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News about news
The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce (DEW) will soon be announcing the winners of $105 million in grant funding from the federal Charter Schools Program (CSP). As this coverage from Cleveland.com relates, 22 applicants were vying for funds in two categories: existing high-quality schools looking to expand, and schools looking to open new high-quality models in the state. Hopefully we’ll know all the winners next week.
Help for virtual charters in North Carolina
The North Carolina Association for Public Charter Schools has contracted with Safal Partners on a wide-ranging project to improve the quality of virtual charter schools in the state. They will create a document explaining state charter law “in plain terms” to help school operators understand and follow it, a new rubric for schools and outside reviewers to judge their quality, and a plan to help the state’s Charter Schools Review Board monitor the virtual schools over the next two years. The project is funded through a federal CSP grant.
Following up on last week’s news
As we noted last week, DEW is conducting an investigation of state testing anomalies in 52 schools—including 39 charters—across Ohio. While it’s too soon to say what they might find, the Fordham Institute’s Aaron Churchill sums up the importance of the effort: “The integrity of state assessments, they matter to the public, they matter to parents. We cannot be giving dishonest information to the public.” Meanwhile, DEW is still on schedule to issue school and district report cards next week, although those schools under investigation will have asterisks on their test-related data.
School choice landscape in Cleveland
Kudos to Signal Cleveland for this detailed piece charting the expanding/changing public school options in and around the city. These include the new academic offerings in consolidated CMSD schools, the coordinated effort from organizations like Future Ready Cleveland to bring new and innovative charter schools to the area, and even the presence of independent STEM school Bio-Med Science Academy. Lots of helpful information for families.
Speedbumps on the school choice landscape
While the school choice landscape all across Ohio is evolving, student transportation remains firmly stuck in the 20th century. You can take Larry Fravel’s word for it. Fravel is a third-generation bus driver in rural Licking Heights Local Schools. He explains that he drives for the same reason his grandfather and parents did: It’s a great side gig for farmers (like his family elders), ministers, and stay-at-home mothers, giving them flexibility to drive in the mornings and evenings while working another job in the middle of the day. However, there are fewer and fewer folks who actually want such a schedule today. Thus, bus driver shortages abound because the job hasn’t adapted to this reality. All of this spells ongoing trouble for families opting for non-district choices and indeed for district resident families too, it seems, judging by the news so far this year.
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