The Akron Beacon Journal has started a series about charter schools (surprise, surprise), with a set of five stories over the weekend and more to come through the week. Here’s the first batch:
1. First up, a slanted and simplistic view of authorizer oversight issues in Ohio. The headline mentions low performance among charters but that is a mere sentence (referring to a previous ABJ hit piece) in this article. I think all you need to know is conveyed in the sentence which ends, “…placing control in the hands of ‘sponsors,’ or ‘authorizers,’ who generally were school-choice advocates.” This tiny piece of nothing fact - groups who sponsor charters are school-choice supporters – is presented as a stinging gotcha. Fordham is namechecked as one of the groups (mostly supporters of charter schools, dun dun DUN!) working with Sen. Lehner on comprehensive charter school reform. (Akron Beacon Journal)
2. Fordham’s Aaron Churchill is quoted extensively in the next piece which really does try to link charter school performance to management style. The ABJ’s numbers are interesting but colored into near-uselessness by the above-mentioned slant. As a prime example, see the subtle implication that a high-performing charter school in central Ohio with a for-profit management company “bucks the trend” of (presumed) for-profit suckitude because it draws a ton of students from one of the best-performing and highest-taxed suburban districts. Seems highly unlikely on a number of fronts. Personally, I like Aaron’s take on it: “There are some exemplary Educational Management Organizations out there, and lame ones, too.” (Akron Beacon Journal)
3. The topic of “recycled” charter schools – those which close, but reorganize and reopen with different names/leaders/boards/etc – is also revisited in the first salvo of this ABJ series. I’m assuming the “gotcha” here is simply that any exist at all, not the numbers or the process. Surely a similar review of that batch of apparently unkillable “parent trigger” schools in Columbus (and their lame “improvement plans”) would result in similar outrage. How the further discussion of rental agreements fits in with this, I have no idea. (Akron Beacon Journal)
4. Fordham is in the middle of the pack of Ohio’s ten largest charter school sponsors, ranked by the amount of state funding received. Because it’s all about quality money. (Akron Beacon Journal)
5. For completeness’ sake, this piece explains how the charter schools were ranked/compared. Seems so innocent when you put it like that. (Akron Beacon Journal)
In a brief look at other items of interest:
6. Editors in Canton opined in support of Common Core, with a reference to Chad’s press statement following the HB597 committee vote last week. (Canton Repository)
7. I have to admit that I was so caught up in the season finale of Doctor Who this weekend that I entirely missed the fact that a bunch of outside agitators got agitated about an item on the agenda of Ohio’s State Board of Education agenda, got it almost entirely wrong, and proceeded to blow up the internet over it. Thank heaven for objective journalism to try and bring some sanity to the discussion of Ohio’s “5 of 8” rule, up for discussion at the state board meeting this week. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
