An evening discussion with Michael Charney, candidate for State Board of Education

Tested to death and the end of charter schools

By Matt Merchant

Imagine if a kid died while taking a standardized test. Whether it’s the Ohio Graduation Test, the fourth grade proficiency test in mathematics or the SAT, a kid dying while taking an exam would be the most dramatic way to get change to happen in the Ohio education system. At least, that’s what Michael Charney thinks. There are other ways, however, and Charney wants to bring them to light.

The night of Friday, Sept. 12, 2014, Charney sat calmly in a rocking chair at a small community event discussing his opinions on public school exams. Charney, a candidate for the District 7 seat on the Ohio State Board of Education, doesn’t like exams.

“If someone got so sick with tension or from high blood pressure and died, the legislature would have to change something,” Charney said. “That represents more than just an individual. That’s the whole culture of test prep and changing the whole atmosphere and only dealing with the narrow stuff.”

During a small meeting at the house of Dwight Meyer and Lisa Regula-Meyer in Kent, Ohio, Charney had the opportunity to speak with a small group of local Kent residents and students. But, the group never arrived.

“I would have liked to have had more people here, for sure,” Charney said. Those that did arrive for the meeting had the chance to discuss the primary issues of the upcoming State Board of Education election.

Charney explained that his campaign is made up of three key ideas: first, his experience in and with the public school system of Ohio; second, the idea of reducing the reliance on standardized testing in the Ohio education system; and three, “shining a light” on for-profit, online charter schools and how they are funded.

His experience

According to his campaign website, Charney taught social studies for more than 30 years in Ohio’s public education system. This fact alone, he said, is reason enough to vote for him and not his incumbent opponent, Sarah Fowler.

“Sarah Fowler was home schooled herself and has never really been in a public school, and that’s actually why I’m running,” he said. “I thought someone should make the state policies around public education who had a lot of experience in public education and not be against public schools.”

There are also two other candidates running for the district, Sarah Freeman and David Spencer, according to the unofficial November elections ballot for Portage County.

I said to myself, ‘well, we need a different voice.’” -Michael Charney

When the Akron Beacon Journal and The News Outlet, a student-led organization based at Youngstown State University, profiled the members of the Ohio State Board of Education, Charney said he was hooked.

“I said to myself, ‘well, we need a different voice,’” he said. “I’ve taught for over 30 years and have a lot of classroom experience, educational leadership experience and policy experience.”

Charney, along with his wife, CJ Prentiss, who served in the Ohio State Senate from 1991 until 2006, as well as the Ohio Board of Education from 1985 until 1990, also formed the non-partisan group Policy Matters Ohio in 2000. Charney said that his experience working with politicians and helping to shape education law and policies also gives him an advantage when it comes to getting things done once elected.

Dwight Meyer, a resident of the City of Kent, one of the many cities in Charney’s District 7, said the experience Charney would bring to both the position and the Board makes him the ideal candidate. Up until Charney entered the race, the homeschooling mindset of Fowler was something he didn’t think would be good fit for a state board that determined public education policy.

Reduce testing

Meyer and his wife, Lisa Regula-Meyer, have a son, Kenny, who attends Holden elementary in Kent and they wanted to hear firsthand the issues at hand in the upcoming November election. Voicing their concerns directly to the candidate about the their son being “tested to death” with examinations temporarily eased the anxiety.

“This is actually one of the things that Lisa and I are really concerned about,” Meyer said. “Kenny is a third grader…”

“So he’s part of the Statewide Third Grade guarantee?” Charney interrupted. “That’s a new law. He will be exposed to a variety of tests, but that doesn’t mean he will be held back.”

Lisa and I feel that kids are being tested to death.” -Dwight Meyer

Though, he could, under the law, be recommended to be held back a grade in order to meet certain requirements.

“Yes. Lisa and I feel that kids are being tested to death,” Meyer continued. “The other day we were talking about how the kids get a pre-assessment for every unit they get into, and then do a post-assessment for every unit they finish, and it’s always leading up to something new.”

And a regimented concept like that even applies to kids as young as kindergarten-age.

“Not only do you test kids to death, but you marginalize some essential purposes of education,” he said. “There’s a small discussion like this, and then there’s the campaign commentary, like I’d say ‘The testing system denies kids a well-rounded education, because it only becomes important that’s what’s tested.”

All of these standardized tests that are given, “most of them don’t help teachers. They’re more kind of gotcha tests.” He said that he and John Hess, a junior political science major at Kent State and Charney’s community outreach organizer, are looking into the academic testing schedule – the times each year when schools administer standardized testing – and how they affect the actual learning outcomes of students.

