Schwartz's Point

From a visit in December

77% of Parents Happy with Public Education

"Memo to suburban voucher opponents who ‘support public education’: you’re already sending your kid to private school. You’re just confused because your tuition fees came bundled with granite countertops and hardwood floors."
- E. D. Kain
After this snark, he goes on to say that school choice and vouchers are not really the way to improve poor school districts.

Liberals Who Support School Choice

I like to see open minded people on the right and the left support policies that are not doctrinaire. There are many conservatives for example who support rail and better transit options. Here see see some on the left support more school choice:

...American liberals have been reluctant to embrace school choice, fearing it will drain resources from government-operated schools. Yet isn't it even worse to support a system that rewards concentration of the rich in exclusive suburbs segregated from the poor? -John Norquist in the Wall Street Journal

Catholic Schools Convert to Charter

Interesting article about seven Catholic grade-schools in Washington DC that decided to convert to non-religious charter schools because of their declining enrollment.

NCLB Moving the Middle Class from Public Schools

This is a claim I have read a few times. I don't buy the Bush Co. conspiracy stuff too much, but there is definitely a concerted effort to remove the teacher's unions from public schools, by privatizing the schools. The author doesn't address that issue direclty, but tries to make the issue children vs corporate interests.

The fact does remain that urban public schools systems are being decimated, and the students that have moved to charter schools don't appear to be improving either in their scores or in their graduation rates.

...NCLB testing is part of a systematic effort to privatize diverse urban public schools in the United States. The objectives of privatization have been threefold: first, to divert taxpayer money from the public sector to the corporate sector; second, to capture part of the market, which would otherwise be receiving free education; and third, to drive out middle class accountability, leaving behind a disposable population that won’t have a voice about the inappropriate use of their tax dollars, nor the bleak outlook on their futures.
...
“The emergence of HMOs and hospital management companies created enormous opportunities for investors. We believe the same pattern will occur in education,” observes Mary Tanner, Managing Director of Lehman Brothers.
...
Randy L. Hoover and Kathy L. Shook note that a study of 593 Ohio School Districts show the district’s high stakes tests “to correlate with Social Economic Status to such a high degree as to virtually mask any and all actual academic achievement claimed to be measured by these tests.”
....
The effect of NCLB has been to dismantle public education by funneling public tax dollars directly to corporations through penalties, private tutoring companies, and vouchers.
....
False Reports of NCLB Success
A 2006 study by Harvard University Civil Rights Project found that the successes reported by NCLB proponents “simply do not show up on an independent national test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the ‘nation’s report card.’”
...
Pat Wechsler reported in Business Week that thanks to partnerships with businesses, such as McDonald’s, in under-funded schools, students “learned how a McDonald’s works, and how to apply and interview for a job at McDonald’s.”

State Attempts to Close 2 Charter Schools

It looks like the new Democrats in the Statehouse are moving fast on their promised attack on Charters. An article in the Dayton Daily News caught my attention:

DAYTON - Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann filed suit Wednesday seeking to force the two city charter schools to close, arguing that they have failed to live up to their obligations to educate children.

The schools are Colin Powell Leadership Academy, 834 Randolph St., and New Choices Community School, 601 S. Keowee St.
....
The move was hailed by teachers unions as an overdue step toward accountability. They have long been critics of charter schools but assailed by supporters of the charter movement as a declaration of war on charters.

Dann's lawsuits target the schools' status as "charitable trusts" under state law. He argues that by operating schools that produce consistently poor academic results, the trusts are not living up to the law's requirements.
...
Ron Adler, president of the Ohio Coalition for a Quality Education, said the move was an attempt to circumvent state law.

Ohio has just implemented new rules that will close charter schools rated in the lowest state category for three straight years.

"I'm not opposed to closing schools, but you have to do it orderly and you have to follow the law," he said. "It seems like they're trying to expand the powers of their office."
...

City Districts See Enrollment Decline

Large urban districts continue to see enrollment declines as per this article in the Toledo Blade.

Enrollment in Ohio’s largest school districts appears to have declined again, continuing a trend of diminishing numbers in urban systems that started more than a decade ago.

School leaders blamed charter schools, vouchers, low birth rates, and suburban migration for the declines.

The number of charter schools in the state, for example, increased slightly over last year and the number of private-school vouchers that were awarded more than doubled.
.....
Across the state, the largest school systems have reported declines in each of the last five years.

Although thousands of students have made the switch to charter schools since 1998 and now some parents are using taxpayer money for private school tuition for the second year statewide, the decline in urban districts started well before either program existed in Ohio.

 

Low Scores for Charter Schools

Local charter schools get low ratings
By JENNIFER KOVACS Tribune Chronicle

WARREN — At the 10th anniversary of charter schools, statewide criticism is echoed here at home as report card data shows that local community classrooms failed to make the grade.
...
In a news release issued by the Coalition for Public Education, the organization claims that a decade after the inception of charter schools, traditional public schools in Ohio continue to provide the best opportunity for children to learn and succeed.

‘‘If your child attends a traditional public school, he or she has an 80 percent chance of receiving an effective or excellent education. Those are pretty good odds,’’ states CPE chair Barbara Shaner.

The numbers used by the CPE come from state report card results released in August by the Ohio Department of Education for the 2006-07 school year. CPE claims that, according to that data, public schools have outperformed charter schools 10 years in a row.
...
In Mahoning County, ODE shows that there are 12 charter schools in operation in Youngstown, with more than 2,700 students enrolled. Nine of of those schools are in academic watch or academic emergency. Three have been rated to be in continuous improvement.
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If some charter schools go as many as three to four years in academic emergency, the state pulls the plug and they’re closed. To date, more than 25 community schools are in jeopardy
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‘‘Unfortunately, charter school students are more likely to be worse off this year than they were last year, according to an analysis of ODE data. Of the 213 charter schools that received report cards in each of the last two years, more moved down in the ratings than up — 68 received a lower rating this year,’’ the CPE’s release states.

Analysis by OEA and CPE states that, ‘‘Among economically disadvantaged students and students with disabilities, those attending traditional schools performed better than those enrolled in charter schools on all 28 of the state tests.’’

Hat Tip: Schools Matter Blog

UPDATE; the much anticipated McKinsey report was released today, and it states that CPS administration is dysfuncitonal. I think Rosa Blackwell knew this was comming and that is why she resigned a few days ago. Note, the report does not say that the teachers or students or the learning environment are dysfunctional, only the upper management.

Strickland cutting vouchers/charter schools

Another good article on Vouchers in Ohio, this time in the Chicago Tribune:

"There are those in our society and political leadership who have given up on public education, and they really don't believe that public schools ought to have a special place within our social structure," Strickland said in a recent interview in Toledo.

Reflecting the demand of some parents to get their children out of public schools, about 76,000 students attend charter schools in Ohio, and annual growth rates have been in double digits since the first charter school opened in Ohio in 1998.

Strickland cutting voucher program

We got a notice yesterday from our son's school, that because of budget cuts the art, music and gifted student teachers will be cut to half time. This is a result of less money coming to the public schools because of the State voucher program (Ed Choice) and because of falling enrollment in Cincinnati Public Schools in general.

Some argue that the state should create an Education Tax Credit Program.

I'm all for choice in schools. Fortunately for us, CPS offers lots of choices in their magnet school program, and we did not need to pay for private school choice. If we had gone that route, a voucher was available for us, since our neighborhood school is in academic emergency.