3/26/09 

Columbus Dispatch Editorial 

Ohio lawmakers considering the future of charter schools have two powerful indicators to guide them: a study showing that the verdict of the schools’ effectiveness is far from clear, and the passionate testimony of families who want their charter schools to survive.

So the best course is not to wipe out charters, as appears to be the aim of Gov. Ted Strickland’s proposed budget, but to continue their development, with scrutiny of would-be operators and a focus on what works and what doesn’t.

The Rand Corp., a nonprofit think tank, delved into the question of whether charter schools are effective and came up with an unsatisfying conclusion: It’s hard to say.

Looking at charters in five U.S. cities and at the state level in Ohio, Texas and Florida, the study found “little evidence that charter schools are producing, on average, achievement impacts that differ substantially from those of traditional public schools.”

While that’s no ringing endorsement, neither is it a reason to cut off an option that thousands of families see as their salvation from chronically failing public schools in Ohio. A 2006 study by KidsOhio.org found that most parents of charter-school students cared as much about an orderly school climate, better discipline and personal attention for their children as they did about academic performance.

Dozens of those parents came to the Statehouse in recent weeks to urge lawmakers not to adopt Strickland’s budget for charter schools, which would slash their funding for next year and make future funding vulnerable by removing it from the guaranteed foundation formula that supports traditional public schools.

The study’s most positive finding for charter schools was that in Chicago and Florida (the only locations that had applicable statistics to study), students in charter high schools were substantially more likely to graduate and to enroll in college than were students from conventional public schools.

Two findings are of special concern to Ohio: the performance of Ohio’s charter schools is far less consistent than in other states, and Ohio’s many “virtual” charter schools — those in which students study independently online — perform far worse than brick-and-mortar charter schools and conventional public schools.

Ohio’s poor start in the charter business, via legislation that provided too little oversight and accountability, could account for the wide variation in performance. New laws in recent years set stricter standards and force charters to close if they fail to meet improvement targets three years in a row. The winnowing effect of these reforms will have to be gauged.

Charter schools remain an experiment worth refining.