1. In case you didn’t know it, discussion of Ohio’s graduation requirements is still front-burner stuff for some folks. Here is coverage of this week’s meeting of the State Superintendent's Advisory Committee on same, in which it looks like there is—still, and inexplicably—appetite for getting rid of test-based graduation requirements completely and permanently. Oh wait. Perhaps there is an explanation in here: “The juniors last year took [tests] lightly because they knew they were going to have these options and now they're freaking out [because] the options are not there. Schools are panicking, too.” Those are the words of one Cleveland Metropolitan School District principal, who addressed the committee without, I imagine, a trace of irony. Do tell, your honor. Do tell. (Gongwer Ohio, 8/16/18) I don’t usually clip bald-faced political grandstanding, but there is an instructive quote in this piece looking at a Lorain event which sought to use the demise of ECOT as a political battering ram ahead of November’s elections. “Whenever ECOT wouldn’t perform well instead of the state saying, ‘How are you going to hold yourself accountable?’ They just threw out the performance reports instead.” It has resonance with the CMSD quote, if you ask me. Do you see it too? (Elyria Chronicle, 8/17/18) If that doesn’t have enough resonance for you, how about this one? “I think so many times we underestimate what students can do. Our hearts tell us to be a little more protective – I’m not sure they can reach that level or handle that kind of work. But time and time again as I go across the state talking to teachers, I find that their socks are blown off because kids are always are able to exceed even the highest expectations we set.” Who is the wise-sounding speaker of these words? Our State Superintendent. Which brings us right back to our top story today. If you believe that, sir, then why not walk the walk with regard to graduation requirements? (Dayton Daily News, 8/17/18)
    
2. Back to the topic of the ECOT-shaped boogeyman for a moment, here is a brief note that the penultimate court challenge which the former school has been mounting will not be heard by the Ohio Supreme Court. Only one more court case to go, it seems. (Columbus Dispatch, 8/15/18) Maybe with their ECOT-free docket, the Ohio Supremes might find time to deal with something sports-related. To wit: the first lawsuit over the Ohio High School Athletic Association’s “competitive balance” rules is currently percolating in Hamilton County district court. My dedicated Gadfly Bites subscribers (one of us! one of us!) will recall that “competitive balance” is an effort to deal with the realities of non-district students (charter school students, private schools students with and without vouchers, homeschoolers, and online school students) who were made eligible to play on district teams several years ago. The plaintiffs are a group of Catholic schools who have a concern as to fairness. I think. It’s about sports, so I skimmed. (WCPO-TV, Cincinnati, 8/15/18) And speaking of sports, the outgoing president of the Ohio High School Athletic Association opined recently that sportsmanship is on the decline in high school sports as he sees it. Here is a somewhat less-than-rosy (if you ask me) concurrence on that opinion from several longtime Akron and Canton area athletic officials. (The Suburbanite, 8/16/18).
    
3. If the foregoing clips are an indication, there is apparently quite a bit wrong in education in Ohio. Maybe none of it is fixable, even. Perhaps that explains why the Toledo Blade’s editorial board this week excoriated the failing public education system…in Michigan. (Toledo Blade, 8/15/18)
    

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In reading Dale Chu’s recent Flypaper column entitled “The endangered, reform-oriented district chief,” I was struck by his post mortem concerning the era of strong school district leadership.

The analysis is spot on, I'd argue, with one major exception. He presented a solid list of reform superintendents, starting with Denver’s Tom Boasberg, who recently announced his departure, and listed his contemporaries who once served in other big cities, including “Joel Klein, Dwight Jones, Michelle Rhee, Terry Grier, Andres Alonso, and Mike Miles, among others.”

In referring to all of them in the past tense, Chu lamented: “Visionary superintendents in this mold are getting harder and harder to find. At a moment when states and districts arguably need braver leaders than ever before, why have they gone into hiding?”

My challenge is in the case of Mike Miles, former superintendent of Dallas Independent School District, whose systemic reforms were so effective they continue to benefit students and teachers long after he is gone.

