Charter Schools in Ohio

KidsOhio.org recently hosted a briefing and forum in Columbus on a new RAND report on charter schools: Charter Schools in Eight States: Effects on Achievement, Attainment, Integration, and Competition. The purpose of the event was to provide the latest facts and research on charter schools in Ohio, and encourage constructive discussion and debate.

Ron Zimmer, lead author of the Rand report shared the findings which included an analysis of three years of Ohio data. One central trend that emerged was that on many metrics-including racial mix and average student learning gains-charter schools seem to be very similar to the traditional public schools from which they draw their students. A notable exception, however, is that Ohio students who transfer to charter schools tend to be lower achieving upon entering a charter school than their former peers at traditional public schools, according to RAND’s research. RAND also found greater variation in the overall performance of Ohio charter schools when compared to their corresponding traditional public schools.

KidsOhio.org president Mark Real also presented a very informative PowerPoint of key facts related to charter schools in Ohio. A screenshot from this presentation is included below, but I encourage you to check out the full presentation as it includes very good data presented on demographics, achievement, and progress.

This post is a summary of a posting on KidsOhio.org. Check out a full recap of this event here.