1. Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, teamed up with our own bossman Chad Aldis to pen an op-ed published in the Plain Dealer yesterday. Topic: the golden opportunity before the state of Ohio today to leverage federal dollars and boost facilities funding for charter schools. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 1/30/19) 
2. Assuming that Ohio does indeed capitalize on that opportunity, there will be at least one less charter school next year needing facilities funds. Lakewood City Schools will be ending the sponsorship of its charter school this year. Despite the fact that “we had a lot of kids graduate and have success” in the charter school format, “like all things you want to evolve and innovate for children because the world is always changing.” That means bye-bye charter school and (eventually) hello “alternative school” of some type. Details are sketchy beyond “close charter”. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 1/30/19)

3. With the demise of ECOT last year, the epithet mantle “Ohio’s largest online charter school” passed to Ohio Virtual Academy. Here is a quick look at the improvement plan OHVA is completing for submission to the state because it “failed to meet several student performance benchmarks.” Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, I reckon. (Toledo Blade, 1/30/19)

4. Finally today, Ohio’s College Credit Plus program is a runaway success by almost any measure. Here’s a look at its popularly among high school students (and at least one local community college – you know which one I’m talking about) in the Dayton area. We should be careful, however, how readily we throw around the “money saved” metric. There is, in fact, no money being saved by anyone at this point—only money being spent. Eventually, families could save money. College will end up cheaper for families in the long run if you assume their kids were going to take five years or more to graduate and now will shorten that time frame thanks to the “head start” provided by CCP. Otherwise, four years of college costs pretty much the same, with or without a head start! Sorry to be a spoiler. Still a great program for all the other reasons. (Dayton Daily News, 1/28/19)

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Last Sunday, the Columbus Dispatch ran contrasting op-eds on the question, “Should Ohio charter schools receive more state funding?” I authored one of them, and in it I highlight the fact that charters receive far less public funding than school districts to educate pupils with comparable needs. I make the case that underfunding charters is simply unfair to students choosing a different type of school for their education. William Phillis, a harsh critic who’s called charters “parasites,” authored the opposing editorial. He trots out several tired charter canards and half-truths, notes the misconduct of the now-shuttered Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, and implies that charters misuse funds on things such as marketing and administration.

Let me first say that I agree with Phillis that the responsible stewardship of public dollars matters immensely. Just like districts, charters should be leveraging their resources to do the most for students. If a charter school is spending excessive amounts on marketing or administration, its governing board should reprioritize its expenditures. The same principle applies to district boards; they too should be combing through their budgets to ensure dollars are being well spent.

But two of his claims require strong refutation. The first deals with a serious mathematical error. Phillis challenges my finding of a charter funding shortfall by citing the following data:

Another set of data from Ohio Department of Education files is needed to complete the fiscal picture. According to the department’s school year 2017-2018 Expenditure Flow Model, charter schools, on average, actually spent $360 more per pupil than school districts ($11,819 vs $11,459).

Here’s the problem: The data he cites represent an unweighted average across districts and charters that ignores pupil enrollments. When he computes the statewide average, each district is treated as an equal contributor to the average, even though districts enroll widely varying numbers of students. For instance, under this method, the spending of a 500-student rural district is weighted just the same as the 50,000-student Columbus City School District. This is, of course, absurd—akin to treating California the same as North Dakota when computing the per-capita national GDP.

When one does a proper student-weighted calculation, the correct numbers are:

According to the department’s school year 2017-2018 Expenditure Flow Model, charter schools, on average, actually spent $360 $1,654 more less per pupil than school districts ($11,819 vs $11,459 $10,300 vs. $11,954).

This significant charter disparity at the statewide level in FY 18 tracks with conclusions from my paper for FYs 15–17.

Unfortunately, absent also from Phillis’s statement is an acknowledgement of the vast differences in the student backgrounds of Ohio charters versus districts statewide, rendering it an apples-to-oranges comparison. Because charters serve more disadvantaged students than the average district, they ought to receive more funds to support the greater needs of their students. Sadly, however, they receive less.

When one conducts an apples-to-apples comparison of Ohio’s urban Big Eight charters versus Big Eight districts, a much larger funding disparity appears. In these cities, charters receive a staggering $4,092 less per pupil, a funding gap of 28 percent. Disparities of this magnitude limit children’s educational opportunities and result in an unhealthy environment for charters to grow.

Aside from playing fast and loose with the data, Phillis also misfires in his comments about the regulatory framework for charter schools. He writes:

The only way to secure accountability, transparency, and credibility in the charter industry is to subject charters to the same laws and regulations as school districts. Thus far the reforms in charter law have merely nibbled at the edges of the defects.

And he adds:

Charters are exempt from scores of laws and regulations, which should reduce their costs dramatically. These factors argue for less, not more money for charters.

