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Panel discusses charter schools
By jeanne starmack
youngstown
Charter schools are not accountable to taxpayers despite use of public money, and “high-stakes” tests don’t give a true measure of education, a four-member panel asserted Monday.
The panel was composed of Akron Beacon Journal Managing Editor Doug Oplinger, who researched state funding for education and charter schools while he was a reporter; Sherry Tyson, assistant treasurer of Youngstown City Schools; Ronald J. Iarussi, superintendent of the Mahoning County Educational Services Center; and Randy Hoover, professor emeritus of Youngstown State University.
They spoke at a forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Greater Youngstown. The forum was presented at Union Baptist Church.
Though the panel went on to detail what members believe is wrong with charter schools, the League of Women Voters has no position one way or the other on them, said Barbara Brothers, league chairwoman.
What the league does want, she said, is a funding system for schools that is adequate, equitable and accountable to taxpayers.
When charter schools are run by for-profit organizations, panel members said, taxpayers cannot gain access to school records and can’t even attend meetings that normally would be open under the state’s public-meetings and records laws.
Tax dollars follow the student out of a public school to a charter school, but that change doesn’t ensure a better education, they said.
Charter school boards are not accountable to any entity except the school’s management company, panel members noted.
Charter schools were exempted from standards public schools were expected to follow, said Oplinger, who covered education for 10 years for the Beacon-Journal.
“The state let [charter schools] open without textbooks or toilets,” he said.
“Most charter schools are not a model for reform,” he said. “The are doing dramatically worse and not saving the taxpayers any money.”
One school redefined regular students to students with special needs to get even more money, he said. And some charter schools even charged public school districts to bus students to them.
Tyson said charter schools will cost the Youngstown district more than $22.3 million this year.
Iarussi addressed the issue of state-mandated achievement tests, questioning whether the extra hours and costs are beneficial.
He gave an example of third-grade reading scores from 2003 and 2013 — 401.87 and 404.68, respectively.
“So was it successful? I don’t know,” he said.
Hoover said test scores don’t measure all skills and talents, and they don’t take into account differences in students.
He said the tests assume all children have the same ability, attitude toward school and the same home conditions.
He called the tests “anti-academic.”
Brothers circulated petitions calling for a moratorium on high-stakes tests and on charter schools to determine their effectiveness.