The kid, in the minds of the teacher, becomes a test score, and what gets emphasized is what gets tested.” -Michael Charney

Charney said that he recently learned about how teachers are assessed based on progress in schools. It’s not just about how students test in individual teachers’ classrooms, but as a whole throughout their careers in the education system.

“The kid, in the minds of the teacher, becomes a test score, and what gets emphasized is what gets tested,” he said. It shouldn’t just be about test scores, Charney said. There needs to be a new emphasis on social capital, the ability, he said, “to know stuff outside the classroom,” and a study of how students learn from experiential learning compared to testing.

That emphasis doesn’t exist. Instead, Ohio recently implemented a statewide report card system that evaluates schools based on test scores. It couples, Charney said, the idea of ranking a school district with how well student test scores increase.

It’s inherently biased, he said, because of the difference in socioeconomics in each school district. And it pressures teachers to get higher test scores so that the district could be eligible for increased state funding.

This pressures teachers to get higher test scores, and can even lead to a cheating scandal, like the one that happened in Columbus.

How can he, once elected, change the test-heavy system in Ohio public schools? Charney, with his experience as a social studies teacher, used the example of learning the causes of the American Civil War. It’s good information to know, he said, but what happens if a students give a bad answer? Should the student not graduate, or should the teacher lose their job? However, in the extreme, Charney said that is the way of the existing system. But he proposes a different method.

“Decouple the tests from the stakes,” he said. “In other words, I actually would like a lot of tests. I’d like to know that the kids are getting it, you know? But there’s no need to put a stake behind it. We could create that culture.”

Charter schools

Besides testing, one of the biggest problems with the current education system in Ohio is charter schools. As institutions of learning, Charney said the problems lie with both how they are funded and the types of things being taught. Under current state law, public schools have to allocate some state funding to online school systems based on the difference in student enrolled and registered kids in the district.

Different cases in Ohio of state funding being diverted to charter schools and subsequently being used for non-educational purposes are  rampant in the media.

Charney said he thinks the biggest problem, besides the glaring funding scandals, is the lack of motivation on the part of students and the parents to actually do the work. Many kids, he said, will claim to be taking online classes when, in reality, they don’t.

“Digital learning has a role. I don’t believe that you should make profits off of public school. But I think school districts could offer this, you know, stay at home and do this. However, it’s only good for certain types of kids,” he said. “First, you have to be hell of motivated. To turn on the computer and, in theory, spend six hours a day. Even with a teacher who can communicate with you through Skype or email, you gotta be pretty motivated. It’s a niche, it’s not for everyone.”

Bonnie Graham Esparza, another Kent resident who also attended the small event, said she came to talk personally with Charney about the education system in Ohio.

“I saw him speak at a breakfast and I he was very charismatic, and I didn’t know a thing about the state board,” Graham Esparza said. Around the time when schools were back in session she noticed the increase in advertisements online and on the TV for charter schools. After looking into how they are funded, it surprised her to learn how much money goes into them instead of into the public school.

“I know a ton of people who support charter schools despite the problems that they have,” she said. “But I wouldn’t want to be in a place where the kids can’t do the math.”

Why it matters

For most college students, a State Board of Education election is just about the farthest thing from their mind, Charney said. But even local elections can affect higher education and, in the long run, society as a whole.

“I think the larger question is ‘what kind of society are we going to have if we don’t have strong democratic institutions?’ And public education is really the centerpiece of that democratic system,” Charney said. “Because without an engaged citizenry, and I don’t say a way to fill the jobs, but an engaged citizenry- student who grow up that can question, that see being a citizen as being more than just voting having their voices heard.

I happen to think that college students who might be committed to equality or democracy…need to think about this election.” -Michael Charney

“Then what we’re going to have is essentially the domination of the wealthy in making decisions. And as long as we have that, we don’t have a real democracy. And I happen to think that college students who might be committed to equality or democracy, or who just want to have a society that is not dominated by the one percent, need to think about this election. I also think I’m the only alternative, both in terms of policy, energy and strategy, that will actually make a difference for them, for people in district 7, people across Ohio and without being too outrageous, nationally.”

“Doing the math,” as Graham Esparza questioned, is something Charney said he has done and will continue to do once he’s elected to the board. The real theme of his campaign isn’t directly about test reduction or controlling charter schools, he said.

“My theme, for those who are actually interested, is called changing the conversation,” Charney said. “How do I as an individual and when I’m elected, change the conversation around education in Ohio so that maybe your voices get heard more in an elementary school rather than being worried about bringing in a principle. Changing the conversation means different rules, different emphasis.”

Charney has a campaign stop planned for September 23 at Kent State. He plans to meet with the College Democrats.