Notwithstanding the bizarre notion that charters should be regulated in the same way as districts—the very idea of charters is to allow schools to do things differently!—there are other holes to this argument.

First, it asserts that charters are freed from all sorts of regulations that burden districts and drive up costs. But let’s put this to the test: The Legislative Service Commission (LSC) produces a helpful catalogue of charters’ exemptions and non-exemptions from state law. What you’ll notice is that the exemptions are largely due to inherent differences in governing and funding arrangements. For instance, a raft of exemptions relate to district board elections and local tax laws that simply don’t apply to charters. The challenge to critics is be more specific: What exemptions are so worrisome? And if indeed they have a legitimate beef about a burdensome regulation from which charters are freed, they should ask legislators to remove that regulation for districts too. (I hear some legislators are interested in deregulation.)

Second, it fails to mention that a key difference between districts and charters lies not in the amount of regulation, but rather their approaches to staffing and employment. Though not required under state law, all districts bargain with local teachers’ unions around wages, hours, and the “terms and conditions” of employment. Covering numerous topics, these elaborate collective bargaining agreements limit what district schools can do with their time, talent, and money. Nearly all charters don’t bargain with a local union, offering them greater flexibility to meet students’ needs or pursue innovative programs. Though sure to rankle union interest groups, some see charters’ ability to work outside of the collective bargaining model as a core strength.

Third, it elides critical laws and regulations that charters are subject to in the same way as districts—and even some that are distinctive to the charter model. Returning again to the LSC catalogue, it lists dozens of statutes from which charters are not exempt, including laws on public ethics and meetings, state assessment and accountability, financial reporting, health and safety, and teacher licensing. Among these, the state’s report cards, with their clear A–F ratings, are the most important tool for holding charters accountable for performance in the same way as districts. On key report card measures, charters perform similarly, if not better, than comparable district schools. Furthermore, charter schools are also subject to a unique oversight system that includes sponsors, entities that have the authority to close schools for underperformance. And unlike districts, charter schools also face an automatic closure penalty under state law when they receive poor report-card ratings.

It’s a shame that Sunday’s readers received such a distorted view of Ohio charters. Perhaps that’s par for the course in a world where pundits can say just about anything and get away with it. As we think how the charter model can drive student learning for more Ohio students, here’s hoping for a more fact-based debate.

With popular, bipartisan support, career-and-technical education (CTE) is being embraced by policymakers across the nation. It’s no different in Ohio where newly elected Governor DeWine has promised to make CTE a priority during his term. There’s good reason for the increased focus. If done well, CTE allows students to accumulate technical skills—and certifications verifying attainment—that can help them secure rewarding jobs.

Given the growing attention, it’s important to describe the state of CTE in Ohio. This post will look at the basic question of how many students currently avail themselves of CTE opportunities, and in what fields. Meanwhile, a follow-up piece will explore what we know about the outcomes of CTE students, including their graduation and industry certification rates.

One might think counting the number of CTE students would be easy, but there’s more to it than initially meets the eye. Part of the challenge lies in determining what a “CTE student” is. In fact, there are two official definitions in use.

First, there are CTE participants who have earned credit in at least one CTE course. This is a very low threshold; for instance, passing just one introductory business or information technology course likely qualifies someone as a participant. For the 2016–17 year, Ohio reported 125,375 participants in its federal CTE reporting.

A more helpful measure is CTE concentrators. These are students with a stronger focus in a particular CTE field. Ohio considers any student who completes at least 50 percent of the courses required in a single CTE program to be a concentrator.[1] The chart below shows that 33,593 Ohio students reached the concentrator status in 2016–17. Since this covers any student in grades seven through twelve reaching concentrator status, we can’t tell from these data what proportion of the class of 2017 did so—an arguably more useful data point than the share of concentrators in all of those grades. Though an estimate, the share probably falls between 15 and 20 percent in the class of 2017.[2] Such a percentage would track fairly close to national data from the class of 2005 indicating that 21 percent of graduates earned three or more CTE credits. Meanwhile, Figure 1 also shows a largely flat trend in concentrators over the past decade, though with some bumps in recent years.

Figure 1: Trend in Ohio’s CTE concentrators, 2007–08 to 2016–17

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Source: Perkins Data Explorer

Federal statistics also report the areas in which students concentrate in sixteen CTE fields, or “career clusters.” Figure 2 below displays the six most popular CTE fields in Ohio, with the ten other fields combined into an “other” category. We see that agriculture, health, and information technology (IT) are the most prevalent fields among Ohio CTE students. Agriculture emerges as an especially popular CTE route in Ohio, as the 18 percent rate among concentrators almost doubles the national average (10 percent). The chart also illustrates that CTE isn’t only used by young people seeking “blue collar” manufacturing or plumbing jobs, but also careers in fields like IT and healthcare. Lastly, Figure 2 shows that 36 percent of CTE students concentrate in the other ten fields such as hospitality, education, business, or marketing.

