New Proper Perspective: Whither $71 million?

The Proper Perspective: An honest exchange about Ohio’s Charter School Program grant

Ohio won a $71 million federal Charter School Program (CSP) grant last fall, but after backlash about the original grant application (which described Ohio as a beacon of charter oversight and overstated the performance of the charter sector), the U.S. Department of Education put a hold on the money. Ohio’s latest response to the feds was on January 29. Jamie and Steve have both been writing on the topic recently and had an exchange about the fate of the grant.

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 Jamie: Ohio has lots of high-performing charter schools that can benefit from CSP, and I take issue with you suggesting that the feds take back the money and dole it out elsewhere.

Steve: I’m in no way suggesting the feds take back the money. All I’m saying is I understand if they do because the Ohio Department of Education so misled them on the initial grant application. And if they do take it back, we have only the adults at ODE to blame. Surely you’re not suggesting that it was an honest assessment of the Ohio charter school sector for the department to claim that zero charters were poor performing in 2012–13 and only six were in 2013–14?

Jamie: That's good, because you did seem to suggest it—as well as suggesting that there weren't enough high-performing charter schools in Ohio to expand their footprint (you and I both know better). Students shouldn't have to bear the responsibility for errors committed by the department. To your question: No, I don't think that was a fair assessment. The original application used a "federal" definition of failure based on three years of data, and it's unclear to me how or why the department determined to use that. I do find it interesting that according to the updated definitions, charter schools look slightly better than Ohio’s Big 8 urban schools.

Steve: I think it's pretty clear why the department used the feeble federal definition -- it made them look like they had more high-quality and fewer poor quality charter schools than they actually have. So it increased their chances of receiving the $71 million. Perhaps I'm too cynical after watching this state's charter school history for nearly twenty years, but it's pretty obvious the adults at ODE tried to make our state's charter experience look like a fantasy. Again, I really hope we can hold onto the money. But I don't know if the state receives the grant if it had been totally truthful with USDOE. So I would say it was David Hansen and Richard Ross who put our children in this quandary. If the feds decide to take back the money, it is their fault, and it is they who should apologize to Ohio's kids. As for the new definition, I'm still trying to figure out this whole high quality/low quality dichotomy, since it's really an ODE concoction rather than a legislated report card definition. As for the Big 8 comparison, only about one-half of charter kids come from there anymore. Charters accepted kids from every district last year—and a significant portion of kids attend brick-and-mortar charter schools outside the Big 8 urban districts, so it's not just an e-school thing. It seems to me unfair to accept money and kids from every district, yet insist that performance comparisons be made only with the most struggling districts.

Jamie: The new definition for "high quality" is in the Ohio Revised Code, and sets the eligibility parameters for Ohio's new facilities grant for charter schools (a Value-Added grade of B or better and a Performance Index grade of C or higher, or a Value-Added grade of B or better and a Performance Index increase for the last three years). So I think it makes sense to use this definition again here. Arguably it should have been used from the beginning. I hear what you're saying about cynicism over the last twenty years. However, the purpose of CSP is to expand high-quality charter schools—not necessarily to reward states with the highest-performing sectors. In fact, Ohio's cannot becoming high-performing until we replicate and expand the best networks while simultaneously shutting down low-performers. HB 2 will help ensure that poor performers close, rather than hopping to new sponsors; the rigor of the sponsor performance review will ensure that sponsors aren't opening poorly vetted schools anymore. All of this is to say that we're on the right track. But we need start-up funds to get us the rest of the way there. Only one-half of charter kids come from the Big 8? I'd like to see more data on that. I think the gist is that charter schools serve similar percentages of kids in poverty and students of color as the Big 8 urban districts. And that's what makes it a fair comparison.

