As we await final decisions from the General Assembly on important matters of school funding, report cards, vouchers, and more here in Ohio, we have a bumper crop of charter news from around the country that’s holding our attention.
New Jersey
This week, the New Jersey Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling in favor of a group of seven charter schools’ expansion efforts. The 2016 decision rejected the argument that charter school expansion would harm the Newark School District financially. However, the Supreme Court did express concern that new or expanded charters might promote racial segregation in the future.
Rhode Island
The Rhode Island House of Representatives this week approved an innovative bill that would automatically enter all public school students into charter school lotteries. If enacted, families would be required to opt out of the lotteries if they did not want to participate or to affirmatively decline any seat(s) offered to them as a result of the lotteries from which they did not opt out. The bill now goes to the state Senate.
Florida
While the percentage of Florida third graders scoring at grade level or above on the Florida Standards Assessment in English and language arts decreased slightly across all student demographics this year, charter school student performance bucked that trend. Data released this week show charter school student performance was higher than non-charter student performance by eight percentage points – 61 percent versus 53 percent, respectively. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, scores were down across the board this year as compared to 2019 (no tests were given in 2020) due to pandemic-disruption learning loss.
Nevada
Las Vegas is getting serious about its plans to open the first city-run charter school in the state, an effort to expand its preschool programming to higher grades and to boost educational achievement for boys and girls in the city. Earlier this month, city council approved bylaws for a proposed nonprofit corporation, called CLV Strong Start Academy Elementary School Inc., which will formally apply for the charter school license and be charged with operating the school.
EdSec speaks
In case you missed it, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona was the keynote speaker at this week’s National Charter School Conference. He took the opportunity to make the case to school leaders that building a diverse teaching force should be a key component of pandemic recovery efforts. He also expressed concerns over for-profit charter operators, saying that “it’s important that we also take steps to ensure greater transparency and accountability in the charter school sector,” in order to facilitate student success.
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