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Data show the “impractical” truth
Fordham’s Aaron Churchill dug into Ohio data on how many students school districts declare “impractical to transport”, breaking the numbers down by school type. Statewide, almost 23,000 charter and private school students were declared impractical last school year (roughly 8 percent of the total), while a mere 592 district students (out of more than 1.4 million) were deemed as such. Incredible. Even worse: In the top 15 districts to declare charter and private school students impractical, not one single student attending their schools were deemed impractical. Such blatant and institutionalized discrimination must end.
Kudos to an Ohio charter founder
Here’s a great profile of Jenn Bardall, a co-founder of Lakeland Academy in eastern Ohio. She was there at the beginning in 2012 with a desire to provide a different option for local students: “A lot of our kids would get lost in the shuffle, and I don’t mean that in a bad way,” she said. “We have some kids who are gifted, just so smart. But sometimes their personalities are not out there. The class sizes are so small that I feel like you can see each student better.” Today, Bardall serves as co-superintendent and she will be there when the first group of kids to go all the way through the school from kindergartners to graduates. An awesome asset to the community.
Un día en la vida
Not only is this story awesome—an hour-by-hour look at one day in the life of Nuestro Mundo—a bilingual K-8 charter school in Providence, Rhode Island—but so is the presentation. The plethora of direct, close-up photos; the time-stamped blocks of text; the detailed observations of place and activity; and the moving clock icon in the corner all clue you in as to the progress of the day with more detail than is typical of such profiles. Interesting and engrossing in every way.
A battle brewing
The elected board of Jackson (MS) Public Schools voted this week to deny the application of an established local charter school to expand into high school, citing a “significant… impact on district fiscal operations” from the competition. The leaders of Ambition Prep (an apt name) believe they don’t need the district’s approval and plan to appeal to the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board. In response, a spokesperson said the district will “pursue all available options at its disposal” to stop them.
A battle joined
Charter school families in Chicago are feeling the heat from the city and the school districts’ stated efforts to curtail competition via bureaucratic and fiscal constraints and many fear that their schools will soon be on the chopping block. Here’s a look at how students, staff, and parents at ChiArts and EPIC Academy are responding to the threat.
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