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Education overhaul debate puts charter school officials on edge

Proposals to close schools with low academic performance worry educators trying to keep at-risk students in class.

For Miami Valley Hospital patient care technician Indiana Ferryman, who makes a bed in the Miami Valley PACU (Post Anesthia Care Unit), the charter school ISUS Institute for Health Care changed his life, he said. But future state funding for ISUS and other charter schools is in jeopardy these days as state lawmakers debate an overhaul to the state's education system. Some are calling for stronger accountability measures and funding cuts to schools that don't perform well. Staff photo by Jim Witmer

Jim Witmer For Miami Valley Hospital patient care technician Indiana Ferryman, who makes a bed in the Miami Valley PACU (Post Anesthia Care Unit), the charter school ISUS Institute for Health Care changed his life, he said. But future state funding for ISUS and other charter schools is in jeopardy these days as state lawmakers debate an overhaul to the state's education system. Some are calling for stronger accountability measures and funding cuts to schools that don't perform well. Staff photo by Jim Witmer

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Charter school debate

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By Anthony Gottschlich, Staff Writer Updated 6:20 PM Saturday, May 30, 2009

Like many of his fellow students in health care, manufacturing and construction trades, Indiana Ferryman came to the ISUS charter school in 2006 fed up with traditional high school, unsure of his future and unsure of himself.

Today, Ferryman is a high school graduate and patient care technician at Miami Valley Hospital looking toward college and a career in medicine, first as a nurse, then as a physician.

“It changed my life,” Ferryman said of ISUS as he wheeled a patient into a hospital room at Miami Valley. “The teachers I had were phenomenal. They really do genuinely try to help you — to make you better, you know, as a person.”

That’s what the school at 140 N. Keowee St. is all about, said ISUS President Ann Higdon: educating at-risk students — 71 percent are juvenile delinquents — teaching them a trade and providing direction.

But complicating that mission is a debate at the Statehouse over Gov. Ted Strickland and his fellow Democrats’ plan to overhaul the state’s K-12 education system. House Bill 1, now being revised in the Senate, would impose major changes to public schools, including tougher measures for the 320 or so charter schools that enroll more than 88,000 students across the state.

The Senate Republicans’ plan for House Bill 1, released Friday, May 29, eliminated or re-worked many of the Democrats’ proposals and restored spending for charters at the existing level for the next two years.

Still, nothing’s off the table, and the Republican-controlled Senate and the Democratic-controlled House ultimately will have to come up with a compromise plan in a conference committee in the coming weeks. The bill is part of the state’s two-year budget, which must be approved and signed by Strickland before July 1, the start of the new fiscal year.

‘A better way’

Besides the funding cuts, the House-passed plan calls for more accountability, oversight and transparency for charters and their sponsors and makes it easier for the state to close perennially low-performing charters. It also ties funding to academic performance, rewarding schools that meet “continuous improvement” or above on the state report card.

“My hope is in the Senate they’ll continue down that path of finding (incentives for) good charters, rather than perpetuate the bad ones,” state Rep. Stephen Dyer, an Akron-area Democrat and key author of the bill, said earlier this month.

The Senate Republicans’ version on Friday kept current standards as they are, but holds all public schools to the standards in place for charters — if schools are in academic emergency for three consecutive years, they must be closed.

Dyer points out that taxpayers have spent $3.4 billion on charter schools since they emerged in 1998, yet just 8 percent statewide rate “effective” or better on the state report card.

That nearly mirrors the performance of Dayton’s charter schools. Of 27 schools rated in 2008, just two scored effective and none better. Seven were graded continuous improvement.

“That’s not very good,” Dyer said. “I think there’s a better way of doing it.”

‘It’s nuts’

Defenders of school like ISUS say the state report card doesn’t always measure true performance.

Around 200 students attend ISUS, which comprises three schools, one for health care, one for manufacturing trades and one for construction technology, the most popular program and the one receiving the largest share of state funding, roughly $1.2 million this year.

But the construction school has struggled more than its sister schools on the state report card, earning no higher than academic watch in the last three years, according to the Ohio Department of Education.

That doesn’t bode well for the school in 2010 if lawmakers approve the provision tying funding to academic performance.

ISUS founder Higdon said the funding method isn’t fair to ISUS and schools like it, given the population they work with — students who struggled or dropped out of other schools.

She said students on average come to ISUS at age 17 but score at seventh-grade levels in reading and math. They achieve significant gains at ISUS, she said, but not enough to pass the Ohio Graduation Test or help the school out of a poor state rating.

Higdon and ISUS Treasurer Dave Bridge figure ISUS could take a 20 percent funding cut next year, a loss of around $386,000, if Democrats get their way. And that’s just for starters, they believe.

“Hidden in the (House plan), there’s just so many ways to force us out of business,” Higdon said.

Chief among them: A provision that states dropout-recovery schools, such as ISUS, would receive funding for classroom-based learning only. The bulk of ISUS instruction, however, occurs outside the classroom, in places like construction sites where the students are rebuilding homes and neighborhoods, or in manufacturing plants and health care settings.

“It’s nuts,” said charter school advocate Ron Adler, president of the Ohio Coalition for Quality Education. “What does that do to the community? We need more people going into the work force, not more people going into the justice system.”

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