NEW STUDY: Local Taxes Being Used To Subsidize Charter Schools When State Aid Is Insufficient To Cover The Costs
COLUMBUS – December 16, 2014 – Local taxpayers are being forced to subsidize charter schools, many of them with poor academic records, according to a new study by the Ohio Charter School Accountability Project. Education Policy experts and school superintendents came together today to explain how an underfunded state mandate can force school districts to use local tax revenues to subsidize the cost of sending students to charter schools.
“In many cases, far more money follows the student to the charter school than the state would have sent to the local school district for the same student,” said Innovation Ohio Policy Fellow Stephen Dyer. “When that happens, local tax revenue, in many cases, ends up subsidizing these larger state payments to charter schools.”
Instead of money raised through school levies going to the local public schools, some of it is being used to subsidize the cost of paying for students to attend charter schools – many of which are performing poorly. The report identifies the districts that are forced to pay the most, in a further erosion of local control.
“This study is a good example of why we launched the Know Your Charter website and the importance of having a greater understanding of how Ohio charter schools are operating and being funding,” said Ohio Education Association President Becky Higgins. “In this case, we are shedding light on part of the state mandate for funding charter schools that has received too little attention – namely, the unfair burden it places on local communities. It’s time to re-examine the state law, particularly given the sorry performance of so many charter schools in Ohio.”
The report shows that the average school district last year received $4,149 per pupil, which is $1,596 less than the $5,745 base amount paid to charter schools. This means that local school districts have to make up that $1,596 state funding shortfall by using local revenue or reduce educational opportunities for children.
“When the taxpayers vote for a local levy they expect the dollars generated to stay with their local traditional public school,” said Greg Ring, Superintendent of the Lorain County Educational Service Center. “Six of the county’s 14 districts actually pay more in local dollars to charters than is deducted from the district’s state foundation on a per pupil funding basis. In one of those districts, three times more local dollars leave the district when compared to its state deductions to charters.”
Join the conversation @OhioEA and Like Us at OhioEducationAssociation
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The Ohio Charter School Accountability Project is a joint venture of the Ohio Education Association and Innovation Ohio. The Ohio Education Association represents more than 121,000 teachers, faculty members and support professionals in Ohio’s public schools, colleges and universities. Innovation Ohio is a progressive think tank headquartered in Columbus. For more information, please visit: www.KnowYourCharter.com.
CONTACT: Keary McCarthy, 614-425-9163
OEA Reaction To The State Board Of Education Removal Of Ratios From The Operating Standards
COLUMBUS – December 10, 2014 – The following statement is attributed to Becky Higgins, president of the Ohio Education Association:
“The OEA is disappointed that the State Board of Education removed ratios from Rule 5 of the Operating Standards that would have maintained a specific minimum staffing level for “educational service personnel.”
“OEA members made their voices heard loudly and clearly in advocating for the retention of the “5 of 8” rule. In alliance with parents and supportive community members all over the state, we offered testimony, wrote letters, and made phone calls to members of the State Board, and we generated well over 70,000 email contacts with board members. This advocacy certainly made a difference, but it will require continued vigilance at the local level to ensure school districts consider the needs of the whole child when making staffing decisions for their schools.”
“We do, however, acknowledge that the Board made substantial improvements over the previous proposed rule change. In particular, the Board took an important step forward in its decision to direct the Accountability Committee to develop a method for reporting the number of school nurses, counselors, librarians, social workers, and teachers of fine arts, music and physical education on local school district report cards. It moves the Board closer to living up to its responsibility to establish standards that ensure a well-rounded high-quality public education for all of Ohio’s students. We expect the State Board to do even more to make certain schools meet the expectations it lays out in its rules.”
“We hope local districts will get the message that licensed professionals in all of these areas are essential to support the needs of the whole child and that the state legislature will follow suit by ensuring all districts have the resources necessary to meet those needs.”
Join the conversation @OhioEA and Like Us at OhioEducationAssociation
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The Ohio Education Association (ohea.org) represents 121,000 teachers, faculty members and support professionals in Ohio’s public schools, colleges and universities.
CONTACT: Michele Prater
614-227-3071; cell 614-378-0469, praterm@ohea.org
December 2014 Ohio Schools
- IN THIS ISSUE
- OEA members and the individuals they serve are speaking out about changes in federal Medicaid rules that threaten their ability to provide quality services for the developmentally disabled
- In a real-world learning experience, students in Hoover High School’s video productions and broadcast journalism classes are making news
- Legislative update, Association news, and more
Moved recently? Contact the OEA Member Hotline to update the address on file at 1-844-OEA-Info (1-844-632-4636) or email, membership@ohea.org. Representatives are available Monday-Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. | OhioSchools — Past Issues
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Data Driven Education is destroying the minds of our kids.
As a teacher, I place a tremendous amount of trust in the wisdom of great people that have come before me. When I read the above quotes, I am inspired to teach my students to love learning. Education is not how much we “put in the bucket” or how much material we cover, but rather, how much we inspire the students to fill the bucket on their own. A dentist does very little to prevent cavities, but their advice is what inspires us to brush and floss in order to avoid them. Much like a teacher inspires a class to want to learn. My high school Spanish teacher taught me very little of the Spanish I currently speak today with my wife and family, but she planted the seed of excitement to want to learn Spanish. So how much Spanish did that one teacher actually teach me? Very little, but she taught me to be a lifelong learner and to have love for the Spanish language.
As a high school teacher, I have 6 classes that I only see 180 times for 49 minutes (minus the countless hours of class-time missed due to required state tests and test prep). This is not nearly enough time to “fill the bucket” with all the required information. What I need to do is inspire them to go outside of my classroom with a desire to continue learning. Unfortunately, this is nearly impossible to measure, so states have begun creating lists of “standards” that we follow to fill up the bucket. With as many as 150 kids and our career depending on it, it’s all I can do to just simply have the students memorize the list of state standards. However, what teachers should do is simply inspire the kids to love the content and the bucket will fill on its own.
With the demands the state puts on teachers to “prove teachers are filling the bucket” we are forced to teach students meaningless, easily testable, low-level information that they can regurgitate on the State tests. I know they are trying to create tests that “align with the common core” but in reality, this is yet another list of “things to teach.”
A successful student will pass a state test?
Or…
A successful student will transform into a lifelong learner that has a passion for learning and an ability to apply learned knowledge to novel situations.
We need to take a stand against toxic testing and what it is doing to the minds of our children. We see the effects in our classrooms daily. Students can no longer apply knowledge learned to novel situations. Students do not learn how to learn. Students do not retain learned information as we have trained them to memorize, regurgitate, and then make room for the next “standard”. How can our future governors, senators, CEOs, employees handle diverse situations that we haven’t specifically trained them to handle? Unfortunately, we have shifted our focus to programming our kids like robots to regurgitate useless information on a state mandated test, while at the same time, private companies are spending billions to program robots to think for themselves.
By Christopher Gibfried, Winton Woods Teachers’ Association Vice President
The Ohio Education Association Recognizes American Education Week
COLUMBUS – November 17, 2014 – The following statement is attributed to Becky Higgins, president of the Ohio Education Association:
We invite people across the state to join the Ohio Education Association and millions of Americans nationwide this week in honoring everyone who works in our state’s fine public schools and colleges. Teachers, faculty, support professionals, counselors, clerical staff, nurses and administrators are all committed to ensuring the success of the students who attend our public schools and colleges.
NEA’s annual American Education Week is an occasion to celebrate the contributions of those who make it possible for students to get a quality public education so that they can grow, prosper, and contribute to great things in communities across the state. The theme, “Great Public Schools: a Basic Right and Our Responsibility” represents NEA’s vision of calling upon all Americans to do their part in making public schools great for every child so that they can grow and achieve in the 21st century. And, it underscores the commitment and dedication of those who work at every level in our schools to ensuring the best learning experiences for our students.
Please join us in thanking them for their contributions to our learners and to learning.
Join the conversation @OhioEAand Like Us at OhioEducationAssociation
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The Ohio Education Association (ohea.org) represents 121,000 teachers, faculty members and support professionals in Ohio’s public schools, colleges and universities.
CONTACT: Michele Prater
614-227-3071; cell 614-378-0469, praterm@ohea.org
OEA Urges State Board To Keep Language In Rule 5 Of Ohio Operating Standards
COLUMBUS – November 11, 2014 – Ohio Education Association (OEA) Vice President Scott DiMauro testified today at the State Board of Education hearing on the 5 of 8 rule in the Ohio Operating Standards.
