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Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Charter-school operators’ books might open | The Columbus Dispatch

Charter-school operators’ books might open | The Columbus Dispatch:


Charter-school operators’ books might open

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    By Catherine Candisky
    The Columbus Dispatch Wednesday October 19, 2011 5:29 AM
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    Taxpayers might soon be able to see how private management companies spend the millions they receive from the public to operate public charter schools and how much they profit.
    A Franklin County judge ruled that White Hat Management Co. — the for-profit firm of Akron businessman and GOP donor David L. Brennan — is a public official when acting as an authorized representative of a public charter school.
    “It’s huge,” said Karen S. Hockstad, an attorney for several charter schools that filed a lawsuit challenging the authority of Ohio’s largest for-

    Judge tells charter-school company to open books

    White Hat must reveal how public funds are used

  • White Hat-owner David L. Brennan, center, is the second-biggest GOP campaign donor in the past decade.

      • DISPATCH POLITICS

      Find additional information about politics and government atDispatchPolitics.com.

      EDUCATION BLOG

      EDUCATION DATABASES

    • District report cards
      Search the 2010-2011 report card database for all Ohio school districts.

    • School report cards
      Search the 2010-2011 report card database for individual schools.

    • School District Poverty Estimates
      Search poverty estimates for any school district in Ohio.

      • HELPFUL LINKS

      Visit the websites of the Franklin County school districts:
      Subscribe to The Dispatch
      Subscribe toThe Dispatch
      Already a subscriber?
      Enroll in EZPay and get a free gift! Enroll now.
      By  Catherine Candisky
      The Columbus Dispatch Friday August 5, 2011 10:29 AM
      ShareThis
      A Franklin County judge ordered major GOP donor and charter-school operator David L. Brennan to turn over a detailed accounting of how his for-profit management company spends the millions of tax dollars it receives each year.
      Common Pleas Judge John F. Bender ruled that White Hat Management Co. is required to disclose the financial information under Ohio law.
      State law “clearly and unambiguously requires operators of community schools to provide their governing authorities with a detailed accounting of how public funds are spent,” Bender wrote in a 12-page decision on a 
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      NC DPI embraces Common Core wackiness | Truth in American Education

      NC DPI embraces Common Core wackiness | Truth in American Education:

      NC DPI embraces Common Core wackiness

      Posted on October 19, 2011 by Terry Stoops

      I recently spent some time reviewing the presentations from the April 2011 Collaborative Conference for Student Achievement (CCSA). The CCSA is an annual conference sponsored by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NC DPI).

      During the conference Kitty Rutherford (NC DPI Elementary Mathematics Consultant) and Robin Barbour (NC DPI Secondary Mathematics Consultant) discussed the implementation of the Common Core math standards in North Carolina. According to their Power Point presentation, the first step is to discard two core beliefs about mathematics:

      1. All students in a mathematics classroom work on the same problem at

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      Dear Mr. Mulshine – Please check your “facts” « School Finance 101

      Dear Mr. Mulshine – Please check your “facts” « School Finance 101:

      Dear Mr. Mulshine – Please check your “facts”

      by schoolfinance101

      I was reading this column by Paul Mushine yesterday in which Mr. Mulshine opines about the exorbitant property taxes being paid by our Governor. Now, personally, I’d prefer to keep our Governor out of this. This isn’t about him. It’s about an expensive house in a relatively wealthy suburban town in Morris County and the property taxes you have to pay when you live in an expensive house. Let’s keep it at that. Mulshine points to the rather eye-popping annual property taxes on the house which are over $37,000.

      Mulshine attributes the high property tax bill to state policies which take suburban money and give it to poor urban cities and school districts, referring more than once to the state school finance formula.

      As Mulshine argues:

      Just when the heck is he going to demand we change the formula for handing out state property-
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      BREAKING: Outstanding Student Loan Debt To Hit $1 TRILLION THIS YEAR

      All Education Matters: BREAKING: Outstanding Student Loan Debt To Hit $1 TRILLION THIS YEAR:

      BREAKING: Outstanding Student Loan Debt To Hit $1 TRILLION THIS YEAR

      by Cryn Johannsen
      Donate $10 to help AEM continue to actively raise awareness about the student lending crisis.


      I just read an article in USA Today about student loan debt, and it claimed, "The amount of student loans taken out last year crossed the $100 billion mark for the first time and total loans outstanding will exceed $1 trillion for the first time this year."

      When I got in touch with a leading expert in the field by email and asked about this assertion, he confirmed it was true.

      So there are absolutely NO solutions to the student lending crisis, and we're going to be hitting $1 TRILLION this
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      Shanker Blog » Trouble In Paradise

      Shanker Blog » Trouble In Paradise:

      Trouble In Paradise

      by Matthew Di Carlo

      According to the principles of market-based education reform, there’s at least one large, urban public school district operating at max power: District of Columbia Public Schools.

      For the past 2-3 years, DCPS has been a reformer’s paradise. The district has a new evaluation system (IMPACT), which it designed by itself. The system includes heavily-weighted value-added estimates (50 percent for teachers in tested grades/subjects), and the results of teachers’ evaluations are used every year to fire the teachers who receive the lowest evaluation ratings, or receive the second lowest score for two consecutive years. “Ineffective teachers” are being weeded out – no hearing, no due process, no nothing.

      Furthermore, these evaluation scores are also used to award performance bonuses, and very large ones at that – up to $25,000. This should, so the logic goes, be attracting high-achieving people to DCPS, and keeping them around after they arrive. And, finally, as a result of many years of growth, the city has among the largest charter

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