But rather than putting his head down since leaving what Chu describes as the “hot seat,” he instead stuck his neck out. He went from high-impact district superintendent to brazen charter school entrepreneur with the experience, motivation, and backing to grow a school network as large as he desires. He’s begun that work.

Chu observes these former chiefs keeping their heads down, which may apply to some, but the opposite is true with Miles. Indeed, his work is more stealth these days, and smartly so, because he is letting his results do all the talking.

A year ago he opened the doors to The Academy of Advanced Learning, a charter school based in Aurora, Colorado, that is quietly making history. While Miles has been perfectly content to get no buzz about it, this secret is getting increasingly hard to keep.

His under-the-radar approach takes nothing away, and perhaps contributed to, the school’s wholesale success in its first year. He designed and launched a school with the following features:

Family-friendly school structure: Serving a 70 percent low-income population, the doors of his school are open from 6:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. every day to accommodate and actively engage these hardworking families. This is a smash hit with the community, causing the school to exceed it’s ambitious enrollment projections—expecting 420 and ending up with 500 at the opening of the school. Just one year later, enrollment is over 700.

All teachers are high-performing teachers: He threw out the traditional teacher pay schedule to which most districts are bound by collective bargaining agreements. However, in favor of paying highly effective teachers much more than the local market, Miles created a differentiated pay structure based on individual employee value propositions. In this way, he attracts the best talent, which shows in student outcomes.

A Year 2030 curriculum: Not waiting for the state or nation to realize that it needs to revise standards, Miles is deliberately raising expectations for what students have to know and be able to do. Information literacy and problem solving are mandatory classes for his fourth through eighth graders.

A novel governance system: Miles’s system is the only one in the nation with a checks and balances governance model that ensures effectiveness and keeps the system focused on student needs.

All students can and will learn: He is delivering on his commitment to major gains in academic growth, with nearly two year's growth in one year's time in both reading and math, according to year-one NWEA assessment data.

The real breakthrough is that Miles has seemingly cracked the code on serving this population, achieving extreme academic gains in the first year of the school, and having opened the school at full scale and capacity with 500 K–6 students.

Other rigorous charter schools have realized this level of gains by scaling up slowly, adding one or two grades each year. The implications for Miles having figured out how to attract and retain effective teachers and lead a full-scale school start-up, all while achieving impressive student outcomes, could define the next frontier of systemic education reform.

Slowly but surely—masterfully and methodically—Miles is either reinventing the education system, or arguably building a brand new one, one successful school at a time. That is a far cry from hiding out or retreating. He is quietly pressing forward in the most pronounced and powerful of ways. Rather than asking for permission, or seeking attention, he is just doing the work.

Chu’s overall point is correct. There is a severe lack of school board members and education chiefs who dare to walk into the headwinds of resistance—and too many who believe that slow, incremental progress is an acceptable path forward.

Combatting this unfortunate lull in leadership is Mike Miles—now outside the district structure—busy proving his innovative model, acting with urgency, and delivering educational excellence to underserved students and families. He not only remains on the battlefield, but he never left. If anyone is looking for him, you can find him on the front lines.

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

The Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren/Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wing of the Democratic Party hasn’t won a lot of primaries this summer, but time may be on their side. (Well, Sanders himself will soon turn seventy-eight and may not want to wait…) So one can infer from an alarming survey of young Americans between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four undertaken a few months back by the University of Chicago’s GenForward project. As summarized by the Chicago Tribune’s inimitable Steve Chapman, “49 percent in this group hold a favorable opinion of capitalism—and 45 percent have a positive view of socialism. Socialism gets higher marks than capitalism from Hispanics, Asian-Americans, and African-Americans. Sixty-one percent of Democrats take a positive view of socialism—and so do 25 percent of Republicans. (emphasis his)”

This peek into a possible sea change in the country’s economic future grows considerably more alarming when we pause to note what some energetic socialist writers are saying about America itself and about our fundamental political structure. Consider the stunning—no, appalling—column in the New York Times last week by two staffers from the socialist magazine Jacobin.

