Ohio school districts refuse to compete with nuns
Ohio's districts are shrinking from competition with parochial schools through expanded voucher programs.
Ohio's districts are shrinking from competition with parochial schools through expanded voucher programs.
Recent news that White Hat, the big, Ohio-based, profit-seeking charter school operator, faces financial problems was surely received as an early Christmas present by many long-time charter opponents, particularly within the Buckeye State. The company?s founder and leader, Akron industrialist David Brennan, has been a larger-than-life-target for school choice foes since Governor George Voinovich appointed him in 1992 to head a commission intended to advance choice in Ohio k-12 education.
Since 2005, Fordham has been working in Ohio to recruit high quality charter schools to neighborhoods badly in need of better schools. During our six-plus years of effort as a charter authorizer we have managed to recruit just two high-performing models to Columbus (KIPP and a BES school).
My husband and I have to decide in the next year where our 4-year old son will go to school and it is a daunting decision.
View the footage from the Fordham & CEE-Trust charter incubation panel discussion, "Driving Quality."
It's too early to tell
Robin Lake looks at the lessons from the Fordham and CEE-Trust policy brief.
Fordham's Terry Ryan and CEE-Trust's Ethan Gray explain the potential of the charter incubation model and the characteristics of incubators.
Guest blogger Stuart Buck explains the virtues of the Arizona Empowerment Scholarship program and the legal obstacles it faces.
Charterin' ain't easy
Since their inception in 1997, charter schools have been at the center of some of the most politically contentious debates about education in Ohio. The past year offered yet another example of charter school controversy, but this time with a twist. The 2010 elections were very good for Buckeye State Republicans, with John Kasich winning the governor?s race (replacing Ted Strickland who had been a charter adversary throughout his four-year term). Republicans also took control of the House while expanding their majority in the Senate.
The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation is pleased to share its latest annual Sponsorship Accountability Report, Two Steps Forward, One Step Back. The sixth of its kind, the report reflects on Ohio??s charter school policy environment and the performance of Fordham sponsored charter schools ??? in terms of absolute achievement, growth, and adherence to goals set forth in our authorizing contract ??? as well as developments in state law over the year. Despite some tough battles during the state budget as it relates to holding authorizers (and operators) accountable, overall Fordham and its schools had an encouraging year, with Fordham sponsored-charters making achievement gains and positioning themselves to do even better in the future.
As school levies fail across central Ohio, I am concerned and disappointed to see so many school districts quickly threaten to reduce the quality of our children?s education. Providing an excellent education for our children may be the single most important thing we can do as responsible citizens.
Fordham has been involved in the arena of school choice in Ohio at virtually every level for the past decade, except that of a parent. Issues of school choice and the quality (or not) of urban schools have been a big part of my professional life the last five years. Now, they are front and center in my personal life, too.
Fordham has been both an advocate of choice and an authorizer of charter schools serving some of Ohio's neediest students. This book describes and analyzes our efforts, successes and failures, and what we think it means for others committed to school reform.
The Columbus Dispatch ran competing op-eds by School Choice Ohio's (SCO) Chad Aldis and Fordham's Terry Ryan on the expansion of vouchers in the Buckeye State. Both Aldis and Ryan support the expansion of school choice programs in Ohio, but how the state should hold these new programs accountable for their academic performance and even whether it should do so is contentious.
This week we took a look at what impact, if any, charter authorizer type (e.g., non-profit, educational service center, school district, or university) has on a school's academic performance, how
Yesterday, Jamie wrote about both the academic achievement and progress of students in Ohio's urban public schools.?? Today's analysis marries these two performance metrics together.
File this under pieces of news that confuse my emotions. Rev. Stanley Miller, executive director of the Cleveland NAACP, is leaving that post to take on an area charter school ? a very terrible one to be specific (Marcus Garvey Academy). I am equal parts inspired by this move (Rev. Miller is a 63-year old whose heart is undoubtedly in the right place) and cynical.
To what extent have Ohio's leaders met the challenges and opportunities before them in K-12 education? What needs to happen next?
A legislative conference committee has reported out its version of Ohio's next operating budget.?? The Senate and House are expected to approve the committee's report today and tomorrow, with Governor Kasich signing it into law Thursday.??
There has been a lot of controversy in Ohio in recent weeks around House-proposed legislative changes to the state's charter law that would decimate an already weak charter school accountability system (see here,
Ohio is in the midst of its biennial budget debate and there has been much angst and ink spilled about a proposal in the
The bickering between the Baltimore Teachers Union and the KIPP charter network involving overtime pay for teachers in two KIPP schools has come to a close.?
A big congratulations to KIPP Journey Academy students McKeala Hudson and Michael Robinson, who were recently accepted into the KIPP STEP Summer Program at Deerfield Academy! Yes, that Deerfield Academy ?
Yesterday Fordham's Kathryn Mullen Upton, director of charter school sponsorship for the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, testified before the Ohio Senate Education Committee in support of SB 86.
Columbus Collegiate Academy, a Fordham-authorized charter school in one of Columbus's poorest neighborhoods (Weinland Park), has just been awarded the Gold-Gain EPIC award by New Leaders for New Schools for dramatic gains in student achievement.?