3 out of 4 Charters get Fs on New Report Card

I was stunned to read this weekend that 3 out of 4 Charter Schools in this state will receive Fs under the new state report card. However, I was even more stunned by the response of Bill Sims, president and CEO of the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

Here was his answer to why 3 out of 4 of his schools are failing, (according to the Gongwer (subscription only) story):

"The intent here is to demonstrate some projections, but the effect is that you've got comparisons," he said in an interview. "The problem with these projections and the perception that they create is that in so far as charter schools are concerned, this isn't an apples to apples comparison."

Why isn't this an apples-to-apples comparison? Tell me if you've heard this before:

"Charters are basically in Ohio's urban areas dealing with predominantly disadvantaged children as the districts are with those kids in those areas. Therefore, they really need to be compared performance-wise with the schools in those specific urban domains to get a true sense of how charter schools are doing relative to their district counterparts."

Bill Sims is a great spokesman for his group. He is always on message, but not even he can sell this bit of nasty news. The facts fail Mr. Sims. Completely.

The Big 8 Urban districts -- the ones Mr. Sims demand Charters be compared with -- only provide 53% of the state's Charter School kids. In other words, almost half of all the kids in Ohio Charters do not come from the districts Sims insists his schools be compared with.

In addition, 45% of the $774 million sent to Charter Schools in the 2011-2012 school year came from schools outside the Big 8 (Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Dayton, Toledo, Youngstown).

The Charter Schools' only argument to explain away their dismal performance is this: "Yes, our evaluations are lousy, but even though we get about half our kids and money from non-Big 8 schools, our performance should only be compared with Big 8 Schools. Because that is an apples-to-apples comparison."

Look, I am sick of Charters wanting their cake and eating it too. They accept money from every school district in this state (except one), yet only want to be compared with the most challenged districts in the state.

Meanwhile, 3 out of 4 Charters are failing. They cost more per pupil than the traditional public schools despite paying their teachers 40% less, being exempt from about 270 sections of Ohio Revised Code, and failing to need to bus children.

Not only that, but 40% of the money sent to Charters comes from districts that do better than the Charter on both the state's current report card and performance index score. And 90% of the money sent to Charters comes from Districts that, on average, score 18 points higher on the performance index score.

And as for the urbans? Big 8 urban buildings do better on the performance index score than their charter counterparts, with 10% greater poverty rates, according to the latest report card.

Are there good, even great, charters in Ohio? Yes. But when only 23 of 300+ Charters in this state rate above the state average on the performance index score, not nearly enough fit that bill.

I am sick of the excuses, especially when they mirror the exact arguments Charter advocates have so cavalierly mocked over the years. I am sick of Charters claiming poverty when their argument was they could do a better job at a cheaper cost, not the same cost as traditional schools. Given their lower costs, the fact we have a real debate about which system is more expensive is outrageous. I am sick of the really good Charters in this state being bogged down by the enormous weight of Ohio's incredible Charter failures.

After this budget, we're looking at somewhere on the order of $8 billion being spent over the 15-year life of this "experiment". That's about a year and a third of state funding for every child in Charter and Traditional schools. And what do we have to show for it? Three out of 4 Charters failing the kids of this state.

It is time for people of conscience in the Charter School community to stand up and acknowledge the obvious: This is not working for the vast majority of kids in Charter Schools. We need to make serious reforms to ensure that Ohio's Charter Schools are living up to the promises made so many years ago.

Want a place to start? How about only funding the 1 out of 4 Charters that aren't failing, even if they're only getting Ds rather than Fs?

Let's take the savings and provide property tax relief to the citizens of this state, just as the Ohio Constitution and Supreme Court have demanded for years.

LSC: Districts Get Big Cuts from Charters

The Ohio Legislative Service Commission has put out additional Charter School projections that demonstrate that Gov. John Kasich's new Education Funding Plan will include, in some cases, additional millions of dollars lost by school districts, thanks to his changes in Charter School funding.

