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The preview didn’t lie – this feature presentation stinks
Last week, we discussed the impending announcement of the disposition of several buildings recently closed by Cleveland Metropolitan School District—and it didn’t sound promising for charter schools. The details, now available, show those fears to be correct. Seven schools are being given over to the City of Cleveland through zero-dollar “land swaps”, and a “sale-leaseback” arrangement (translation: still on the district’s books) for two others with “selected partners”. Said Cleveland mayor Justin Bibb: “I don’t want reckless charters that we can’t hold accountable to take over these school sites.” How does he think he can get away without allowing charter/private/STEM school operators to bid on these closed buildings? The city and district are sticking with an interpretation of state law that they believe gives them one year to do these insider deals because, as this piece explains it, “Once school buildings sit empty for a year, it becomes more difficult for districts to skirt the Ohio law that says they must sell their buildings to charter schools first.” Is there something special about CMSD’s mayoral-control model that allows them to skirt state law with impunity? They must think so, because otherwise these statements just reflect transparent contempt for the General Assembly.
Charter school report card analysis
Here’s a look at state report card data from charter schools in Ohio’s eight largest urban areas, courtesy of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s data guru, Aaron Churchill. Overall, he writes, “brick-and-mortar charters are moving the achievement needle in the right direction,” continuing to outperform their traditional district peers. However, there is still much work to be done to recoup Covid-era learning losses.
What the papers are saying
There has been minimal news coverage of Ohio report cards so far this year. So kudos to The Blade’s Vincent Lucarelli for being first out of the gate with a look at three charter schools in the Toledo area with ratings of three stars or higher. Nice! Weirdly, the editorial board finds very little good news in Lucarelli’s report, despite those high flyers and the fact that Lucas County charters overall averaged higher ratings than all of Toledo City Schools’ elementary buildings. From this they nonsensically conclude that “the legislature and the governor” haven’t improved education enough in Toledo or Ohio via their charter school “project”. Seems like the ed board missed an opportunity to point out that it’s way past time for the district to clean up its own house.
Straight to the source
Kudos also go to reporter Joe Lyons at the tiny Ashland County Pictures news outlet. He saw “questions…circulating” in an online forum about Ashland County Community Academy and went straight to the source to get answers. His visit to the local dropout recovery charter school—including interviews with school leaders and in-depth classroom observations—led him to determine ACCA is “a small, inspiring learning community built around students who need a different path to graduation.” Take a look at his detailed reporting here.
Good stewardship rewarded
Utica Shale Academy, a workforce-focused charter school in Salineville, Ohio, recently received a $900,000 rural transportation grant to buy additional vans. School leaders will use them to help more students get to and from school—as well as to their internships and jobs—on time. USA students will also learn by servicing and maintaining the vans. “We’re trying to be good stewards of the funds we have received while building student responsibility,” says school superintendent Bill Watson. Lovely.
National news of note
Four new charter schools proposed for Nashville were recently denied permission to open by the elected school board. This coverage says they were rejected for “various reasons”, but only the common “stealing students and money from the district” reason is cited here. All four have appealed to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission. Their hearing is scheduled for October 9.
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