Figure 2: Percentage of Ohio concentrators in CTE career fields, 2016-17

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Source: Perkins Data Explorer. Note: The chart displays the six most popular career fields among Ohio’s CTE concentrators, with the ten other fields combined into an “other” category. The full list of fields is here.

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These data are starting points for better understanding CTE in Ohio. Though CTE concentration isn’t per se a guaranteed ticket to good jobs—e.g., demonstrating competency through an industry certification is critical too—it’s an important first step. On this count, we see that about one in five Ohio students use CTE programs in some purposeful manner. There seems ample room to encourage more concentration. For instance, 40 percent of students exit high school and go directly into the workforce, and increased CTE concentration could help more of these young people get off to a solid start. It could also benefit college-going students who gain marketable skills when they enter the job market. We also see a wide diversity of CTE programs that students use. With offerings in areas ranging from agriculture and IT to architecture and construction, it’s important that we no longer view CTE as simply shop class.

All this, of course, only scratches the surface. The data don’t tell us anything about the backgrounds of CTE students. Are they disproportionately low income or more affluent, and what are their racial and ethnic backgrounds? What are their academic track records? Are they mainly high achievers or more apt to struggle? How many go beyond the “concentrator” status and take almost all of their electives in a particular field (“super concentrators” of sorts)? And perhaps most importantly, what are CTE students’ outcomes?

Some of these questions, among others, require more detailed data than what is available publicly, and state agencies or researchers should shine a light on them. However, we do have some data on CTE students’ outcomes from Ohio’s career-technical report cards. Stay tuned for an upcoming post in which we dive into these data.

During his inauguration in early January, Governor Mike DeWine spoke of his desire to use education to improve Ohio. “Education is the key to equality and the key to opportunity,” he said. “Everyone—everyone—deserves a chance to succeed, to get a good-paying job, to raise a family comfortably.”

Although DeWine’s inauguration signaled the start of new state leadership, his focus on increasing educational opportunities and improving outcomes isn’t new. Under former Governor John Kasich, the Ohio Department of Education (ODE), the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE), and the Governor’s Office of Workforce Transformation jointly acknowledged that Ohio was facing a “looming crisis” in educational attainment. Research from 2013 showed that 64 percent of Ohio jobs in 2020 would require post-secondary education. But only 43.2 percent of working-age adults had a post-secondary degree or certificate as of 2016. More worrisome, Ohio students weren’t earning degrees and certificates at a fast enough rate to close the gap. To meet the needs of employers, Ohio would need to produce approximately 1.3 million more adults with high quality post-secondary certificates. 

In response to these disheartening numbers, state leaders announced in 2016 that they would pursue “Ohio Attainment Goal 2025”—a statewide objective for 65 percent of Ohioans between the ages of twenty-five and sixty-four to have a degree, certificate, or other post-secondary workforce credential of value in the workplace by 2025. A framing paper released by ODHE in 2017 identifies strategic priorities, including aligning credentials to in-demand jobs, decreasing racial gaps in attainment rates, and educating more adults.

ODHE and ODE are required to prepare an annual report that accounts for the state’s progress. The results in the most recent annual report are mixed. Ohio’s educational attainment rate was 44.1 percent in 2016, which is an impressive increase of 9.2 percentage points since 2008. But the state’s rate is still lower than the national average of 46.9 percent. Attainment has increased among all races, but large gaps still persist. And between 2011 and 2016, adult enrollment in post-secondary education—arguably the most important aspect of increasing overall attainment numbers in the short-run—declined by nearly one-third.

In short, Ohio’s got a lot of work to do if it hopes to meet its goal by 2025. As Governor DeWine and his team prepare their first budget proposal, they’d be wise to consider policies that could help improve Ohio’s post-secondary attainment numbers. Here’s a look at what’s working so far, and some places where the new administration could make an impact.  

Getting a head start on credentials

Ohio does a pretty good job of offering K–12 students a head start on post-secondary degrees and credentials. Advanced Placement (AP) has been present for decades, and the number of students participating has steadily increased each year; over 73,000 students participated in AP in 2018. State law guarantees that these students can receive college credit from state institutions as long as they earn a score of three or higher on an AP exam. Articulated credit options like Career-Technical Credit Transfer allow career and technical education (CTE) students to transfer credit from a variety of technical courses to state institutions. And College Credit Plus, the state’s dual-enrollment program, allows students to earn high school and college credit simultaneously. Now in its fourth year, the program has rapidly grown in size; over 71,000 students enrolled during 2017–18 compared to 54,000 in 2015–16. Maintaining both the volume and the quality of these and other programs will be vitally important for the administration going forward. 

