2018 Schooling in America Survey
This week, Indianapolis-based EdChoice released their annual Schooling in America Survey, which measures public opinion and awareness on different K-12 education topics, including charter schools. The survey found that six out of 10 Americans (61 percent) say they support charter schools (while 29 percent say they are opposed). In addition, parents were more than twice as likely to say they were “very satisfied” with charter schools and private schools than district schools.
E-School funding panel
Ohio’s new E-school funding panel met last week, where they heard from national and state experts on how other states are funding online charter schools and potential ways for Ohio to move forward. Experts explained that while funding for virtual schools differs from state to state, it doesn’t appear that any state has figured out the single best way to fund them. You can access presentations and testimony from the meeting here.
Charter School Funding: (More) Inequity in the City
The School Choice Demonstration Project at the University of Arkansas has released a new report that compares the levels and sources of funding between traditional public schools and charter schools in 14 cities across the country. They found that, on average, charter schools received 27 percent less total revenue than traditional public schools and $5,828 less in per-pupil funding— the largest overall funding gap their research team has ever reported.
Vacant school district buildings and charter schools
Good facilities are hard to come by for charter schools—and Ohio law requires that they be given right of first refusal on buying excess school buildings. However, according to Fordham’s Jessica Poiner, many Ohio school districts seem to be hanging onto their underutilized buildings, rather than selling them to charter schools, even though it’s financially irresponsible to do so.
School Performance Institute workshop
Are you a school leader interested in purposefully designing your school for improvement? Then you should check out the School Performance Institute’s upcoming workshop on January 24th. You’ll have an opportunity to visit a high-performing charter school during a school day (to observe how the school has been purposefully designed to get results in a high-poverty context using proven methods) and discuss concrete ways to apply these ideas in your own school. You can register here, if interested, or contact John A. Dues for more information.