“[T]he subversion of democracy,” they wrote, citing Madison and Federalist No. 10 as exhibit A, “was the explicit intent of the Constitution’s framers.” “The byzantine Constitution he helped create,” they continued, “serves as the foundation for a system of government that rules over people, rather than an evolving tool for popular self-government…. These perspectives are vital at a time when many progressives regard the Constitution as our only line of defense against a would-be autocrat in the White House.” In its place, they seek “a new political system that truly represents Americans. Our ideal should be a strong federal government powered by a proportionally elected unicameral legislature.”

That’s not just socialism as an alternative economic regimen. It’s an entire “new political system.” And it’s madness.

Which brings us to education, particularly the imperative for schools to deliver a thorough and proper education in civics, history, philosophy, and economics—and the capacity for deep reading and critical thinking that might help readers grasp the depth of the lunacy that we see here. One need not emerge from school and college in love with capitalism or democracy, and it’s the job of schools and colleges to present other ways of organizing economies and systems of governance, but it’s also the obligation of schools to build strong foundations under tomorrow’s citizens. Those foundations include—as the social studies crowd likes to put it—“deep and enduring understandings, concepts, and skills from the disciplines. Social studies emphasizes skills and practices as preparation for democratic decision-making.”

How and why did the U.S. Constitution come about? Why was such a document needed? How does the political and governmental framework that it created differ from those that it replaced—both the Articles of Confederation and George III’s monarchy? How to compare the pros and cons of each?

Why were the Federalist Papers written, and what are their messages? According to most scholars, the central point of No. 10—perhaps the most famous of them all—was to explain the need for a strong central government to mediate and contain the dangers posed by factions, a problem that the several states—and the Confederation—had failed to solve. Madison allowed as how—lots of folks are recalling this today—the occasional bad apple might slip into the governmental barrel, even get elected to high office, but constitutional democracy was the surest hedge against this happening very often—and to limiting the damage when it did.

To charge Madison and his colleagues with contriving to subvert the very democratic system they were creating and defending is ahistorical madness. And it’s the solemn responsibility of our schools to educate young Americans in ways that enable them to recognize that—and reject it.

As for socialism, any decent world history or comparative economics curriculum will include a close look at places where it’s actually been tried—and how well that did or didn’t work. Where an authoritarian government forces it upon a society, it seems to work for a while, but in time it leads to repression, famine, political prisoners, and a more or less total collapse of human rights. A truly “socialist” society—in which everything gets decided “democratically”—eventually, even axiomatically, brings corruption and tyranny.

Madison understood that, too, and so should young Americans by the time they’ve completed a proper K–12 education. They would also do well to understand—as the writer Jonah Goldberg expertly points out in a powerful and troubling new book—that democratic capitalism has bequeathed riches upon America and much of the world beyond the founders’ wildest dreams. That fact doesn’t necessarily point us toward either more government and redistribution of resources, as the left wants, or less of both, as the right wants. But surely we should teach our kids how full-on socialism has ended whenever and wherever it’s been imposed.

Educators have rightfully complained for ages that the professional development (PD) that they typically receive in school districts is next to useless. And countless studies have shown that most forms of PD fail to help teachers improve.

A new meta-analysis by Brown University’s Matthew Kraft and colleagues tries to separate the empirical wheat from the chaff by examining the causal evidence (only) for one PD model that is very popular in schools: teacher coaching. They define coaching programs broadly as in-service PD where coaches or peers observe teachers’ instruction and provide feedback to help them improve. More specifically, coaching is an instructional expert working with teachers to discuss classroom practice in a way that is (a) individualized—coaching sessions are one-on-one; (b) intensive—coaches and teachers interact at least every two weeks; (c) sustained—teachers receive coaching over an extended period of time; (d) context specific—teachers are coached on their practices within the context of their own classroom; and (e) focused—coaches work with teachers to engage in deliberate practice of specific skills. They exclude teacher preparation and school-based teacher induction programs.

They identify sixty studies of teacher coaching programs, including fifty-five in the United States and five in Chile and Canada. Each had a causal research design (mostly randomized controlled trials), as well as examined the effects of coaching on both instruction and achievement. All of the included studies were published during or before 2017, met the coaching definition summarized above, and took place in early childhood through grade twelve settings.

