Education News for 04-05-2013

Local Education News

• Ohio superintendent of public instruction presents banners to 3 schools (Coshocton Tribune)

Richard Ross, Ohio’s superintendent of public instruction, visited a couple classrooms during a stop in the county to present three schools with special Schools of Promise banners…Read more…

• Avon Lake City School officials receive $1,500,000 tax revenue advance (Lorain Morning Journal)

Avon Lake City School officials are relieved after being granted a $1.5 million tax revenue advance from the Lorain County Auditor’s Office yesterday after a late tax payment by NRG Energy Inc.…Read more…

• Board overturns decision to close Akron Digital Academy (Akron Beacon Journal)

A recent vote to close Akron Digital Academy, an online charter school sponsored by Akron Public Schools, was overturned Thursday…Read more…

• Charter school under scrutiny (Cincinnati Enquirer)

So many financial and student records are missing from the now shuttered International College Preparatory Academy in Bond Hill that Ohio State Auditor Dave Yost says he questions how nearly $1 million in federal funds was spent…Read more…

• Toledo Public Schools narrows interim superintendent search to 2 finalists (Toledo Blade)

The Toledo Board of Education pared further Thursday its candidate list for interim superintendent of Toledo Public Schools…Read more…

• Canal Winchester plans April 15 vote on open enrollment (Columbus Dispatch)

Canal Winchester could become the third Franklin County school system to open its doors to students living outside the district.…Read more…

• Taking advantage of a change in state law, Fostoria school administrators are seeking voter (Findlay Courier)

Taking advantage of a change in state law, Fostoria school administrators are seeking voter approval of an 8.15-mill continuing levy on May 7.…Read more…

• Three school tax issues on Seneca County ballots in May (Findlay Courier)

Bettsville School District is seeking renewal of a 1 percent, five-year income tax for operating expenses in the May 7 primary.…Read more…

• Clear Fork puts off drug test vote (Mansfield News Journal)

A vote to approve the first reading of the potential new Clear Fork Schools drug testing policy was postponed during a lengthy board meeting Thursday night.…Read more…

• Takin’ It to the Schools part of Alcohol Awareness Month (New Philadelphia Times-Reporter)

As part of Alcohol Awareness Month, Takin’ It to the Schools, a school-based alcohol, tobacco and other drug prevention program…Read more…

• $27M Niles high school set to open next week (Youngstown Vindicator)

The new $27 million Niles McKinley High School will officially open to students Tuesday morning.…Read more…

Education News for 03-29-2013

State Education News

• Board of directors’ votes to shut down Akron Digital Academy (Akron Beacon Journal)

With just more than half of its nine-member roster present, the board of directors for the Akron Digital Academy voted 4-1 Wednesday night to shut down the online school…Read more...

• Bethel works to meet reading guarantee requirements (Cincinnati Enquirer)

School board members March 21 approved a resolution stating the district would not be compliant with the Third Grade Reading Guarantee requirements for the 2013-2014 school year…Read more...

• Students sharing successes (Warren Tribune Chronicle)

From designing bridges and 3D projects to exploring their creative side, area high school students also are getting a head start on their college degrees…Read more...

• Tests point to improved designation for Youngstown schools (Youngstown Vindicator)

Based on preliminary data, city school and state officials expect the Youngstown district to move to the equivalent of “continuous improvement” on the 2012-13 state report card…Read more...

Local Education News

• Small crowds attended Conneaut school shooter meetings (Ashtabula Star-Beacon)

A subject dear to parents, the safety of their children, didn’t help put people into seats at a series of recent meetings outlining Conneaut’s school defense plans…Read more...

• Striking Strongsville teachers obtain documents (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

Strongsville schools spent more than $1.1 million through the first two weeks of a teachers strike, according to figures the Strongsville Education Association…Read more...

• ‘Still Frontier kids’ (Marietta Times)

Becoming a charter school would not sever Lawrence Elementary's ties with the Frontier Local school district…Read more...

• Springboro school board posts contract proposals (Middletown Journal)

The Springboro school board has published contract proposals submitted by the board and the union representing district’s teachers and certified staff during their first negotiating session…Read more...

• New school projects deficit in first 4 years (Springfield News-Sun)

Financial projections for the agricultural science school show that the academy would operate at a deficit for the first four years…Read more...

• Documents detail cost of Strongsville teachers strike for district (Sun Newspapers)

According to recently released documents, the school district spent more than $1.1 million in preparation and execution through the first two weeks…Read more...

