How the Chicago Tribune views Ohio's charter school problem

Should states put brakes on charter school growth?
By Tim Jones, Tribune national correspondent
Chicago Tribune, May 3, 2007

DAYTON, Ohio -- Ted Strickland is the governor of Ohio, and LaTeefah Appleberry is a diminutive 14-year-old parochial high school freshman with big dreams. The two have never met, but they share a trait: They come from humble origins and have a strong desire to do good things.

They also hold passionate and conflicting opinions about the contentious issue of school choice -- vouchers and charter schools -- and together they help frame a noisy debate over Strickland's call to rein in the two alternative education programs that have gained footing in Ohio and across the nation in the past decade.

Calling the performance of many of the state's 310 charter schools "pathetic" and "indefensible" and arguing that vouchers undermine public education for the benefit of the few, Strickland wants a moratorium on new charters and an end to Ohio's 2-year-old voucher program.

Those recommendations amount to a declaration of war against those who argue that many public schools are fatally flawed and that the only way to prevent children from failing with them is to allow them to go elsewhere. Strickland, a Democrat, has sparked a furor among school choice supporters, including Appleberry, who is attending Archbishop Alter High School in the Dayton suburb of Kettering only because she has a state-paid voucher.

"I don't want to go back to no damn public school," Appleberry declared, echoing more bluntly the sentiments of other students and parents who see school choice as the only option for getting a good education.

A freshman classmate of Appleberry's, Shantelle Gunn, said some public high schools "are crazy. You'd be scared because there's too much emphasis on who has a weapon."

Ohio is among 40 states with charter schools, which receive state funding but are privately run and have the freedom to operate mostly under their own rules. About 1 million students nationwide attend charter schools. Ohio is also among six states with a school voucher program, enabling about 4,000 students to attend private schools of their choice, at state expense. Milwaukee has the nation's oldest voucher program, with 15,000 low-income students attending private schools.

Utah this year became the first state to enact a universal voucher law, allowing every child to receive money to attend a private school. But in March, the Missouri House rejected a bill to help 8,000 students from St. Louis and Kansas City attend private schools.

Illinois does not have a voucher program, but it has 42 charter schools, most of them in Chicago. Many studies of charter schools -- including a 2005-06 report by the Illinois State Board of Education -- have painted a mixed picture. Some schools report good grades in math and reading, while others either match or lag behind public schools. Even with mixed success, there is a waiting list of thousands to get into charter schools.

Governor wants to take stock

Strickland, who took office in January, says it is time to stop and take stock of what has -- and has not -- been accomplished by school choice in Ohio.

This is a fight over opportunity in a struggling industrial state where 1.8 million students attend public schools and where high school graduation rates in many big-city schools are chronically low. Strickland, who grew up in poverty in southern Ohio and lived for a while in a chicken coop after his family's home burned down, is a fervent believer in public education.

"There are those in our society and political leadership who have given up on public education, and they really don't believe that public schools ought to have a special place within our social structure," Strickland said in a recent interview in Toledo.

Reflecting the demand of some parents to get their children out of public schools, about 76,000 students attend charter schools in Ohio, and annual growth rates have been in double digits since the first charter school opened in Ohio in 1998.

Rapid growth may be part of the problem because the promise of better student performance has not been met. An October 2006 study of Ohio charter schools found that charter students in most districts performed worse or no better than their public school counterparts in reading and math. While some schools performed better, the overall lackluster performance prompted researchers to conclude, "Charter schooling in Ohio has reached a critical juncture."

Some charter schools are in severe financial trouble, and several have closed, including two in Columbus that accumulated $1.6 million in debt.

Gary Miron, a professor of education at Western Michigan University, described the performance of charter schools nationwide as "mixed." Miron is conducting a study on charter schools in the Great Lakes states and says charters in the region generally don't perform as well as those in, say, Connecticut and Delaware, and often worse than public schools.

Much of this means little to parents whose children are doing well in charters. Charles Wheeler, a laid-off autoworker in Dayton, said his 13-year-old daughter Kiera is succeeding in ways he never could when he attended public schools. His daughter, an 8th grader, wears a uniform to school and earns A's and B's. She dreams of becoming a forensic scientist.

"We were just being pushed through to make it to the next grade level. ... You could pretty much do nothing and make it through the system," Wheeler said, adding that it was "a real eye-opener" when he got to the University of Cincinnati and discovered he couldn't keep up with the reading demands.

Dayton has 6,000 students in charter schools and 900 using vouchers.

Bernie Heflin runs the cafeteria at Archbishop Alter High School and has a 14-year-old son attending another school on a voucher. Public schools have their place, she said, but the flaws of some schools in urban districts should no longer be tolerated.

"I see where he [Strickland] is coming from, but Dayton Public Schools let me down," Heflin said, referring to her days as a student. "Look, the damage has been done to me. You don't want your kid to go down with the school."

House rejects proposals

It may be that politics at the state Capitol in Columbus will preserve something close to the status quo. The House this week rejected Strickland's proposals on charters and vouchers. And nearly 8,000 Ohioans have applied for vouchers. Strickland concedes that he may fail in his effort to kill the voucher program. Critics suggest there is a political inconsistency on the governor's part because he chose not to try to eliminate the voucher plan in heavily Democratic Cleveland that has been in effect since the mid-1990s.

But the fight over charter schools has forced a re-examination of the schools' performance and what the state should do to force better performance and accountability.

Jon Husted, the Republican speaker of the House from Kettering, is a defender of vouchers and charters and said both programs have improved the performance of all schools because they have introduced competition. But he acknowledged that charter schools have grown too fast.

"A free market without regulation leads to abuse, and that's what we had," Husted said.

Heflin said she is troubled by the failings of public education and a situation that seems to encourage people to look out only for themselves.

"It shouldn't be that way, but that's where it's going," Heflin said.

tmjones@tribune.com

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By the numbers

*Minnesota passed the first charter school law in 1991, and since then 39 other states and the District of Columbia have authorized charter schools.

*More than 960,000 students nationwide are enrolled in about 3,600 charter schools. California has the most charter schools, with 574 serving 190,000 students. Illinois has 42, serving about 13,000 students.

*Six states -- Ohio, Maine, Florida, Wisconsin, Vermont, Colorado -- and the District of Columbia have authorized school voucher programs.