Having a relative teaching in the Cleveland School District, all I can say to this is amen.
Study Shows No Child Left Behind Failing Students
Nearly half the students in four of Ohio’s big city public school districts are attending failing schools that rate a D or F on the state’s latest report card, according to an analysis by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
Further, relatively low percentages of both charter and district schools in the state’s eight-largest cities fared well in state and federal accountability systems. Only 38 percent of the district schools met the federal standard for adequate yearly progress, compared with 28 percent of urban charter schools.
The four-city analysis found 46 percent of 183,000 public and charter school students in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus and Dayton attend schools rated either in academic watch or academic emergency, the two lowest categories in the state’s rating system.
posted by Paddy @ 3:01 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
NCLB same as "Clean Skies" etc....
hogwash.
This is too important. Something needs to change asap.
Makes my blood boil.
Paddy - just fyi - I emailed this to Cliff also because my computer froze when I tried to load your post into Firefox (it's me not you I'm sure :)
Anyway - the Thomas B Fordham Institute put forth that info you refer to. Which is fine - the numbers are there and come from the state report cards. All true. And sad.
HOWEVER, Fordham is an on the record pro-charter school entity - that's a known thing as well as it being in their mission statement. They seek to make Ohio's charter school system be a model for the rest of the country.
SO...one of the reasons they point out the problems with the urban schools is to drive parents and kids to charters, and convince the state that charters need to proliferate.
The problem is: Fordham didn't include coverage of how poorly charter schools did in those same urban centers. Throughout the entire state, with 330 charters, only 24 of them made it into the top two categories out of five. The rest either didn't get rated or were C, D or Fs.
It's important to understand the players, not just the numbers.
All the numbers that show the urban centers in need of doing better - undeniable. But when that info is being promoted by a charter-school supporter, at a minimum, they should be providing analogous info for how the charters did.
Thanks.
Angry. Angrier. Angriest I've been in a while.
Rock on Jill.
Everyone: go visit Jill's site, one of the best in Ohio.
http://writeslikeshetalks.blogspot.com
Thanks Jill. For whatever it's worth, I didn't see the article as being pro charter schools.
lol thanks Dave - but you do as good or better job on education. I almost felt weird leaving that comment, because what Fordham has stated is true and urban centers need to do so much better. But it's still important to flag the info provider and they really should have talked about/included the charter school data - otherwise, it's so obvious that they're trying to mislead people.
I know, Paddy - I didn't see what you wrote as having that flag at all - not a bit. Rather, knowing the landscape here and the fact that the article DIDN'T include a "here's how charters are doing" piece, I got suspicious. Then, when I went to the link to the article and I saw Fordham at the bottom, I thought, yup, uh-huh.
Let me say, though, that one of the most fabulous charters is in Cleveland - E-Prep, run as a nonprofit by a guy named John Zitzner. Charters can do great things, but so many of them aren't. John's is a great example of just how well they can serve underserved niches in the public schools, which really is at least one side of the grassroots movement (the others being privatization, religious education and so on).
I'd almost bet you know my brother Jill, but since I'm not sure he wants me "outing" him as being related, I'll leave it at that.
Oy - I'm the WORST at the guessing game. I was just having this discussion with another Ohio blogger - there's someone who posts on an Ohio blog whom everyone else tells me I know, I've met and so on - I don't have a CLUE as to who it is. lol
If you feel moved, email me some time. I'm sure I'd be interested. Thanks.
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