Steve: I'll give you the “high quality” definition, but poor quality was not similarly defined in statute— hence my high quality/low quality dichotomy issue. We simply don't classify charters like that here. I suppose you could assume that the automatic closure law standard would hold when determining low quality? But the department used a D or F grade standard in their letter rather than the simple F standard of the automatic closure law (which of course is on hold until at least 2017–2018, but that's another story). I'm encouraged that the department considers Ds to not be good grades. Will its “poor performing” definition have a material impact on the application? I don't know. But it's certainly concerning. And the fact that, once again, three low-performing e-schools (ECOT, OHDELA, and the Virtual Community School of Ohio) qualified for but weren't included in the poor performing definition raises the David Hansen data rigging specter. I know those schools won't get a dime (it's hoped, but we did give ECOT, which got all Fs and a D on the last report card, a Straight A Fund grant), but the USDOE wants to know the state of Ohio's entire charter school sector, not just the sliver in which they will be investing. I get that the department doesn't want to advertise that including those three e-schools means that more than 30 percent of Ohio's kids are in poor performing charter schools. But doesn't that strengthen the need to bring in more money for high-quality ones? I would think arguing that we need the money to drive down that percentage would be a pretty good argument. It doesn't help that ECOT and OHDELA are run by big political contributors. Not including them is a bad look. As a side note, I'll be curious to see whether the legislature will revisit the automatic closure law to include Ds and Fs rather than just Fs, in light of the department's apparent determination that Fs AND Ds are poor performing. 

Jamie: I believe that the new low-performing state definition (D or F in Value Added and D or F in performance index) aligns with the definition for low-performers as spelled out in HB 2 (for purposes of prohibiting schools from sponsor hopping). I think it's important to reiterate a point you made: Ohio's e-schools aren't in line for CSP funding; at least—it would be incredibly unlikely (and I don’t believe any have one past CSP grants). So I hope that the quality issues they're experiencing don't interfere with Ohio's ability to secure the funds for high-quality brick-and-mortar charters. Because they occupy such a significant percentage of our sector, as you correctly note, their scores really drag down the scores of the charter sector as a whole. And because they are so fundamentally different from brick-and-mortar charter schools (in student demographics, where they can enroll from, etc.), some might question whether they should be considered charter schools at all. But that's a conversation for another day.

My Latest Real Clear Education Piece Hits on $71 million Federal Grant

I had another piece run in Real Clear Education yesterday talking about how at risk Ohio's $71 million federal charter school grant could be in because of the adults at the Ohio Department of Education trying to hide our charter school sector's poor performance. Here's the piece from the Real Clear Education website, which is a really good, comprehensive place to find education policy news from around the country.

February 15, 2016

Education Leaders’ Lies Could Hurt Kids – in Ohio and Across America

By Stephen Dyer

_{Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, center, participates in a round table discussion on school choice with Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, at Carpe Diem-Aiken, a tuition-free public charter school, Friday, May 16, 2014, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Al Behrman)}

RCEd Commentary

For several months now, many have lookedaskance at Ohio’s $71 million award last fall from the U.S. Department of Education’s Charter School Grant Program. After nearly two years of stories, reports and tales of Ohio’s struggling Charter School sector, it seemed counterintuitive for the federal government to give the state the largest chunk of a fund meant to grow high-quality charter schools. There just aren’t that many here.

Then we read the grant application the state sent into USDOE. And boy were there problems. The state claimed none of its charter schools were failing in the 2012-2013 school year, yet that year 41 percent of all charter school grades on the state report card were Fs. More than 60 percent were Ds and Fs. If Ohio should receive a grant, why not Massachusetts, which has what is widely regarded as thebest charter school sector in the country, not to mention that it’s facing a lawsuit seeking to lift the charter school cap in that state so more schools can open. That conundrum could be solved – at least partly – with some or all of the $71 million. It would seem that the charter school movement would be better served by investing in places where charters were effective, rather than Ohio where they are, on the whole, not.

So that didn’t make sense. The state claimed it had a tough automatic closure law, then made no mention that the law’s been suspended until at least the 2017-2018 school year and it hasn’tclosed but two dozen schools in 10 years. There were other problems with it, too, many of which have been outlined here and here.

The issues were troubling enough to the USDOE that they suspended payment of the $71 million and forced the state to respond to detailed questions about why certain things were said on the application that didn’t comport with fact.

