Traditional Public Schools Outshine Charters on Preliminary Ohio Data

The Ohio Department of Education released a bare-bones state report card today. Thanks to the accusations of data manipulation being levelled at school districts (we'll see how well founded those accusations are in the end), the main data points have not been released yet.

However, value-added scores have been.

Value-added measurements are an attempt to quantify how much academic growth a school adds to a child's education. If you meet expectations, then your kids have grown at the rate we would expect. If you score above that, then they grew faster. Below means they grew slower.

I have expressed concern with using test scores to determine so much of a school district's report card, but value-added measurements hold better promise. And, while it is difficult to figure out how these measures are calculated (Ohio's VAM formula is exempt from scrutiny because it is a proprietary algorithm), VAM is generally a better gauge of success.

However, I should say that using VAM at the classroom level is extremely problematic because it fluctuates wildly from year to year. But on a building and district level, VAM is generally a better calculus, in my book, than other proficiency calculations.

The news on VAM is good for Ohio's traditional public school buildings. Of the 2367 school buildings that received value-added measurements last school year, nearly 82 percent met or exceeded expectations. About 30 percent exceeded the measurement, while about 18 percent scored below the value-added measure.

What is interesting is that the VAM scores tend to be more fair to traditionally challenged districts.

For instance, the Big 8 Urban districts (Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown) had 73 percent of their buildings meet or exceed expectations. Given the rhetoric surrounding urban education in Ohio, one would think they would be doing worse than having 3 out of 4 buildings meet or exceed growth expectations. 

Again, proficiency scores are so inexorably tied with demographics that one can predict a school's proficiency scores by knowing the demographics. This dependence on proficiency scores is why the Big 8 likely will be rated poorly on the full report card, even though nearly 3 out of 4 of their buildings are meeting or exceeding student growth expectations.

VAM also shows that three of Olentangy's buildings and one of Hudson's buildings failed to achieve acceptable growth. Olentangy and Hudson are among the most traditionally revered districts while Ohio's Big 8 districts are the constant subject of attack from many who do not like public education.

What VAM shows is that improvement should happen everywhere. Wealthy districts can't skate nearly as easily with VAM. This is not to say VAM is perfect or accounts for all the challenges to growth that demographically challenged districts face.

But it is appreciably better at measuring the true success of a school and district.

How about Charter Schools, you ask?

They scored worse an traditional school districts overall. Of the 224 Charter Schools that received VAM scores, 78 percent scored at or above expectations, while 21 percent scored below. About 25 percent of Charter Schools scored above expectations.

While proponents may say the only fair comparison is with the Big 8 (which did worse overall than Charters on VAM), remember that all school districts in Ohio lost children and money to Charter Schools last year. Charter School proponents can't accept money and kids from every school district and then ask to not be compared with every school district on performance measures.

And as for those Big 8 districts, children educated in non-Charter Schools in the Big 8 districts receive more than 11 percent less state revenue, on average, thanks to the Charter School funding system. In Cincinnati and Columbus, kids lose more than 25 percent of their per pupil state revenue thanks to Ohio's Charter School funding system.

Think that might explain some of Big 8 schools' test score struggles?

Overall, every child in Ohio that does not attend a Charter School will receive an average of 6.5 percent less state revenue because of how much money Charter Schools remove from the system. That's a detriment to every Ohio child, not just those in the Big 8.

Charter School proponents have always contended they could educate kids cheaper and better than traditional schools. The preliminary data released by the Ohio Department of Education today indicate that while they remove $771 million from traditional schools last year (the exact amount the Ohio Lottery contributed to education, by the way, in a record year), leaving every Ohio child not in a Charter School with 6.5 percent less state revenue, they are generally getting worse results. And they cost the state about twice as much per pupil.

We'll have to see how the full-blown report card data turn out, but at least preliminarily, it looks as if Ohio's traditional public schools are doing a pretty good job educating children. And it looks like they are doing a better job overall than Charter Schools.

Save Our Schools Rally

On Oct. 16, a conference will be held in Powell to discuss the future of public education in Ohio. It will be headlined by Diane Ravitch -- one of the most influential education policy thinkers in the country today.

