COMPILER’S NOTE: Gadfly Bites is back from its summer break. Today, a recap of Fordham In the News pieces published over the last ten days. Regular publication schedule restarts tomorrow, August 19.
- More than a half-dozen Gannett outlets (including the Cincinnati Enquirer) carried a story last week looking at the status of charter school law reform in Ohio – stalled – and suggesting possible reasons for the hold up of what had been a bipartisan push to improve charters in Ohio. Well, really only one reason is touted. Our own Chad Aldis is quoted in response to that key assertion: “I think to suggest (contributions) had an effect is only speculation… Members in both parties get lots of campaign contributions from lots of people.” Lawmakers interviewed insist they want to make sure the bill is right before passing it. (Zanesville Times-Recorder, 8/8/15)
- Fordham’s Kathryn Mullen Upton is quoted – and Fordham’s charter sponsorship portfolio is summarized – in this piece regarding what is called “rampant uncertainty” in the charter school world in Ohio. The piece lumps together a number of separate issues (sponsor ratings, audit findings against individual schools, sponsor accountability, the aforementioned stalled bill, etc.) in order to build a case that some schools’ futures are being adversely affected. This is a good point, but would be more aptly termed “rampant negative publicity”. “Uncertain” is the last category in which you would find most of those writing about charter schools in the media. (Dayton Daily News, 8/9/15)
- Ohio Governor John Kasich is running for president, in case you’d missed it. In the wake of the first GOP candidate debate in Cleveland – in which Kasich took part – columnist Margaret Lavin of the San Mateo County Times took a look at the candidates’ individual records on education. Of course, a state governor will have more content in his or her record on the issue than a senator or a business person. For Kasich, that includes the above-mentioned charter school issues. Two Fordham-commissioned reports on charter schools in Ohio released late last year are namechecked in Ms. Lavin’s piece, as is Kasich’s now-familiar response to them: "We are going to fix the lack of regulation on charter schools. There is no excuse for people coming in here and taking advantage of anything. So we will be putting some tough rules into our budget." While some of those tough rules did become law via the state budget, many more are part of the stalled bill noted in the two items above. (San Mateo County Times, 8/10/15)
- In other news, the Vindy dug into the so-called “Youngstown Plan”, comparing it to a similar state takeover in Newark, New Jersey twenty years ago. Our own Mike Petrilli is quoted heavily in the piece, noting that local buy-in and support of the incoming district CEO will be essential to success in Youngstown, something that folks in Newark still have not experienced. (Youngstown Vindicator, 8/9/15)
- Aaron Churchill penned a guest commentary on the topic of school closure, published in the PD. In it, he notes that closing chronically underperforming schools can open up pathways to new and better options for students, as the findings of our recent study show. Nice. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 8/9/15)
