Ohio CREDO study: Charters' Generally Negative Impact

The quadrennial CREDO study from Stanford has become a sort of gold standard for charter-public school comparisons. They use sophisticated statistical techniques to draw helpful comparisons between the two education sectors. And while they are only looking at reading and math test scores (which brings inherent limitations), the analysis is as clear-eyed as you'll get on this contentious issue.

Well, the Fordham Institute paid to have CREDO look at Ohio's charter school sector. And in its report released today, CREDO says about Ohio's charter sector what it's generally said during its quadrennial look -- it ain't good. Kudos must be given to Fordham for paying to have CREDO come into town. While we have differed on policy over the years, I do find Fordham to be among the more credible and sane voices on this issue in Ohio from the pro-charter side. They know there's a problem and want to fix it. And for that, they deserve credit.

Back to the study. Overall, kids in charters lose 36 days of math and 14 days of reading to their traditional public school counterparts. Of the 68 statistically significant differences CREDO found between charters and public schools, 56 showed a negative charter school impact, and 12 showed a positive one.

Here are a few quotes:

• "... the better the student at the start of the year, the worse they are served in charter schools compared to what they would have learned" in a traditional public school. "... recent efforts across Ohio to improve the quality of charter school performance are only dimly discernible in the analysis. Overall performance trends are marginally positive, but the gains that Ohio charter school students receive even in the most recent periods studied still lag the progress of their (Traditional Public School) peers. More work is needed to ensure that charter schools are serving their students well."
• "Despite exemplars of strong results, over 40 percent of Ohio charter schools are in urgent need of improvement: they both post smaller student academic gains each year and their overall achievement levels are below the average for the state. If their current performance is permitted to continue, the students enrolled in these schools will fall even further behind over time. The long-term prospects for their students dim with every year they remain in these schools."

Read more at 10th Period.com

Ohio Board of Education backs ending ‘5 of 8’ staffing rule

The Ohio Board of Education moved ahead yesterday with a plan to abolish school-staffing requirements that critics contend would allow districts to eliminate art teachers, librarians, counselors and other staff members.

After more than two hours of debate, the board voted 14-5 to approve a resolution of intent to do away with a state requirement that schools have certain numbers of art, music and physical-education teachers, counselors, librarians, nurses, social workers and visiting teachers.

The decades-old “5 of 8” rule mandates that schools have at least five of those eight positions for every 1,000 students.

The rule now goes through a legislative-review process and returns to the board for final approval in March.

School administrators and superintendents sought the change. Supporters say that it is outdated and that eliminating staffing requirements will give districts more flexibility and control.

Critics say it will encourage cash-strapped schools to eliminate teachers and staff members in areas not deemed essential for state standardized tests.

Read more at the Dispatch

Legislators stall out in dealing with inequities in Ohio schools

Seventeen years after the Ohio Supreme Court, in its landmark DeRolph v. State ruling, proclaimed that the Buckeye State “fails to provide for a thorough and efficient system” of educating its students, evidence continues to mount to support the premise that all public schools in Ohio are not created equal.

New illuminating data substantiates the court’s conclusion that Ohio’s system of funding schools largely through local property taxes is unconstitutional. It comes from an analysis of school curriculum data of all public districts by the state Department of Education.

The analysis concluded that rural districts average fewer than 6.5 high-level courses such as advanced math, specialized language-arts courses and nontraditional foreign languages. In contrast, suburban districts average 26 high-level courses, based on ODE curriculum data.

Read more at The Vindicator

Parents and educators plead with state board to keep requiring school nurses, librarians, counselors and arts teachers

Parents and educators made pleas to the state school board this afternoon to continue requiring a minimum ratio of student support staff to students in all schools.

Arts teachers, special education parents, a Cleveland Heights principal and retired teachers all told the board they wanted the board to drop plans to kill the so-called "5 of 8" rule that requires a mix of librarians, counselors, nurses and arts teachers in schools.

The rule requires five staff from these positions - elementary art, music or physical education teachers, school counselors, library media specialists, school nurses, social workers and "visiting teachers" -- for every 1,000 students.

Two groups of parents planned a 4 p.m. rally outside the Ohio Department of Education headquarters where the board is still meeting. Included in their plans: Displaying "tombstones" for the positions in the "5 of 8" rule that will no longer be required if the board passes its proposal Tuesday.

And some people, including Cleveland City Council, have asked the board to delay any vote on this proposed rule change for 90 days to allow more public input. See council's full resolution below.

Read more at Cleveland.com

Will change to #Ohio5of8 hurt art, music education?

A proposed state rule change will be the beginning of the end for school music and art — or a simple bureaucratic update with no real consequences — depending on which side of the debate to believe.

The Ohio State Board of Education is slated to debate and vote Tuesday on a change to a rule that governs how many music teachers, art teachers, school nurses and other similar support staff a district must employ.

Currently, districts are required to employ five people for every 1,000 students from one of eight areas: counselor, library media specialist, school nurse, visiting teacher, social worker and elementary art, music and physical education.

The state, however, does not track district compliance with this measure and has no real penalties if a district doesn't hire enough of the specialty positions. John Charlton, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Education, said when the rule was enacted in 1983, it was part of the school funding formula and schools lost money if they didn't follow it.

"Right now, there is no real teeth in the law that says there would be any kind of consequence," he said.

(Read more at Cincinnati.com

Bill Seeks More Charter School Transparency And Accountability

Senate Bill 329, introduced in April by Senator Joe Schiavoni, is finally getting a hearing by the Senate Education Committee this week. The bill is striking in its simplicity — it seeks to hold charter school owners & operators accountable for how they spend public dollars. The simplicity of this bill also reveals just how lax Ohio’s oversight of charter school spending has been for the last decade and a half.

Here’s the one-sentence addition to Ohio Revised Code in SB 329 that could have a drastic change in exposing how charter schools are spending public tax dollars:

Sec. 3314.031. Each nonpublic operator of a community school and each nonpublic entity that sponsors a community school shall comply with section 149.43 of the Revised Code as if it were a public office with respect to all records pertaining to the management or sponsorship of the school.

(Read more at Plunderbund)