It is being sponsored by the same group that sued the state in th1990s over its funding system, which was found unconstitutional four different times.

Here is the flyer. I would encourage my readers to attend this important event where the battle for the future of Ohio's education system will be joined.

More K-12, Inc. Amazement

A lawsuit in Virginia has revealed that K-12, Inc., which runs the Ohio Virtual Academy -- a $60 million operation educating about 10,000 Ohio kids, depends on churning kids in and out of their schools to make money.

OHVA turned over more than half their kids in the 2010-2011 school year, according to the suit.

They also have teachers that have 400 kids.

I encourage everyone to read the lawsuit here, especially Ohio's legislators and regulators.

The outrage is amazing.

I Speak in Cleveland. Car Gets Broken Into.

It's not too often that irony truly enters our lives. Tonight was one of those nights for me.

I was speaking about school funding to a group of folks at a church on Cleveland's east side this evening. After a great night of talking and sharing ideas with one another about how to improve education for folks who have little hope in their lives, I walked out into the parking lot and noticed my car's dome light was on.

I could have hit myself in the head for leaving a door ajar for two hours, I thought. Now I'd need a jump. Then I came around to the driver's side window.

It had been smashed three times, my door opened and my GPS stolen.

I could have been angry, I suppose, though I felt more stupid than anything else. How many stories have I heard about people's cars being broken into for GPS devices?

But then my thoughts turned to the (likely) kid or kids who did this. They weren't born wanting to break into my car in a church parking lot so they could steal a $100 TomTom. Something drove them to it. Maybe it was drugs. Maybe it was an initiation. Maybe it was a desire to have a GPS.

Whatever it was, it was desperation.

There is too much desperation in Cleveland and communities around my state and in my country. Desperate acts from desperate people. This is beyond politics. No tax cut, no program can wipe out this kind of desperation.

The only things that stand a chance are a parent's love and an education.

That's it, my friends.

This is why I fight for states like Ohio to properly fund public education. This is why I rail against the who want to destroy what Alexis de Tocqueville called the "originality of American civilization" -- Public Education.

Because the only hope the kids who broke into my car tonight have lies in Jefferson's dream for Ohio and the rest of America -- the idea that all of us, regardless of where we live, have access to a great public education.

We failed our kids tonight. I failed our children tonight. For when children choose to break into cars parked in church parking lots, that's my problem. It's your problem. It's our problem. We failed these kids.

This is why we must fight, fight, fight, fight to get the funding and services kids like those who broke into my car tonight need. For then, perhaps, their desperation can turn to hope.

And that, my friends, is our greatest gift.

Not the TomTom.

K-12, Inc. Takes Ohio Taxpayer Money, Educates Chinese Gov't Workers

Yet another twist in the incredible, remarkable tale of education sector barracuda K-12, Inc.

According to their own investor relations website, K-12, Inc. has invested millions in the education of "learners of all ages throughout China, including university students, government workers and employees of international companies."

Remember that, according to K-12, Inc.'s SEC filings, nearly 1/4 of all K-12, Inc. revenue comes from the Ohio Virtual Academy and their operation in Pennsylvania. So that means Ohio taxpayers are bankrolling the education of Chinese government workers.

Unbelievable.

When will Ohio's officials notice?

Poll: Ohioans Hate Vouchers, Trust Elected School Boards

One of the topics that has been a theme throughout my time here at 10th Period is the idea that the local public school is the heart of every community. It was set up that way by the Founding Fathers in the Land Ordinance of 1785, and it has been that way ever since.

 

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America that “the originality of American civilization was most clearly apparent in the provisions made for public education.”

 

A poll put out by the major education groups yesterday demonstrates emphatically that Ohioans remain committed to our country's originality.

 

From the Gongwer story about the poll:

 

"A majority of Ohio voters trust their local boards of education over state officials when it comes to making decisions on education policy, according to a survey released Monday."

 

In addition, nearly two-thirds of Ohioans oppose the idea of using public money to fund private education.

 

So that must be why the current governor and legislature would quadruple the number of private school vouchers available in the EdChoice program, right?

 

That was sarcastic.

 

But perhaps it explains why barely 25% of the allotted 60,000 vouchers were taken.

