Report card success = student success
Here’s a great look at Zanesville Community School. The dropout recovery charter school’s report card is touted here as “perfect”, but school officials are quick to point out that behind the numbers and the ratings are real students; students who needed help. We even get to hear from several of those students who had been ill-served by previous schools or whose personal situations made a traditional school a bad fit. “Our goal,” says principal Jeff Moore, “is to help them succeed so they can have a better life.” An excellent story needing to be told.
Widespread failure
Meanwhile, in Columbus, district officials seem unable to explain to the Dispatch why charter school families continue to face a litany of transportation failures every day even after nearly two months of the school year has passed. There seems to be no end in sight.
Important program in Cleveland
Linda Howard, a former teen mother in Cleveland, has created a program she calls “Kiddspantry” to provide the kind of support for new young moms she wished she would have had long ago. She brings her wraparound services and free baby supplies directly to the community in various venues around Cleveland, including Broadway Academy. Principal Donna Baines says Linda “is here to help make a tighter link between home and school.”
The view from Kentucky
In June 2017, legislation went into effect that allowed for the first ever charter school pilot project in Kentucky. More than five years later, no charter schools have opened in the Bluegrass State. This fascinating deep dive into the bureaucratic, ideological, and political maneuvering that has gone on in the interim largely explains why what seemed like a win for school choice advocates has turned into a brutal game of inches still without a victory for either side.
New report from GAO
A new report from the Government Accountability Office looked at Charter School Program (CSP) grants awarded between 2006 and 2020. Over 6,000 CSP grants were awarded in that time, totaling about $2.5 billion. There’s a lot of data to analyze, but two pieces right out of the gate note that charters that received CSP funding were about 1.5 times less likely to close than those that did not receive an award and that approximately 14 percent of charter schools that received CSP state awards closed after receiving the funds or never opened at all. Expect more analysis to come.
EdWisely Virtual Conference 2022
Educator professional learning provider EdWisely will present its 2022 Fall Summit virtually on Friday, October 21 from 8:15 am to 1:45 pm Central Time. There is a full slate of workshops and breakout sessions covering topics from adaptation to new technologies to supportive classroom and school culture. Admission is $50 for the entire day and allows you to choose whichever sessions you want and to move among different sessions at any time. To see the full schedule and to get registration information, click here.
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