- Sorry to have missed this on Friday, but the Cincinnati Enquirer covered the State Auditor’s report on charter school attendance, including a reaction from our own Chad Aldis…and a thoroughly predictable headline. (Cincinnati Enquirer)
- Editors in Columbus put the charter attendance report in a bit of perspective this weekend while opining on all of the other big-ticket items they feel the state legislature needs to tackle in regard to education this session. Fordham’s recent reports proposing changes to charter law are referenced. (Columbus Dispatch)
- You can tell a lot by a newspaper headline. This fascinating piece on school funding in Ohio comes with a giant caveat right in the headline. The Ohio Education Policy Institute plays a game of “what if” with property tax millage in districts across the state, determining that there are a number of affluent districts who could show more “effort” in funding themselves. What’s the caveat? These affluent individuals already pay a ton in state income tax which goes to districts not their own. It’s a different way of looking at school funding that will not likely be shared by many other folks. Most especially not by those affluent folks upon whom the exercise rests. (Columbus Dispatch)
- The Enquirer took a look at the EdChoice Scholarship program over the weekend. Probably not in honor of the start of National School Choice Week (despite what they say), seeing as how they chose to trot out the old saw that the large “gap” between number of vouchers available and number of vouchers in use means that vouchers aren’t really needed. Usage is usage. Having a cap that’s too close to the level of interest creates waiting lists and anxiety and even may limit some private schools from offering seats in fear of a student being denied when the cap is reached. What Ohio should really do to see what the market will bear is to directly inform the tens of thousands of eligible students ahead of the February 1 opening of this year’s application period. (Cincinnati Enquirer)
- Austintown City Schools now enrolls more students than neighboring Youngstown City Schools, supposedly because of the influx of Y’town kids open enrolling into Austintown. That old bugbear “academic distress” designation probably doesn’t help matters either. Happy School Choice Week indeed. (Youngstown Vindicator)