Expanding and improving CTE

CTE is another area where DeWine’s team should focus on expanding what already exists. Initiatives like New Skills for Youth, which aims to expand and improve career pathways for high school students, show a lot of promise. So do recent efforts around work-based learning. But there’s more than enough room to grow, and the new federal CTE law, often referred to as Perkins V, is a great opportunity for the state to expand its offerings and invest in new and innovative approaches. DeWine’s administration should also make sure to keep the CTE promises it made during the campaign, including creating a Student Work Experience Tax Incentive for businesses and cutting the red tape that limits the use of Ohio Facilities Construction Commission funding for CTE schools.

Focusing on adult learners

When it comes to older adults, offering programs that focus on competency rather than seat time is crucial. Ohio’s Adult Diploma Program allows adults over the age of twenty-two to earn a high school diploma and an industry credential that’s aligned to an in-demand job without requiring a certain number of credits or seat hours. And in 2018, the Ohio Department of Higher Education announced a partnership with Western Governors University, an online, competency-based university that allows adults to earn affordable degrees in business, health and nursing, education, and information technology. Despite these offerings, Ohio is still struggling to reach adult learners. During DeWine’s campaign, he proposed establishing regional job-training partnerships and funding the completion of at least ten thousand in-demand industry certificates. Both these proposals could impact attainment numbers. But it will be vital for the governor’s office and the Office of Workforce Transformation, which will be led in part by Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted, to continue focusing on how to reach and educate thousands more adults.

Making college degrees more affordable

In a 2016 project from the Institute for Research on Higher Education, Ohio was ranked forty-fifthout of fifty states in college affordability. In a post-secondary access and affordability agenda released in 2017, Philanthropy Ohio used this and other data sources to warn that “Ohio’s investment in higher education generally, and need-based aid specifically, is not keeping pace with our peer states. If this issue is not recognized immediately and addressed head on, Ohio will continue to face a significant talent gap.” If students can’t afford tuition, then the state’s attainment rate isn’t going to improve.

Fortunately, Ohio has been paying close attention to college affordability over the past few years. Tuition caps have proven successful. And according to ODHE’s annual attainment goal report, the state’s funding mechanism for higher education—the State Share of Instruction—incentivizes outcomes like student progress and completion instead of just enrollment. Capitalizing on these developments and considering additional recommendations should be instrumental parts of the governor’s plan to improve Ohio’s attainment rate.

Improving data gathering and reporting

When it comes to measuring attainment, good data are key. ODHE’s annual report contains some solid data, but most of them come from a single place—the Lumina Foundation’s A Stronger Nation 2018 report, which includes both national and Ohio-specific information from various sources. Although this data is good and useful, the state would benefit greatly from establishing its own data-tracking system. The governor could direct state agencies to work together to connect students’ K–12 and higher-education records with workforce data such as wages, career fields, or unemployment records. This would allow the state to gauge attainment rates and workforce outcomes. This information could then be used to shape state policy, identify areas for growth, and communicate transparently with taxpayers. For a more detailed look at what such a data system could look like, check out this policy proposal.

***

As is the case in the broader education sphere, there is no silver bullet for improving Ohio’s attainment rates. Meeting Attainment Goal 2025 is going to take a considerable amount of work and creativity from state agencies, employers, and local schools and programs. And just like with high school diplomas, the state needs to make sure that credentials aren’t meaningless pieces of paper, but instead represent actual mastery of knowledge and skills. Otherwise, meeting the attainment goal won’t mean anything. The governor’s office can play an instrumental role in these efforts by proposing sound state policy and incentivizing the right practices. The five areas outlined above would be great places to start.

1. Our own Aaron Churchill had an op-ed in the Dispatch yesterday, discussing the findings and recommendations from our recent charter school funding report. You know – the findings that show students in charter schools are underfunded compared to their peers in traditional district and the recommendations that say this should, like, not be the case anymore. (Columbus Dispatch, 1/27/19) You know it’s an important topic because the editors at the D got a counterpoint op-ed from William Phillis and published them both side-by-side. Personally, Mr. Phillis seems a bit less “growly” than usual here. Which is good. (Columbus Dispatch, 1/27/19)
   

2. There has been a series of stories in the Blade in recent weeks about Toledo School for the Arts, which I have not clipped for you because they seemed (to me) to more like social media commentary than hard news. Here, at last, is the hard(er) news version of a couple of years of staff turnover at one of the oldest—and highest-performing—charter schools in the state. It is super interesting to hear TSA treated as a venerable and indispensable institution in the community. Believe me when I say that not a lot of charter schools get the benefit of that doubt. (Toledo Blade, 1/27/19) Here, also, is some unaccustomed love for a dropout recovery charter school in Butler County. (Butler County Connect, 1/27/19)

