5/31/09

Dayton Daily News

Anthony Gottschlich

Like many of his fellow students in health care, manufacturing and construction trades, Indiana Ferryman came to the ISUS charter school in 2006 fed up with traditional high school, unsure of his future and unsure of himself.

Today, Ferryman is a high school graduate and patient care technician at Miami Valley Hospital looking toward college and a career in medicine, first as a nurse, then as a physician.

“It changed my life,” Ferryman said of ISUS as he wheeled a patient into a hospital room at Miami Valley. “The teachers I had were phenomenal. They really do genuinely try to help you – to make you better, you know, as a person.”

That’s what the school at 140 N. Keowee St. is all about, said ISUS President Ann Higdon: educating at-risk students – 71 percent are juvenile delinquents – teaching them a trade and providing direction.

But complicating that mission is a debate at the Statehouse over Gov. Ted Strickland and his fellow Democrats’ plan to overhaul the state’s K-12 education system. House Bill 1, now being revised in the Senate, would impose major changes to public schools, including tougher measures for the 320 or so charter schools that enroll more than 88,000 students across the state.

The Senate Republicans’ plan for House Bill 1, released Friday, May 29, eliminated or re-worked many of the Democrats’ proposals and restored spending for charters at the existing level for the next two years.

Still, nothing’s off the table, and the Republican-controlled Senate and the Democratic-controlled House ultimately will have to come up with a compromise plan in a conference committee in the coming weeks. The bill is part of the state’s two-year budget, which must be approved and signed by Strickland before July 1, the start of the new fiscal year.

‘A better way’

Besides the funding cuts, the House-passed plan calls for more accountability, oversight and transparency for charters and their sponsors and makes it easier for the state to close perennially low-performing charters. It also ties funding to academic performance, rewarding schools that meet “continuous improvement” or above on the state report card.

“My hope is in the Senate they’ll continue down that path of finding (incentives for) good charters, rather than perpetuate the bad ones,” state Rep. Stephen Dyer, an Akron-area Democrat and key author of the bill, said earlier this month.

The Senate Republicans’ version on Friday kept current standards as they are, but holds all public schools to the standards in place for charters – if schools are in academic emergency for three consecutive years, they must be closed.

Dyer points out that taxpayers have spent $3.4 billion on charter schools since they emerged in 1998, yet just 8 percent statewide rate “effective” or better on the state report card.

That nearly mirrors the performance of Dayton’s charter schools. Of 27 schools rated in 2008, just two scored effective and none better. Seven were graded continuous improvement.

“That’s not very good,” Dyer said. “I think there’s a better way of doing it.”

‘It’s nuts’

Defenders of school like ISUS say the state report card doesn’t always measure true performance.

Around 200 students attend ISUS, which comprises three schools, one for health care, one for manufacturing trades and one for construction technology, the most popular program and the one receiving the largest share of state funding, roughly $1.2 million this year.

But the construction school has struggled more than its sister schools on the state report card, earning no higher than academic watch in the last three years, according to the Ohio Department of Education.

That doesn’t bode well for the school in 2010 if lawmakers approve the provision tying funding to academic performance.

ISUS founder Higdon said the funding method isn’t fair to ISUS and schools like it, given the population they work with – students who struggled or dropped out of other schools.

She said students on average come to ISUS at age 17 but score at seventh-grade levels in reading and math. They achieve significant gains at ISUS, she said, but not enough to pass the Ohio Graduation Test or help the school out of a poor state rating.

Higdon and ISUS Treasurer Dave Bridge figure ISUS could take a 20 percent funding cut next year, a loss of around $386,000, if Democrats get their way. And that’s just for starters, they believe.

“Hidden in the (House plan), there’s just so many ways to force us out of business,” Higdon said.

Chief among them: A provision that states dropout-recovery schools, such as ISUS, would receive funding for classroom-based learning only. The bulk of ISUS instruction, however, occurs outside the classroom, in places like construction sites where the students are rebuilding homes and neighborhoods, or in manufacturing plants and health care settings.

“It’s nuts,” said charter school advocate Ron Adler, president of the Ohio Coalition for Quality Education. “What does that do to the community? We need more people going into the work force, not more people going into the justice system.”

Senate Republicans removed that provision.

Higdon and Bridge also cited a complex funding formula that slights charter schools; little to no funding for administrators, transportation or facilities and, like traditional schools over the next two years, no funding for counselors.

“It hurts my heart, because this has to survive; I think we deserve to survive,” Higdon said. “And certainly the kids that come here need a chance.”

Support mixed

Dyer, the House Democrat, acknowledges the state report card system may not be the best measure of a charter school’s success, particularly for schools like ISUS. But it’s the only measure right now. Improving on that would be the task of a new subcommittee of the School Funding Research and Advisory Council, he said. The committee, established under House Bill 1, would study reforms, innovation and ways for charters to collaborate more with traditional public schools.

He said the House bill would reward charters that are “cooperative and collaborative,” schools that are sponsored by school districts and draw at least half of their students from the district. In Dayton, only two the city’s 32 charters fit that description – the Dayton Early College Academy, which is operated by the University of Dayton; and Dayton Technology and Design at 348 W. First St., a dropout recovery school.

The House plan has received a mix of support from charter school advocates across the state.

Terry Ryan, vice president of Ohio programs and policy for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, backs major parts of the plan, including tougher academic standards and making all sponsors accountable to the Ohio Department of Education, a provision Senate Republicans removed.

Still, he was relieved Friday when the GOP restored funding levels.

“We believe quality charter schools should receive equal funding to that of district schools, or as close to it as possible,” Ryan said. “Cutting their funding further makes no sense, because these schools are serving the same needy kids as traditional district schools.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7408 or agottschlich@DaytonDailyNews.com.