In Ohio, the state transfers money directly from school districts to Charter Schools. The amount leaving the district is almost always more than what the state would give to the district for the same children. The result is that every kid not in a Charter Schools gets 6.5% less state revenue than the state says the child needs to succeed.

Kasich's new education plan exacerbates the problem, especially in the state's urban districts. For example, Cleveland, which is looking at a potential cut of $75 million as early as two years from now, would be set to lose an additional $4.9 million to Charters simply because of the changes in Kasich's new formula. I have listed the top 25 districts in terms of additional dollars lost.

The bottom line is this: Because of the Charter School increases, 263 school districts (43%) under Kasich's plan now would get cut in the second year of the biennium, and that's only if the Charter School population stays the same as it was last school year. Columbiana would be cut more than 8% now.

Gov. Kasich told everyone that they would not receive less money than they do this school year. However, thanks to his increased investment in Charters, it's clear that many school districts now will lose significant revenue compared with this school year.

We already know that this year's Charter School count is about 10,000 students more than the year that LSC examined. And the number does not include the $100 per pupil Charters will be receiving for operational costs -- an amount Charter School advocates said should be closer to $1,000.

So that 263 school district figure is conservative, as are any additional projected losses.

And if I'm Cleveland, I am extremely frustrated. The district spent a year working with Kasich and his allies to implement the Cleveland Plan, which Kasich hailed as an example of Education Reform. They are among the most collaborative districts in the state when it comes to Charter Schools.

And Kasich rewards Cleveland's effort by putting them on a $75 million guarantee, which he says he wants to eliminate in as few as two years, and develops a Charter School formula that costs Cleveland another $5 million on top of their already huge losses to Charters.

With friends like that...

The Curious Case of ECOT

The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow has had quite the line-up of commencement speakers the last two graduations. In 2011, Gov. John Kasich spoke to their graduates. Last year, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Stan Heffner spoke.

One might infer that ECOT's ability to pull such speakers had as much to do with CEO William Lager's largess to Ohio Republicans (since 2003, he has contributed about $800,000 to Ohio Republican candidates since 2003 and another approximately $200,000 to Ohio Republican Party committees during the same time) as with anything going on at ECOT educationally. Especially given ECOT's 40% graduation rate.

Then, the Plain Dealer pointed out in its story yesterday about Charter School funding that ECOT would receive the single largest funding increase of any Ohio Charter School.

By a mile.

ECOT's $4.8 million increase dwarfs the second-largest increase -- $1.3 million at the Ohio Virtual Academy (OHVA), run by the notoriously shifty K-12, Inc., who has revealed in SEC filings that its entire existence as the country's largest Virtual School company is dependent upon the largess Ohio and Pennsylvania's leaders have provided to e-Schools.

And it's not like ECOT is knocking the socks off everyone academically to earn that windfall. More than 7 out of every 10 dollars sent to ECOT comes from a school district that scores better on either the state's performance Index Score or Report Card. More than 80% of the $7 million sent to OHVA last year came from districts that scored better on one or both measures, so I guess ECOT is better in that regard. Barely.

I don't need to re-hash the problems with e-Schools in this state, especially how much we already overpay them. However, it looks like we will be overpaying them even more than ever under Kasich's education plan.

Meanwhile, 80% of Ohio's poorest school districts are looking at massive cuts as soon as two years from now under the same education plan that heaps millions of new dollars upon one of the state's largest political contributors.

100 Superintendents Fight Kasich Plan

Something that hasn't happened for 20 years happened today: 100+ School Superintendents showed up in Columbus to fight legislation that would hurt kids.

Feeling betrayed and angry, the 100 superintendents packed a room at the Ohio Statehouse and stood up for kids against Gov. John Kasich's education funding plan. And this never needed to happen.

The genesis of all this anger over the plan has to do with Kasich himself, who infamously told superintendents on Jan. 31 that his plan would help poor kids and not help wealthy ones as much. A week later when the district-by-district projections were published, it was clear the exact opposite was the case.

