“Promoting Innovation and Excellence” will serve as the theme for National Charter Schools Week, May 3 – 9, 2009. Supporters of public charter schools around the nation will celebrate the remarkable rise of charter schools which have grown from a single school 17 years ago to now serve 1.4 million students at 4,600 schools in 40 states. It will also be an opportunity to inform policymakers and public officials that charter schools need their support.
“Across the nation, public charter schools are continuing to show that innovation and accountability are powerful tools that are successfully raising student achievement,” said Nelson Smith, President & CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. “National Charter Schools Week is the time to recognize the tremendous teachers, students, and families working together in these innovative and successful schools. It is also the time to remind policymakers that there are not enough charter schools to serve an estimated 365,000 students on waiting lists. Charter school supporters will be urging policymakers and public officials to take action on a range of initiatives, from lifting state limits on charters to increasing the funding for federal programs that support charters.”
The Alliance will announce the annual 2009 Champions for Charters award winners in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, May 5th. Additionally on that day, state charter schools leaders and advocates will travel to Washington to meet with Members of Congress, where they will advocate on behalf of public charter schools, including voicing support for the President’s budget which increases funding for the federal charter school programs.
The Alliance has prepared a toolkit for supporters that provides ideas for celebrating National Charter Schools Week in their local communities.
November 16-17, 2009 2nd OAPCS Annual Conference, Transforming Education Crowne Plaza - Columbus North
Harvard Summer Charter Schools Institute
Charter Schools: Practices for High Performance
July 20–July 23, 2009
Charter Schools: Practices for High Performance is a four-day leadership development program designed specifically to help charter school leaders develop the essential skills and strategies to build capacity and improve student outcomes. This intensive program draws on the expertise and research of Harvard faculty and leading practitioners in framing the challenges faced by charter schools and their school communities while also attending to the larger state-level policy environment.
Benefits of Attending
As a Charter Schools leader, this unique program will help you:
• Examine elements of high performing charter schools
• Explore issues of scale-up that support positive outcomes for students
• Address topics of internal accountability that enhance student learning
• Allocate resources (human and financial) to build organizational capacity
• Devise a theory of action for working effectively with external agencies and constituencies
Five Year Forcast Due
Community schools are required to submit a five year forecast with assumptions in October and a revision in May of each fiscal year. Please submit a five year forecast to the Office of Community Schools by May 31, 2009; using the approved Auditor of State forecast spreadsheet. The form is located on the Office of Community Schools' Web site.
Please submit this form to Mary Cotton by May 31. All other prior forms will not be accepted.
Charter schools in Ohio are under attack. This school year charter schools across the state received $617 million in state funding. The Governor proposed cutting that funding in his executive budget to $497 million. The House amended the Governor’s budget, with his approval, and cut funding to charter schools further to $470 million. These cuts will devastate charter schools in Ohio at a time when the President Barak Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan are touting the importance and relevance of quality charter schools to America’s promise of education reform. We need a big showing at the Statehouse in Columbus on May 13th. Join the march from the Veterans Memorial at 10:00 a.m. or go directly at 11:00 a.m. to the Statehouse Square off High Street between State and Broad streets. This rally is about stopping politicians with political agendas from closing your child’s charter school. (period). "Literary and Graphics Arts Flourish!"
The Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools was tremendously gratified to receive over 200 essays and poems and over 50 drawings and paintings for its annual writing and arts contests. What an array of wit, wisdom, creativity, design and color! Judges are reading and evaluating the works this week!
Do you have a teacher that is great at motivating students? Is your school treasurer a master at organization and planning for your fiscal audits? Do you have a tremendous staff in place because you have a proven process for selecting the right person? Are your monitoring strategies beneficial in helping schools avoid the need for intervention, while at the same time, honoring autonomy? Then the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools (OAPCS) needs your help.
OAPCS and the Conference Planning Committee is seeking individuals, like you, to lead breakout sessions at the 2nd OAPCS Annual State Conference; which will be held on November 16-17 at the Crowne Plaza - Columbus North, and features the theme Transforming Education. Your submission, as outlined in the call for proposals, must be received by April 30, 2009 for consideration. No handwritten submissions, please. You can email your paperwork to bleija@oapcs.org, fax to (614) 744-2255 or mail to: OAPCS 33 N. Third Street, Suite 600; Columbus, OH, 43215.
