There was a terrific editorial in Saturday's Dayton Daily News about the storied 12-year charter school history in Fordham's home town and why we can be optimistic about the future of charters there.
As DDN notes, until New Orleans began rebuilding its education system with a large choice sector after Hurricane Katrina, Dayton had a greater percentage of its students in charters than any other city in the country.?? DDN credits Fordham's role in advancing choice in the city, the outcome of which has been a mixed bag:
The impact of the charter revolution here has been both good and bad.
Among the positives was the expansion of quality school options in Dayton to include innovative charters like the ISUS Trade and Tech Prep High School, those run by the Richard Allen and National Heritage networks.
In response, the public school district got behind specialty schools, including the Dayton Early College Academy and single-gender schools for boys and girls.
Altogether, these schools have helped remake the city into a place with far more interesting and good options for families.
On the down side, the charter movement created some absolutely terrible new schools. Some of them flopped and folded quickly. Others have frustrated reformers by staying open for more than a decade ??? despite awful test performance.
The state and the city are learning lessons, and as a result the new trend among Dayton charters is a positive one.?? Charter school enrollment growth has tapered off, settling out at roughly a quarter of the city's school kids attending charters.?? Their schooling options are improving, with eight of the top 10 public schools in Dayton being charters.
DDN sees a bright outlook for the city's charter schools and credits as the cause a state law (which Fordham has long-supported) that mandates the closure of persistent poor-performers:
Things are likely to get better for the local charter movement. A 2007 state law has begun forcing charters that consistently score poorly on state tests to close.
The law is doing what the market failed to do ??? ferreting out bad schools. Collectively, the charter movement will benefit by the crackdown.
The original charter law was a smart idea, one that the national charter school movement should embrace. Some of the best school reform ideas of the last decade were incubated in charter schools. But their reputations have been marred by the scandals ??? academic failure and otherwise ??? of their lesser siblings.
If the net effect of the new law for Dayton is fewer bad schools and better collective test performance, that can only be good for the city. The more kids who are attending schools with solid track records, the better.
Overall, DDN pegs Dayton's (and Ohio's) charter story accurately. While not as glamorous as the transformation of some cities like New?? Orleans ??? an overhaul in which charters played a key role??? Dayton's history with school choice reminds us of how hard it is to improve schooling options for the kids who need it the most. Some charters serve as great alternatives, while others merely recreate the lackluster performance of the district. A bifurcated approach ??? supporting the good charters and insisting that bad ones be closed ??? seems the only sensible one.
