First, the bad news
The New York Times took a sledgehammer to charter schools this week, stating that “some [of them] with healthy cash balances and billionaire backers like Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates, have quietly accepted millions of dollars in emergency coronavirus relief from a fund created to help struggling small businesses stay afloat.” It only gets worse from there.
Second, more bad news
In the Public Interest, a California think tank, released a policy brief looking in detail at charter schools in Oakland, which have received at least $18,909,300 in loans from the federal Paycheck Protection Program. It concludes that, as charters are also receiving funds to educate students, “taxpayers are left covering what appears to be the same bill twice.”
Meanwhile, in Ohio
A group of Horizon Science Academy schools across Ohio are suing the state over what they reckon to be an ex post facto change in the application rules for the state’s new Quality Community Schools Support Grant.
At last, some good news
The National Association of Elementary School Principals this week ran an article, written by NAPCS head Nina Rees, delving into the remote learning strategies used by Columbus’ United Schools Network during the pandemic-mitigation school shutdown. Their detailed and thoughtful efforts are being shared—and lauded—widely.
And finally, some more good news
Huge congratulations to Debbie Grashin, teacher at KIPP Columbus, who was one of ten nationwide winners of the inaugural Amazon Future Engineer Teacher of the Year awards announced this week. The award recognizes educators helping students in underserved and underrepresented communities build life-changing skills to propel their futures in computer science.