Data sources included a range of standardized test scores, data from classroom observation instruments that captured teachers’ pedagogical practices, and measures of teacher-student interactions, student engagement, and classroom climate. The meta-analysis leveraged increased statistical power by pooling results across multiple studies.

In a nutshell, analysts find pooled effect sizes of 0.49 standard deviations (SD) on instruction and 0.18 SD on achievement. They find no statistically significant effects on student achievement for general coaching programs, but do find them for content-specific programs (0.20 SD), positing that the former are often focused less on helping teachers improve test scores. Further, coaching was equally effective at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Surprisingly, they did not find significant differences in effect sizes for coaching programs that were delivered in-person versus virtually, although the latter data are less reliable. They also fail to find evidence that coaching must be “high dosage” to be effective. Finally, their results show that the average effects from larger programs are only a fraction of those found in smaller programs. Specifically, in comparing programs with fewer than one hundred teachers to those that exceed that number, they find diminishing effects as programs are taken to the larger scale.

Thankfully, some teachers have not completely soured on the power of professional development, done right, to help them improve. And we’ve heard for years that PD can be much better than it’s traditionally been, as long as it is content-based, collaborative, sustained, supportive, and so on. But those are simple words that are hard to put into effective practice. That’s why the report’s major recommendation—based in both rigorous science and common sense—is so helpful: “It may be that coaching is best utilized as a targeted program with a small corps of expert coaches working with willing participants and committed schools rather than as a district-wide PD program.” Yes, yes indeed—this former teacher agrees. That very well may be.

SOURCE: Matthew A. Kraft et al., “The Effect of Teacher Coaching on Instruction and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence,” Review of Educational Research (August 2018).

A new American Institutes for Research report takes an in-depth look at Texas’s dual-credit programs, which allow high school students to enroll in a college-level course and receive simultaneous academic credit from both their high school and a college. This is the second phase of a two-year study. The first phase was conducted by RAND, and is currently in the midst of a public comment period that the authors plan to use to shape “practical policy recommendations.” The analysis focuses primarily on “traditional” dual-credit education programs delivered by community colleges, which means that academic dual-credit courses are offered through regular high schools, not early-college high schools.

Texas is an ideal state to conduct such a study because its dual-credit landscape has grown dramatically. From 2000 to 2016, the number of high schoolers taking at least one dual-credit course rose from 18,524 to 204,286, an increase of more than 1,100 percent. There are two reasons for this growth: First, state legislation has made it easier for more students to participate. Second, colleges and universities have taken advantage of expanding access by promoting dual-credit as a strategy to improve college access and completion.

The phase-two report is a whopping five chapters, but this particular review will focus only on the first, which contains quantitative analysis of three research questions: Which factors contributed to racial and ethnic disparities in dual-credit participation? To what extent did dual-credit education increase college enrollment, credential attainment, and efficient degree completion? And what changes in dual-credit participation, success, and delivery have occurred since the passage of the state’s HB 505, which in 2015 removed limitations on the number of dual-credit courses a student may take during high school and during each academic year, and expanded dual-credit access to ninth and tenth grade students?

To answer these questions, the authors tracked Texas public school students through high school and into public colleges or universities in the state using databases from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) and the Texas Education Agency (TEA), as well as data from the National Student Clearinghouse.

RAND’s phase-one report documented disparities in dual-credit participation across race and ethnicity and mainly found that white and Asian students had higher participation rates than their black and Hispanic peers. The phase-two report seeks to build on these findings by using descriptive analyses to assess how six different factors could have contributed to these gaps, including: access to dual-credit across high schools; academic preparation as measured by scores on state math and reading achievement tests in the eighth grade; income as measured by eligibility for free or reduced price lunch (FRPL); access to alternative forms of advanced coursework like Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate courses; access to tuition and fee waivers; and the type of high school a student attended.