Well, the Columbus Dispatch just acquired a new response sent from the Department to USDOE. In it, the Department admits it misled the feds on how many Ohio Charter Schools were failing. In the application, it claimed only six (out of more than 400 total) were failing in the 2013-2014 school year. Now, they admit that 57 were. Meanwhile, instead of 93 high-performing charters, there are 59.

However, even these data corrections come with caveats.

First, it doesn’t include online schools, which are among the worst-performing schools in the state and educate about 40,000 of the 120,000 students in Ohio charter schools. There are three online schools that would count as poor performing under the state’s definition, accounting for 17 percent of all Ohio charter school students. Not including online schools makes it seem that far fewer students are in poor performing Ohio charters than there actually are.

Second, it doesn’t include the 100 or so Dropout Recovery charter schools, which also are among the worst performing. Many don’t graduate even 10 percent of their students … in 8 years.

It is clear that David Hansen, who had to resign his post as Ohio’s head of the Office of Quality School Choice because he illegally scrubbed data to make charter school authorizers look better than they were, worked his magic again on this federal application. Hansen – whose wife is the campaign manager for the presidential campaign of Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who recently placed second in the New Hampshire Primary – was in charge of putting it together. Former State Supt. Richard Ross attested with his signature to the truth of all the information contained in the application, under penalty of law.

Will these acts of malfeasance cost the kids of Ohio $71 million and a chance to put some juice into the move toward quality school options here? I hope not. This money could really help bolster the few charters we have here that are fulfilling the idea’s promise and give momentum for the state’s newfound push for quality. And as I’ve said before in this space, if Ohio can get its act together on charter school quality, it would have tremendous national implications because it would prove that charters could work anywhere. But if the federal money was granted based on lies, should it still be granted now that the truth is slowly seeping from thebeleaguered department—that Ohio doesn’t have lots of high-performing charters in which to invest the federal money meant to expand their footprint?

Perhaps it should be sent to other states that didn’t mislead on their grant applications, as Ohio did.

If the money is taken off the table by the feds, there is no one to blame but the adults at the Ohio Department of Education who were so blinded by ideology they ignored the facts everyone else saw clear as day. This is a lesson for our country’s ideologues on all sides of the charter debate. We shouldn’t let our biases color the truth. If they do, kids in states that don’t cheat will suffer. And kids in states that do cheat will also suffer because their state’s inferior charter sector will expand at the expense of another state’s higher performing sector.

Either way this turns out, those adults who misled under oath to win federal money should be held to account for what they did to Ohio’s kids. For if they are able to escape consequence, what’s to stop future applicants from giving similarly evasive answers to USDOE, ultimately driving down the program’s effectiveness expanding high-quality charter schools? We must not forget that this money is our tax money. We should insist on absolute transparency not only in how it’s spent, but how it’s awarded.

We teach kids to not cheat. Our adults, it seems, need a refresher course.

Stephen Dyer – a lawyer – is the Education Policy Fellow at Innovation Ohio – a progressive Columbus, Ohio think tank. He served four years in the Ohio House, focusing on education policy and chairing an education subcommittee dealing with finance and reform. His work reforming the state’s education funding, human capital and accountability systems earned Ohio the Frank Newman Award for State Innovation from the Education Commission of the States in 2010, given annually to the country’s most “bold, courageous (and) bipartisan” education reform effort. Prior to that, he reported for nearly a decade on education and other issues with the Akron Beacon Journal

My Sales Tax Holiday Bill May Become Permanent

Back in 2007, I spent some time during August in Massachusetts with my extended family. They were obsessed with something called a Sales Tax Holiday -- a concept with which I was unfamiliar. They geared their big annual purchases around this time when they didn't have to pay sales tax.

As a freshman legislator, I was amazed at the kind of Black Friday frenzy this holiday created -- a needed boost to an economy that was beginning to fall into the Great Recession. And it also was geared toward giving working families a little help so they could buy back-to-school items for their kids.

