Congratulations to the high-performing charter schools that received a portion of the $50 million in competitive grants to replicate and expand, as announced yesterday by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Several of top-notch charter management organizations awarded these federal grants also received $1 million each during the September 20th broadcast of ???The Oprah Winfrey Show.??? These winners included:
- ???Aspire Public Schools in California
- ???Mastery Charter Schools in Philadelphia and New Jersey
- ???YES Prep Public Schools in Houston
- ???Learn Charter Schools in Chicago
These schools, and others like them scattered across the country, are making a huge difference in the lives of the children and families they serve. I know some of the people involved in running these exceptional charter management organizations and I can say without a doubt that they are world-class leaders who work painfully long hours and make tough decisions for the benefit of their schools every day. The decisions they make are always made with the interest of kids first, and that's why their schools are great. That may sound like a clich??, but it's absolutely true.
Working in Ohio I always feel genuine pain and more than a little envy, however, in seeing these lists of winning charter schools because none are in the Buckeye State despite the fact we have more than 325 charter schools serving about 90,000 students. It's not that we don't have some great schools here doing amazing things by our neediest children. We do, and a short list would include the Dayton Early College Academy, Cleveland's Citizens' Academy and the Intergenerational School, the Graham School in Columbus and Concept Schools and Constellation Schools to name a handful (note, Fordham sponsors several schools we think have a real shot at being high-flyers as well, but questions about their long-term sustainability and scalability remain).
What we've struggled with in Ohio is sustaining great schools at scale across cities and regions like the models recognized by Secretary Duncan, the Charter School Growth Fund and Oprah Winfrey recently. This is in part due to the brutal political environment that faces charters in Ohio. This includes tight-fisted funding for charters, tough???sometimes hostile???relations with school districts over things like busing and facilities, and recurring political uncertainties about whether charters are even welcomed in the Buckeye State. We've also been plagued by too many low-performing schools that have given the state a black-eye nationally among charter advocates and operators.
The charter struggles in Ohio are also connected to the fact that the state prevents pipelines of reform-minded human-capital from operating here. The Buckeye State does not welcome and embrace groups like Teach For America, The New Teacher Project, and New Leaders for New Schools. None of these alternative providers of education talent operate here, although the state's recent Race to the Top applications says they are now welcomed. Without these groups we are trying to create great schools at scale with the same basic human capital that populates traditional schools. Not surprisingly, the results have been less than stellar.
Great schools are hard to come by, and it is critical that we learn more about the successes of these charter networks and how to create an environment welcoming to them. Ohio still has a long way to go to attract theses models, but the fight to bring them here is worth it.
???Terry Ryan