New study - Charters cut costs to make money

Seems obvious that charter school teachers work longer hours and are less experienced. How else can charter school management companies make a profit?

Charter school teachers tend to have fewer years of experience, and work longer hours than their counterparts in public, non-charter schools, a new analysis suggests.

Yet by another measure—the hiring of teachers from "highly selective" colleges—both charters and traditional public schools lag well behind the private school norm.

Many of those findings are consistent with past research, notes the author of the paper, Marisa Cannata of Vanderbilt University, whose work is included as part of a newly published book, Exploring the School Choice Universe: Evidence and Recommendations. But the analysis provides fresh insights into who goes to work in public and private sector schools, and what kinds of conditions they encounter when they get there.

Some are even going to crazy lengths to maximize profits, as Stephen Dyer discovers

There is an amazing story out of Florida now posted here and here that delineates just how outrageously high K-12, Inc. schools' student-teacher ratios are. K-12, Inc. runs Ohio Virtual Academy, with educates about 10,000 Ohio students.

Just a few tidbits. The heads of schools are told that they should have the following ratios in the following grades:

K-8: 60-72:1
9-12: 225-275:1

That's right. K-12, Inc. thinks it's a good idea to have kindergartners in classes as high as 72:1 and high school kids in 275:1 classes.

We really don't need research anymore, just look at any of these companies 10k financial filings.

Fordham Exposed Part II

In part I of Fordham Exposed we introduced you to the conservative corporate education reform organization running some Ohio charter schools, and two of its biggest boosters, Terry Ryan and Michael Petrilli. Now let us take a closer look at this Foundation.

You can see the list of Fordham's charter schools here. We knew a short while ago that Fordham was publicly talking a good game, but playing a weak one, when the Ohio Department of Education released the ranking of charter sponsors. Of those 38 ranked sponsors, Fordham was down in a lowly 24th position. You don't rank that low by running quality schools and delivering quality education to students.

This view was further confirmed when ODE released their preliminary school rankings in mid November. The following table is the performance of Fordham's Ohio charter schools from that ODE report, the ranking is out of 3456 schools, and sorted with best first.

2011 RANK	SCHOOL NAME	SCHOOL CLASS TYPE	2011 LRC RATING
1792	Columbus Collegiate Academy	Middle School	Effective
2661	Sciotoville	High School	Cont. Improve.
2687	Phoenix Community Learning Ctr	Elementary School	Effective
2716	Dayton Leadership Academies-Dayton View Campus	Elementary School	Cont. Improve.
2840	Sciotoville Elementary Academy	Elementary School	Cont. Improve.
2977	KIPP: Journey Academy	Middle School	Effective
3052	Springfield Acad Of Excellence	Elementary School	Academic Watch
3188	Dayton Leadership Academies-Dayton Liberty Campus	Elementary School	Cont. Improve.

Almost 2,400 students are in Fordham charter schools that rank in the bottom half of all of Ohio's schools. Why hasn't Fordham been able to translate SB5 like tools into educational success in the many years they have been sponsoring these charters?

They are unencumbered by unionized teachers, state mandated regulations, all the things that should add up to a corporate education reformer's brightest dream. Yes their results are poorer than the majority of Ohio's traditional public schools, who allegedly are held back by unions, bad teachers, and outdated rules.

How can Fordham possibly have any credibility on the issue of education reform when their corporate reform ideas when implemented are delivering such real world lackluster results? When their performance is worse than the majority of traditional schoold they would seek to supplant.

It surely cannot be on account of money. The Fordham Foundation spends an inordinate amount of money on education reform. According to the latest publicly available tax return - their 2009 IRS form 990 from Guidestar, Fordham has over $37 million on hand, and spends over $4 million a year on its programs and advocacy.

Indeed, in 2009 alone, according to the same document, Fordham spent $485,000 on management of its Ohio charters, $745,000 on "National reform efforts", $163,000 on Ohio specific education "reform efforts" and a further $571,000 on Ohio legislative lobbying and what even they deem as "provocative analysis".

But lobbying and "provocative analysis" aren't the only largesse that Fordham spend their vast resources on. As employees of Fordham such as Mr. Ryan and Mr. Petrilli rail against education associations and teacher pay they have both been significant recipients of the Foundation's generosity.