When I returned home, I introduced the state's first Sales Tax Holiday bill. I figured if the People's Republic of Taxachusetts could do one, so could Ohio.

Not surprisingly, since I was a member of the minority party, the bill went nowhere.

Well, the bill finally passed when a member of the majority party carried it. Now the legislature wants to make the holiday permanent. Not surprisingly, Republicans can't line up fast enough to support this idea.

While I'm glad that the holiday may become permanent, I think this speaks to the problem politics create in policy development. This bill is just as good today as it was in 2007. Only it could have helped to spur some economic growth during our recovery from the Recession if the legislature had passed it earlier. But it didn't. Because the wrong party introduced it.

This stuff drives me crazy and is a big reason why so many people have become disenchanted with American politics.

But I am glad that families may receive a little help when they buy back-to-school items in August.

See, I'm still for the bill.

Even if someone else pushes for it.

Proper Perspective: What Does Ohio's K-3 Literacy Data Mean?

Ohio’s K–3 literacy scores: Is the third-grade reading guarantee living up to its promise?

The first round of school report card data came out in January (expect the second batch February 25), shedding light on (among other things) how schools are doing in K–3 literacy. (Note that ninety-six schools have appealed their K–3 literacy grades, and data is under review for another seven schools, so take all of this with a cairn of salt.)

This year’s report cards are the first to include a letter grade for K–3 literacy, a metric that measures the improvement that schools and districts have made in moving students from ‘not-on-track’ to ‘on-track’ and eventually proficient, according to Ohio’s third-grade reading assessments. Reading ability by the end of the third grade is highly predictive of later schooling (and life) success. Recognizing this, Ohio adopted the third-grade reading guarantee in 2013 in order to ensure that students are proficient readers before moving onto the fourth grade.

Here’s what the 2014–15 data says:

Out of 609 school districts, 452 (74 percent) received a K–3 literacy grade. The rest were not rated (NR). It’s unclear why 157 districts didn’t receive a grade. Unlike school building rating data, most districts in Ohio serve students from kindergarten through third grade, so it’s not due to grade configurations. Because K–3 literacy only gauges kids already “off track” in reading, it’s possible that small districts have too few students to count and larger but higher-performing districts simply have very small numbers of kids not already reading on grade level (e.g., Beachwood City or Grandview Heights).

The grade breakdowns are as follows:

Out of 3,415 public schools (district and charter included), only 1,384 (41 percent) received a grade. While some buildings obviously received “NR” because they are high schools or middle schools, this doesn’t account for over two thousand schools that went unrated. Many of these buildings had too few struggling readers to receive a rating—though it’s impossible to distinguish whether this is because of sheer small size or because they simply don’t have struggling readers (as is likely the case with higher-performing schools).

The grades are broken out as follows:

Jamie's Take:

The K–3 literacy grade is new this year, so we can’t track progress over time to determine whether Ohio’s third-grade reading guarantee is having an impact on early readers. I will say, however, that I’m less impressed with the numbers than Stephen. He wrote on his blog the day the data came out that “only 668 third graders weren't deemed proficient in reading” and concluded that “having 99.5 percent of third graders be proficient seems like as close to a third-grade guarantee as you can get without getting to 100 percent.” If this is the case, then we may as well hang up our hats and go home. Ohio’s reading guarantee has worked after only two years.

Except it hasn’t. In parsing the data, 858 students statewide failed the third-grade reading exams and were not on a Reading Improvement and Monitoring Plan (RIMP). This means there were many more students who failed but were on a RIMP, and their failure rates aren’t yet being reported. In other words, some of the data reported is not all that useful, and we should be careful not to declare victory prematurely. According to ODE, the K–3 literacy measure “identifies students who were never on or removed from a Reading Improvement and Monitoring Plan but do not achieve proficiency by the end of third-grade.” So all that number really tells us is the number of students who were not placed or kept on an improvement plan but probably should have been. Reading proficiency scores released next month will better tell us whether Ohio is headed in the right direction.