3. The state superintendent and the local state school board member from Waynesville visited some schools in this very rural part of Ohio last week. Now this kind of love expressed for a school is par for the course. (Lima News, 1/25/19)

4. Things sound pretty rosy in the charter school and rural school arenas, I reckon. So what’s going on in our traditional public schools in more urban parts of the state? A lot of stress, difficulty, hard challenges, and illness, it seems. So what is going on in our schools to help combat these ailments of modern life; these impediments to proper education? More sleep for kids, and who am I to argue with the CDC on this one? (Dayton Daily News, 1/26/19) Yoga as both classroom work and alternative to punishment, per the also-hard-to-refute NYU. (Columbus Dispatch, 1/28/19). And, potentially, medicinal marijuana which may soon find its way into Ohio schools. Not sure who’s behind all that, but then they probably don’t even remember themselves. (Columbus Dispatch, 1/28/19)

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Earlier this week, we released the tenth edition of our annual state charter school laws rankings report. Since we released the first edition of it in January 2010, three states enacted brand-new legislation relatively well aligned with the model law (Alabama in 2015, Maine in 2011, and Washington in 2012 and 2016). Between 2010 and 2018, thirty-seven states made policy improvements that resulted in increases in their scores in the report. States made the most progress in lifting caps, strengthening charter school and authorizer accountability, and making significant improvements to their facilities policies for charters.

Some key takeaways from this year’s rankings include:

• For the fourth year in a row, Indiana has the nation’s strongest charter school law in the country, ranking No. 1 (out of forty-four). Indiana’s law does not cap charter school growth, includes multiple authorizers, and provides a fair amount of autonomy and accountability. Indiana has also made notable strides in recent years to provide more equitable funding to charter schools, although some work remains to be done.
• Georgia made the biggest jump in this year’s rankings, moving up eleven spots from No. 27 to No. 16. Georgia made this leap because it enacted legislation that improved the state’s policies for special education, funding, and full-time virtual charter schools.
• New York experienced the largest drop in this year’s rankings, falling from No. 14 to No. 17. While New York didn’t enact any new negative legislation, its existing caps on charter schools now leave limited room for growth in New York City, causing this drop.
• The top ten includes a mixture of states with more mature movements (Indiana at No. 1, Colorado at No. 2, Minnesota at No. 4, Florida at No. 7, D.C. at No. 9, and Nevada at No. 10) and states with newer movements (Washington at No. 3, Alabama at No. 5, Mississippi at No. 6, and Maine at No. 8). The fact that these states are in the top ten speaks to the fact that many existing states continue to strengthen their laws based on what’s working (and what’s not working) and that new states rely heavily on those lessons learned so they don’t repeat the mistakes of the states that came before them.
• States that are enacting laws for the first time and states that are overhauling their laws are bypassing states that were previously more highly ranked, such as Arizona, Louisiana, and New York. That doesn’t mean that the laws have gotten weaker in the states being bypassed. They remain strong. What it does mean, though, is that more and more states have better and better laws across the country, a good place to be if you believe that all states should have high-quality charter school laws.
• Maryland has the nation’s weakest charter school law, ranking No. 44 (out of forty-four). While Maryland’s law does not cap public charter school growth, it allows only district authorizers and provides little autonomy, insufficient accountability, and inequitable funding to charter schools. Rounding out the bottom five states are Iowa (No. 40), Wyoming (No. 41), Alaska (No. 42), and Kansas (No. 43).

One of the issues that has periodically come up over the past decade is the inclusion of states that have recently enacted or substantially overhauled their charter school laws in the report. We had the honor of working side by side with local advocates and lawmakers in many of these states to craft and advocate for these laws. In each of these states, we used our model charter school law as the foundation for these efforts but had to modify it to align with local political and policy contexts. Since our annual rankings report analyzes each state’s law against our model law, it isn’t much of a surprise to see these states rank highly in this effort.

From our perspective, the point of our annual state charter school laws rankings report is to figure out which states are creating the conditions for high-quality charter schools by providing, among other things, flexibility, funding equity, non-district authorizers, facilities support, and accountability. We think it is important to include all of the states in this analysis, including the new states. We want charter school supporters to have a comprehensive view on which states are creating those conditions.

It is important to note that we have also completed two versions of another periodic report on the health of the charter school movement in each state (in 2014 and 2016) that analyzes how those policies are playing out in practice by analyzing indicators associated with growth, innovation, and quality. While we include every state with a charter school law in the law rankings report, we only include states that meet certain conditions in the health of the movement report, including that the state’s charter schools serve at least 2 percent of the state’s students.