Name	2007 (link)	2008 (link)	2009 (link)
Mr. Terry Ryan	$73,905 for 20 hours per week	$83,700 for 20 hours per week	$91,100 for 20 hours per week
Mr. Michael Petrilli	$73,905 for 20 hours per week	$83,700 for 20 hours per week	$91,100 for 20 hours per week

Their annual increases, for this part-time work, represent 13.2% and 8.8% up to 2009. One can only imagine what these two gentlemen are earning in 2011 for the part-time work of railing against teachers and their unions. But when you're earning almost twice that of the average Ohio teacher, and doing so for part-time work, all the while receiving up to double digit increases in pay, year on year, these kinds of comments are hard to swallow.

And to be sure, you can find examples of unions—of police, firefighters, even teachers—who have agreed to freeze wages or reduce benefits in order to protect the quality of services or keep colleagues from being laid off. But they are the exceptions that prove the rule.

They hare hardly the exception to prove any rule, real or as is the case here, imagined. Ohio public employees, especially teachers, have been responsible for saving taxpayers over 1 billion dollars in wage and benefit concessions.

So where does all this leave us? It leaves us wondering why an organization that espouses corporate education reform ideas cannot successfully implement them in their own lackluster schools, and why they biggest and most vocal boosters think the gravy tastes better on their plate than on any others. It is this then, that is the pure essence and purpose of corporate education reform.

If education quality actually mattered to Fordham they would expend more energy figuring out why their schools are under performing so as to use those lessons to actually benefot the debate over educstion reform. Instead what we have is "provocative analysis" to defend failing ideas while attacking public school teachers and their union, who in the majority are producing far high quality results at a fraction of the cost.

Un-Accountable Charters

There's so many things wrong with the elements of this story its hard to know where to begin, and even harder to understand why Republican lawmakers want to reduce an already weakened oversight system for charter schools

State payments to two charter schools will resume later this week, now that the state auditor's office has finally been able to complete audits.

The Auditors reports are due in a few weeks and we'll be sure to bring news of those findings to you. But back to the story of charter schools so messed up (and that's the best case scenario) that they can't perform basic accounting functions. The cost of such incompetence?

Teachers and other employees have gone without paychecks since the funds were cut off. Charter schools, which are public but run independent of districts, get most of their money from the state.

They may be public right now, but if HB153 passes, we'll see a proliferation of private schools receiving public money, with their accounts hidden from public view.

All three schools are sponsored by the Cleveland-based Ashe Culture Center, which is responsible for monitoring academics and finances.

Rainbow said the Arts Academies' relationship with Ashe had become "very strained" and they gave notice in January that they would seek a new sponsor.
[...]
The Education Department has been trying to take away Ashe's sponsorship authority since December 2009, mainly because of financial issues. The final decision will be up to the state school board after an independent hearing officer rules.

Audits are still under way at two other Ashe-sponsored schools -- Elite Academy of the Arts and Lion of Judah Academy, both in Cleveland -- that also were declared unauditable in November.

Ohio already has too many sponsors, and soon if changes are not made to HB153, even more - with the accounts hidden from public view inside of for-profit corporations. Only those who seek to profit from this undemocratic scheme are supporting it. As the Ohio Senate debates the budget bill, we'll have a clear view of just how many legislators the vampire squid tentacles have gripped.

The Columbus Dispatch has already been ensnared by the lobbyist for White Hat Management, the very person who helped the GOP House Majority write the current HB153 charter school wild west provisions.

GOP school privatization plan under scrutiny

No one thinks the house Republicans idea of a wild wild west of for-profit charter schools is a good idea.

They go too far for self-described conservative Terry Ryan of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, whose sister foundation sponsors about a half-dozen Ohio charter schools.

"Oh my goodness, have we not learned anything from the history of the last 10 years in Ohio?" asked Ryan.

"We believe in charter schools and competition, but for them to work effectively, there has to be strong accountability. This would bring us back in time to when we were a laughingstock nationally because of the poor quality of our charter schools."
[...]
"This is a blatant giveaway of public money to big Republican campaign contributors like David Brennan, who now will be able to enrich themselves even more at taxpayer expense," said Dale Butland, spokesman for Innovation Ohio.
[...]
Bill Sims, head of the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools, also has concerns about the House proposals on for-profits - worrying that they could "take the public out of public charter schools."
[...]
A first read of the House version was discouraging for Perry White, founder and former executive director of Citizens Academy, a Cleveland charter school that has worked its way to an "excellent" rating from the state.

"If these provisions pass, Ohio will become the poster child for bad charter policy," White said in an email. "By weakening charter accountability, the Ohio House will unleash a tsunami of mediocrity."

There's even more questions being raised in this Dispatch article including the legality of this give-away to White Hat Management.