7/26/09

The Columbus Dispatch

Jennifer Smith Richards

NEW CRITERIA IN STATE BUDGET

   There won’t be second chances for some of Ohio’s chronically underperforming charter schools, forcing the hundreds of students they serve to begin shopping for new schools.
   Seven schools — two in Franklin County — apparently will be closed by the end of the coming school year because of tougher criteria in Ohio’s new two-year budget.
   Charter school groups estimate that at least 30 more could be forced to close statewide if they don’t improve on school report cards to be released in August. The seven already meet the new closure criteria regardless of those results.
   Under the old rules, the schools to be closed would have had one more chance to show improvement. It’s unclear whether parents know the schools were in danger or that they now are on a charter school “Death Row.”
   Closure seems certain for Montessori Renaissance Experience in North Linden, but CEO and school administrator Cynthia Frazier said she didn’t know that.
   “We are prepared to open this year,” she said. “We are aware that there have been some changes, but we haven’t assessed how they would apply to us.”
   Montessori Renaissance serves about 70 students from kindergarten through sixth grade. Under the previous rules, another F rating from the state in August would have triggered closure. Under the new rules, it appears to be on Death Row.
   George Washington Carver Preparatory Academy, which serves about 250 kindergarten through eighth-grade students, is the other Franklin County charter that apparently will be forced to shut its doors. The sponsor group that oversees the Northeast Side school said it is waiting for confirmation and guidance from the state.
   More than 87,000 Ohio students attended 319 charters at a cost of $648 million last school year. That’s more students than are enrolled in Columbus City Schools, Ohio’s largest district.
   Like traditional public schools, charters are taxsupported and free to students. But critics say too many charters divert funding from districts while offering subpar results.
   About half of the state’s 319 charter schools open last school year have a D or an F rating. In Franklin County, 31 of 63 have D’s or F’s.
   The old state rules, which forced two northern Ohio charters to close after last school year, required consecutive years of poor performance. Under the new rules, poor ratings don’t need to be consecutive.
   There’s some debate about when schools will be forced to close permanently.
   The state budget says schools would be shut down at the end of the school year in which they first meet the new criteria, which were made effective July 1.
   A new school year begins on July 1, so the Ohio Department of Education says that affected schools would close at the end of the 2009-10 school year. That would give parents a year to find a new school for their children.
   “The intent of the law is to allow for an orderly closure process and for parents to be notified well in advance,” said Kim Murnieks, executive director for the department’s Center for School Options and Finance.
   The Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools agreed.
   “You can’t reasonably go to a family and say, ‘The school your child attended last year and had planned on attending later this month … won’t be open.’ Parents need time to review what their options are,” spokeswoman Catherine West said.
   But Rep. Stephen Dyer, a Democrat from Summit County, said students should not keep attending a school that isn’t educating them well, even if it does create a last-minute scramble.
   “The intent was not to inconvenience people. The intent was to close down schools that aren’t performing,” he said.
   Under the new rules, which differ by the students served, schools must close if they have:
   • For grades K-3: an F rating for three of four years.
   • For schools with any grades 4-9 (but none higher): an F rating and less than a year’s worth of academic growth in reading or math, both for two of three years.
   • For grades 10-12: an F rating for three of four years.
   Schools that serve mostly special-education students or are a state-designated dropout school are exempt.
   Murnieks said she hopes to have clearer answers about the law in about a week. A list of schools that will be closed won’t be compiled until after the August report cards.