Overall, the analyses suggest that if underrepresented minorities were equally prepared academically, had similar incomes to, and attended similar schools as white students—schools that are well-resourced, actively promote dual-credit opportunities, and do a good job of academic preparation—then gaps in dual-credit participation would be quite small.

The phase-one report focused on data from before the implementation of HB 505, but the phase-two report examines changes in student participation and outcomes, as well as dual-credit course delivery post-HB 505. Results show that the overall participation rate held relatively steady, while participation among ninth and tenth graders increased significantly from 1 percent to 2.1 percent for ninth graders and from 2.7 percent to 4.3 percent for tenth graders. Course offerings also remained about the same, with the most common courses being English composition, government, history, economics, and college algebra. The percentage of courses that were taught face-to-face and on college campuses held steady, as did the share of courses that were academic versus part of a career and technical education program. Results show little evidence that the academic preparation of dual-credit participants changed overall; participants scored above the statewide average on eight grade math and reading standardized tests before and after HB 505. But the academic preparation of ninth and tenth graders declined even though they continued to score above average. The data also show slightly higher grades in dual-credit courses since HB 505, especially for ninth graders. Because the academic preparation of ninth and tenth graders has declined, the authors suspect that instructors lowered standards to prevent success rates from dropping.

Although the initial study found that dual-credit students had higher college enrollment rates after they graduated from high school and were significantly more likely to persist in and complete college than students who did not participate, it did not determine whether these benefits were directly attributable to their participation in dual-credit programs or another factor. To answer this question, the authors designed a quasi-experimental analysis to compare outcomes for similar students with the only difference being access to and enrollment in dual-credit courses. They controlled for observable student characteristics such as race and ethnicity, FRPL eligibility, eighth grade standardized test scores, and differences across high schools. Results confirmed that dual-credit participants enjoyed better outcomes than non-participants, but the differences on a variety of outcomes were driven by self-selection—unobservable characteristics of students who enrolled in dual-credit programs. Indeed, self-selection caused most of the observable differences between participants and non-participants when it came to high school completion, college enrollment rates, and college completion rates. There was also no increase in college completion at two- or four-year colleges among black and Hispanic students, though participation did increase enrollment at two-year colleges. And participation created large negative effects on most outcomes for students who were FRPL eligible—a result the authors say is likely due to lower academic preparation levels among low-income students.

Unsurprisingly, the data show that students with better academic preparation benefit more from their participation in dual-credit programs. And although dual-credit participation improved a variety of student outcomes on average, the causal impact analysis shows that the effects are far more modest than previous reports—including the phase-one report—suggest. The upshot is that dual-credit serves academically prepared kids really well. Kids who aren’t as well prepared? Maybe not.

SOURCE: Trey Miller et al., “Dual-Credit Education Programs in Texas: Phase II,” American Institutes for Research (July 2018).

1. Our own Chad Aldis was a guest on All Sides yesterday, talking about the moldering corpse of ECOT and trying to get folks to understand what the real lessons of this story are. I’m not sure anyone on the panel was listening. (WOSU-FM, Columbus, 8/14/18)
    
2. Soon to feature on All Sides I daresay, is this new report on school funding from the Ohio Education Policy Institute. I won’t tell you the findings, because I think you can guess that they are the same as every one of their previous reports on school funding. But, hey Chad, are you available for the show? (Columbus Dispatch, 8/14/18)
    
3. Speaking of money, here are some things that schools are (and are not) spending their precious funding on these days. First up: metal detectors and school security personnel are must-haves for districts with money. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 8/14/18) Transportation for students who attend private schools, not so much. At least not in Beavercreek. (Dayton Daily News, 8/14/18) Finally, for the school district that has everything, including lots of extra cash, there’s the new and nifty Lu system—a flashy (and pricey) gaming system or “interactive playground” that integrates gym and academics. Wrap it up, darling. I’ll take it! (Columbus Dispatch, 8/13/18)
    
4. Meanwhile, the Cleveland Cavaliers organization, teaming up with Firestone, announced this week it will provide $500,000 to Akron City Schools over the next five years to beef up STEM education efforts in the district. Nice. (Akron Beacon Journal, 8/14/18)
    
