- Heavy charter school issue today. First up, a leftover from last week which discusses a pending legislative proposal to allow high-performing charter schools access to facilities funding statewide for the first time. Folks in Cleveland are concerned that the “high-performing” criteria applies to sponsors and not to individual schools. Meaning that a high-performing school in the portfolio of a low-performing sponsor would be unable to access facilities funding as the law is currently written. It’s a good question, and an important debate in the ongoing efforts to reform charter law in Ohio: sponsor-centric provisions vs. school-centric provisions. Fordham is name-checked here as one of only two sponsors in Ohio recently rated in the highest, “exemplary” category of sponsors by the Ohio Department of Education. Just sayin’. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 5/29/15)
- Of course not everyone thinks Fordham is the bomb when it comes to charter sponsorship. The Beacon Journal had no less than four stories this weekend about the history of charter school audits in Ohio. 15 years of audits are scrutinized in the series. Part one is a summary of the most egregious findings over the years. Fordham shows up on the Top 10 list for findings among its sponsored schools. Part two gives some more detail on each of the sponsors in the top 10 list, including Fordham – highlighting that it is indeed sponsors who are responsible for their schools’ financial and academic performance. Interesting to see the correlation with the facilities issue mentioned above. I do wish that a list of which findings have been repaid and which are still outstanding would have been included, but that probably wasn’t part of the narrative being put forward here. (Akron Beacon Journal, 5/30/15)
- Part three of the Beacon Journal series is a primer on how the state finds and pursues misspent dollars in charter schools. Spoiler alert 1: sponsor audits. Spoiler alert 2: YOST! (Akron Beacon Journal, 5/30/15)
- Part four takes a look at the difference between privately-performed audits and those conducted by the State Auditor (YOST!). Guess which one the ABJ prefers? Spoiler alert 2 again. Hopefully all of this ink means that the Beacon Journal is supportive of charter law reform that focuses on sponsors and especially of some of the reforms championed by the State Auditor (YOST!). We’ll find out when the inevitable editorial runs. (Akron Beacon Journal, 5/30/15)
- You might not expect Gadfly Bites to frequent the website of the Dayton Business Journal, but we do. And you should too. For in it last week, Porter Wright partner Charles Kidwell penned a guest column that not only gave a nice potted history of the charter school movement in Ohio but also looked at current efforts to reform charter law in Ohio. Detailed and informative, just like Chas. Fordham is namechecked. (Dayton Business Journal, 5/27/15)
- Sticking with charter school stories for one more entry, two Youngstown charter schools announced this weekend efforts to unionize their teachers, mainly on behalf of their students with disabilities. However, loyal readers of Gadfly Bites will know that the OEA doesn’t attempt to unionize charters that they are trying to shut down. So does this mean we’ve hit the If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em phase? If so, will someone please tell folks in Akron? (WFMJ-TV, Youngstown, 5/31/15)
- In other news, the departing Youngstown superintendent says that the school board “killed his spirit” and that’s why he’s leaving. (Youngstown Vindicator, 5/31/15)
- Editors in Cincinnati opined against the “burn-it-down approach” of ditching PARCC tests wholesale in Ohio and for an “incremental approach” of changes. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 5/30/15)
- Up in Toledo, however, guest columnist Heather Kays from the Heartland Institute is all for lighting the match, taking on Governor Kasich and encouraging him to burn down Common Core now. (Toledo Blade, 5/31/15)
