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Ohio report cards
Kudos to the Columbus Dispatch for a nicely even-handed look at how charter schools in Franklin County performed on the latest Ohio report cards. They include a list of all the schools with four- to five-star overall ratings and a list of all the schools with one- to one-and-a-half-star overall ratings. Additionally, they include commentary from Fordham Institute report card guru Aaron Churchill, who points out that there are some specific questions to ask regarding ratings for charter schools, including how they perform on the Progress measure (reflecting whether students are growing in academic performance over time and an important factor for most schools) and how charter ratings compare to those of the district in which they are located. Good stuff.
Responding to Madam Secretary’s announcement
Last week, we were celebrating the announcement by U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon that hundreds of millions of new dollars were going to be flowing to states to boost their charter school sectors, including more than $100 million for the Buckeye State. A couple of Ohio news outlets had different feelings on the matter, apparently. While coverage in The Center Square was generally straightforward, their headline was far more negative than the text. By contrast, this coverage from Cleveland.com is just ugly across the board. And yes, I am aware that this piece is really just “coverage” of the content of their podcast on the topic. But if that’s the calm, rational overview, I shudder to think what was actually said in the heat of that discussion. And no, I won’t dignify it with a listen.
The clear winner
Meanwhile, the editor-in-chief of EducationNC explains that all forms of school choice have seen increased support from the U.S. Department of Education under the current secretary. “McMahon is increasing access to choice across all discretionary grant competitions,” writes Mebane Rash, “including charters, innovative school models, K-12 open enrollment, dissemination of information on choice options, implementation of education savings accounts, home-based education, concurrent enrollment programs, career preparation, postsecondary distance education, skills-based education, apprenticeships, work-based learning, accelerated learning and tutoring, and more.” Whew! That’s quite a list indeed.
Calmer heads
A calmer head also prevails in this opinion piece from EdSource. Jennifer Hochschild, professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, looks at the recent legal and procedural battles between the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and city charter schools. We have covered some of them here, including courtroom wrangling over long-standing co-locations of charter and district schools as well as efforts to use red tape to deny zoning permission for new charters. Hochschild says that the gulf between the two school sectors is miniscule and characterizes the resulting battles as “the narcissism of small differences”. Ouch. She also says these petty turf wars are harmful to everyone in the City of Angels, especially the students, and must stop.
A story with a happy ending
Just to put a final exclamation point on a story we have followed here for several months: Miami City Council voted last week (at last) to sell the historic Olympia Theater to the Sports Leadership and Management (SLAM) charter school network. Anti-charter activists used every bureaucratic logjam they could (historic preservation, zoning, filibusters, etc.) to try and stop the sale, but in the end city leaders knew a good deal when they saw one. An in-demand school gets room to grow its arts programs in a purpose-built space, a well-resourced steward (SLAM is backed by worldwide recording artist Pitbull) has been secured to help revitalize a neglected community gem, and a brand new early college credit program has been created to benefit SLAM students in the deal. Feels like three happy endings to one crazy story.
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