The Center for Media and Democracy’s report highlighted in Blade Editor David Kushma’s Oct. 25 column, “Don’t let abuse, cronyism kill charter school reform,” legitimately highlights some troubling problems in Ohio.
Most of the report’s criticisms are aimed at the U.S. Department of Education and its administration of the federal Charter School Program grant fund. I am disappointed the report purposely omits any reference to the significant improvements that have occurred in Ohio.
The National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) is a nonprofit professional organization that has worked with states, school districts, and other authorizers to strengthen charter school oversight across the country for the past 15 years. We provide authorizers with tools and resources to make sure charters are transparent and accountable to our nation’s taxpayers.
NACSA has pushed for accountability and transparency in Ohio for more than 10 years. In 2006, we issued a tough report on the state’s charter sector — together with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools — calling for significant changes to state law. We advocated a way to automatically close the worst-performing schools and a process to evaluate authorizers based on school performance.
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With our support, these two measures became law in 2010. We supported the strong charter school reform bill passed last month, which creates additional charter school oversight and transparency provisions.
Because of this hard work, Ohio now has one of the strongest charter school accountability laws in the nation. NACSA readily endorsed Ohio’s application to the federal Charter School Program for additional funds based on this progress.
However, a law is only as good as its implementation, which the state saw this summer with the flawed administration of the new authorizer evaluation process. NACSA offered to work with the Ohio Department of Education to make sure the state’s charter reform laws are faithfully implemented at all levels.
We will continue to push Ohio’s authorizers to set and maintain high expectations for schools. This means taking action to close the charter schools that are failing children. It means adopting professional authorizing standards that create a strong review process that allows only the schools with the greatest likelihood of succeeding to open.
We will continue to push for Ohio’s authorizers to be held accountable for their performance as well. There must be consequences for authorizers that continually approve schools that never open, schools that close within months of opening, and schools that drastically fail children year after year.
GREG RICHMOND
President and Chief Executive Officer National Association of Charter School Authorizers
Chicago
First Published November 1, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
