Critics question rationale for alternative as Ohio’s big urban districts emerge from academic crises

Akron Beacon Journal

12/16/2007

By John Higgins
Beacon Journal staff writer

The charter school movement that helped create charter schools in Ohio 10 years ago argued that they were needed to give parents an alternative to persistently failing schools.

But today, as the traditional schools lift themselves out of academic crises, new charter schools continue to open, calling into question one of the prime rationales for the experiment.

No big urban district in the state remains in academic emergency - the state’s equivalent of an F letter grade - and only three (Youngstown, Dayton and Toledo) are in academic watch, the equivalent of a grade of D.

The Akron school district has been in ”continuous improvement” (the equivalent of a C letter grade) since the 2004-05 school year.

Since then, three more charter schools have opened in the city.

And although the publicly funded, privately operated schools draw most of their students from Akron, they also draw about 80 from neighboring suburban districts that have consistently received the state’s highest ranking.

No district in Summit, Stark, Portage, Medina or Wayne counties is rated lower than ”continuous improvement.” However, new charter schools continue to open in those districts, which must accept them under the 1997 statute regardless of how much the districts improve.

Ohio legislators passed a moratorium on new charter schools in 2005, but it includes an exception that allows charter-school operators that have a school that has performed well academically - either in Ohio or another state - to open another.

And although charters cannot locate in top-performing suburban districts, they may open in nearby urban districts such as Akron and Canton and draw students - and the public money attached to them - from the suburbs, no matter how excellent those suburban schools are.

Points of view differ

Opponents argue that the charter movement in Ohio was always about ideology, not about providing alternatives to failing schools.

”It was really a target of the legislature of the time to really drive the public schools out of business in these big cities,” said William Wendling, executive director of the Ohio 8 Coalition, which represents superintendents and unions in Ohio’s major urban districts.

”Clearly that’s not how they sold it.”

Charter school proponent Terry Ryan, vice president for Ohio programs and policy for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, said there is no intrinsic reason why the alternative schools shouldn’t operate in the suburbs.

”There’s nothing philosophically wrong with the idea of charter schools being able to operate in districts that aren’t dysfunctional and/or broken,” Ryan said.

Charter schools can open anywhere in Colorado, for example, but Ohio is not there yet, Ryan said.

”That’s a really tough argument to make right now in the state of Ohio,” Ryan said. ”The charter schools are seen as having not delivered on the promise where they’ve currently been allowed to open.”

Academic ratings

Report cards for the 2006-07 school year showed that 59.2 percent of charter schools were in academic emergency, the lowest rating. The previous year, 41.1 percent were in that category.

The latest report card rated 130 charter schools. The remaining 100-plus charters were not rated for various reasons, such as not having enough students in the tested grades.

The three most recent charter schools to open in the Akron district are:

• Life Skills Center of North Akron in 2005, aimed at high school students, operated by David Brennan’s White Hat Management.
• Phoenix Village Academy Primary 1 in 2006, aimed at grades K-3, sponsored by Ashe Culture Center in Cleveland.
• Romig Road Community School in 2007, also for grades K-4, operated by Imagine Schools, a national charter school company based in Virginia.

Phoenix and Romig Road are too new to have academic ratings; Life Skills Center of North Akron was rated ”academic emergency” (a grade of F) for the 2006-07 school year.

The three schools draw 323 students from Akron and nearly $2.3 million a year in funding that is deducted from what the district receives from the state.

On average, about $7,140 in public support is transferred to a charter school for each child who leaves Akron.

But the new charter schools in Akron also take nibbles out of nearby top-performing suburban schools: 

Copley-Fairlawn, for example, pays for two of its students to go to Romig Road, one student to go to Phoenix and one to Life Skills.

In all, Copley-Fairlawn loses about 26 students and $156,746 a year to charter schools that aren’t in the district, which is rated ”excellent,” an A grade.

Norton, Hudson, Revere, Aurora and Green are all rated ”excellent” and lose students to charter schools, too. So do ”effective” - a grade of B - districts such as Cuyahoga Falls, Woodridge, Field and Kent.

Charter schools could never open in those districts, but the districts are vulnerable because of their proximity to Akron, which by law will always be available for new charter schools.

”It’s ridiculous because as times change, the rules and regulations need to change,” said Ohio Federation of Teachers President Sue Taylor.

Attitudes changing

Last spring, Cleveland Municipal Schools Superintendent Eugene Sanders, representing the big urban schools, told the state Senate finance committee that ”a moratorium on the establishment of new charter schools is needed now, so that a full review of the charter school program can be conducted before more funds are diverted away from the public schools.”

Gov. Ted Strickland was unable to persuade Republican legislators to place a moratorium on charter schools, but he says the debate has led to a ”climate change, a cultural change, in the attitude people have against charter schools.”

House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, is one of the most prominent supporters of charters.

”We wanted to provide options out of failing schools for children, and that was the basic premise for charter school growth,” said his spokeswoman, Karen Stivers.

”We’re continuing to look at the evolution of charter schools in Ohio, and we’re continuing to support quality growth in education in Ohio, whether it be in a traditional school or in a charter school,” she said.

Although traditional districts have improved, many are struggling with federal requirements to show adequate yearly progress.

Three-fourths of the Akron-Canton area’s school districts failed to meet the tough requirement of adequate yearly progress on the latest annual state report cards, for the 2006-07 school year.

Forty-seven area districts missed the federal threshold, up four from last year. And although no Big 8 districts are failing, they still have some schools that are getting D’s and F’s.

Akron has 14 schools - most of them elementaries - that were rated last year in ”academic watch” and one, Margaret Park Elementary rated in ”academic emergency.”

Ryan of the Fordham Institute said the initial argument of providing alternatives to failing schools still applies to those cases.

Quality charter schools that are accountable for their academic performance can still help districts improve, he said.

”That’s the debate we need to be having: how to fix the charter school program so that it can be a tool for effective school reform and district reform, as it is in other states like in Indiana, like in New York, like in Massachusetts.”

Charter schools shouldn’t be claiming credit for the turnaround of urban schools, argued Taylor of the Ohio Federation of Teachers.

”The reality is that they improved because the state further developed state standards which identify what students are supposed to master,” Taylor said.

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John Higgins can be reached at 330-996-3792, 800-777-7232 or jhiggins@thebeaconjournal.com.