Lastly, it is important to realize that similar policies will play out differently from state to state because of a whole host of local political and policy factors. As advocates, the best that we can do is push for laws that create the conditions for high-quality charter schools by providing, among other things, flexibility, funding equity, non-district authorizers, facilities support, and accountability. And upon their enactment, we need to push equally hard for the implementation conditions that support high-quality charter schools.

Editor’s note: This post originally appeared in a slightly different form on the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools blog.

The views expressed herein represent the opinions of the author and not necessarily the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

New report on Ohio charter school funding

The Fordham Institute released a report this week detailing how Ohio “shortchanges” charter school students. The study, using Ohio funding data from fiscal years 2015–17, revealed that charter schools face massive inequities in funding compared to district schools. The analysis breaks down revenue and expenses statewide and in the cities where most Ohio charters are located. Coverage in the Columbus Dispatch can be found here.  

Online charter school success stories

Two students of Ohio Connections Academy (OCA) recently shared their experiences in the online school. The Marietta Times published an interview with Sarah Yoak, a seventeen year old OCA student who is enrolled in the renowned BalletMet Trainee Program. And the Columbus Dispatch published an op-ed from Jessica Nichols, a fifteen year old OCA student who holds an associate’s degree from Lakeland Community College and expects to graduate from Cleveland State University with a bachelor’s degree next year. Both students discuss how learning online has met their unique needs and how the flexibility has allowed them to follow their dreams.

NAPCS releases model charter school law report

This week, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) released the tenth edition of their report, “Measuring Up to the Model: A Ranking of Public Charter School Laws,” which assesses how well states have aligned their charter school laws to their “gold standard” model charter law. The report discusses how laws have improved across the country and efforts that must be made going forward. Ohio’s ranking remains unchanged at #23. You can view the Ohio-specific results here.

Expect state legislatures to debate charters this year

Marva Hinton recently discussed in Education Week how charter school funding and accountability are likely to be an area of focus for many state legislatures this year. Hinton touches on the issues Ohio and other states have had regarding virtual charter schools, but notes that charter supporters are encouraged by the election of many pro-school choice governors across the country. Added bonus: the story contains a nice picture of Governor Mike DeWine.

Podcast: The state of choice during National School Choice Week

On the latest episode of the Education Gadfly Show, Michael Petrilli and David Griffith of the Fordham Institute sat down with Mike Magee, CEO of Chiefs for Change, and Nina Rees, President and CEO of NAPCS, to discuss National School Choice Week and the many hopeful developments on the charter school front nationwide.

1. We start today with further praise for the Say Yes to Education program, which recently announced Cleveland as its next expansion city. And that praise comes from somewhere other than the PD. The author has not been following the process in forensic detail as has the PD – she seems pretty sad that charter school students who live in *gasp* the ‘burbs will be eligible to participate – and so her take is interesting. It seems to me, dare I say, more skeptical than others. (FreshWater Cleveland, 1/24/19)

2. If you’re like me (sorry if that sounded insulting, y’all), you are regularly asking yourself the question: “What on earth is the OSBA, what do they do exactly, and why do they always speak in unison with BASA and OASBO like they are marionettes operated by a single artist?” That last part of the question remains unanswered here, but the first two items come a bit clearer in this story which notes that Plain Local Schools board member John Halkias is the new president of the Ohio School Boards Association (OSBA). Yay. (Canton Repository, 1/23/19)

3. A performance audit of Woodridge Local Schools in Northeast Ohio identified more than $2 million in potential savings for the district, like these things usually do. The supe did not seem supportive of any of the recommendations, especially in light of the passage of the district’s most recent levy. Wonder what OSBA’s position is on performance audits? (Akron Beacon Journal, 1/23/19)

4. Speaking of support, Ohio’s new governor was talking about his support for career technical education (CTE) this week. The “financial support” pledge seems OK, but I’m more interested in his support for the notion that CTE pathways do not and should not preclude higher education options along the way. I guess that’s what Gongwer means by “moral support”. (Gongwer Ohio, 1/23/19)

5. As my long time Gadfly Bites subscribers know very well, Ohio’s War on Knowing stuff (a.k.a. the Slow-Motion Hit Job on Accountability) has many fronts. Case in point, here we have a belated attack on school and district reports cards as issued by the state. The superintendents of the two lowest-performing districts in Lake County are trying to make the argument that not only are they at least as good—or perhaps even better—performers than the high flyers in their county (you know which ones I mean), but also that the low overall (unfair and unrepresentative) grades they received have harmed them in terms of credibility and funding. Shots fired, right? Of course, whichever components of those same report cards they like (a.k.a. the components on which they did OK) are just fine and dandy. So perhaps it’s just Nerf darts fired. (Willoughby News-Herald, 1/24/19) And let us not overlook the sometimes-forgotten front in the War on Knowing Stuff: the battle against the “unfair” Academic Distress Commission framework. The Community Leadership Coalition on Education in Youngstown expressed its disdain for the local ADC this week, citing—among other things—the district’s enormous legal expenditures as an example of leadership run amok. I know what that money was being spent on, Reverend. Do you? (Youngstown Vindicator, 1/25/19)