5. Finally today, things have been very quiet in Youngstown over the summer. But the summer is nearly over and so some great-sounding back-to-school events for students, staff, and families. are in the offing. All of them are, this piece tells us, aligned with the district’s turnaround plan. Sounds right. (Vindy, 8/15/18) No word on whether any members of the elected school board will attend any of those back-to-school events. But if this piece is anything to go by, they are probably much too busy with their endless court fight against the law that created the CEO-style Academic Distress Commission (under whose aegis their district operates due to longstanding suckitude) to go to any wingdings. (Gongwer Ohio, 8/13/18)
    

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Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in a slightly different form on CenterPoint Education Solutions’ blog.

There is no doubt that the quality of instructional materials makes a real difference in schools and classrooms (see a great roundup of recent studies in Ashley Berner’s recent blog post here). We know we are unlikely to achieve the real power of those materials—and their potential to help educators serve all students—until we invest in building the capacity of educators to understand and implement those materials with integrity.

Learning Forward’s recent whitepaper, High-quality curricula and team-based professional learning: A perfect partnership for equity, explores how team-based inquiry cycles offer teachers meaningful, frequent opportunities to dive deep into the academic content of the materials they use with students along with the resources and context essential to supporting such learning.

We have long advocated for job-embedded collaborative professional learning for educators, as outlined in the Standards for Professional Learning. Policy at the national level in the U.S. offers an exciting lever for advancing effective professional learning with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which includes a definition of professional learning aligned with these standards. The definition states that professional development is “sustained (not stand-alone, one-day, or short-term workshops), intensive, job-embedded, data-driven, and classroom-focused,” essential elements to ensuring teachers have time to study and implement high-quality materials. (See the full ESSA definition here.)

As I consider starting points for how schools and districts might plan their professional learning to align with the ESSA definition, particularly related to understanding and using instructional materials, I’d suggest these key shifts:

With each research study and example of effective use of materials, we more fully understand how much curriculum matters. I’m determined that professional learning always go hand-in-hand with robust academic materials so each student has the opportunity to experience great teaching every day. As schools and school systems make these shifts, educators will have the support they need to use data about what their students need to set their own learning goals and learning agendas. These educators, through their learning, will come to each class equipped with knowledge about the materials their students are using and with the instructional strategies required to adapt materials for the particular students they serve.

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

It’s no secret that teaching kids how to read is extremely important. Research shows that children who don’t read proficiently by the end of third grade are four times more likely to leave school without a diploma than proficient readers. And statistics on the impact of adult illiteracy are staggering: Low literacy costs the U.S. approximately $225 billion each year in crime, non-productivity in the workforce, and lost tax revenue due to unemployment.

The abundance of research on the importance of early literacy is the driving force behind policies like Ohio’s Third Grade Reading Guarantee. Under the guarantee, third graders who are unable to meet a minimum score on the state reading test are retained in third grade (with some exceptions) so they can receive extra support. The effectiveness of this policy depends greatly on the reading instruction that students receive, which in turn depends significantly on how well educators have been prepared to teach foundational reading concepts.

Although there’s no shortage of information about how best to teach reading—the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) released an important set of recommendations in July 2016, for example—teacher preparation programs aren’t necessarily integrating these methods into their training and development efforts. The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) has been evaluating the rigor and effectiveness of teacher training for years, and their teacher prep reviews include deep dives into early reading. They recently added to their impressive research portfolio with a small and concentrated data release that examines how states are pushing teacher prep programs to adopt reading instruction methods like those recommended by IES. Specifically, NCTQ considers whether states have a rigorous licensure test that evaluates prospective elementary and special education teachers’ mastery of evidence-based methods for teaching reading. (Special education teachers are included because reading disabilities are the primary reason that students are referred for special education services.)