OEA is gravely concerned with the Board’s proposal to eliminate the requirement of services outlined in Section 5 of Ohio Operating Standards, specifically that “Educational service personnel shall be assigned to at least five of the eight following areas: counselor, library media specialist, school nurse, visiting teacher, social worker and elementary art, music and physical education.”
Following are highlights from DiMauro’s testimony:
When the Board votes on the recommendations of the Operating Standards Committee, we ask that you keep this language in Rule 5 for the following reasons:
- Removing the Current Rule 5 language would have the immediate effect of further reducing the educational opportunities that are available to boys and girls in Ohio’s schools.
- Current Rule 5 language already provides significant flexibility to local school districts; there is no compelling reason to change it.
- Without rules requiring Ohio’s schools to provide specific services that meet the needs of the whole child (including school counseling, nursing, library media support, social work, and elementary art, music and physical education instruction), school districts will have the incentive to focus personnel and other resources only on tested subjects.
- Maintaining the 5 of 8 rule demonstrates that the State Board of Education is committed to equal educational opportunity for all of Ohio’s students. If the 5 of 8 rule were eliminated from the Operating Standards, children from low-wealth communities—those who need these services the most —would be the most likely to be deprived of the support they need for a well-rounded education.
The State of Ohio has a constitutional responsibility to provide quality educational opportunities to every student regardless of where they live and go to school in the state. The State Board’s role is essential to underpin the assurance of adequate opportunities by establishing minimum program and personnel specifications.
The 5 of 8 rule was established to make sure that ALL students had minimum access to essential educational programs and services that ALL students need. The original rule was written to allow a certain degree of local flexibility because the local school district had to provide at least five of the programs and services to its students. Ideally, every school student in Ohio would have access to all eight programs and services but previous State Boards wanted to allow for some flexibility. The current rule also provides safeguards tied to student enrollment to acknowledge that smaller districts may not have the same ability as larger districts to hire personnel in all of these specialized service areas.
OEA believes the proposed change to Rule 5 goes far beyond the scope of the committee’s charge. Eliminating the 5 of 8 rule will have a direct and negative impact on tens of thousands of Ohio schoolchildren, including many in low-wealth districts where the need for a broad-range of school-based support for children is most acute. A substantive change such as this one must be driven by evidence, and there simply is no evidence that the current rule is broken.
Join the conversation @OhioEAand Like Us at OhioEducationAssociation
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The Ohio Education Association (ohea.org) represents 121,000 teachers, faculty members and support professionals in Ohio’s public schools, colleges and universities.
CONTACT: Michele Prater
614-227-3071; cell 614-378-0469
This is the Way Public Education Ends
Okay, so you really should give this a listen. It’s the story of a school district in New York where a motivated majority takes over the school board. They do it in order to destroy the public school system. You see, they educate their children privately and use their power to their own personal benefit at the public’s expense. They’ve illegally funneled money into their private religious schools. They’ve reduced their budget to the point where kids in the district have schedules that include four lunches and a study hall because they simply don’t have enough staff to teach courses. And on at least one occasion they had a building fraudulently appraised at half its value in order to sell it to themselves.
So? Why should you care? Ohio isn’t New York. Because it’s a working model of how a group of people, duly elected, can go about destroying a public school system with impunity. It’s a model that can be adapted to work anywhere.
Any sign that such things are going on here?
Well, yes.
In troubled Reynoldsburg, for example, there dwells upon its board at least one member, Elaine Tornero, who actively campaigns against levies for her district and wouldn’t mind seeing more experienced, “jaded” teachers leave her schools. According to the Columbus Messenger, “After 15 years without an increase in local operating taxes, the district has made more than $20 million in cuts during the past five years and identified another $3 million for the next school year.” Tornero is unmoved, “We’ve made a lot of cuts,” she said. “Regardless, the community still feels as they do and the economy still is what it is. To throw it back on in May is just too soon.”
Things have also been interesting in Springboro, Ohio, where “(t)he board came under control of a three-person Tea Party faction a few years ago. The bloc was led by local parent Kelly Kohls, head of the Warren County Tea Party.” Their goal of teaching creationism in schools fell short when voters ousted that faction and moderates were elected in their place.
And there’s been some sign of Tea Party activists seeking control of school boards elsewhere in the state.