Moreover (and as my colleague Aaron Churchill noted in his scorecard of Ohio’s report card), it seems problematic that the K–3 metric is premised on having readers (in any grades K–3) who are deemed “off track.” Schools without off-track young readers end up receiving a “not rated” label. K–3 literacy data is not calculated for a remarkable number of schools (not just those schools without grades K–3). Thus, we essentially have no data about how many schools’ kindergarten, first-, second-, and third-grade students are faring. Struggling readers who happen to attend an otherwise high-performing school (or a small one where there are too few students in each grade to calculate a rating) aren’t reflected in the K–3 literacy metric at all. It would be more useful to know how all kids in the early grades are progressing. In sum, while it’s still a good idea to focus on early literacy, the jury is still out on whether the third-grade reading guarantee is “working” or not—and we may want to question exactly whom it’s working for. 

Steve's Take: 

There is little question that starting when the Evidence Based Model required Ohio school districts to offer free All-Day Kindergarten, districts began adopting it more frequently. Story after story has noted how many more districts are offering ADK for their children, not just in Ohio, but nationwide. The reason is very simple: ADK works. It helps children learn more and catches kids up who may have started their Kindergarten year behind.

The overwhelming evidence supporting ADK’s positive effect on student achievement is the reason why, when I was the Chairman of the Primary and Secondary Education Subcommittee of the House Finance Committee, I stripped out all the mandates from the Evidence Based Model … except the ADK mandate. I did allow for waivers because I wanted districts to have to explain why they were doing something other than ADK.

And while some districts gave up ADK after Gov. Kasich and the General Assembly repealed the EBM in 2011, the state’s adoption of the Third-Grade Reading Guarantee in 2013 led to more districts adopting ADK. The thought was ADK would help kids catch up earlier so more costly, later interventions would be avoided.

New K-3 Literacy data released by the State of Ohio seems to validate districts’ investments in ADK. The new report card includes the number of children who are behind in reading in each of the K-3 grades and how many get caught up to grade level by the end of the year.

The two most significant improvements happen in Kindergarten and 3^rd Grade. The 3^rd Grade result shouldn’t be surprising – it’s the last time students have to be caught up for the Third-Grade Reading Guarantee, meaning they can move on and not be held back a year. So there’s a logical focus on 3^rd Grade improvement.

However, the similarly huge improvement in Kindergarten is less intuitive, which tells me that districts’ recent investment in ADK programming has helped.

Buttressing this conclusion is the fact that in 1^st and 2^nd Grade, the improvement rates drop by more than ½.

The lesson is simple: Invest in staff and children and kids will thrive. There is no similar push to improve reading in 1^st and 2^nd Grade as there has been for ADK, and, not surprisingly, the improvement isn’t nearly as stark in the later grades. Let’s hope policymakers notice these data and step up investments in the intervening grades so kids aren’t forgotten during those equally important times. Their decisions have real impact for kids, as ADK and the Third-Grade Reading Guarantee demonstrate.

While I’m still reticent to read too much into the latest report card data because of the inordinate number of appeals over the grades, I think it’s helpful to look at the data trends. And one of the most significant ones I see is that ADK appears to be a sound investment.

Districts Bill State for More than $200 million in Charter School Funding

There's something happening here.

With apologies to Buffalo Springfield, in Charter School Finance World something really is happening, and it's started at the grass roots.

Starting with Woodridge Local Schools in Summit County, districts across the state have invoiced the State of Ohio for past payments made to charter schools from districts' state funding. Looking at news stories and available public records, I've calculated that about 30 districts have billed the state for more than $200 million in past charter school transfers.

However, that amount is probably higher because on one district, I assumed the invoice was for one year because that was the only figure I could find. But I'm sure the bill was for more years. Meanwhile, on at least 3 others, I couldn't find the actual bill amount, but I know there are invoices.

So we have what could be north of a quarter billion dollars worth of invoices sent to the state by a growing number of school districts.

While some call this a "stunt", I think it's more than that. It's local school districts finally standing up for their kids and against the moneyed interests that have driven Ohio's charter schools into a ditch of national ridicule.

