innovation Ohio warns that lobbyists want to block any reforms of a system they created, which enriches their employers.

Dyer writes:

“All-

“It looks like the Ohio House won’t take up the charter reform package that cleared the Ohio Senate last week before the end of business tomorrow. So now, it’s being slow walked, which means at best we wait until mid-July for the bill to pass and at worst, we wait until September, which means that many of the provisions would likely be delayed by a year. I suppose the worst that could happen is nothing changes — a possibility that becomes more and more likely with each delay. We know that the powerful Ohio poor performing charter operator lobby would love for both chambers to bog this bill down so nothing changes.

“Anyway, I was reminded of just how sneaky our state’s big charter school operators (and campaign donors) are when the Beacon Journal wrote a story late last week that showed that E-Schools don’t have their students’ first-year test scores counted (and by extension, neither do most other charters).

“Again, every minute the legislature deliberates on this bill is another minute for these legislative ninjas to work their magic. Hopefully, the bill gets worked out tomorrow and we can have a meaningful piece of legislation passed. But until that happens, I’m nervous that all this work over the last couple years may go for naught.

“Best,

“Stephen Dyer
Education Policy Fellow
Innovation Ohio
35 E. Gay St.
Columbus, OH 43215
http://www.innovationohio.org”

Stephen Dyer of Innovation Ohio says that the state senate passed a charter reform bill that could help eliminate some of the scandals in that sector. He warns that if the bill goes to a conference committee, the lobbyists will eviscerate it.

He writes:

All:

A meaningful charter reform bill passed out of the Ohio Senate late last night. While there were a couple changes that would help shelter some of the ways for-profit operators spend their money, it would for the first time have the state track, rate and account for their spending. In addition, it would force charters with Fs AND Ds on the report card that have been dropped by sponsors (authorizers) to have to go to a highly rated sponsor and then have that sponsor join the school at a hearing before the Ohio Department of Education to explain why they should remain open.

In addition, it creates better transparency, forcing charters to actually put who’s on their board on the school’s website, restricting who can be on the board, bans self-dealing, and several other worthwhile provisions. It doesn’t directly deal with tightening the state’s closure law (which has only closed 24 schools in 10 years), nor does it address the greatest issue out there — funding — but it is a big step forward for our nationally ridiculed charter school sector.

Today, the Ohio House was set to send the Senate bill to a conference committee — a secretive negotiation setting — which would have allowed Mssrs. Brennan (White Hat) and Lager (ECOT) to wield their typical legislative “magic”. There was a strong push last night and this morning from me and some friends on the pro-charter and pro-public school side of the ledger to have the House vote to concur in the Senate bill, meaning it would go to the Governor’s desk as is — a far more preferable outcome.

The good news is our work paid off. There were enough Democratic and Republican votes to avoid conference committee. So Ohio House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger, who wants a conference committee, pulled the bill from the House Calendar — literally erasing it from members’ laptops just before they were set to take it up.

The General Assembly is in session Tuesday for the last time until September. We are ratcheting up the public pressure through media outlets and networks to try to convince the House to simply concur with the Senate bill, which while not perfect, is certain to be weakened in conference.

I am asking each of you to reach out to your media friends, your social media contacts, and to your legislators to encourage them to accept the Senate bill as is — in legislative parlance, Vote to Concur. We can’t let the same people who drove our charter school system into the ditch to undo the good work done in the Senate.

For the first time in my memory, Ohio’s charter school law has a shot of not being written primarily by those who profit from it. That is a good step for us. Please help me keep it that way.

Best Regards,

Stephen Dyer
Education Policy Fellow
Innovation Ohio
35 E. Gay St.
Columbus, OH 43215
http://www.innovationohio.org

Lets face it. The Ohio legislature and Governor John Kasich protect failing charter schools from any accountability. Could large campaign contributions have anything to do with it?

Stephen Dyer reports the latest gambit.

he writes that:

“The worst-performing general education schools in the state — E-Schools — are not being counted by the state when they calculate the performance of sponsors. SO, for example, even though the Ohio Council of Community Schools sponsors two of the worst-performing schools in the state — the Ohio Virtual Academy and David Brennan’s OHDELA, the astounding number of Fs those schools get on the state report doesn’t count for OCCS’s rating. So the state says they’re academically perfect, even though OCCS gets $1.5 million in taxpayer money to oversee these schools.

“The other schools not counted? Dropout Recovery schools. So the schools David Brennan earns his money on aren’t counted on sponsor ratings? So that means that no sponsor should fear oversight of a horrible White Hat school, especially now that they’ll only be online schools or dropout recovery schools, because they won’t count.

“Amazing what $4 million will buy you these days, isn’t it?”

Remember: it’s all about the kids!