Ohio’s charter schools – an objective analysis

A new report published by the RAND Corporation assessing the effects of charter schools in eight states confirmed what school choice advocates have said for years – Ohio’s charter schools do not have any significant effect on nearby traditional public schools. The RAND report confirmed that charter schools do not “skim the cream”, by taking the best and brightest students from public schools when it comes to recruiting. Actually, children enrolling in charter schools have similar academic achievement levels as those attending district schools.

The RAND report notes no major difference in math and reading achievement among Ohio students transferring between charter schools and traditional public schools. The report further examines just the nonprimary charter schools and comments that the differences in Ohio are “indistinguishable from those of TPSs (traditional public schools).”

However, the report goes on to assert a significant variance in the quality of Ohio’s charter schools. The authors of the report offer two theories on this variance; that Ohio has a diverse group of charter school authorizers and that Ohio’s charter schools receive significantly less funding than their district peers.

The report recommends making Ohio’s charter schools and their authorizers more accountable for the school results and closing those schools that don’t perform. Just last week, Terry Ryan from the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation made similar recommendations to the members of the House Finance and Appropriations Primary and Secondary Education subcommittee.

While I have been a leading advocate for giving parents and children a choice in education during my time in the Legislature, I also led the effort in holding charter schools to higher standards than Ohio’s traditional public schools as well as requiring improved oversight and governance. While the majority of Ohio’s charter schools continue to be successful in educating Ohio’s children, there must be consequences for those schools that fail to give children an adequate opportunity to learn.

As a longtime supporter of school choice, I’m pleased that this report has helped to dismiss the myths that the emergence of charter schools has adversely affected the quality and financial condition of traditional public schools.

To view the full RAND report, please visit:

 http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG869.pdf

Reducing Poverty

During the early 1990’s I was working on welfare reform policy in Montgomery County. In researching this complex topic, I discovered a study that identified a list of characteristics most common to people living in poverty. The study concluded that 90 percent of all people living in poverty met at least one of the following three conditions: failed to complete high school, had a child out of wedlock or suffered from either drug or alcohol addiction.

As a result of my interest in this issue area during my early career, I check the statistics that are released each year to see what progress has been made.

Recently, I read a 2008 report issued by the Montgomery County Family and Children’s First Council that cited similar conclusions to the study I read more than a decade ago. The 2008 study concluded that children whose parents graduated from high school, had them after the age of 20 and were married had only an eight percent chance of growing up in poverty. However, for those children whose parents did not meet the above conditions, the likelihood that they would grow up in poverty increased to an astonishing 79 percent.

So, where do we stand? Sadly, the trends are worsening.

In Ohio, only 44.1 percent of first-born children were born into a household where their parents were high school graduates, at least 20 years of age and were married—in Montgomery County that number was only 39 percent. Ten years ago these numbers were at 50.3 and 48.9 percent respectively and 52.6 and 52.4 percent respectively in 1990.

This data shows that the majority of Ohio’s first-born children are likely to be born into circumstances that put them at an exponentially higher risk of growing up in poverty.

Additionally, it seems that despite the best efforts of all interested parties to reverse these trends, the economics of poverty remain a complicated mix of personal choices, education and social issues. Although the report, which can be found in its entirety at www.fcfc.montco.org, was unclear in its recommendations for solutions, I would value your input.

What conclusions can you make about these trends? What should be done to address and/or alleviate these trends?

With Economic Issues Dominating the News, Pro-life Voices Seek to Draw Attention to Obama Policies

Guest Blog:  Paula Westwood, Executive Director
Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati

First to clarify the statement many grasped during the election to justify voting for this man: “Barack Obama is pro-choice, not pro-abortion.”

Those on both side of the abortion issue are “pro-choice.” The difference is what is being chosen-accepting chemical or surgical killing of an unborn child for any reason for anyone, or not. Thus the accurate distinction is pro-life or pro-abortion.

During the presidential campaign, Senator Obama publicly stated, “I’ve got two daughters. Nine years old and six years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

President Obama is pro-abortion.

 
A  legislative analysis from a Washington insider predicts that under Obama we will see extreme pro-abortion bills, such as the  Freedom of Choice Act (or Unrestricted Abortion Act) and its “evil twin” the  Prevention First Act (or Abortion Industry Support Act); smear attacks on pro-life pregnancy help centers, and more.

Obama’s legislation initiatives will increase the numbers of abortions nationally and internationally.

Through President Obama’s Executive Orders such as that overturning the Mexico City Policy, enacted January 23rd, we U.S. taxpayers will now fund abortions overseas, at an increase from $88 million to $545 million.

In recent budget pork piling, Obama also overturned the Kemp-Kasten Amendment restrictions against funding the United Nations Population Fund, which includes among its programs support for China and its one-child policy, forced sterilizations and forced abortions. The UNFPA will now receive $50 million.

But perhaps President Obama’s pro-abortion mindset is most evident in his  political appointments. Many are radical pro-abortion activists who have worked to further a relentless pro-abortion agenda; prime example Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Barack Obama’s deliberate and determined pro-abortion record is not new. For a related historical timeline see the  Moral Accountability web site.