 

What is sad is that it is Ohio's legislators who are responsible for providing that education. Yet they have been so negligent that Ohioans have all but given up on them. Perhaps if they weren't always telling local districts what to do and not following through on funding those mandates, they would have more credibility.

 

Yet despite their constitutional responsibility for the education of our state's children, only 6.6% of Ohioans trust the governor on the issue, with only 3.3% trusting the legislature.

 

As a former legislator, I feel a deep sense of regret and responsibility for this sentiment. Maybe I could have done more.

Other interesting tidbits from the poll results:

1) About half of the respondents thought it was a good idea to use test scores to judge districts, while 41% said it wasn't a good idea

2) Yet, seemingly incongruously, 63% said the district report card (based on test scores) was either somewhat important or not important at all to their judgment criteria of a district.

3) More than half of Ohioans thought Ohio's fracking revenue should restore cuts in schools and local governments.

If the state created a permanent school or government fund, like Texas did, and had Texas' extraction fees, schools and/or local governments could receive between $420 million and $1.4 billion per year, assuming modest 5% growth in the fund.

Maybe Ohioans have a point. Just maybe.

More K-12, Inc. Outrage from FL

I have read through some more of the confidential memo the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting put up on the Internet today, and while the most obvious outrage is contained in the proposed student-teacher ratios of as high as 72:1 in K-8 (research shows huge benefits for 13-17:1 ratios in K-4), and 275:1 in High School, there are plenty of other issues as well.

K-12, Inc. runs the Ohio Virtual Academy, which educates 10,000 Ohio children and last year received about $60 million in state taxpayer dollars, spending about 13% of that amount on teachers.

Here are some of the major outrages (again, this document applies to K-12, Inc.'s Florida operation):

1) Average teacher salaries should be cut 10% (The average OHVA teacher makes $32,700, according to the Ohio Department of Education)
2) By July 1, the school has 50%+ more teachers than they need, so they should enroll a bunch more kids because they easily can meet their ratios.
3) If High School enrollment shrinks, use K-12's in-house teachers, not the school's own teachers.
4) 80% of the teacher salary is base, 20% is merit pay, which has shown no real impact on student success.
5) Kids should be enrolled more heavily in grades where the profit margins are largest.

Not once in this document were methods to teach better mentioned, nor were there any mentions of what meets the needs of kids. It was all about what will meet the adults' needs who run K-12, Inc. and who invest in it on Wall Street.

OHVA is one of the cash cows for K-12, Inc., which funds much of what the company is able to do in Florida, Georgia and other states where K-12, Inc. operates. It is not so crazy to assume many of these same tactics are being used company wide. In which case, shouldn't Ohio take a very, very close look at OHVA?

And does anyone think it's a good idea to have a 72:1 student-teacher ratio in kindergarten, as K-12 does?

K-12, Inc. Requires 275:1 Student-Teacher Ratios. No kidding.

There is an amazing story out of Florida now posted here and here that delineates just how outrageously high K-12, Inc. schools' student-teacher ratios are. K-12, Inc. runs Ohio Virtual Academy, with educates about 10,000 Ohio students.

Just a few tidbits. The heads of schools are told that they should have the following ratios in the following grades:



K-8: 60-72:1

9-12: 225-275:1

 

 

That's right. K-12, Inc. thinks it's a good idea to have kindergartners in classes as high as 72:1 and high school kids in 275:1 classes.

 

There are plenty of other outrages in this document (like telling schools to put more kids in the most profitable grades, for instance) that lead one to conclude that K-12, Inc. has zero interest in educating kids and tons of interest in making money.

 

In Ohio. K-12, Inc.'s Ohio Virtual Academy received about $60 million in the latest annual report, with only about 13% of that going to pay teachers. And while state data show a student-teacher ratio of 51:1 two years ago, or 40:1 last year, those teachers include special education and Title I teachers, who by law have to have much smaller ratios. Teachers who teach the regular student population at K-12, Inc.  probably have much, much higher student loads. Remember that the state is paying K-12, Inc. as if they have a 20:1 student-teacher ratio.

 

And before you conclude that it's all online, so it's easy to accommodate these numbers of students, here is what the International Association for Online K-12 Learning, recommended: generally “a full-time online teacher … should carry approximately the same load” as their face-to-face traditional school counterparts. [1]

 

Will Ohio pay attention, or ignore this problem?