According to NCTQ, the vast majority of states don’t require a sufficient test on the science of reading. Ohio, however, meets and even exceeds the bar. It’s one of only eleven states that require elementary and special education candidates to pass a high-quality test—which in Ohio’s case is called Foundations of Reading, and is part of the Ohio Assessments for Educators (OAE) licensure program for candidates seeking an initial state teaching license. Foundations of Reading is a computer-based assessment that comprises two written response questions and one hundred multiple choice questions covering four areas: 1) foundations of reading development; 2) development of reading comprehension; 3) reading assessment and instruction; and 4) integration of knowledge and understanding, which includes the written response questions. 

NCTQ also recommends that states “increase transparency regarding licensure assessment passage rates.” For the most part, Ohio does this, too. Its Department of Higher Education publishes educator performance reports each year that publicize statewide data on Ohio’s traditional teacher preparation, as well as individual reports on both public and private institutions.

Yet the Buckeye State falls short here in at least one important respect: The 2017 report, despite including passage rates for almost every OAE licensure test, is missing data on the Foundations of Reading assessment. It’s not clear why the test—required for eleven different teaching licenses, including every core subject license that’s offered in elementary and middle childhood education—was left off the list, but it’s a serious oversight that the state should remedy in this year’s report.

Overall, though, Ohioans should be proud of how their state prepares educators to teach reading. Its rigorous licensing requirements help ensure that teachers understand early literacy and the best methods for teaching it—knowledge and skills that are vital for effective instruction.

1. The list of individuals whose personal wallets the state can tap to claw back funds from the moldering and far-more-extensive-than-you-might-have-though remains of ECOT seems nearly endless when you read this piece. The attorney general (and his successor too, I imagine) is drawing up a list. Fordham’s own Chad Aldis sounds a little skeptical of this approach. I certainly wouldn’t blame him if he were. (Columbus Dispatch, 8/10/18)
    
2. The topic of chronic absenteeism in brick and mortar schools is tangentially related to the above, of course. But let’s leave behind the “active learner” nuance and return to the more familiar business of “butts in seats”. New-ish rules about tracking and reporting chronic absenteeism (hours missed vs. full days) have got some schools and districts working hard to intervene before certain butts are out of seats for too long. The most interesting thing here, as usual, is the difference between urban and suburban districts, especially in terms of why kids are absent. (Dayton Daily News, 8/13/18)
    
3. Speaking of school districts with a history of attendance tracking problems, here’s a nice profile of the central enrollment center in Columbus City Schools. Looks great, cost a bunch, and took five years to get this far. Kudos to former supe Dan Good, I guess. As a bonus, the D got an opportunity to take a swipe at a charter school in the process. Although, thinking about it, if the charter school in question had just a fraction of the taxpayer money that this enrollment center cost to build out, it could have built a gym and Mom wouldn’t have had any reason to visit the enrollment center at all. And don’t forget that she didn’t leave the center with a school she liked anyway. So, yeah. Kudos, gang. (Columbus Dispatch, 8/12/18)
    
4. The superintendent of Canton City Schools published a commentary piece in the Rep this weekend on the topic of student discipline and used his own youthful misanthropy and misbehavior as a frame. Times are a-changing, aren’t they, yerhonor? (Canton Repository, 8/12/18) Meanwhile, down south, the superintendent of Cincinnati City Schools was proselytizing like an education evangelist. Columnist Byron McCauley’s depiction of her speech laying out the future aims of the district (college, military, or workforce for her graduates) is an equally thrilling read. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 8/10/18)
    
5. Out in the central ‘burbs, Dublin City Schools last week cut the ribbon on its new Emerald Campus. It’s not a school, per se, but a centralized location for a number of programs and services such as College Credit Plus courses, some special needs classrooms, and CTE programs. Appropriately to that last item, a robot actually did the ribbon cutting. (Columbus Dispatch, 8/10/18)
    
6. Finally today, here is a very novel argument against state testing. Or at least, the scheduling of it. From our good friends in Lorain County. (Elyria Chronicle, 8/12/18)
    

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Since the inception of Ohio’s charter school program in 1998, gallons of ink have been spilled documenting the missteps of a few charter operators. The most highly scrutinized have been the for-profit operators White Hat Management (R.I.P.), along with Altair Management and IQ Innovations, the companies with whom the felled ECOT contracted.

