Cleveland Plan Press Conference

In a downtrodden press conference that broke little new news, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, Representative Sandra Williams (D-Cleveland), House Finance and Appropriations Chairman Ron Amstutz (R-Wooster), Senate Minority Whip Nina Turner (D-Cleveland) and Senate Education Chairwoman Peggy Lehner (R-Kettering) spoke about the "Cleveland Plan".

The plan still has no sponsors, nor co-sponsors. The sticking points for the Democrats continues to be the anti-union SB5 like provisions, and the secretive, non democratic nature of the so-called "transformation alliance". For the Republicans the shadow cast by a plan that has many elements of SB5, and some of the charter school accountability measures that are opposed by some of the largest campaign contributors are sticking points.

Some of Jackson's continued rhetoric, for example "those concerned about the Cleveland plan & Senate Bill 5 shouldn't be", are signs that the Mayor still views his plan as a sacred cow, and not a starting place. That's a pity and might doom an enterprise to rescue Cleveland schools from academic and financial crisis that everyone recognizes and wants to deal positively with.

The cost of Charters

One slide presented last night at the Dublin budget town hall really stood out.

Dublin City Schools Budget Presentation - May 11th, 2011

Dublin 

Schools
 only receive ~
$995 
per 
student 
from
 the 
state, but if a student in their district transfers to a charter school $5,732 is taken to pay for that. That's a disproportionate subtraction and one of the direct costs of so-called "Choice". In Dublin it's costing between $300,000 and $400,000 alone.

What's more baffling about this continued policy is that Dublin City Schools are rated Excellent with distinction and have one of the lowest percentages of expenditure on administration per pupil. There's simply no need for charter schools to suck money away from high performing districts like this, yet we allow it.