Don't grade us like school districts, charter school sponsors say; state might do it anyway
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Charter school supporters want the state to kill a proposal that would grade their "sponsors" just like school districts.
But they haven't won over the Ohio Department of Education, at least not yet.
And the outside panel that proposed the new rating system is as adamant as ever that sponsors -- the agencies that monitor and help create charter schools -- be graded the same way school districts are on state report cards.
"I understand this is scary for some sponsors," panel member Thomas Hosler told the state school board Tuesday.
But Hosler, superintendent of the Perrysburg school district near Toledo, said that he objects to sponsors, known as authorizers in most states, not taking responsibility for whether the schools they start and oversee ever educate children well.
By grading sponsors just like a school district, sponsors will have to be "in the cockpit" with their schools to guide them to improve.
"I don't think that sponsors can be silent partners anymore," Hosler said.
State Superintendent Richard Ross will make the final decision before he retires on Dec. 31. Ross told the board Tuesday that he expects to finalize a plan in a few days.
The proposal would take effect for sponsor ratings to be done after this current school year.
Ross said he is not sure yet how the state can handle the first set of ratings that is already overdue. He told the school board he is looking at using the panel's proposed system, with previous state test results, now. But he added, "That might not be fair to sponsors that didn't know" the ratings system would be used.
Meanwhile, sponsors and charter supporters are asking the department to drop the plan. In letters to the department and testimony Monday to the board, they said schools in poor, urban areas have little chance of earning enough good grades for a sponsor to be well-rated.
They instead want to be rated in comparison to big-city school districts -- districts that almost always have low grades and which charters consider as "peers" -- and not against all schools in Ohio.
They also suggested counting student improvement scores more than report cards do. They say that a sponsor is very different from a district and should not be judged the same way.
Chad Aldis of the Fordham Institute, sponsor of some schools near Dayton but Don't grade us like school districts, charter school sponsors say; state might do it anyway | cleveland.com:
