Return to Uptown Progressives' home page
Uptown Progressives is is an open and inclusive community organized to protect the democratic process, promote social justice, and engage citizens in encouraging principled leadership.
Send us email at up@uptownprogressives.com to be added to our email list for news and updates.
To communicate with the Uptown community, ...
Election Protection and Reform Committee
Education
Energy
Environment/Green Living
Health Care
Labor
Racism and Discrimination
U.S. Military and Foreign Policy
Women's Reproductive Health
Uptown Progressives is a member organization in the Coalition of Democratic and Progressive Organizations.
All people need and deserve access to publicly financed, effective, quality education.
Background
The future of our way of life requires an informed and innovative citizenry. The quality of education available to a child must not be limited by the economic success or failure of the child's parents or of the school district in which they reside. The state must invest many more dollars in education at every level. Our future quality of life is dependent on universal quality education.
Recommendations
UP supports state and federal equalization of every student’s education funding through college and/or technical training and policies that work towards this end. UP supports promoting and increasing standards to assure high quality public education that is accompanied by adequate resources to achieve these standards. UP supports curricula based on sound science and the teaching of science methodology. UP opposes the current promotion of charter schools and its corresponding lack of accountability and any other strategies to lessen the viability and quality of public education.
What are Charter Schools? What are they supposed to accomplish? How are they likely to affect property taxes? How are they funded? What standards are they being held to? These and other questions were raised at the January 23, 2006 meeting of Uptown Progressives at the Whetstone Public Library, in a lively discussion between the five invited guests and members of the audience of over fifty.
The meeting covered a lot of ground, and was able to address feelings among those present that public education is being sold away from us, that the charter schools are an assault on democracy, and that they pit one Columbus resident against another. Since charter schools at present are not receiving any scrutiny to determine whether they are meeting the standards required of public schools, questions were raised as to who decides when a charter school is "successful," and as to whether there is any plan to critique this "Walmartization," and the way tax money is being siphoned from the public schools.
Dr. Nancy Zajano, former director of the recently eliminated non-partisan Legislative Office of Education Oversight, explained that charter schools are sometimes called "Community Schools" in Ohio to differentiate them from private schools, which are also "chartered." She pointed out that the Ohio program was begun before a pilot program could be carried out. Her office produced a number of reports on Ohio Charter Schools which are available at www.loeo.state.oh.us.
Gary Allen, President of the Ohio Education Assocation (OEA), provided more of the history of charter schools in Ohio, and said that he felt they work best when they are conversions of existing public schools, not new start-ups. They were supposed to offer alternative learning styles, but many are not succeeding for a variety of reasons. He emphasized his concern that many are failing to educate students while still taking tax money.
Al Warner, CEO of ADW Management Systems, who serves on the district's Task Forces on Equity and Innovative Schools Design and its African-American Advisory Council, stated plainly his conviction that charter schools in Ohio were begun with the ultimate goal of privatizing education. They are competing unfairly with public schools, because "you can't fairly compete while crippling your opponent." If charter schools were thoroughly rated in the same way public schools are, a large percentage would be in academic emergency. He believes management companies should only be allowed to open new schools when their existing schools are rated as succeeding.
Mark Real, attorney, President and CEO of
Andrew Ginther, member of the Columbus Board of Education and chair of its Audit and Accountability Committee, discussed the impact of charter schools on the budget of CPS. Currently, $36 million is going into funding for them, and $45 million is budgeted for the coming year. Charter schools in our area now enroll 11% of the student population. The growth of charters has pushed CPS in the direction of more alternative schools, greater responsiveness (dress code, contact with parents, etc.), and more attention to safety and discipline issues. It has also produced some "reconstituted" or "converted" schools (see Gary Allen's remarks above).
Members of the audience asked whether charter schools are likely to bring about increases in property taxes, as has happened elsewhere. It was pointed out that many of these schools have a layer of for-profit management; the state is spending $475 million on charter schools, one quarter of which is going to one company, White Hat Management, headed by David Brennan of Akron. Audience members also wanted to know whether private schools that accept vouchers can discriminate in accepting students (it was thought that they probably cannot). And there was discussion of the partnership concept for public schools; the example cited is the partnership of OSU, Battelle, and the Educational Council to create the Metro High School that will open in Fall 2006, emphasizing math, science, and technology.