After a Tea Party takeover of the board In the West Clermont School District in Amelia, Ohio, the new majority was caught violating the law in order to switch legal council (eerily similar to what happened in East Ramapo, New York) in an effort to hire an anti-union law firm with no experience in education.
Now, Reynoldsburg has been through the wringer, Springboro corrected itself, the folks in West Clermont are fighting, and Tea Party takeovers have succeeded and failed to various degrees across the state. But let’s not lose sight of what’s happened in East Ramapo that was the subject of the piece on This American Life. Sure people there are fighting – they’ve got a Facebook page and a radio show, but they’re losing. Without a way to loosen the grips of the group currently controlling the board, they’re stuck.
The only remedy is an informed and educated electorate and enough registered voters with a functioning conscience.
Be active. Be informed. Vote.
By Vance J. Lawman
OEA Welcomes The Introduction Of Legislation To Delay The Use Of High-Stakes Decisions Based On Student Test Scores
COLUMBUS — October 21, 2014 — The Ohio Education Association (OEA) today applauded the introduction of House Bill 642 by Representative Teresa Fedor, D-Toledo. The bill calls for a 3-year suspension of high-stakes decisions based on student test scores in measuring student growth and evaluating teacher performance.
“As Senator Peggy Lehner, the chair of the Senate Education Committee, has noted – ‘we are over-testing our kids’,” said OEA President Becky Higgins. “We urge state lawmakers to hit the pause button and determine which tests are actually needed and which are also appropriate for the grade level at which they’re being administered.”
OEA believes that with the use of the new Common Core standards in Ohio schools and the prospect of even more tests being conducted, it is important to take more time to make sure the implementation of these standards goes well.
“We’ve seen what has happened in other states where the hasty implementation of Common Core and the related testing has led to a backlash among parents, students and educators,” continued OEA President Higgins. “We support Ohio’s New Learning Standards, but we want to make sure Ohio gets it right. That’s why we think taking the time to ‘test the tests’ would be a prudent course to follow.”
Last spring, OEA members voted unanimously at their Representative Assembly to support the 3-year delay in the use of high-stakes decisions based on student test results. OEA is pleased that 18 co-sponsors have already signed on in support of Representative Fedor‘s bill.
“We recognize the need for a comprehensive assessment of student growth. But student assessments should not be overly-dependent on the results of standardized tests, “said Higgins. “Students are spending too much time preparing for and taking tests. There needs to be a more balanced approach to identifying the strengths and needs of students.”
Join the conversation @OhioEA and Like Us at OhioEducationAssociation
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The Ohio Education Association (ohea.org) represents 121,000 teachers, faculty members and support professionals in Ohio’s public schools, colleges and universities.
CONTACT: Michele Prater
614-227-3071; cell 614-378-0469, praterm@ohea.org
Support Public Education by Voting Out ALEC
American journalist Walter Lippmann once said, “Successful politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle or otherwise manage to manipulate elements in their constituencies.”
Most people’s viewpoints aren’t quite as cynical as Mr. Lippmann’s, but the simple truth is that some politicians do try to manipulate their constituents into agreeing with their initiatives by first stirring discontent. Satisfied people cannot be seduced, so to build a case for any crusade, these lawmakers try to create a need for the measure by cutting sources of funding. Such is the case with Ohio’s current state government.
Three years ago, Ohio’s Republican governor and the GOP-controlled legislature used the state budget to drastically cut public funding to local governments, which they hoped would create a need for the “tools” provided in Senate Bill 5. Although Ohio voters overwhelmingly rejected the SB 5 tools in a referendum, those budget cuts created a significant loss of local facilities, services, and jobs, and elements in SB 5 have been introduced piecemeal ever since as cost-cutting measures in communities throughout Ohio.
Deep cuts to Ohio public schools, as well as a plethora of unfunded mandates, have helped convince Ohio citizens that there’s a real need for the dramatic expansion of charter schools in the state. Unfortunately, Ohio charter school expansion is a non-transparent movement that has not been held accountable for its use of public tax dollars. Ohio Department of Education data shows that the state’s public schools lost more than $870 million in state funding to charter schools in fiscal year 2014, amid ongoing reports of theft, misappropriation of funds, overpayment to vendors, nepotism in the employment of family members, and excessively high administrative salaries in many charter schools.