This is what happens when people feel misled or lied to, echoing much of what's been said here and here.

You can read the stories about the 100 Superintendents here and here and here. There will be many other stories.

But the long and short of it is this: nearly every major advocacy group in this state, on both sides of the aisle, are arguing not for minor little tweaks to this education plan, but major, fundamental improvements.

By trying to involve Superintendents early on in the plan's introduction, Kasich tried to blunt their potential criticism. By misleading them, it backfired on him. Instead of quelling their anger, Kasich stoked it.

Ohio Dept. of Ed Now Officially an Arm of Gov's Office

Kasich's Education Czar, Dick Ross, has been chosen to head up the Ohio Department of Education. His appointment completes what has been a three-decade effort of Ohio Governors to essentially take over the Department of Education from the constitutional authority of the State School Board.

Congratulations.

I guess.

The Department of Education was a huge thorn in the side of former Gov. George Voinovich in the 1990s as it helped to organize efforts to oppose the state's funding system during the DeRolph lawsuit. As a result, Voinovich successfully got several seats on the board to be gubernatorial appointments. While many remain elected, several are now appointed.

And the actions the board displayed with its hire of Dick Ross -- whose credibility with local school districts is basically non-existent after he helped Kasich mislead districts about how Kasich's education plan would work -- shows that the constitutional intent to keep the Department of Education an entity not beholden to the Governor's office is gone. And that's a shame.

Yes, other Governors have had a frequently heavy hand in the choice of state superintendent. But choosing the Governor's own education czar straight out of that position is unprecedented. And Kasich had to change the rules so he could do it.

Do you think that the Ohio Department of Education will put out anything even remotely critical of the Governor's widely panned education plan now that its top cheerleader's in charge?

Exactly.

Do you think that's a good or bad result?

Exactly.

This is nothing against Dick Ross. I haven't been overly impressed with him, but he seems like a nice man. I mean, he infamously laughed when he suggested that poor Appalachian districts try to teach music over the Internet. I don't know if he'll be a transcendent leader at ODE. But I do know this: the Ohio Department of Education is now just another department under the thumb of the Governor's office.

The kids of Ohio need a strong, independent voice at ODE. With Mr. Ross, that voice has been silenced.

And that's very sad.

Kasich Ed Plan Increases Charter Funding 4.5%

After many weeks of anticipation, the Legislative Service Commission has made preliminary estimates on the cost of Gov. John Kasich's education plan for Charter Schools. The bottom line is Charters will get a 4.5% increase under the plan.

For the last week or so there was real concern that the plan would lead to Charter School cuts. Instead, it represents an increase. At first glance of the LSC projections, 75 Charter Schools would receive less funding, which is about 20% of all Charters. About 60% of traditional schools would get cut under Kasich's Plan, but for a pot of guaranteed money that Kasich has indicated would go away soon.

Some of those Charters that get cut, though, are high-performing Charters, like the Intergenerational School in Cleveland, which would lose $20,000.

Now the challenge is this: Last week it seemed that Charters and Traditional Public Schools were starting to coalesce around the idea of raising the per pupil foundation aid in Kasich's Plan from the really low $5,000 per pupil (the lowest in two decades, in constant dollars) to a more robust number around $6,000 per pupil.

Will these Charter runs be enough to convince Charters to back off that demand? And will the Charter-Traditional School War be perpetuated with the results of these Charter School projections that show Charters doing a bunch better than Traditional Schools?

I hope the answer to both questions is an emphatic "No."

Ohio Charter Schools Confirm Kasich Ed Plan Insufficient

Today's testimony before the Primary and Secondary Education Subcommittee was quite revealing about Charter Schools' concerns with Gov. John Kasich's new education funding plan. Namely, this reliably Republican constituency was clear about one thing: Kasich's plan will hurt them.

When a group that's been as solidly in your corner politically as Charter Schools remains publicly neutral on your signature Education Reform plan, you have problems.