---

[1] From iNACOL discussion of class size at http://www.onlineprogramhowto.org/policies/curriculum-instruction/class-size/

Report: K-12, Inc. runs worst TN school. OH Paying Attention?

Another report came out today showing that K-12, Inc. is putting profits above kids. Again. This time, it's Tennessee.

Here is how one research study summarized K-12's operation, as reported by the Schools Matter blog:

• Math scores for K12 Inc.’s students are 14 to 36 percent lower than scores for other students in the states in which the company operates schools.

• Only 27.7 percent of K12 Inc.’s schools reported meeting Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) standards in 2010-11, compared to 52% for brick-and-mortar schools in the nation as a whole. 

• Student attrition is exceptionally high in K12 Inc. and other virtual schools. Many families appear to approach the virtual schools as a temporary service: Data in K12 Inc.’s own school performance report indicate that 31% of parents intend to keep their students enrolled for a year or less, and more than half intend to keep their students enrolled for two years or less. 

• K12 Inc.’s schools spend more on overall instructional costs than comparison schools – including the cost of computer hardware and software, but noticeably less on teachers’ salaries and benefits.

• K12 Inc. spends little or nothing on facilities and maintenance, transportation, and food service.

• K12 Inc. enrolls students with disabilities at rates moderately below public school averages, although this enrollment has been increasing, but the company spends half as much per pupil as charter schools overall spend on special education instruction and a third of what districts spend on special education instruction.

Will Ohio officials take as close a look at the Ohio Virtual Academy, which bankrolls these operations in Tennessee and Florida (where K-12 is also under investigation) and Georgia (where K-12 is also under investigation)? The Tennessee State Superintendent called K-12's performance unacceptable.

Will Ohio's interim Superintendent take this opportunity to look into K-12's $60 million Ohio Virtual Academy? After all, only 13% of OHVA's money is spent on teachers. OHVA has about 10,000 students, which would make it about the 16th largest school district in Ohio.

If these things are going on in other states, are Ohio officials interested to find out if they're happening here, where so much money and so many kids are being sent?

Stay tuned.
 

Wall Street: K-12, Inc. Under Investigation? BUY!

I have not been one of those who say that the profit motive is automatically incompatible with education. My thought is if someone, or a bunch of people, can figure out how to educate kids better, then why not let them profit? I'd rather see them make the money than another Cleveland Indians pitcher, for example.

By the way, I think this principle would apply to many teachers who have already figured out how to educate kids better. They should be highly rewarded for their efforts, as they are in other countries, not constantly berated. But that, too, is another story.

Despite my (admittedly naive) thoughts on the profit motive, I have yet to see any evidence that the profit motive has done anything to improve education. I have seen plenty of evidence that it has made a bunch of folks extremely wealthy off the taxpayers' generosity, with not much success to show for it for children and families.

Today, a friend pointed out this story to me about Wall Street's reaction to K-12, Inc. being placed under investigation in Florida -- a fact I said earlier today should get Ohio regulators interested in their activities. According to K-12, Inc.'s SEC filings, Ohio and Pennsylvania's operations essentially bankroll their whole operation. K-12 runs the Ohio Virtual Academy, which at last check received about $60 million in Ohio taxpayer money in the latest annual report of Charter Schools, and educates about 9,500 Ohio kids.

Here's Wall Street's take on K-12's problems:

"... K12 continues to grow at an impressive clip. On Wednesday evening, Sept. 12, the company released fiscal (June) 2012 results that showed a 36% jump in revenue (to $708 million) and a 30% increase in EBITDA (to $87 million). Various metrics for the fiscal fourth quarter were also handily above consensus forecasts, giving shares a big lift this morning. The company now has more than 100,000 students enrolled -- either in "virtual classrooms" or in its network of charter schools. (We'll have to wait until early October to hear what management expects to generate in the current fiscal year).

Despite Thursday's gain, shares are well off the 52-week high of $37, in part on concerns that regulators are still unsure of the company's claims. (For example, shares had just tumbled more than 10% on Tuesday when reports circulated that Florida was opening an investigation.)

