CLEVELAND, Ohio – Ohio's longstanding and "grim" problem with underperforming charter schools is improving, a Stanford researcher said at the City Club today, but the state needs to increase its quality control efforts.

Macke Raymond, director of Stanford's Center for Research of Educational Outcomes (CREDO), presented details from CREDO's just-released report on charter schools in Ohio to a lunchtime crowd, while also discussing policy changes that can improve charters.

Most of all, Raymond stressed, Ohio has an "expanded need for attention to quality" of charter schools to reduce the large amount -- about half -- whose students show both low ability and low improvement in reading and math.

"Year over year over year, (the students) are actually falling further behind," Raymond said, with chances of ever reading well or having basic math skills "virtually nil."

As we reported yesterday, and as Raymond told the City Club crowd today, CREDO found that students learn less in charter schools than in traditional districts – the equivalent of 36 days of learning in math and 14 days in reading.

The results for Cleveland are very different from the rest of the state, with charter schools here outperforming district schools by 14 days of learning in both subjects.

(Read more at Cleveland.com)