This is important as the debate moves forward because if even Charter Schools are saying the funding plan is inadequate, then perhaps changing the plan becomes more feasible. As I blogged about last week, there was plenty for Charter Schools to be worried about in Kasich's education plan. The per pupil foundation amount was being dropped from $5,700 per pupil to $5,000 per pupil, Charters weren't given a guarantee that their funding wouldn't dip below previous years' levels, and the economically disadvantaged weighted funding was low.

And it appears that Charter School advocates agreed with that assessment.

According to testimony from Stephanie Klupinski, of the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools,

"The per pupil amount for Ohio’s charter schools is currently not enough, and we are concerned that HB 59 will make things even more difficult by reducing funding for many public charter schools and widening the gap.

Although we do not have spreadsheets for charter schools, we have done preliminary estimates.  Schools that will be particularly devastated by the proposed change include e-schools and some of the highest performing charters—schools that attract students from many different districts.  Many charters are helping blur district lines by enrolling a cross-section of students, and we don’t want to penalize our charters who serve students from different districts. That, unfortunately, is what we fear this proposal does.
 

Consider the effect of the proposed changes on Columbus Preparatory Academy (CPA), one of the highest scoring schools in the state with a Performance Index of 111.1.  Our simulation estimates that CPA is likely to lose at least $100,000 in funding, even after factoring in funds intended to support enhanced Early Childhood and Gifted services and to address facility inequities.

 

Governor Kasich has repeatedly emphasized that no district will receive less under his budget proposal.  We think it is only fair and equitable that public charter schools do not receive less per pupil than what they currently receive.  To remedy the problem, one possible solution may be that the per pupil funding amount that follows the student be the greater of the current amount of  $5,704 or the amount generated by the combination of Opportunity Grant and Targeted Resources funding as proposed in HB 59.  Schools should be assured that charter students will be funded at no less than the amount that they are today, while also being able to take advantage of increases where they are available.  We believe this may be an appropriate fix, but without having seen the budget spreadsheets for charter schools, we cannot be certain.  We thank you for your efforts to obtain the spreadsheets—I know we are all looking forward to seeing them."
 

Klupinski's testimony mirrored the testimony of other Charter School advocates, including those from White Hat Management -- David Brennan's outfit.

What's very clear is that Charters don't like the $5,000 per pupil foundation amount, nor do they like that they're not going to be getting any guarantees that their funding won't drop from the previous year.

There is a potential synergy here with what traditional public schools have been saying throughout this process. Is there a way to finally have Charters and traditional public schools come together around a set of principles?

Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope. And wouldn't that be a welcome change from the last 15 years of distrust between the two groups?

Startling Charter and Traditional Teacher Data

Now that the Ohio Department of Education has released its full report card, it is possible to examine in-depth data about various aspects of Ohio's educational landscape. Given that this week is Charter Week in the Primary and Secondary Education Subcommittee, I decided to look at teachers in both Charter and Traditional Public Schools.

As with prior years, the average teacher salaries in Charter Schools are about 40% lower than traditional public schools. The Charter School average is $33,993 and the average in a Traditional Public School is $57,303.

But where I found the comparison fascinating is in the other data points.

The typical Traditional Public School building has teachers with an average of 14.8 years of experience. In a Charter School building, that average is 6.3. However, the most telling statistic here, I think, is the mode.

The mode tells you which number appears the most often in a set of data. The mode on Traditional Public School buildings' teacher experience is 14 years, which means more Traditional Public School Buildings have teachers with an average of 14 years of experience than any other number of years.

Charter Schools? Their mode is 0. That's right. More Charter School Buildings have an average level of teacher experience of 0 than any other.

That is amazing to me.

Two equally stunning statistics.

1) The average Traditional Public School building has about 2/3 of its teachers with a masters degree. The average Charter School building has about 1/3 of its teachers with a masters degree. Granted, there is some debate about the impact of masters degrees. But I don't think they hurt student performance.

