Cheers to State Auditor Dave Yost. Ohio’s Auditor last week released the results of unannounced visits his staff made to thirty charter schools back in October looking to compare reported student enrollment numbers with actual on-site counts. Nearly a quarter of schools showed “unusually high” discrepancies between the two numbers. Some will cry “witch hunt,” but this is really just one more bit of evidence that it’s time to review and revamp (as necessary) Ohio’s charter school laws.
Cheers to Ohio Representative Bill Hayes. In his first interview upon taking the chairmanship of the House Education Committee, Hayes was asked about the prospect of more Common Core repeal efforts in the General Assembly. His response was a study in open-minded fairness on an issue where lightning bolts and flames are expected. He expressed interest in hearing from both sides on the issue, while not equivocating on his position as “a supporter of local control for school districts.”
Jeers to Lorain City Schools’ new Board President Tony DiMacchia. Mr. DiMacchia is a proud native of Lorain and a cheerleader for his district, as you might expect from a school board president. But what message does it send when the leader of one of only two districts under the control of a state Academic Distress Commission demeans charter school quality (and families who choose them) with no supporting information and blames those families’ choices for financial woes in his district? Additionally, Mr. DiMacchia describes how, long before charter schools ever came on the scene, his parents gave him the option to choose a private school over Lorain City Schools when the district was forced to cut sports due to budget issues. He picked the sports and his parents got the bill. Folks who can’t afford tuition or to move out of Lorain get a district in academic distress.
Cheers to Cynthia C. Dungey, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. As an instructive counterpoint to the above, Director Dungey’s stroke of educational good fortune years ago—a scholarship in the inaugural class of what would become one of the most prestigious private schools in the Columbus area—is still a driving force behind her mission today. “Services to one person won’t necessarily look like services for another,” she says of her lifelong work in human services. “It needs to be individualized.” The same can be said of education and should be said more often.
Jeers to the “trust gap” that appears to exist in Akron City Schools. A survey of Akron teachers conducted by their union and published recently produced some fairly predictable responses on topics such as teacher morale and standardized testing. Teachers feel beaten down and dislike tests. But responses on the issues of trust in and collaboration with district administration were downright disturbing (84.4 percent of educators feel they do not have a voice in the direction of the district). With new standards and tests, teacher-evaluation implementation underway, and discipline policy changes ahead, such a lack of trust bodes ill for the district and its students.
