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Student transfers not just from public schools to charters

Most switches are between city and suburban districts

 

More students moved between the Columbus City Schools and neighboring districts in recent years than transferred with charter schools, new research shows.

In the past three academic years, 20,745 students spent some time at a Columbus school and some time elsewhere in Franklin County — either another district or charter school. Of those, roughly 13,000 went between Columbus and another traditional school district.

“There’s a high awareness that there’s a lot of movement back and forth between charters and Columbus City Schools,” said Roberta Garber, executive director of Community Research Partners.

“When we’ve done research in the past, we’ve not known that (district-to-district mobility) was happening” at such a high level, she said.

Most often (3,488 times) students switched between Columbus and South-Western schools. The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, the state’s largest Internet charter school, ranked second with more than 2,500 student transfers with Columbus schools.

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(Delivered at the 2011 Ohio State Charter School Conference)

Well, another year has passed. Our community of charters continues to grow- 96,000 students last year, 113,000 this year. Our footprint in Ohio’s public education landscape is for the most part stuck in Ohio’s main urban centers… the exception of course, our statewide pioneering charter e-schools. Our performance continues to trend positively for another consecutive year. So, what’s not to like? Well, let me count the ways.

Despite a decade-long effort, you cannot starve charter schools to quality.

A direct apples-to-apples comparison of charter school funding, district to charter by geographic locale, comprehending parity, poverty and special needs funding, exposes a funding gap of more than$3,200 per student between public charter school students and public district students. That, my friends, is unacceptable. In simple point of fact, this is discriminatory. Year over year, more charter schools in Ohio are forced to close for financial reasons than performance reasons. Are charter school students worth-less?

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Rep Derickson, Sen Coley, and Rep Conditt visited Middletown Prep on Monday. They are pictured with Principal Betsy Kelliher, Superintendent Myrrha Satow, as well as MPFA students. All the kids at MPFA learned a great deal about State government. It was a great visit from our State congresspersons!

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On October 26th, I had an opportunity to visit one of our newest members to OAPCS, The Falcon Academy of Creative Arts. In their first year as a charter school in the Field Local School District, Falcon Academy has already been rated as Excellent on their local report card.

The Falcon Academy of Creative Arts is designed to meet the needs of those students who love to draw/paint, sing along with their favorite I-tunes and televison theme songs, move to the rhythm of music, ad-lib or portray movie and TV characters, and enjoy using their creativity in projects at school and around the house. These students are not "couch potatoes", but rather are active and their minds are always questioning the world around them.

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Over 100 charter school leaders and board members attended the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter School’s charter law workshop (September 16) at Capital University Law School. With a welcome by OAPCS Board Chair Chad Readler (Jones Day), lawyers from 9 different firms conducted hour-long sessions on topics including: Technology and Social Media (photo); Human Resources; Student Discipline; Sunshine Laws and Public Records; Litigation and Insurance; History of Ohio Charter Law; Board Governance; Race-to-the-Top Teacher Evaluations and Performance Pay; Sponsorship Contracts; and Special Education.

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First-class school

West Side charter school shows answers are within reach

Thursday August 25, 2011 5:26 AM

It isn’t fairy dust that creates an excellent school, in which teachers teach effectively and students learn well. No, the magic results from hard work, high expectations and effective management.

Two years ago, Columbus Preparatory Academy was warned by the state to improve its F grade or close. This week, it was the only privately run charter school in central Ohio to earn the state’s highest grade, A-plus, among five statewide this year.

The turnaround shows that adults, and not just students, might learn valuable lessons from Ohio’s charter-school experience. The West Side school isn’t skimming the best students from its urban community, yet it is getting results with these students that elude many other schools.

Officials from less successful schools — conventional and charters — should beat a path to Columbus Preparatory Academy to find out how the school did it.

Here is what worked: The principal is able to choose teachers who are successful.

“I hire solely on merit,” said Chad Carr, hired from Kentucky in 2007 as Mosaica Education Inc. sought to turn around its failing school.

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Ohio Center For Law-Related Education Offers Great Opportunities For Ohio Students

 

On May 25th, students from elementary schools all over Ohio competed in the We The People competition held at the Fawcett Center in Columbus. The students spoke on topics such as the Philadelphia Convention and voting and then responded to questions on the topics. OAPCS staff and interns judged the students. To the delight of the students, Brutus the Buckeye made a special appearance at the event. As pictured, he helped Skylar de Jong, a first-year law student and intern for OAPCS, calculate scores.

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