Resist lowering charter- school standards

Now that Ohio finally has in motion an improved accountability regimen for its woeful charter schools, state Rep. Andy Brenner wants to take a step back. The chairman of the House Education Committee doesn’t put it that away. He talks about proper weighting, fairness and following legislative intent.

Actually, Brenner appears to be doing the work of the politically connected Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, the giant online charter school with a dismal academic record. Lawmakers should be wary of changes Brenner proposes.

The step forward for the state came when it launched a new evaluation system for charter school sponsors. Sponsors oversee the schools. Thus, the reasonable conclusion: Put greater pressure on sponsors to raise their game, and the academic quality of the schools would follow.

When the state Department of Education finally released its evaluations under the new system last fall, the picture wasn’t pretty. Five sponsors rated effective. Thirty-nine scored ineffective, and 21 received ratings of poor. State Sen. Peggy Lehner told the Gongwer News Service: “There is no question that the charter school sector is going to struggle for a while in Ohio as we raise quality, but I think that’s what everyone is seeking to do.”

Yet the grumbling of some charter advocates already had begun — unhappy that schools with more students receive more weight in grading sponsors.

For instance, ECOT has 15,000 students, or nearly one-half of those enrolled in the 59 schools sponsored by the Educational Service Center of Lake Erie West. Treat the academically challenged ECOT as one school, and it would rate as a tiny fraction of its sponsor’s portfolio. The sponsor would receive a higher rating, assuming its other schools perform well enough. ECOT would be relieved, the prospect easing of its sponsor going out of business.

The question goes: Why should many schools be punished for the lousy performance of one?

It might be, as some argue, that a hybrid could be crafted, an ECOT counting as something between one-half and a sliver of the portfolio. Yet that approach, too, should be seen for what it is — a weakening of accountability. If a sponsor can rely on a set of stronger performers, what is the incentive to improve the lagging larger school, all the while collecting public dollars?

In the case of ECOT, the discussion, again, is about one-half of the students, or 15,000. With those numbers in mind, the re-weighting, as proposed by Andy Brenner, diminishes the commitment to students, or what charter schools claim as their first purpose.

ECOT would be better off. So would the sponsor. The students are well served when they are front and center, the state with a system that applies maximum pressure on a sponsor when one-half of its students attend a school with Ds and Fs on its report card.

The state fell into trouble when its school choice chief got caught trying to hide the poor performance of online schools. Now Brenner appears eager to achieve something equivalent. Better to stick with a system that aims to put students first, the state using its weight to demand improvement from its poor-performing charter schools.