I'm not going to write much in this post. I just thought it would be helpful if I provided you a snippet from an Akron Beacon Journal editorial (titled "Broken Charter") from 12 years ago (December 5, 2002) about a charter bill then that basically says everything the Dispatch said this morning. I would link to it, but it's from the ABJ's paid archive.
"Charter schools will benefit from closer scrutiny. Ohio won't gain, though, by rapidly expanding the number of such schools."
Since the ABJ published its editorial, here are a few numbers, using the Dec. 5, 2002 editorial as a starting point:
- $7.8 billion -- amount of state funding that has been diverted from traditional public schools to Ohio charters since
- 165 -- Number of charter schools that have closed
- 24 -- Number of charter schools that have closed under Ohio's closure law
- 968,548 -- Cumulative number of Ohio children who have attended charter schools (through last school year)
- 203 -- Number of overall F-equivalent grades charter schools received under old report card -- about 1 out of every 4 overall grades given during the period
- 1228 -- Number of Fs charters have received the last two school years on the state's new report cards
- 1131 -- Number of As Bs and Cs charters have received combined the last two school years on the state's new report cards
One wonders how much money and how many kids could have been saved if more people had heeded the ABJ's words in 2002.