That concern aside, Merrill Lynch sticks with a "buy" rating and a $27 price target, noting that K12 has "significant top-line growth potential without taking into account expansion into new states."
 

It struck me that the reason the analysts think you should buy K-12, Inc. stock is because of the company's "growth potential", not because they do a great job educating kids.

This demonstrates to me that the free market has not figured out how to educate children better; it has figured out how to make money off educating children, which is a completely different endeavor and purpose.

I think it is a black eye for the free-market approach to education that the market would tell investors to buy a stock of a company that's under investigation in several states for failing to educate children while cutting corners and misleading regulators. All because the Street thinks they'll keep making money.

Am I missing something?

And let me ask you a question, Dear Reader: Would you buy stock in K-12, Inc.?

Will Ohio join Florida and Investigate K-12, Inc.?

K-12, Inc., which runs the incredibly profitable Ohio Virtual Academy (the school gets paid for having 20:1 student teacher ratios and had a 51:1 ratio in 2010-2011), is under investigation in Florida for having certified teachers sign off for students that were being taught by non-certified teachers. Among other things.

As I have reported at 10th Period previously, K-12, Inc. is utterly dependent upon Ohio's Charter School funding system to prop up its operations. That is because Ohio's Charter School system pays virtual schools, like OHVA, as if they had brick-and-mortar expenses, when they do not.

Now the question is whether Ohio will take its cue from Florida and scrutinize K-12, Inc's operation here, especialy given that OHVA educates about as many children as the Lorain City Schools.

North Carolina Policy Watch has a good rundown of K-12, Inc.'s most recent list of problems.

"The market reacted swiftly to Tuesday’s report about the Florida investigation, and K12 stock (NYSE:LRN) had one of the biggest drops on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, losing 13 percent of its value and ending at $20.31 a share, according to the Associated Press.

The company, once a favorite of Wall Street investors for its fast growth and high profit margins, has suffered a series of blows over the last year, after the New York Times and Washington Post both published extensive stories that questioned the company put profits over providing quality education to public school students.

The company is now facing a class-action investor lawsuit as well, accusing K12’s top officials of lying to investors about the viability and quality of its online education programs.

Earlier this year, a study by the National Education Policy Center found that students at K12, Inc.-run schools are fell behind their public school counterparts in math and reading. A Tennessee legislator called that state’s decision to open a K12-run school a ““a risky experiment that blew up in our face” earlier this week when test scores showed the school fell in the bottom 4 percent in the state.

The FCIR report also points out that the NCAA is no longer accepting credits from K12’s Aventa Learning, which offers online classes that student-athletes had used to fill in gaps in their academic records.

In Georgia, the company has also come under fire for running afoul of state and federal guidelines for disabled and special education students, according to The Financial Investigator, an investor news blog that’s written extensively about K12. The blog first wrote about the Florida troubles on Sept. 4, and had obtained records from Florida education officials about the teacher certification issues through a public records request.

The Office of the Georgia School Superintendent has threatened to terminate the K12-run Georgia Cyber Academy’s charter with the state unless the online school reduces its teacher-student ratios, hires more staff to help students with disabilities and irons out some financial issues, according to an Aug. 7 letter from the state agency posted by the Financial Investigator."

No word on what kind of impact this will have on OHVA. However, perhaps the Ohio Department of Education would be interested in examining OHVA's operations, given how shady K-12, Inc. has turned out to be in other states? An agency that is concerned about integrity, as ODE has currently become about school district data reporting, should be interested in the integrity of K-12, Inc.'s operation.

If Georgia thinks K-12's student-teacher ratios are outrageous, one would think the 51:1 ratio in Ohio would turn some heads. But we'll see.

Third-Grade Retention Could Cost $148 million

As I was reading through Gongwer's report on the Third-Grade Retention Guarantee discussion from yesterday's State Board of Education meeting, a number stuck in my mind. If the Retention Guarantee is fully implemented -- expecting all kids who score less than 400 on their reading exam to be held back (it will be phased in, starting at a lower score) -- then 17,000 children would be eligible for retention, according to the Ohio Department of Education.

That means that those 17,000 children will spend an extra year in school, which means we need to add an additional cost to the overall cost of education by 17,000 children. How big would that be?

