Grade C for Lakewood City Schools?

[Christine Gordillo]

Also, for those interested, the District's Teaching & Learning Director will be giving a report on the State Report Cards to the Board at its Oct. 1 meeting. 7 pm at Harrison

Christine Gordillo
Communications & PR Coordinator
Lakewood City Schools

[Amy Kloss]

I know I'm late to the party, but I read through this thread yesterday and felt compelled to weigh in on the charter/public school debate.

In 2015, I was writing an article on a documentary about the Gülen movement, an Islamic social movement inspired by the religious teachings of Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish exile living in PA. While doing research for the article, I stumbled on information about charter schools in America, mostly in Texas, Ohio and California, operated by participants of the movement. Ohio's schools are called Horizon Science Academies. There were newspaper articles about accusers claiming girls had been sexually harassed and test forms had been doctored in HSA schools. Apparently, there was not enough evidence to go ahead with criminal charges. This piqued my interest, and I dug further, finding internet discussions among parents who questioned the number of teachers and support staff hired from Turkey, and general dissatisfaction with the academics offered. It was a murky internet search, without a lot of official verification, but the ideas I got from it include:

- One of the largest charter school networks in Ohio is run by Turkish people who apply for many H1B visas to bring others to this country as teachers and support staff.(Wouldn't this present a conflict of interest for Republicans who want to give free reign to charter schools and ban Muslims at the same time?)

- Since public schools are required to serve breakfast and lunch, charter school operators will often open separate businesses to provide food to schools, thereby making more money from taxpayer-supported businesses.

- HS Academies often open in low-income, minority, inner-city neighborhoods, offering the "choice" touted by charter school advocates. Anecdotally, I heard that what they do is pump the students and parents up with a lot of positive rhetoric about how great the kids and the school are, what great opportunities the students will have to succeed. However, the current review for HSA in Cleveland from greatschools.org says, "This school is rated below average in school quality compared to other schools in the state. Students here perform below average on state tests, have below average college readiness measures, are making about average year-over-year academic improvement, and this school has below average results in how well it’s serving disadvantaged students. Large disparities in suspension rates exist at this school, which is concerning."

The biggest questions I was left with after this research were, "Is anyone at the state govt. paying attention to these charter schools? Do they even know how millions of tax dollars are being used?" The recent ECOT debacle would indicate "no" is the answer. Republicans seem to be willfully blinded by the campaign donations they've received.

It appears to me that what we now have in Ohio are two PUBLICLY FUNDED school systems, charter and public, both of which are somewhat mediocre. Where is the evidence that charter schools are any kind of panacea?

Public schools need reforms and fresh thinking, but to say that they should be shut down and replaced with charters seems short-sighted, at best. Charter schools have a place in our overall education system, but more government oversight is needed, not less than traditional public schools. Just remember, any time a charter school makes a profit, those are your tax dollars going into their pockets. Charter school operators win; what do students lose?

[Brian Essi]

Mr. Liston, you are correct that LHS had no Semifinalists in this year's senior class but you are incorrect basing your calculations on last year's graduating class, which was 320 students, not 750. Semifinalists come from the test current seniors take in their junior year.

Did Lakewood High School fail to produce even a single 2019 National Merit Semifinalist this year from a class of around 750? Looks that way.

From 750 randomly-chosen students, the odds of not a single one becoming a Semifinalist are about one in 2000.

.99 ^ 750 = .0005326

How does that happen?

Mr. Liston,

The odds are about one in 1,000.

How does this happen?

It happens when you have a below average School Board leadership resulting in a mediocre rated school system despite many teachers giving individual students awesome attention and learning.

Grade C, despite A+ residents who give the School Board Honors level $$$

Beebe, Einhouse and Shaugnessy need to resign--they are failures.

[Tim Liston]

So OK no LHS current seniors became Semifinalists. If 1% attain Semifinalist status overall, the odds of a randomly-chosen class of 320 not producing one Semifinalist is still only 4%. Meaning there is a 96% chance that there is some reason for this particular outcome.

.99 ^ 320 = .0401

I've been over the charter school thing before. Two questions come to mind, and I've asked them both before. One, why are people eager to hold charter schools accountable, including closing underperforming charter schools, but unwilling to hold traditional public schools to the same standards? And two, what's so wrong with simply letting parents choose their child's school, the same way that parents can choose their child's doctor?

[ryan costa]

For a while, almost anyone who could fill out the paperwork could start a charter school. Then start collecting payments from the government. (vouchers).
Charter schools, like Private Schools, simply have the freedom to to reject students or expel students. Public Schools have to accept all students, until they matriculate into aging out or the criminal justice system.

an I.Q. of 100 is basically always the average score of everyone taking the I.Q. test. A school district's average I.Q. is from a portion of that total. What value this has is questionable, but districts and communities generally compete with each other based on this and other metrics.

[Gary Rice]

Tim,

In answer to your two questions, from the point of view of a retired public school teacher who continues to volunteer with the Lakewood Schools:

1) ALL schools MUST be accountable! That is a major concern and question that I have had with some charter schools. Several that I have visited have not impressed me in the least. There are so many opportunities in public schools that small basement charter schools might not have. Do they truly have enough oversight regarding sanitation, lunch programs, texts and computer supplies, accredited staff, supervision, etc...? Socialization is another factor. Public schools provide interaction with an eclectic population of learners, along with providing many opportunities to experience success in areas beyond academics, such as music and sports, using tested methodologies and of course, always while under the pure white light of microscopic public scrutiny.


2) Still, parents do have the right to choose the educational setting that best fits their child, whether that would be a public, private, or charter school. Even in the public sector, a parent and district may choose a different school for a particular child. These days, parents have more choices than ever.


No doubt in my mind that there are excellent public, private, and charter schools, and even home schooling programs. Each setting comes with its own advantages and disadvantages.

Let's face it, children do not arrive in our homes with instruction books, and each child is different. Addressing those differences in a constructive and research-based, objectively accountable educational framework, is our collective responsibility as a community.

[Matthew Lee]

[quote="Tim Liston"]So OK no LHS current seniors became Semifinalists. If 1% attain Semifinalist status overall, the odds of a randomly-chosen class of 320 not producing one Semifinalist is still only 4%. Meaning there is a 96% chance that there is some reason for this particular outcome.

.99 ^ 320 = .0401

[/quote}

I'm assuming, which could be a bad thing, that you do understand that being a Semifinalist is not like winning the lottery? It has nothing to do with randomly-chosen people and there is not an expected number of individuals based on class size? It has everything to do with one's PSAT score relative to everyone in the state that takes the PSAT that same year and then relative to everyone in the country.

Now, is it a good thing that Lakewood public schools did not have any semifinalists? No, I don't think so. But is it something that pure statistics would indicate we should have and therefore something is wrong? No, I don't think so either.

I admit I am a completely biased and satisfied customer of the Lakewood public school system and will continue to defend what it provided our daughter and allowed her to become in the process.