2) About 1 out of 3 Charter Schools in Ohio have at least some core courses taught by someone with a temporary teaching certificate. Of the more than 3,200 Traditional Public School buildings in the report card data, not a single one has core courses taught by teachers with temporary certificates.

Given this rather remarkable data regarding teachers -- the single largest cost in any school, I'm even more curious why Ohio's brick-and-mortar Charter Schools cost $54 more per pupil than Traditional Public Schools.

Louisiana Reforms Struck Down. Any Impact in Ohio?

If I may take a break from Ohio's new school funding plan for a moment, something interesting is happening in Louisiana.

For the second time in a few months, Gov. Bobby Jindal's education reforms have been struck down by a Republican-appointed judge. And while Gov. Jindal is publicly expressing confidence in the case's outcome in future courts, the decisions should cause some concern for those seeking similar reforms.

For background, Jindal essentially created statewide vouchers and did the following on administrative reforms, as described by the Huffington Post's Joy Resmovits:

The 2012 law ended the practice of firing teachers in reverse order of their seniority, a major win for the reform crowd. It also made it harder for teachers to get tenure, required that the state schools chief review all school superintendent contracts, and pulled back on the power of local school boards.
 

For Ohioans, those reform measures should sound familiar because it has many components that have also been pushed here. In fact, the Cleveland Plan did away with much of the first in, last out provisions in employment contracts, as well as tenure. Louisiana's law was hailed by many corporate reformers. It is unclear whether these legal findings will impact the ability of the reforms to take hold elsewhere.

Couple what's happened in Louisiana on Vouchers and teacher reform with the separate rulings out of California and Illinois that found Charter Schools to not be public schools, even though they are designated as such throughout those state's codes, and one wonders about the future of many of these measures.

Regardless of what one thinks of these provisions, the fact that courts on both sides of the aisle are striking them down should cause one pause. And as Ohio goes full-steam ahead with its expansion of Vouchers in Gov. John Kasich's new education plan, there are issues with that as well.

For instance, Kasich has specifically earmarked State Lottery Profits for vouchers, which are directly paid to private schools. As I have discussed earlier, I'm not sure designating lottery money for private schools is constitutional, given that voters chose to institute a lottery in the 1970s for public schools. Particularly telling was when the Governor's education advisors were asked last week about the constitutionality of that provision, they declined to comment.

In addition, shifting focus away from "rescuing" kids from poor performing districts to granting parents more choices is a fundamental shift from the reasoning for the Cleveland Voucher program, which was held as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in the early 2000s.

It is unclear whether parental choice would be a constitutionally acceptable reason to divert public funds to private institutions. It seems, though, that with the shift in reasoning for vouchers would come a different constitutional analysis -- one that may not hold parental choice in as high a regard, in a legal sense, as rescuing children from failing schools did.

For as we now know, Ohio's voucher children perform no better, and in some cases worse, than the children who remain in the public school.

I don't know if any of these issues will pop up during subcommittee this week, but I think they definitely need to be explored.

In Kasich Ed Plan, Every Day is Opposite Day

One of the prime arguments Gov. John Kasich has made regarding Ohio's education system is that folks need to be more efficient. He's set up a so-called "Straight A Fund" to put a one-time influx of $300 million into squeezing more and more efficiencies out of the system.

So why would he cut Educational Service Centers -- which, among other things, are where many cost savings can be wrung out in curriculum development and purchasing -- by $91 million? It makes zero sense. Yet that's exactly what his plan does.

To be honest, dear reader, I don't know what else to say about how disconnected Kasich's rhetoric is from the plan itself.