Forty-four billion dollars in stimulus funds for states and schools is available as part of the first of three rounds of money being distributed under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 with expectations of providing the foundation for education reform and help save hundreds of thousands of teaching jobs at risk of state and local budget cuts.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan made this announcement during a recent visit to Doswell Brooks Elementary School, a Prince George’s County (Maryland) School District, which faces a $155 million budget gap for next year. School officials estimate the district will receive at least $142 million from the stimulus package over the next two years. The announcement was accompanied by the release of the application and guidelines for the first $32.6 billion of the $44 billion to be distributed nationwide. The $32.6 billion under the State Stabilization Fund includes $26.6 billion to save jobs and improve K-12 and higher education and a separate $6 billion in a Government Services Fund to pay for education, public safety or other government services.
In addition to these stabilization funds, $11.3 billion is available immediately under the Title I, IDEA, Vocational Rehabilitation and Independent Living programs. The Title I programs serve schools with large concentrations of low-income students. IDEA funds serve students with disabilities. A second round of Title I and IDEA funds will be available later in the year.
A second round of stabilization funds, to be released later in the year, will include $13.1 billion for education and $2.9 billion designated for the Government Services Fund. A third round of funding, $5 billion in “Race to the Top” competitive grants, will reward states that have made the most progress on reforms.
The guidelines released as part of this first round were set up to require each State to show how their dollars will be spent. Specifically, the law requires states to show:
· Improvements in teacher effectiveness and commitments that all schools have highly qualified teachers;
· Progress toward college and career-ready standards and rigorous assessments to improve both teaching and learning;
· Improvements in achievement in low-performing schools by providing intensive support and effective interventions in those schools; and
· That they can gather information to improve student learning, teacher performance, and college and career-readiness through enhanced data systems that track progress.
Secretary Duncan has sent letters to governors outlining proposed measurements that states would report on their progress toward the education reforms spelled out in the law. The Department is releasing these metrics for public comment this month in the Federal Register, which will be followed by a final version.
The guidelines for the first round of money also require states to report the number of jobs saved through Recovery Act funding, the amount of state and local tax increases averted, and how the funds are used. Finally, the guidelines require that the bulk of the federal dollars be spent on education.
Secretary Duncan has issued a letter to chief state school officers on changes he is proposing in Title I regulations issued in October 2008.
Secretary Duncan writes that he supports many educational goals of the regulations issued in October 2008, including:
· Greater transparency, particularly for parents;
· Flexibility in return for accountability;
· Improved assessment and data systems to better track the growth of students and improve instruction; and
· Increased focus on high school graduation.
In a few cases, Duncan says he will provide flexibility to existing regulations through waivers. In other areas however, he wants the Department to consider changes. For example:
· Accountability Workbook peer review. Duncan wants to look at the requirement that each State submit for peer review a revised Accountability Workbook that reflects requirements in this section regarding Adequate Yearly Progress definitions.
Approval of SES providers. Duncan wishes to look at the requirement prohibiting a State from approving as an SES provider a school identified for improvement, corrective action, or restructuring, or an LEA identified for improvement or corrective action.
ODE Seeking Participants for Standards Revision Process
English language arts, mathematics, science and social studies teachers and curriculum directors are invited to participate in a June 30 planning meeting in Columbus about the upcoming revision process for Ohio’s Academic Content Standards. At that meeting, teachers and curriculum directors will discuss the revision process, review staff findings and suggestions, and offer valuable advice based on their real-world teaching experiences.
Both the Governor’s school reform plan and the proposed state budget include a standards revision deadline of June 2010 for English language arts, mathematics, science and social studies. Teams from ODE’s Office of Curriculum and Instruction have looked at best practices and current work in Ohio and other states as well as international benchmarking in mathematics and science.
Based on research and feedback from educators throughout Ohio, ODE hopes to create standards documents that are more succinct and user-friendly. Input from teachers and curriculum directors is vital to ensure the revised standards help teachers design lessons to meet student needs and make critical connections across the curriculum.
Interested teachers and curriculum directors are encouraged to apply to participate in the June 30 planning session no later than May 15.
OAT ToolKit Available
Teachers and administrators are reminded that ODE social studies and science consultants have developed tools for use by teams of teachers to inform their interpretation of OAT data and planning for standards-based instruction.