Using Ohio's current figures of $3625 per pupil in state revenue, plus the $5,087 per pupil from local revenue,* that would be an additional $148 million cost to schools, $86 million of which would have to come from additional local property tax levies, assuming the current state-local expenditure ratios.

And this calculation does not include any additional resources for districts to ensure reading intervention specialists can assist the children. Nor does it assume any additional funding weights for special needs or other assistance, which children who need to be held back would be more likely to receive than the average student. My $148 million calculation just estimates the cost of keeping an additional 17,000 children in the system an extra year at the average cost of a student.

All this additional cost, and there is substantial evidence suggesting that the policy will actually hurt the children it purports to aid. As I reported earlier, the state has committed $13 million to this policy -- an amount even the Ohio House Education Committee Chairman admitted yesterday was inadequate.

I hope my calculation puts into perspective, Dear Reader, just how inadequate that commitment is.

*This calculation was made using the Ohio Department of Taxation's property tax collections for school districts of about $8.7 billion , divided by 1.7 million Ohio school children, including those in Charter Schools. This does not include other local revenue generated for education from income taxes. So the cost is likely higher than $148 million. However, I wanted to be as conservative as possible in the estimate and just use formula money from the state and property taxes collected by school districts.

Ohio House Ed Comm. Chair: Ohio 3rd Grade Retention Guarantee Underfunded

In Gongwer's story about yesterday's Ohio State Board of Education, something caught my eye. State Rep. Gerald Stebelton, who is the Chairman of the House Education Committee, admitted something that I have been saying ever since the idea of a Third-Grade Retention Guarantee was brought up by Gov. John Kasich: it is a huge, unfunded mandate.

"(Stebelton) said the House will look at more money for the reading guarantee as it considers the budget next year, adding that $13 million is inadequate."
 

I should say that my first term in the Ohio House I sat next to Rep. Stebelton in the House Education Committee. I came to respect and admire him greatly for his commitment to education and intelligence. And I respect his candid admission at a public meeting.

However, I simply do not understand how -- when the state is looking at a budget surplus of greater than $500 million -- the state continues to find excuses to avoid funding things the state claims are priorities, like the Third-Grade Retention Guarantee or the Cleveland Plan. It's not like 2009 when the economy was collapsing around us and we were being told every month that we had less and less money. We simply could not fund things we wanted to fund.

I agree that getting kids to read by third grade is very important. However, retaining them to achieve that goal is extremely problematic. A much superior way is to fund early childhood education and intervention, which the Ohio Department of Education admirably went on record as supporting yesterday. Though even if they get their dream scenario approved in the next biennial budget, it would still only reach about a quarter of the students who need it.

So the Ohio House passed the Retention Guarantee this year, despite substantial research showing retaining children can actually hurt the children it is trying to help. Then the state compounded the problem by putting an amount of money into it its leaders admit was inadequate. All at a time when the state is looking at a large budget surplus.

Wow.

Ohio Data Scandal: What About Life Skills?

There has been a lot said in recent weeks about the alleged testing scandal where data has been allegedly fudged and attendance allegedly has been manipulated  by public schools to make their test scores look better.

I have mentioned many times about the potential pitfalls of basing school accountability so heavily on test scores that measure a small slice of what children learn in school. The tests are subject to a whole raft of methodological problems that make them extremely predictable, given a community's demographic makeup. If your scores are more predictive of your school's economic makeup than academic excellence, and the state puts more and more emphasis on tests to determine success, doesn't the temptation to cheat grow? As we've seen in Atlanta, DC and other places recently, perhaps.

Yet I would be remiss if I didn't point out that in Ohio a group of schools has openly admitted they only consider their students' test scores legitimate if they show up to school more often than not. Life Skills Centers -- among the worst performing schools in the state, and in the case of one of the schools, on one measurement, the worst -- wrote to the Ohio Department of Education in January, requesting that they be allowed to open another school in Warrensville Heights, just outside Cleveland.

In the application, Life Skills said this about how their success should be measured:

"... the school will put greater emphasis on the results of students who attend school at least 60 percent of the time and who were enrolled for at least one full academic year."
 