The root of all this stems from the state's funding system, which pits districts against charters and reduces state funding for kids not in charters, sometimes substantially.

All you need to do is look at a finance report from any district and calculate what the per pupil funding amount is before charters get their kids and money, then how much kids in the district get after charters get their money and kids. Kids in some places like Columbus and Cincinnati lose almost 1/4 of their state revenue because charters get paid so much more by the state.

This means local property taxpayers have to make up the difference, or services for the kids in these districts get reduced. And in some locations, there isn't enough local revenue to make up the difference, so overall per pupil funding goes down.

I'm encouraged that Ohio Legislative Leaders on both sides of the aisle recognize this problem and are working to fix it. No parent's choice should adversely impact the educational opportunities afforded another parent's children.

Unfortunately, the current system does just that. Stunt or not, this Invoice Revolution is letting people know about the problem, and that is indeed worthwhile.

Ohio's Dropout Recovery Schools Embarrassingly Poor Performing

The data on Ohio's dropout recovery charter schools is so bad I'm wondering if anything can ever really be done to repair this portion of the charter sector. Dropout recovery students are inherently more difficult to reach. Look, I get it. But the performance metrics released last week by the Ohio Department of Education are just alarming, especially considering these schools are "educating" our most vulnerable students in desperate need of high-quality educational opportunities to catch them up to speed.

How alarming is this performance?

Try these data points:

• There are only two Dropout Recovery Schools (out of 93) that have any kids reportedly accomplishing industry credentials, and only two schools have any kids achieving dual enrollment credit in an institution of higher education. And the percentage of kids that have achieved this are 1.3% or less of the Class of 2014 that graduated from each of the schools.
• The State of Ohio says a Dropout Recovery School meets its "standard" if 28 out of 210 eligible students graduate ... IN 8 YEARS!
• The State of Ohio says a Dropout Recovery School meets its "standard" if 8.4% of the school's students graduate in 4 years.
• The Greater Ohio Virtual School graduated a stunning 3 out of 149 students ... IN 8 YEARS!
• Out of the 1,100 students eligible to graduate in four years from the state's 13 Life Skills Centers (run by major political donor David Brennan's White Hat Management), only 57 graduated -- 18 of whom came from one school. That's a stunningly low 5.2% four-year graduation rate overall. Eliminating the one Life Skills Center with the 18 graduates drops the average in the remaining 12 schools to an incredible 4.4% -- only about 1/2 of the state's minimum graduation rate.

• Overall, there were 7,324 students eligible to graduate from Dropout Recovery schools in four years. Only 1,590 did. That rate of 22% is actually 3 percentage points higher than the eight-year graduation rate, which was an amazing 19% (1,527 out of 8,015).
• Schools "exceed" state standards on four-year graduation rates if they have rates higher than 37%. Only 23 schools met that criterion.

I could go on. But suffice it to say, Ohio's Dropout Recovery Schools, on the whole, are utterly failing at their primary purpose -- rescuing dropouts and graduating them. 

And to add insult to injury, they have very little fear from the state. Why's that? Because a loophole in Ohio law allows even a substandard Dropout Recovery school to continue operations as long as it improves its four-year graduation rate by 10% a year for two straight years.

How that would apply to Life Skills of North Akron, which graduated 0 of its 61 eligible kids, is unclear (because 10% of 0 is 0). However, for Life Skills of Toledo, which graduated 1 out of 48 kids (for a 2.1% graduation rate), as long as the school graduates 1.2 kids in two years, it can remain open.

Only in Ohio.

Dropout Recovery Schools and eSchools are two of the biggest problems in the charter school sector here. It is no coincidence that the state's two biggest political players make their money operating Dropout Recovery Schools and eSchools. 

Let's hope our state's leaders finally take a serious look at both sectors and save the kids who are being utterly failed by these dismally performing schools. 

We have to stop helping the politically active adults who run these things and rescue our state's most vulnerable kids from their thieving clutches.