Unfortunately, the high-profile controversies surrounding these for-profit (and politically active) titans have stoked a narrative that paints all charters as “corporatizers” out to make a buck. With politicians routinely using this storyline to score political points, this notion has been amplified further. Just this week Ohio Democratic Chair David Pepper released a statement calling the state home to a “corrupt for-profit charter school system.”

There is no excuse for either corporate cronyism or government corruption. But these for-profit tall tales fail to tell the whole truth about charter schools. Let’s review the key points.

First, it’s inaccurate to call charter schools for-profits. Just like most museums, libraries, and hospitals, charter schools are organized as nonprofit organizations. In Ohio, all charter schools are officially considered public benefit corporations, which under state law must be a nonprofit entity. Moreover, charter schools are public schools—and, again, state law makes this abundantly clear: “A community school [a.k.a. a charter school] created under this chapter is a public school.” As public schools, charters do not charge tuition, are open to all students, and are held accountable for results using the same report card system as districts. Charter governing boards have the ability—should they so choose—to contract with management companies (or “operators”), some of which are for-profits. Though charter boards may hire (and can subsequently fire) for-profit organizations to run their daily operations, the schools themselves are always nonprofit.

Second, while for-profit operators grab the headlines, the large majority of charters do not contract with such entities. According to 2016–17 data from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, just 28 percent of Ohio charters contracted with for-profit management companies. Instead, most were either managed by non-profits (26 percent) or were completely independent schools with no management company at all (46 percent). Considering this breakdown, it’s an exaggeration (if not worse) to characterize Ohio as a “for-profit charter school system.”

Third, charter schools’ ability to contract with private organizations, including for-profits, is not unique to the charter sector. In fact, it happens all the time in government. For instance, Ohio districts spend millions on products produced by for-profit corporations—anything from textbooks (Pearson or Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), electronic hardware (iPads and Chromebooks), food services (Sodexo), and transportation services (Blue Bird). Of course, it’s not just educational institutions that contract with big  business; agencies such as the U.S. Department of Defense and the City of Columbus regularly contract with private companies to get the people’s business done.

Fourth, some critics have pointed to Altair’s Bill Lager as the worst sort of “crony capitalist” who abuses taxpayer funds for personal gain, and that’s not an unfair depiction. But let’s be clear: He does not represent the typical charter leader. The ones that I know are dedicated individuals who, while likely reasonably compensated, aren’t living in the lap of luxury. Rather, most charter leaders—whether a founder of a successful management organization or a school principal—are motivated by a deep desire to improve the educational outcomes of children, many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Just like those working in district schools, the vast majority of charter leaders work passionately to serve the families and children in their communities.   

Fifth, portraying all for-profit operators as low performers is misleading. Although this could be said of Altair and White Hat, there are also responsible, educationally sound for-profit management companies. Perhaps the most notable is the National Heritage Academies (NHA), which, according to a rigorous study undertaken by University of Michigan researchers, produced significant gains in math in its Michigan-based charters. Research from CREDO corroborates the positive effects of NHA schools across the nation, including the half-dozen or so in Ohio. It’s true that many of the finest charter management companies are non-profits, including well-known national outfits such as KIPP and Uncommon Schools, along with Ohio’s own Breakthrough Network, the Graham Schools, and United Schools Network. Nevertheless, the profit status of an operator doesn’t necessarily determine its ability to deliver a high-quality education.

The follies of a few of Ohio’s for-profit operators have left many people understandably angry. Throughout the years, we at Fordham have consistently pushed back when they’ve tried to use their political muscle to weaken accountability measures. We’ve also successfully advocated for reforms that enable charter boards to make key governing decisions independent of operators (as well as empower boards to separate from them should the need arise). The forces of competition and an improved accountability framework have taken their toll on the most notorious for-profit operators. Despite this bitter experience, we should continue to remain agnostic about the ways in which schools organize themselves. Great schools can be district schools governed by publicly elected boards, nonprofit charters that contract with management companies, or private schools, some of which have religious affiliations. Ultimately, organizational design should be left to school leaders. What matters most is that children receive a world-class education.