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Last week here in Flypaper, I critiqued the RAND Corporation for selectively emphasizing positive and de-emphasizing negative findings of its first-ever randomized control trial of restorative justice.

A few days later on the RAND Blog, the authors defended the presentation of their findings:

Although not mentioned by our critic, we did highlight the presence of negative findings in our reports. We emphasized negative findings in our research brief that was directed to the media, in the executive summary of our larger research report, and in the findings posted on our internet page.

If RAND were a conventional think tank, this matter would be of limited interest. But RAND has earned an august place for its neutral and disinterested analysis, and as such, policymakers are inclined to provide them with a greater presumption of bipartisan deference on a policy initiative such as restorative justice. It is, therefore, important to assess whether that deference is due in this case.

For the reader’s ready reference, here is a bullet-point list of the restorative justice study’s major findings, organized by their appearance in the executive summary/research brief of the RAND report:

1. “Strategies to build program were successful”

A. Teachers reported using affective statements, circles, or conferences

B. High school staff did so less than elementary school staff

2. “Teachers observed that restorative practices improved school climate”

A. Teachers reported better teacher leadership and school leadership

B. Teachers reported better teaching and learning conditions

C. Teachers reported better classroom management

3. “Average suspension rates and disparities in suspension rates were reduced in the restorative practices schools”

A. Suspension rates declined in elementary schools

B. Fewer students were repeatedly suspended

C. Fewer students were transferred to alternative schools

D. Suspension rates for black students, low-income students, and females declined

4. “Restorative Practices did not positively affect all students in the treatment schools”

A. Academic outcomes worsened in middle schools

B. No suspension decline in middle schools

C. No decline in suspension for males, special education students

D. No decline in violence or arrests

5. Findings not mentioned in research brief

A. Academic harm to black students and students at predominantly black schools

B. Student reported deterioration in teacher classroom management

C. Student reported worse peer relationships

It seems noteworthy that, whereas the researchers made a point to disaggregate the suspension findings to point out that suspensions decreased for black students, they did not do the same with academic achievement and point out the decline in black student achievement.

The RAND authors explain the omission by contending that academic effects were of secondary interest compared to suspension effects, and that they had to exercise reasonable discretion in presenting findings spanning “seven outcome domains” in a short research brief.

It is, however, noteworthy that the only outcome domain completely omitted from the research brief was student perceptions, i.e., the fact that students believed that peer-to-peer relations deteriorated and that students believed their teachers’ classroom management skills became worse.

For their part, the researchers earnestly believe that their presentation was fair and balanced.

Readers are encouraged to exercise their own informed judgment.

But all close readers should find the call to action in the last line of the authors’ rebuttal revealing: “We trust that these public servants will join us in the effort to innovate and monitor these programs so that more children can stay in school and all children have the opportunity to learn.”

By calling on policymakers to “join” them in their “effort to innovate and monitor,” it’s clear that, on this issue, RAND sees its role as both promoter and evaluator. Think tanks such as the Center for American Progress on the left and the Heritage Foundation on the right have traditionally assumed a similar dual role. But historically, RAND has earned a position of unique respect for standing above the policy promotion fray by offering disinterested evaluation.

But the authors wear their ideological priors on their sleeves when they define the goal as ensuring “that more children can stay in school.” Such language is adopted straight from the world of advocacy. A more neutral way to express to that policy goal could be “decrease the percentage of students who lose a handful of days of classroom instruction because of bad behavior.”

Other worthwhile policy goals include increasing student achievement and improving classroom climate in the eyes of students. Some might even argue that disciplinary practices are a subordinate means to achieve those primary ends.

It’s disappointing that the RAND research brief omitted those negative findings.

But given the revealing defense offered by the authors, it is unfortunately not at all surprising.

If this era is to become a Golden Age of Educational Practice, we need successful, evidence-based practices—to the extent that they actually exist—to spread far and wide. Many ideas for how to get educators to use such practices are inherently top-down or “supply side” approaches—build tools or products or school models on top of the evidence base, and then market them to schools. Focus a lot on the fidelity of implementation, which also implies engineering solutions that can be implemented in the real world, with real teachers, without making the instructor’s job even harder than today. I will explore all of that in future posts.

