Kasich says A-F Report Card less clear for Charter Schools

Last week, Gov. John Kasich said in his State of the State Address that

"just because a charter school is not producing great results in grades, it doesn't mean they're failing." Huh? The whole reason we went to an A-F system was to tell us exactly that -- which schools and districts were failing and which weren't. Wasn't it? I'm not saying that I agree with this idea, but that was the point, right?

So I went back to Kasich's signing ceremony for the bill that created the state's A-F system.

When Kasich signed HB 555 two years ago, the placard on his signing desk said "Empowering Teachers and Parents for Student Achievement". You can watch his whole ceremony here

Go ahead. Look for the part where he says if schools get Fs, it doesn't mean they're failing. You'll look for a while.

Here's what Kasich said then:

"We need to speak in clear language that parents can understand... it will let mothers and fathers understand how's it going in reading? How's it going in mathematics? It's going to allow them to see exactly how the school is doing. This is a big deal for our state. Academically."

Now it appears that perhaps that clarity isn't quite as clear for parents of kids in charter schools. Notice he didn't apply that qualification for local school districts, by the way.

(Read more at 10th Period)

Charter spent $2.27M on advertising

Ohio’s largest online charter school spent at least $2.27 million of state education tax dollars last school year on advertising to attract students, or about $155 for each student who enrolled that year.

And that’s only part of the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow’s advertising budget, because other advertising — including those featuring Jack Hanna, director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, as an ECOT spokesman — are paid for by the school’s for-profit management company, and its records are not public.

“We’re always concerned with the amount of money or expenditures spent in classroom instruction,” said Rick Teeters, superintendent of ECOT. “We try to keep the marketing expenditure around or under 2 percent of the total budget.”

ECOT’s 2013-14 revenue was $112.7 million, 90 percent funded by the state.

ECOT’s spending on advertising during the 2013-14 school year included:

• $1.79 million on ads, including radio and television time.

• $119,722 on Facebook ads.

• $135,418 on Google ads.

• $35,938 on mailing lists.

By comparison, Columbus City Schools, the state’s largest district, spent just over $108,000 on ads during 2013-14, about half of which was to remind parents to enroll their children before the start of the school year and announce new programs.

(REad more at the Dispatch)

State Auditor Dave Yost gives lawmakers his assessment of problems with Ohio charter schools

State Auditor Dave Yost described for state legislators a “broken system of governance” overseeing a charter-school system in Ohio that has faced increasing criticism both in the state and nationally.

Yost, a Republican, testified on Wednesday in an Education Committee hearing on House Republicans’ House Bill 2, proposing charter-school oversight reforms. He praised school choice as valuable for some students, but he said several recommendations would improve accountability and transparency, while better ensuring that charters are getting only the tax dollars they are entitled to.

Last fall, Yost’s office made surprise visits to 30 charter schools and found that attendance at half of them was significantly lower than what the schools were reporting to the state. It raised questions because the state relies on student counts reported by the schools to calculate aid that totals about $1 billion a year.

Current law, Yost said, could theoretically allow a charter school to get full funding for a student who attends just 10 days of classes in a year. The law says a charter school must withdraw a student only after he or she misses 105 consecutive unexcused hours of school — nearly a month.

(Read more at the Dispatch).

Defunct Cleveland charter school faces $9.4 million suit from Ohio attorney general

Attorney General Mike DeWine's office is suing to recover almost $2.6 million found to be illegally transferred from the now-defunct Lion of Judah Academy to people and businesses associated with running the Cleveland charter school.

The lawsuit, filed Monday against 19 individuals and businesses affiliated with the East Side charter school, also seeks more than $6.8 million in damages under the state's organized crime law.

Academy officials diverted nearly a third of the school's resources to other companies they controlled and also received bonuses and other financial perks, according to the lawsuit. Lion of Judah took in nearly $8.2 million in public funds between 2007 and 2013, when the academy was shut down, the lawsuit stated.

Meanwhile, the school itself continually languished in academic emergency - the institutional equivalent of an "F" - and legitimate debts were ignored, according to DeWine's lawsuit.

(Read more at Dispatch.com)

Ohio charter schools identified as among worst in nation

During a day of panel discussions with education reporters and experts at the University of Colorado Boulder, national and local school choice supporters had plenty to say about Ohio.

None of it, however, was good.

The Buckeye State took center stage Friday in Denver as school-choice supporters and critics debated what seems to be working in the nation’s charter schools, and what isn’t.

The event was hosted by the Education Writers Association with funding from the Walton Family Foundation, a staunch proponent of private and charter schools.

While panelists disagreed on how much regulation should be applied to charter schools, which are exempt from some states’ requirements, there was little debate about where some of the lowest performing charter school companies operate.

“Mike [Petrilli] could probably go down a list of Ohio operators that fall into this category,” said panelist Todd Ziebarth, senior vice president for state advocacy and support for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Ziebarth and Petrilli, president of the national Thomas B. Fordham Institute, support charter schools, which are publicly funded but, especially in Ohio, can be operated by private, for-profit companies.

Among the lowest performing charter school operators continually identified by Ziebarth, Petrilli and other panelists were: K12 Inc., a national company that operates Ohio Virtual Academy and Insight of Ohio; the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, an Ohio online charter school owned by political contributor Bill Lager; and White Hat Management, an Akron-based company founded by local industrialist David Brennan, who pioneered Ohio’s charter school movement. Two of the operators run only cyber, or online, schools in Ohio, which has the third-highest enrollment of online charter school students in the nation, said panelist John Watson, who runs a K-12 educational technology consulting firm.

(Read more at The ABJ)

Turnover common at e-schools

Ohio’s largest online charter school averaged 14,600 students last school year, but almost 23,000 students were enrolled over the course of the year.

Thousands of those students enrolled for just a few weeks or months in the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow.

The large-scale turnover isn’t unique to ECOT: With the exception of schools designed for dropouts, no schools churn through students like Ohio’s online charters. At many of Ohio’s charter e-schools, more than 40 percent of students leave before they’ve completed a full academic year.

Churn, or student mobility, has long been “generally considered a negative thing” facing education, said Aaron Churchill, research director for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Columbus. It can disrupt students’ learning routines and is generally associated with low achievement, he said.

(Read more at the Dispatch)