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IUE supports publicly funded, voluntary early learning experiences for virtually all pre-kindergarden children.
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IUE will help design and encourage enactment of an improved system of state funding of education and other vital needs.
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IUE supports charter schools because they can provide superior education at modest cost, often to children from families that lack
an educated adult, and can by example help improve traditional, district-managed schools.
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Charter Schools
IUE believes that charter schools, properly conducted, can not only provide good education for their students, but also help improve the quality of traditional public schools by setting examples of good practices, which the traditional schools can follow.
The critical factors which distinguish the contributing charter schools from the damaging charter schools are the quality of the education they provide, and the method by which they select their students.
The Ohio Legislature made a critical mistake, in IUE’s opinion, in 2004, when it approved charter schools for bright students. Such schools are bound to show up well in test score rankings, but they offer nothing to the solution of the difficult problems of educating the children of families in which there is no educated adult. Solving such problems is the major educational challenge of the state of Ohio.
IUE has devoted much time, attention and funding to Citizens’ Academy, an elementary charter school located in University Circle, in the heart of Cleveland’s inner city (Visit their site at www.CitizensAcademy.org for more). After many years of tribulations, the school was in 2003-4 showing signs of real progress. Its reading test scores showed a percentage of students as proficient which was very close to that of Shaker Heights, despite the fact that the Academy had virtually no white students, and only a small minority from families above the poverty line. It confronted a new problem: several bright student charter schools attempted to recruit able students from the Academy.
The faculty and trustees of Citizens’ Academy have decided not to extend its reach beyond the fifth grade. They believe that the best possible elementary education has not yet been achieved, and do not want to be diverted from that goal by the quite different problems of secondary education.
Partly so that continued quality education will be available to Citizens’ Academy students, and partly because secondary education in an inner city environment poses problems even more difficult than elementary education, IUE intends to develop a plan for a secondary charter school in Cleveland’s inner city. Once developed, IUE will offer the plan to the Citizens’ Academy faculty and trustees, and undertake to establish the school only if the Academy decides it is not interested.
The first step in IUE’s plan must be to find the educational leader who feels he or she knows how to conduct a child-centered secondary school in an inner city environment. IUE is actively looking for such a person, and would welcome suggestions.
IUE is also interested in obtaining a revision of the method by which Ohio finances charter schools. In Ohio, the full public cost of such schools is borne by the district in which the school is located. This is wrong, and understandably creates great resentment on the part of financially pressed school districts. IUE prefers a Solomon-like plan, under which one half of the cost would be paid by the district (which should have some savings from not having to educate the students in the charter school), while the other half would be a line item in the state budget.
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White Papers
The initial White Paper will call attention to recent research relating to the
success (or lack of it) of charter schools and is currently in preparation.
IUE encourages challenges to and elaborations on the conclusions and
facts stated in these papers. IUE would be pleased to initiate a dialogue
on any or all of the three initiatives it is pursuing.
Please use the contact page to communicate with us.
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