But there’s another take on the challenge, one that’s bottom-up and focused on the “demand side.” It’s intuitively appealing, as it builds teacher buy-in from the get-go: It’s about developing a “culture of improvement” in a school or school system.

The basic notion is simple, if tough to actuate: Rather than start with answers—like a new curriculum, or assessment system, or digital learning program—begin with questions. Develop systems and processes that encourage educators to ask: How can we get better at our craft? How can we solve a specific problem that we are seeing in our own classrooms? And how might we team up with similar schools or systems as we embark upon this quest?

This is the approach popularized by Tony Bryk and his colleagues at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. His notion of School Improvement Networks has been embraced by districts far and wide, and is now at the center of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s education strategy. It’s got real momentum.

I encourage you to read up on this approach and decide whether you think it holds promise. It seems clear to me that, in schools and systems with a drive to get better, the Bryk model offers a great structure and process for improvement. Because it has educator engagement at its core, it can overcome the buy-in challenge that is the death of so many other reform efforts. And it can lead to local solutions that make sense for a given school’s context, solutions that deal with the inherent nuance and complexity of instructional practices and the evidence that might inform them.

But can it succeed at helping our schools improve, at a national scale, and in a measurable way? I’d love to be proven wrong, but I have three specific concerns.

The first is perhaps easiest to solve: When educators go looking for solutions, sometimes they end up off track. The best example is around early reading. The Carnegie folks often point to the Literacy Collaborative as a fine model of a school improvement network. And yet, as Core Knowledge advocate Lisa Hansel pointed out in a book review several years ago, that Collaborative has embraced practices that early-reading researchers view with deep suspicion, like the use of “leveled texts.” As Hansel cautioned, “you don’t know what you don’t know.” At the least, we need to figure out how to better marry the “bottom up” zeal of “improvement science” with the top-down expertise of the larger research enterprise. Today there’s a disconnect.

The second and much tougher problem with the “culture of improvement” approach is that it assumes that there are lots of schools or systems out there with the drive to get better. We would all hope for that to be the case—that most superintendents and senior central office staff and principals and teachers wake up every day wondering if there’s something they could do to improve their practices, even a little but maybe a lot. But in my experience, that sort of drive is exceedingly rare, not because there’s something wrong with the people in our education system so much as because of the system itself. After 150 years, it’s big, bureaucratic, creaky, hopelessly fragmented, and risk-adverse. People who have spent time inside it have seen young whippersnappers come and go with all their new ideas for improvement and fresh solutions to old problems. Indeed many of those long-timers were once whippersnappers themselves! But they’ve seen The System, time and again, wear down the change agents, sap their energy, and snap their newfangled practices back to the tried and true.

This cycle breeds cynicism and defeatism, if not despair. It leads people to spend their time going through the motions and putting out fires. It does not provide hospitable ground for leaders willing to ask how their schools might get better at getting better.

Which brings us inexorably to the third problem: the political barriers to change within the system itself. Even with great leaders and administrators, even with a cadre of teachers fired up about finding answers to tough problems, even when better approaches can be identified, there remains the challenge of implementing change within a change-adverse system. Improvement networks can’t wish away collective bargaining agreements, or budget limitations, or the residue of district or state policies, or longstanding (and often cozy) relationships between certain vendors (of curriculum, technology, etc.) and district bureaucrats. Overcoming inertia is hard enough; slaying real vested interests is battle royal.

However, there one sizable sector of American K–12 education where I see promise in the “culture of improvement” approach: charter schools. Here we’ve watched a set of high-quality charter management organizations—like KIPP, Success Academy, Uncommon Schools, and IDEA—build a culture that is serious about continuous improvement. None of those networks has a school model today that is the same as it was ten years ago; they all continue to learn and tweak and evolve, even as they remain focused on their mission of helping students make the steep climb out of poverty and into the middle class. And we also have a crop of new charter schools, every year, with the opportunity and mandate to look around for best practices, to learn from the best of the best, to start with a fresh canvas and fill in the picture with answers to the questions that Bryk et al. (myself included) would like all schools to posit.

Charters have the operational autonomy to think fresh and implement new ideas, free from the usual constraints. And they have a strong incentive, thanks to real accountability, to get better results. They must perform or die.

Maybe I’m overly pessimistic about traditional districts; perhaps there are thousands out there that can use improvement networks to escape the gravitational forces that make change within their schools so difficult. By all means, readers, please tell me about more places that are already proving me wrong.

At the same time, however, I would urge the Tony Bryks and Melinda Gates’s and other boosters of “improvement science” to focus their efforts on the sector best positioned to take this bottom-up reform to scale: our nation’s charter schools, which continue to show a real commitment to getting better at getting better.