Charter schools start last-minute radio campaign to avoid bad grades for report cards and sponsor evaluations
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Some charter schools have started a radio ad campaign to renew their call for "immediate" changes to state report cards that would boost grades for schools with poor or transient students.
The schools already lobbied state legislators for the change last summer and fall -- all without a public hearing -- before the legislature decided they had to study the issue carefully first.
But the ads ask listeners to call state legislative leaders and ask them to make the changes "immediately," before the already mandated study is done, according to several people who have heard the ads.
The charter school group paying for them, theOhio Coalition for Quality Education, did not return messages and requests for copies of the ads this week.
The schools want the state to quickly adopt a school rating system used in California known as the "Similar-Students Measure (SSM)" that adjusts grades for schools and districts based on the socioeconomic challenges facing students. Those include student disabilities, poverty, limited English-speaking ability and mobility, or how long kids stay at a school before moving.
If adopted, the measure would lift ratings of many urban and struggling districts over suburban schools that don't have the same challenges. It also would mean better grades for many charter schools that are located in urban areas.
The coalition has been pressing for the change since the summer, along with representatives of the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), the online school that is its largest member. With 15,000 students, ECOT is the largest charter in Ohio and is larger than any school district in Cuyahoga County other than Cleveland.
Through Ohio's online schools are not that different demographically from districts statewide, ECOT officials say their students are different. The proposed measure, according to data shared with legislators this summer, would show ECOT far exceeding low expectations and scoring well.
It is unclear if the schools want the change to occur in time for the state's much-delayed report cards for the 2014-15 school year, which will be released at the end of February. But that's what observers believe.
There are two reasons that change would help some schools, particularly ECOT, which is under fire from several directions for its low grades.
Though no school can face penalties from the state for bad grades, because the legislature has granted them a "safe harbor" during changes in state tests, bad grades could block schools from some benefits.
The state this year started a $25 million facilities fund for charter schools that is open only to highly-rated schools. The state also has recently won federal grants of up to $71 million to add and expand high-performing charter schools in the state. Higher grades for challenged schools will make them better candidates for grant money.
The report cards' grades will also matter in the state's new ratings of charter school oversight agencies, known as "sponsors" or "authorizers."
The state had to toss out some of these ratings earlier this year because ODE left out the F grades of online schools, in violation of state law. The new rating plan, which was unveiled late last month and will be presented to the state school Charter schools start last-minute radio campaign to avoid bad grades for report cards and sponsor evaluations | cleveland.com: