Study: Ohio charter schools are worst in nation

The Center for Research on Education Issues (CREDO) has just published its 2013 report, "National Charter School Study". CREDO Researchers looked at test data from charter schools in 26 states plus DC. Ohio was one of the 26 states. This study follow up on their 2009 study which garnered a lot of attention for bringing to light the poor quality of the nations charter schools.

This new study finds, despite charter schools being able to screen for the best students, only marginal improvement over the past 4 years

25 percent of charters outperformed traditional public schools in reading while 29 percent of charters delivered stronger results in math. That marked an improvement over a similar 2009 study by the same research team.

But 56 percent of the charters produced no significant difference in reading and 19 percent had worse results than traditional public schools. In math, 40 percent produced no significant difference and 31 percent were significantly worse than regular public schools.

The marginal improvement comes not from improved quality of charter schools in general, but in the closure of more poor performing charter schools lifting the over all average performance.

In Ohio, the charter school experiment is failing miserably. According to the study, Ohio's charter schools got worse over the last 4 years, and now dwell at the bottom of the performance tables. Ohio students who attend charter schools are losing the equivalent of almost 3 weeks of instruction in reading, and an entire grading period in mathematics. That is astonishingly bad news for the 5% of Ohio's students who attend charter schools.

The following table was taken from table 14 (pg 52 of the study)

State	Reading Days	Math Days
Rhode Island	86	108
DC	72	101
Tennessee	86	72
Louisiana	50	65
New York	36	79
New Jersey	43	58
Massachusetts	36	65
New York City	0	94
Michigan	43	43
Indiana	36	14
Illinois	14	22
Missouri	14	22
California	22	-7
North Carolina	22	-7
Minnesota	14	-7
Georgia	14	-14
Colorado	7	-7
Florida	-7	0
New Mexico	0	-29
Arkansas	-22	-22
Utah	-7	-43
Arizona	-22	-29
Texas	-22	-29
Ohio	-14	-43
Oregon	-22	-50
Pennsylvania	-29	-50
Nevada	-108	-137

You can see from the following graphs of performance in 2009 vs 2013 that Ohio's charters are getting worse, and in math, much worse.

It is time to reassess Ohio's 15 year, billion dollar, charter experiment in light of these results and put an end to boosting charter schools at the expense of public schools. The experiement has not only failed, it is getting worse.

Politicians Ignore Research, Say Smaller Class Size Makes No Difference

Class size matters.

In examining both Project STAR and SAGE, experts found that students in the smaller classes performed better than those in larger classes. Minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged students made the most gains, according to the Center for Public Education (CPE).

Haimson said those disadvantaged students, who may not receive as much academic support outside of the classroom as white, middle-class students do, will only improve if placed in small classes in which a teacher can give students the specific attention and support they need.

“We will never successfully narrow the achievement gap without smaller class sizes,” she said.

Furthermore, despite previous research that suggests small class sizes only make a difference in students’ education in Kindergarten through the third grade, CPE reported that students placed in smaller classes have higher scores through the beginning of high school than do their peers consistently placed in larger classes.

And because reducing class size produces such academic benefits, Haimson said keeping classes small is ultimately the more cost-effective option.

“Many studies have shown that class size reduction will pay for itself many times over with better healthcare, increased earning potential and lower crime rates,” Haimson said. “With education spending, the point is not to be as cheap as possible, it’s to be as smart as possible.”

Teacher responds to Kasich request for input

Yesterday, Gov. Kasich tweeted a request for input from teachers

NBC4i ran a news report, with a response from Worthington teacher, and Central OEA President, Scott DiMauro

Scott also shared his submission to the Governor with us

I have to ask what your purpose is in moving to this system. If you're genuinely interested in improving student achievement, you need to make sure performance measures are appropriate, all educators have an equitable opportunity to earn performance-based compensation, and you start from a strong salary schedule that recognizes the two objective factors that make the biggest difference in quality teaching: training and experience.

A one-size-fits-all approach won't work, so it's critical that local control is honored through the collective bargaining process. The first step has to be to drop the misguided policy proposals from HB 153 and begin an honest dialogue with the teachers' unions you so frequently love to disparage.

Thank you for seeking our input. I hope you're really listening.

You can leave your own responses to the Governor at his special web page.