Top 7 tips for Improving Public Schools

• Discourage teacher turnover by downplaying the importance of having money and respect
• Maybe get some underprepared, overconfident recent college graduates in there to figure things out
• Federal law that prevents Dylan from raising his hand and wasting everybody’s time with the wrong answer
• Tattoo grades on foreheads to shame low performers
• Toss Northrop Grumman another $4.5 billion and see what kind of curriculum it pumps out
• Whatever you do, don’t change anything about a property-tax-based funding system in which rich schools get richer while poor schools get poorer. That’s working just fine.
• Cut losses and reallocate funding to nation’s prison system

You might be fooled into thinkinng these are the latest ideas from Students First, alas no.

How Local Tax Revenues Subsidize Ohio Charter Schools

Many homeowners who vote for school levies are getting shortchanged. Instead of the additional money going to their neighborhood schools, more and more of it is being used to subsidize state-mandated funding of charter schools – many of them with poor academic records, according to a new study by the Ohio Charter School Accountability Project.

Ohio has a formula that spells out how much state funding each student in each district should receive. Some of the money is from the state and some from local taxes.

But a rarely-discussed flaw in the formula results in traditional schools often receiving far fewer state dollars per pupil than charter schools for the same students. This forces districts to make up the lost state money by either raising their local taxes or cutting programs and services.

At KnowYourCharter.com, we have posted for the first time on one website how much state funding per pupil each school district should receive under the state’s formula. However, that’s not what the district ends up getting because charter schools (and other school choice options) deduct significant state dollars from Ohio’s public school districts. When you compare how much state funding per pupil each charter school receives with what school districts receive, it becomes abundantly clear that school districts often receive far fewer state dollars per pupil than the state pays to charter schools for the same students. This system then forces districts to make up the lost state revenue through local revenues or program cuts.

How School Funding Works

Every year, school districts in Ohio receive money from the state based on the number of students attending local schools and the amount of money the district can raise through local property taxes. Last year, the average amount of money sent by the state to local school districts was $4,149 per student.

While they are called public schools under Ohio law, charter schools are funded differently than traditional public schools. Rather than having a separate line item in the state budget, charter schools are funded with money that would have otherwise gone to a student’s home district. Under state law, the amount of state money that was deducted from a home district for charter schools last school year was $5,745[1] per student.[2] That amount is a state mandate.

However, data at KnowYourCharter.com shows that in the vast majority of cases that money is far more than what a school district would receive. Last year, 511 of 613 school districts in Ohio received less per pupil under the state’s formula than the minimum $5,745 per pupil received by charter schools.

(Read more at www.knowyourcharter.com)

Republicans land both state school board leadership seats: Gunlock will be president, Elshoff as VP

Tom Gunlock was elected president of the state school board this morning in a 12-7 vote that mostly followed party lines on what is, officially at least, a non-partisan board.

Gunlock, a Centerville Republican and one of eight appointees of Gov. John Kasich on the board, was vice president of the board last year.

He defeated new board member and Democrat Pat Bruns, of Cincinnati, who had been nominated by a coalition of seven Democratic members. The only Democrat voting for Gunlock was A.J. Wagner of Dayton.

That coalition has promised to work together to have their voice heard about school funding, standardized testing and charter schools, despite being a minority on the board.

Republican Tess Elshoff of New Knoxville was elected as vice president with an 11-8 vote.

She beat longtime member Michael Collins, who was also nominated by the coalition of Democrats. Wagner joined the seven members of the coalition in voting for Collins.

Board member Mary Rose Oakar, of Cleveland, nominated Collins and urged the board to elect him in the spirit of both parties working together.

(Read more at Cleveland.com)

'School Choice' and Disenfranchising the Public

"School choice" is one of those policy ideas that just never goes away, and it probably never will. For some people it is an irresistible way to unlock all those public tax dollars and turn them into private profits. For others it's a way to make sure their children don't have to go to school with "those people." Other people are justifiably attracted to the idea of more control over their child's education. And still others have a sincere belief that competition really does create greatness.

Voucher fans and proponents of modern charters like to focus on those promises. They're much quieter about one of the other effects of a choice system.

School choice disenfranchises the public.

Our public school system is set up to serve the public. All the public. It is not set up to serve just parents or just students. Everybody benefits from a system of roadways in this country -- even people who don't drive cars -- because it allows a hundred other systems of service and commerce to function well.

School choice treats parents as if they are the only stakeholders in education. They are not. We all depend on a society in which people are reasonably well-educated. We all depend on a society in which people have a reasonably good understanding of how things work. We all depend on a society in which people have the basic abilities needed to take care of themselves and the people around them. We all depend on dealing with doctors and plumbers and lawyers and clerks and neighbors who can read and write and figure. We hope for fellow voters who will not elect a politician because he promises to convert straw to gold by using cold fusion. We all depend on a society that can move forward because it is composed of people who know things.

(Read more at the Huffington Post)

Ohio school board's Democrats want charter school limits

The state school board's beefed-up coalition of Democrats says it will fight for better accountability for Ohio's charter schools, beginning with pushing for the election of Democrats for board president and vice president.

Minority Democrats on the 19-member panel said Friday they'll promote a so-called "pro public education" agenda as the powerful policy-setting board begins the year's business on Monday.

They plan to nominate newcomer Pat Bruns to face veteran board member Tom Gunlock, an appointee of Gov. John Kasich (KAY'-sik), in the race to replace departing president Debe Terhar (DEH'-bee TAYR'-hahr). Democrat Michael Collins, a board incumbent, will be nominated as vice president, likely facing incumbent Ron Rudduck.

(Read more at WFMJ).

Ohio's weak charter school system needs a massive makeover

A recent Stanford University report points out in detail what many education critics in Ohio have long realized: Far too many children in Ohio's 390 charter schools are falling behind their traditional public school peers in math and reading – except for youngsters in Cleveland's charter schools, the best of which have partnered with the city school district. Clearly, the rest of the state must catch up.

Macke Raymond, director of Stanford's Center for Research on Educational Outcomes or CREDO, which worked in partnership with the nonprofit Fordham Institute, a charter school advocate, blames disengaged charter school boards and charter school authorizers, known as sponsors, for failing to eliminate or improve mediocre schools.

One improvement is on its way: Ohio's new evaluation system for sponsors, which begins in January, will rate sponsors according to the academic performance of their students. If the evaluation system doesn't work, it ought to be tweaked.

Meanwhile, the CREDO study should spur Gov. John Kasich, who recently said he wants better regulation of charter schools, and the charter school reform committee created by state Sen. Peggy Lehner, a Republican from Kettering who leads the Ohio Senate Education Committee, to improve the system. Lehner hopes to present legislation later this year. 

Another recent Fordham Institute study -- this one done with Bellwether Education Partners -- also deserves the attention of Lehner's committee. It recommends that Ohio's charter law clearly outline the responsibilities of authorizers, school board and management companies. It also advocates giving charter schools more money. 

The latter should not happen as long as so many charter-school youngsters learn less in reading and math than students in Ohio's traditional public schools, a key finding of the CREDO study.

Read more at Cleveland.com)