- Fordham Ohio is all over this wide-ranging piece on charter schools. It is the personal story of a Cleveland grandmother’s efforts to find the right academic fit for her granddaughter, it is 2015-in-review for statewide charter school policy, and it is a look ahead to charter accountability in 2016 and beyond. CREDO’s 2014 report on Ohio charter school performance, our blockbuster school closure report, Jamie Davies O’Leary’s blog post on Ohio’s past CSP grant winners, and an interview with Chad Aldis are all quoted extensively in the piece, along with several charter critics. (WCPO-TV, Cincinnati, 12/24/15)
- Speaking of Fordham’s blockbuster school closure report, this fascinating opinion piece from a former classroom teacher quotes said blockbuster school closure report while discussing the stormy relationship between teachers unions and charter schools nationwide. (California Political Review, 12/22/15)
- Governor Kasich popped back home last week to sign a passel of bills into law. One of those was a “clean up” of some provisions passed in last year’s state budget. Among other things, the new bill corrected budget language which erroneously delayed access to vouchers for students in three suburban Cleveland private schools. Nice. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 12/24/15)
- Also last week, the Ohio Department of Education announced its new plan for rating charter school sponsors. Some folks fear that the new system makes it impossible for any sponsor to achieve the highest rating, but supporters of the plan say that just gives the ambitious sponsors something to shoot for. We shall see, I suppose. Check out coverage in the PD (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 12/23/15), and the Dispatch. (Columbus Dispatch, 12/24/15)
- “These aren’t the test scores you’re looking for,” seems to be the mantra coming out of several corners of state government in Ohio at the moment. New school report cards are coming soon. They will include information on PARCC test performance and that performance is expected to be low across the board. But thanks to wide-ranging “safe harbor” provisions – and the untimely death of PARCC testing in Ohio – the overriding message is: “Any data that was derived from the test last year, no one should really pay any attention to it.” Whew. Back to obsessing about Star Wars then. (Columbus Dispatch, 12/27/15)
- We finish today with three district-centric pieces. First up, Columbus City Schools is awash in both money and programs intended to mentor students and connect them with post-graduation opportunities. What they were apparently not awash in was high-level folks to actually track either the money or the mentors. Problem solved with a troika of new administrators. Probably help soak up some of that excess funding too. (Columbus Dispatch, 12/24/15)
- I assume that whoever jumped the gun on this story at the ABJ a couple of weeks ago (with a later-retracted headline shouting about a state takeover) is now suitably chastened. Coventry Local Schools holds the record for longest time on state fiscal watch – over 16 years of having extra scrutiny on their bottom line – but it seemed like things were looking up as late as 2013 when a five-year projection showed a balance in the black near the end of the forecast period. Instead, district finances went from sour to rancid and Coventry was placed in fiscal emergency a couple of weeks ago (hence that original hysterical headline, in both senses of the word). Fiscal emergency status comes with both carrot and stick, both of them wielded by State Auditor Dave Yost (sad, this might be the last time we talk about that guy this year) and his team: tons of free accounting help and access to no-interest loans = carrot; the patented Fine-Toothed Comb of Yostness = stick. Sorry if I’m jumping the gun here, folks, but the aforementioned comb appears to have revealed some book cooking well before that 2013 forecast. I’m sure the crack investigators at the ABJ will hound any and all offenders on the front page; bay for blood, prison time, and restitution; and demand the immediate closure of the…. Oh, sorry. That’s only for charter schools. Well, I’m sure they’ll write about it again at some point then. (Akron Beacon Journal, 12/27/15)
- Finally, nothing has changed in terms of the Youngstown Plan. The whole shebang was still stalled over Christmas – and the countdown clock for CEO-appointment paused – due to the ongoing legal wrangling over the definition of “teacher”. Editors in Youngstown opined in anger over the weekend over this sorry state of affairs. (Youngstown Vindicator, 12/27/15)