The great majority of charter schools are managed by for-profit companies that donate lots of money to political campaigns. Could that be the reason charter schools are exempt from 270 provisions of Ohio Revised Code?
There’s no requirement in state law that directs Ohio charter schools to disclose how much money is spent marketing commercials seen on prime-time television. State law doesn’t warrant that tangible property purchased with public funds remains public property when a charter school closes. There’s no requirement that board members of these schools represent parents — unelected boards are filled by the company that operates them or by friends and relatives of the school developer. Are the board members accountable to taxpayers or the corporate interests that put them there? For that matter, are our elected officials, who are supposed to monitor and regulate publicly-funded and privately-operated charter schools, accountable to taxpayers or the corporate interests that put them there?
Most of Ohio’s Republican legislators belong to a powerful organization of lawmakers and corporations, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC.) In 2011, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) revealed the powerful control of the corporate-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) over the legislative process in many states in the US. It published a report showing over 800 business-friendly bills that were created, endorsed, and secretly voted on by corporations and Republican lawmakers. People for the American Way, Progress Ohio, and Common Cause documented the hold that ALEC has on the legislative process in Ohio and divulged the fact that 43% of its legislators belong to this corporate bill mill.
ALEC strongly supports school privatization through charter schools and vouchers. According to Bill Phillis, of the Ohio Education and Adequacy Coalition: [quote]ALEC is a champion of charter schools and voucher legislation, and thus is geared toward starving the public common school. One of the missions of ALEC is to replace the public common school system with private market-driven education thrift stores. Some Ohio legislators will press forward the concept of a voucher for every student.[/quote] Ohioans can support their public schools by voting for candidates who are champions of public education. Voters must exercise their power at the polls to push back against ALEC legislators who placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle or otherwise manage to manipulate elements in their constituencies to further ALEC’s privatization agenda. This is an important election where voters can and will “create a need” for Governor John Kasich and his ALEC allies to find jobs outside of the political arena.
Visit action.ohea.org to learn more about OEA’s 2014 Campaign and how you can help to elect pro-public education leaders in this election.
By Jeanne Melvin, OEA-Retired
Comparative Analysis Of Imagine Schools Shows Below Average Performance Scores
Report Of Questionable Lease Deal Prompts Performance Review Of For-Profit Charter
COLUMBUS— October 15, 2014 — Prompted by reports of questionable leasing practices, a new analysis shows that the Imagine Schools have a below-average performance index score for charter schools, and a significantly lower average score than traditional public schools. The analysis was conducted by the Ohio Charter School Accountability Project which recently launched KnowYourCharter.com, a new website that provides important comparative performance data for parents, educators and taxpayers.
The 3rd largest for-profit charter school operator in Ohio, Imagine Schools, was the subject of a recent Columbus Dispatch report showing that millions of dollars in public money are being diverted from the classroom to pay for questionable leasing arrangements. The overall performance of the Imagine Schools is near the bottom of the struggling Ohio charter school sector, and nearly 70 percent of the grades for all Imagine Schools are D or F on the 2013-2014 state report card. Read the full analysis here: http://knowyourcharter.com/news/.
“The lagging performance of the Imagine Schools is a disservice to the students and calls into question the capacity of the schools’ operators to provide a quality education,” said Ohio Education Association President Becky Higgins. “The priority should be to make sure that adequate resources are devoted to the classrooms, not into the pockets of those collecting exorbitant rent for the buildings in which these schools operate.”
“Policymakers on both sides of this debate should be outraged that these questionable leases are diverting public money away from classrooms while student performance suffers,” said Innovation Ohio President Keary McCarthy. “This should be a wake-up call for lawmakers to get serious about imposing greater accountability and oversight of Ohio’s for-profit charter school operators.”
Visit and Like Us at: KnowYourCharter.com and facebook.com/KnowYourCharter
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The Ohio Charter School Accountability Project is a joint venture of the Ohio Education Association and Innovation Ohio. The Ohio Education Association represents more than 121,000 teachers, faculty members and support professionals in Ohio’s public schools, colleges and universities. Innovation Ohio is a progressive think tank headquartered in Columbus.
Contacts: Keary McCarthy (Innovation Ohio), 614-425-9163
Michele Prater (Ohio Education Association), 614-378-0469