April 2009 The Ides of ODE Page 1 of 4
The OAT toolkit modules include:
• Focusing on Key Concepts
• Interpreting Assessment Data
• Standards Based Planning and Instruction
• Web Resources
The OAT Toolkit features instructional PowerPoint presentations including speaker notes as well as directions for accompanying activities for individual teachers or professional learning teams. Please make use of the Feedback button to let ODE know how you are using these tools and share suggestions for additions to the toolkits.
Celebrate Financial Literacy Month with EconEdLink.org
April is Financial Literacy Month. EconEdLink provides Internet-based economic lesson materials for K-12 teachers and their students. Help your teachers find lessons about Earning an Income, Saving and Investing, Credit and Spending and Money Management and Budgeting.
Explore the interactive tools, including the Compound Interest Calculator and You’re Going to College. In addition, teachers may watch Virtual Economics multimedia clips and explore the How to Teach... segments. For more information, visit www.econedlink.organd click on the Financial Literacy Month link.
INFOhio Supports 21st Century Learning Skills with SchoolRooms
INFOhio supports 21st Century Learning Skills with resources that encourage critical thinking and problem-solving skills while building information literacy skills.
Using SchoolRooms, located at http://schoolrooms.infohio.org, any Ohio student or teacher can begin their inquiry-based learning by exploring a room based on grade level or interest. Once inside a room, teachers and students can explore further through a learning tree or seek answers to questions such as How do I?, What’s This?, or Did You Know? These areas of SchoolRooms challenge students to ask critical thinking questions and extend their learning beyond the easiest answer. SchoolRooms also offers practical guides to help librarians and teachers learn to integrate technology tools and information literacy skills. The INFOhio username and password can be requested from your school librarian or by e-mailing central@infohio.org.
2009 Ohio Literacy Institute
Sponsored by the Office of Literacy, and hosted by the Ohio Resource Center for Mathematics, Science, and Reading, the 2009 Ohio Literacy Institute will provide an opportunity for educational leaders to explore timely literacy issues and topics, learn valuable instructional strategies, and engage in professional discussions with literacy leaders from across the country. The 2009 Institute, Reaching All Learners Through Literacy, will be held on June 15-16 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Columbus-Dublin, Ohio. Registration for the 2009 Ohio Literacy Institute is now open. All attendees must register online; no onsite registrations will be accepted. Registration is limited to 350 participants, on a first-come, first-served basis. Featured speakers include: Judy Willis Sara Kajder Timothy Rasinski Doug Fisher The luncheon will feature award-winning Ohio children’s literature authors: Margaret Peterson Haddix, Sara Holbrook, Michael Rosen, Marcia Schonberg.
For more information, visit the Ohio Literacy Institute Web site at http://www.ohiorc.org/oli/ or contact Alexa Murray, Ohio Resource Center, at amurray@ohiorc.org or by calling (614) 247-6342.
The U.S. Department of Education invites ALL TEACHERS to attend a FREE one-day conference in our nation's capitol National Charter Schools Teacher Institute Sunday, June 21, 2009 Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington, D.C.
All teachers are encouraged to attend— this opportunity is not limited to charter school teachers! Space is limited to 500 attendees so register NOW to attend this one of a kind opportunity!
The National Charter Schools Teacher Institute offers classroom teachers a FREE opportunity to participate in high-quality professional development designed to provide the classroom support, technical assistance, and increased collaboration needed to assure academic success for all students. Prominent teachers leaders from around the country will provide training sessions and share research-based practices they have successfully applied in their classrooms and schools. Participants will discuss instructional strategies in each content area and for each grade level.
Content focus for the sessions will be in the following areas:
• Differentiated Instruction
• English Language Learners
• History
• Math
• Reading
• Science
• Art
• Using data
Sessions will also provide important resources from the National Math Panel, the National Archives, and the Library of Congress.
The Institute is offered as a FREE conference and is held prior to the 9th Annual National Charter Schools Conference. The National Charter Schools Conference is the only national gathering of the entire charter school community. The 9th annual conference will be held June 21-24, 2009 in Washington, DC. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, will be one of several keynote speakers.
You can register online or by calling (800) 280-6218 for this FREE one-day conference.
Community Schools are required to submit a five year forecast with assumptions in October and a revision in May of each fiscal year. Please submit a five year forecast to the Office of Community Schools by May 31, 2009; using the approved Auditor of State forecase spreadsheet. The form is located on the Office of Community Schools' Web site.
Please submit this form to Mary Cotton by May 31. All other prior forms will not be accepted.
