Cash-strapped Field district will cut ties to charter school

In 2010, with a depleted budget and waning local support for new taxes, the cash-strapped Field school district heeded a state suggestion to cut costs and boost revenue — or be taken over.

Following the state’s advice, the board sponsored a charter school, Falcon Academy of Creative Arts. The board found the charter school a home in a vacant elementary school on the other side of the high school’s football field.

The arrangement allowed the largely property-tax-funded rural school district, as a sponsor and landlord, to collect some of the charter school’s state aid and charge rent on an unused asset.

The catch?

The charter school’s per-pupil funding would be taken from the school district, with Field schools essentially recording a cash loss for each kid who chose the academy.

Today, amid record enrollment at Falcon Academy, the state aid flowing away from Field schools has topped $1 million. That dwarfs the $112,000 the district collects in rent and a 3 percent sponsorship, or oversight, fee.

(Read more at Ohio.com)

Groundbreaking fight to unionize two Cleveland charter schools is delayed while the schools and union negotiate

The Ohio Federation of Teachers and the I Can charter school network have put their legal fight on hold over unionization efforts at two schools while the sides try to negotiate a settlement.

The groundbreaking attempt to make the schools the only charter schools in Ohio with a union stalled last spring before employees could take a vote.

The sides were scheduled for a hearing Tuesday on charges that I Can improperly blocked organization efforts last spring and fired teachers active in the push. If an administrative judge for the National Labor Relations Board found I Can guilty of unfair labor practices, teachers could automatically have been unionized.

Such an order would be a major step in Ohio, where only one charter school -- public schools that receive state tax dollars, but are privately run -- has been unionized before. That school has since closed.

Instead, the sides delayed the hearing indefinitely to continue negotiations.

Unionization efforts started last year

I Can operates seven schools in Cleveland, Akron and Canton and has close ties with the Cleveland school district, even receiving some local tax money.

The unionization efforts focused on two of the schools: Northeast Ohio College Preparatory School in Cleveland's Tremont neighborhood and University of Cleveland Preparatory School at East 40th Street and Chester Avenue.

Organizing votes scheduled last year were canceled.

Teachers at the two schools and the Ohio Federation of Teachers, which hopes to unionize several charter schools in Ohio, filed complaints this summer that I Can fired seven organizers and took other steps to intimidate employees against organizing.

Among accusations against I Can were that employees were led to believe they were under surveillance, employees were pressured to reveal who was leading organizing efforts, and that pay and benefit improvements were made just before the scheduled vote to discourage union membership.

(Read more at Cleveland.com)

When public schools get more money, students do better

Beginning 40 years ago, a series of court rulings forced states to reallocate money for education, giving more to schools in poor neighborhoods with less in the way of local resources. Critics such as Eric Hanushek, an economist at the Hoover Institution, argued these decisions were simply "throwing money at schools." His research found that there was little correlation between how much schools spent and how well their students performed on tests.

It's a view still held by many politicians today, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.). "We spend more than any other state in the country," he said a year ago. "It ain't about the money. It's about how you spend it -- and the results."

More recent research, however, has found that when schools have more money, they are able to give their students a better education. A new study on those who went to school during the school-finance cases a few decades ago found that those who attended districts that were affected by the rulings were more likely to stay in school through high school and college and are making more money today.

The authors, Kirabo Jackson and Claudia Persico of Northwestern University and Rucker Johnson of the University of California, Berkeley, released a revised draft of their as-yet-unpublished paper this week. The benefits were most obvious for students from poor families. They found that a 10 percent increase in the money available for each low-income student resulted in a 9.5 percent increase in students' earnings as adults. A public investment in schools, they wrote, returned 8.9 percent annually for a typical pupil who started kindergarten in 1980.

The findings are evidence that public schooling can be a way for children who grow up in poverty to overcome their circumstances, Johnson argued.

(Read more at the Washington Post).

New House education committee chairman wants to cut the "glut" of testing, have less "toxic" talks about the Common Core

State Rep. Bill Hayes expects to have a busy first year as chairman of the education committee of the Ohio House, with legislation on the Common Core, standardized testing and charter schools all likely to come before the panel.

"Mostly I've been getting condolences," joked Hayes, 71, a Licking County Republican.

He replaces Gerald Stebelton, a Lancaster Republican, who left office at the end of 2014 because of term limits and returns to his law practice.

The Plain Dealer talked with Rep. Hayes last week about his background and his views on several major issues expected to come up this year. Here's a quick look at the newest major player in education policy for the state.

Who is he? Hayes has been a member of the legislature and the House Education Committee since 2010, after losing two earlier bids for the House.

(Read more at Cleveland.com)

Lake Local may join trend of allowing armed staff

The way Tim Krugh sees it, he’s just trying to minimize carnage.

The Lake Local Board of Education president said that when he reads or hears about mass shootings in schools, he worries about it happening in his district. With the school system cash-strapped, and no large police force nearby, he’s joined a growing number of Ohio school officials considering a last-ditch line of defense: arming staff.

Mr. Krugh is quick to say that no decision has been made. The board will hold a forum at 10 a.m. Saturday, at which a Buckeye Firearms Association speaker will discuss a training program the nonprofit offers to school staff.

It is a chance for the community to ask questions about having teachers, principals, or janitors, or anyone carrying a gun into their child’s school.

“We are looking at every option we can,” Mr. Krugh said.

In the wake of mass school shootings in Newtown, Conn., Chardon, Ohio, and elsewhere, school districts around the country re-evaluated their security procedures.

(Read more at The Toledo Blade.

Survey of Akron teachers shows testing, student discipline top concerns

About half of Akron’s teachers say they work 16 hours more than they clock in for each week.

Nearly all say administrators should not tinker with a long-standing policy that automatically transfers problem students.

About four in five say high-stakes tests have hijacked their ability to teach.

And while a majority praise their building principals, even more say they have no voice in the direction of their school district.

These are among the key results of a survey the Akron Education Association culled from more than 2,000 members. About 900 responded to the survey before winter break. After tallying the responses, union leadership found the exercise to be both encouraging and concerning.

“When the majority of educators feel they do not have the freedom to organize their classroom and instruction as they think best, when 84.4 percent of educators feel they do not have a voice in the direction of the district and 72.7 percent do not feel valued as an educator ... well then, Houston, we have a problem,” the union said in a January newsletter to its members.

The survey underscores the frustrations teachers express toward central administrators but also the shared frustrations that stem from state-mandated student testing and laws dictating they be used to influence hiring decisions.

(Read more at the Akron Beacon Journal)