• When Kasich told a ballroom full of superintendents that if they were a poor district they'd get more state revenue, and if they were a rich district, they'd get less, the plan actually gave more to wealthy districts and less to poorer ones.
• When he said he wanted to help special ed kids by giving them more money, he set their funding in stone so it will never grow to keep up with the cost.
• When he said he wanted districts to become more efficient, he slashed funding to the entities that can provide much of that efficiency.
• He spoke for almost two years about getting tougher accountability for Charter Schools, yet his education policy experts admit the plan contains no additional accountability for Charters, which remain exempt from some 270-odd sections of the Ohio Revised Code.
• He raved about how wonderful it was that Cleveland Municipal Schools had done a large-scale reform package last year, then reveals a budget that will cut them by $63 million a year in the near future, all but wiping out the massive, 15-mill levy Clevelanders passed in November as a sign of support of the reforms Kasich trumpeted!

I don't know, but I'm starting to wonder if Kasich is deliberately misleading the people of Ohio, or whether he's not making his policies clear enough to his staff. Because at this point, I hear rhetoric coming from Kasich that is the exact opposite of what his plan does.

I sure hope it's a misunderstanding between himself and his staff. I would really hate it if Kasich is trying to have his cake and eat it too. Because right now, his rhetoric demonstrates that either he doesn't understand what his plan does, or he's lying about it.

And, frankly, I don't know what's worse.

Could Ohio Charters Be Getting (gulp!) Cut?

One of the major takeaways from this week's testimony in the Primary and Secondary Education Subcommittee, which is examining Gov. John Kasich's Achievement Everywhere school funding plan, is that the Governor's office is being extremely secretive about Charter School funding.

The conventional wisdom on that, given the long-standing, cozy relationship Charter Schools have had with the folks in power in Ohio, was the Governor's office wouldn't release projections on Charter School funding because he didn't want to show districts how much more money they would lose to Charters under his plan. Currently, every kid not in a Charter School receives 6.5% less state revenue than the state says they need because of the state's largess to Charters.

However, that conventional wisdom changed this week. Now, there are an increasing number who think that the reason the Governor's office won't release Charter School funding projections is because it will show that Charters will get major cuts, not boosts. And that Gov. Kasich is trying to avoid angering one of his party's most loyal and influential supporters.

If I'm a Charter, there are several reasons why I'm concerned about the Charter School Formula in Kasich's plan.

1) It cuts the foundation amount from about $5,700 per pupil to $5,000 per pupil -- a more than 12% cut from the previous amount Charters received. Even though the state is picking up the full $5,000, unlike school districts, this represents a substantial cut that will have to be made up for in categorical funding.

2) Unlike school districts, Charter Schools will not receive any guarantees that their funding won't drop below previous years' levels. School districts will receive $880 million over the biennium to prevent districts from losing money from last year. However, a similar support was not put into the budget bill for Charters. The guarantee helped prevent about 60% of school districts from getting cut in this budget, and if it went away, districts would be receiving the same formula amount as they did in the 2005-2006 school year. It's fair to assume that without a guarantee in place for Charters, they may be looking at similar cut backs.

3) The economically disadvantaged categorical is very low. At $500 per pupil, the economically disadvantaged base is about 1/3 the national average, according to Students First's testimony last night. Brick and mortar Charters in urban districts could be dramatically affected by this rather anemic compensation for economically disadvantaged kids. Some studies place the actual cost of educating economically disadvantaged kids at 2 to 2-and-a-half times as much as non-economically disadvantaged kids.

Again, despite the fact that there is a Charter School simulator at the Ohio Department of Education's website right now, neither the Department nor the Governor's office have done projections on the new Charter School formula, leaving both Charters and Districts in the dark on a program that this year is costing more than $800 million.

Under the plan, Charter Schools are treated as if they are school districts that raise $0 per pupil on property taxes. The district that has the lowest per pupil valuation in the state in 2014 (and would receive the closest foundation funding levels to Charters) is Trimble in Athens County. They are on the guarantee for 6% of their state revenue. If they were a Charter, that would be a 6% cut because Charters don't get the guarantee.

I don't know if that means anything, but if I'm a Charter School, I'm growing increasingly concerned. The Governor's office could fix this thing pretty easily by doing the runs.

We'll see if that happens before Charter Schools testify this week. It could be exciting.