In other words, they feel they will only really care about the scores of kids who show up at least 60% of the time. Life Skills received their approval to be among the first batch of new, state-sponsored Charter Schools earlier this year.

Yet the Ohio Department of Education and Ohio's Governor and Legislative leaders are piling on Columbus City Schools over allegations that Columbus didn't count children that were habitually truant in their test or attendance data?

Admittedly, the Columbus situation would be illegal, if true, while Life Skills is merely stating what it thinks its success should be measured. But that doesn't make what Life Skills has done under the color of law any less scandalous.

It is a legitimate question whether schools, either Charter or Public, should be held accountable for the test scores of children who -- either through their own actions or that of their parents -- are rarely or ever in school. But for the state's leadership to be so hung up on the allegations in Columbus, while approving Life Skills' adoption of what amounts to a state sanctioning of the same thing, seems a bit curious. I would hope it's not because Life Skills is run by mega-political donor David Brennan.

Even though Life Skills wants to only be held academically accountable for the kids who attend 60% of the time, it still gets paid for the kids who don't. In fact, Life Skills accepts more kids into their schools than their schools could physically hold. They are building truancy into their bottom line.

Is that data manipulation?

Perhaps Ohio's leaders aren't as concerned with that because what Life Skills does is allowed under the law. Yet isn't that a scandal?

The taxpayers of Ohio are paying Life Skills millions of dollars to educate children who never walk through Life Skills' doors. And Life Skills not only knows that, they are counting on it.

If the Columbus scandal is true, it means Columbus' test and attendance data is a bit worse than reported.

The Life Skills scandal is true, and it has cost the state's taxpayers and children millions of dollars over the last several years.

Let's be clear that there's a reason Life Skills isn't too worried about its scores or attendance rates. That's because it is a Dropout Recovery School, which means the state can't close the school for failing kids, even though their graduation rate is 10.8 % -- less than 1/4 the rate of the non-Life Skills Dropout Recovery Charter Schools. Denver recently killed its Life Skills Center for poor performance, yet Ohio's children and taxpayers continue to fund them.

Isn't that a scandal?

Outside Effort to Overturn Westerville's Levy Dismissed

The effort by the 1851 Constitutional Law Center -- an extreme, right-wing legal group -- to overturn the vote of Westerville's citizens earlier this year has been thwarted. For now.

A unanimous Franklin County Board of Elections dismissed the Center's effort to undo the vote of the people. And yes, a unanimous vote means that even the infamous Chairman of the Franklin County Republican Party, Doug Preisse, voted to toss the issue off the ballot.

1851's Maurice Thompson tried to argue that the law that allows do-overs of "levy increases" would apply to Westerville because even though the levy replaced the same 11.4 mills that had been approved in the 1970s (thereby not increasing the levy amount), because the state, through House Bill 920 (which was put into the Ohio Constitution in 1976), effectively cuts the amount of revenue generated by millage over time, the recently passed levy amounts to a de facto levy increase. Since HB 920, there have been more than 10,000 school levies in Ohio to address this very issue, by the way.

In a nutshell, HB 920 cuts levy rates when property values rise, effectively keeping the amount any levy raises at the same dollar figure, regardless of inflation. That means districts' property tax levies lose value as the community's property gains value. This crazy conundrum explains why Ohio is the only state in the country that does this.

Forget how mind numbing the 1851's argument may seem -- punishing a school district for replacing a levy that the state reduced over 40 years -- the fact that no one on the Board of Elections bought it does not bode well for Mr. Thompson's pledge to take the case to the Ohio Supreme Court.

This staves off a potentially devastating effort to roll back local levies by 1851 and their right-wing compatriots. The Center had pledged to do this across the state if they had succeeded in Westerville (the home of Gov. John Kasich, by the way). Since about 60% of Ohio school districts' non-federal revenue comes from local property taxes, a widespread campaign to cut that revenue stream at the same time the state is slashing the education budget by $1.8 billion could have truly crippled Ohio's school districts.

I have little doubt that if 1851 isn't able to do this in Westerville, they will try in another community. It is incumbent upon the General Assembly to severely restrict this antedeluvian section of the Ohio Revised Code that allows outside ideologues to potentially undo a vote of the people so easily.