Save The Date!
Strive: A Community Forum on Education
Friday June 26, 2009
Cintas Center, Xavier University
8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
We want to hear from you! Strive: A Community Forum on Education is a unique symposium focused on supporting and preparing youth for academic excellence from early childhood through college. Most of the time will be spent offering you the chance to provide your thoughts on what we need to do to address the three themes drawn from the recently released 2009 Striving Together Report Card.
How would you propose that we:
• Increase the pace of change in education?
• Increase rigor in the classroom?
• Increase enrollment, retention, and graduation from college and career training?
View the full agenda.
Join us and let us know what the keys to success are as we strive for excellence in education!
Cost: FREE
To register, contact Nancy Hackett at 513-745-3264, or hackettn@xavier.edu
Sponsored by Strive with the Community Building Institute
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
New Schott Report: Comprehensive Look at the Opportunities to Learn in the U.S.
The Schott Foundation for Public Education has released a new 50-state report on the opportunity to learn in America. "Lost Opportunity" is a state-by-state analysis of student performance data reported by state departments of education that determines the opportunity to learn in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
The Schott Foundation used resource models to identify the four core minimum resources that are necessary if a child -- regardless of race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status -- is to have a fair and substantive opportunity to learn: (1) high-quality early childhood education; (2) highly qualified teachers and instructors in grades K-12; (3) college preparatory curricula that will prepare all youth for college, work, and community; and (4) equitable instructional resources.
The study shows that minority and low-income students have half the opportunity to learn in public schools that their white, non-Latino peers do. It gives a state-by-state comparison of academic proficiency (percentage of students scoring at or above proficient on eighth grade NAEP reading measures) and equity (as measured by a tool created by the Schott Foundation, called the Opportunity to Learn Index). See the full report.
The Schott Foundation used resource models to identify the four core minimum resources that are necessary if a child -- regardless of race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status -- is to have a fair and substantive opportunity to learn: (1) high-quality early childhood education; (2) highly qualified teachers and instructors in grades K-12; (3) college preparatory curricula that will prepare all youth for college, work, and community; and (4) equitable instructional resources.
The study shows that minority and low-income students have half the opportunity to learn in public schools that their white, non-Latino peers do. It gives a state-by-state comparison of academic proficiency (percentage of students scoring at or above proficient on eighth grade NAEP reading measures) and equity (as measured by a tool created by the Schott Foundation, called the Opportunity to Learn Index). See the full report.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Local Charter Schools
As a follow-up to last week's post on charter schools in Ohio, this one looks at local charter schools serving Cincinnati. You may have read last week about the most recent local charter school that closed with little notice (Silverton charter school shut down - 5/7/09).
So, how are charter schools doing locally? Overall, the picture looks bleak, although there are four schools who do rank "effective" and four who rank in "continuous improvement" according to the Ohio Department of Education. Below is a spreadsheet that contains a list of the 25 local charter schools along with basic information such as street address, enrollment, designation, graduation rate (if available) and performance index.
There are five designations that the State uses for student performance in schools. If we picked a letter grade for each designation, it would go like this:
A-Excellent
B-Effective
C-Continuous Improvement
D-Academic Watch
F-Academic Emergency
Of the local charter schools, none are excellent, four are effective, four are continuous improvement, five are academic watch, and eleven are academic emergency. Use the scroll bars to view all of the data.
Data Source: Ohio Department of Education
View as a full page
So, how are charter schools doing locally? Overall, the picture looks bleak, although there are four schools who do rank "effective" and four who rank in "continuous improvement" according to the Ohio Department of Education. Below is a spreadsheet that contains a list of the 25 local charter schools along with basic information such as street address, enrollment, designation, graduation rate (if available) and performance index.
There are five designations that the State uses for student performance in schools. If we picked a letter grade for each designation, it would go like this:
A-Excellent
B-Effective
C-Continuous Improvement
D-Academic Watch
F-Academic Emergency
Of the local charter schools, none are excellent, four are effective, four are continuous improvement, five are academic watch, and eleven are academic emergency. Use the scroll bars to view all of the data.
Data Source: Ohio Department of Education
View as a full page
Friday, May 8, 2009
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
