The system of education in Ohio is changing, giving more students options to enroll in community schools or to use vouchers in 70 of Ohio's failing schools.
A pilot program in the Cleveland Municipal School District tested the voucher system, allowing about 5,600 students in 2004 to attend a private school or adjacent public school districts with an average cost of $2,033 per pupil. The voucher program has been in operation since 1996, and first included kindergarten through eighth grade students until it expanded its eligibility to ninth and 10th graders in the past two years. Eleventh and 12th grades will be added in 2006 and 2007, respectively.
The proposed cost of the Cleveland Foundation program for the next two years is about $20 million each year. Voucher priority is given to low-income families.
The voucher program was proposed to extend to 70 public schools deemed to not be performing well
said Lisa Zellner, Ohio Federation of Teachers communications director.
Vouchers would fund up to 2,600 students at about $3,500 each, with a total cost of $9 million. This program would not take effect until 2007, giving schools a chance to get off the list and to allow parents to consider options, said Taft spokesman Mark Rickel.
A seven-year study commissioned by the state of the pilot program by independent researchers from Indiana University found no statistically significant differences in performance, said Ohio Federation of Teachers President Tom Mooney.
In the final report last year it found no statistically significant differences in student or academic achievement of the students who took a voucher to attend a private school as to those students who stayed in the public schools --all of that was kind of for nothing Mooney said. The best thing you could say about them is that if you have a troubling school
you are letting a few kids escape... quite bizarre... spectacularly unsuccessful.
While voucher students might not be surpassing expectations, some schools are failing to meet state expectations.
The governor said in his announcement of this program that he has lost patience with getting these schools to perform in providing the basic skills in math and reading that are necessary. He wanted to build this program to offer options to students and families to get out of schools that are persistently failing
Rickel said.
The other option for students is community or public charter schools. Community schools are independent public schools operated according to a contract negotiated with a sponsor. A sponsor can be a school district
a joint vocational school board
an educational service center
a state university board of trustees or a qualifying tax-exempt entity
according to the proposed executive budget of Gov. Bob Taft.
Charter schools are funded similarly to public schools in that the funding follows the student and the school receives compensation for each student enrolled. Public schools receive about $2,000 per student while charter schools receive between $5,000 and $6,000, depending on a variety of factors such as special needs. This money is taken from the local school district, Mooney said.
Based on the data
with very few exceptions that they do the same or worse than in public schools
over $400 million is going to charter schools; by now it's about the money
