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Demolition on hold
Representatives of Springfield Sports Academy filed an emergency suit this week against Northeastern Local School District, alleging that they did not properly follow Ohio law giving charters right of first refusal over unused district properties before any other sale or disposal plan. Demolition of the decommissioned Rolling Hills Elementary School building, which was imminent, has been halted while the case is heard. It will be an interesting case to follow.
Ranking the charter ecosystem of Ohio—and other states
Due to some methodological choices, Ohio does not end up faring very well in Education Freedom Institute’s latest Charter Ecosystem Rankings. Fordham took a look at those choices and their impact in this review. Rhode Island, New York, Michigan, the District of Columbia, and Colorado come out on top, driven by the relatively strong academic performance of those states’ charters versus their district peers. Despite lingering questions, EFI’s effort to change the conversation on what makes for a “good” charter school sector deserves to be taken seriously.
Blueprint
Jason Gaulden, an education fellow at the Common Sense Institute in Colorado, penned an op-ed last week extolling the virtues of the Denver School of Science & Technology. The charter school, he writes, achieves a 100 percent college acceptance rate (and have maintained that achievement every year for the last 20 years) all while serving a student body that includes a wide range of racial and economic diversity. He calls DSST “a welcome inspiration and blueprint for other traditional public schools.”
Nevada update
A few weeks ago, we discussed an effort to expand charter schools in Nevada by allowing two cities to become sponsors. Last week, the applications from the Cities of North Las Vegas and Henderson were accepted, and new charters will likely open in those cities in fall 2025…although it sure sounds like there are a lot of hoops to jump through before any classes can be held and a number of district-centric limitations on the cities which will serve to keep schools small for a long time. But progress is progress, I guess.
The national scene
Christy Wolfe, senior vice president for policy, research, and planning at NAPCS, was a guest on EdNext’s Education Exchange podcast last week, discussing how President Biden’s executive budget proposals would serve to block the creation of new charter schools across the country. It’s an interesting discussion, including the strong expectation that the most destructive cuts can be avoided.
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