Ohio Department of Education released the results for Charter Schools.

Ohio’s public school districts significantly outperformed charter schools

Of the 3,274 school buildings that received a Performance Index Score (a composite of standardized test performance), 228 of the 281 charter schools ranked in the bottom 25%. To explain that another way, 81% of Ohio’s rated charter schools that fell in the bottom quarter. And finally, one more way: 4 out of 5 charter schools had a rating based on student performance that was in the bottom 1/4 of all of Ohio’s schools. [Point of clarity - these rankings do not include "dropout recovery schools"]

262 charter schools (93%) ranked in the bottom 50%. 9 out of 10 charter schools fell in the bottom half.

Regarding the much-ballyhooed Third Grade Reading Guarantee, the “Holy Grail” of education reform for Ohio’s boys and girls, 81% of Ohio’s 3rd graders scored proficient or above on the 3rd grade OAA. This number is down by 0.4% from last year, meaning that approximately 500 fewer 3rd graders scored proficient than last year. [Perhaps if teachers had been able to spend more time teaching and less time testing...]

Complete article here:

http://www.plunderbund.com/2014/09/13/ohios-public-schools-outperform-charters-again/

League of Women Voters (NM) takes a look at E schools

http://www.lwvglc.org/documents/lwvglc_paper_for_profit_virtual_charter_schools.pdf

Not recommended in New Mexico.  Good analysis.

Charter School Oversight in Florida

Look what is happening in Florida.

Follow the money!

http://interactive.sun-sentinel.com/charter-schools-unsupervised/investigation.html

"Management companies, hired by two-thirds of South Florida’s charter schools, further complicate the school districts’ ability to monitor spending and discern who controls the purse strings, the newspaper found. These companies provide services ranging from targeted assignments to wholesale management of schools, and have received anywhere from 10 to 97 percent of a school’s budget, records show.
“They’re public schools in the front door; they’re for-profit closed entities in the back door,” said Kathleen Oropeza, who co-founded FundEducationNow.org, an education advocacy group based in Orlando. “There’s no transparency; the public has no ability to see where the profits are, how the money is spent.”

Great investigation

What could Ohio learn?

New successful charter school ;-)

Progressive Charter School Doesn’t Have Students

News in Brief• education• News• ISSUE 49•26• Jul 1, 2013

 

ATLANTA—One year into its founding as the purported “bold next step in education reform,” administrators on Monday sang the praises of Forest Gates Academy, a progressive new charter school that practices an innovative philosophy of not admitting any students. “We’ve done something here at Forest Gates that is truly special, combining modern, cutting-edge pedagogical methods with a refreshingly non-pupil-centric approach,” said academy president Diane Blanchard, who claimed that the experimental school boasts state-of-the-art facilities, a diverse and challenging syllabus, absolutely zero students, a world-class library, and the highest faculty-student ratio in the nation. “Thanks to our groundbreaking methods, we’ve established a structured yet free-thinking environment where the student is taken out of the equation entirely, and in fact is not allowed on school property. And the results, we think, speak for themselves.” According to its budgetary records, Forest Gates has so far received approximately $80 million in public funding from the state of Georgia.

Good stuff from The Onion

More news

Part of a letter to the editor published in the Dayton Daily News

87% is shameful.  $1 billion should be criminal

In fact, multiple charter school scandals across the state are causing Ohio citizens to wake up and ask why one billion taxpayer dollars per year are pouring into a ‘failed choice’ for almost 100,000 of Ohio’s children. Currently, 87% of Ohio’s charter school students are attending a charter school with a D or F rating. Recently, Ohio has been branded as the “Wild, Wild West of Charters” and called a charter school “free for all” by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers due to an astounding lack of accountability and transparency by the Ohio Legislature.

Turning a profit’ has turned into an empty promise for our kids.

Maureen Reedy
Columbus, Ohio

I predict Ohio politicians will be creating as much distance as they can from these low performing schools.  

10th Period: More Horizon/Charter Test Questions

10th Period: More Horizon/Charter Test Questions: After the allegations at Horizon Science Academy's Dayton campus were raised a couple weeks ago, I decided to look at Horizon's oth...



Interesting.....

ECOT Exposed

Very well done!