No school district would lose money under Ohio Senate's budget

Every school district in Ohio should receive at least as much money from the state for the next two years as they do now, Ohio Senate officials said today as they released their proposed state budget for the next two years.

Sen. Chris Widener, a Springfield Republican, said the new budget will "hold harmless" every district for the next two years, with none seeing a cut in money from the state compared to this school year's amount.

Along with many districts seeing increases, Widener said, at minimum "All schools essentially receive what they are receiving this year."

That's even including reductions in the complicated and much-debated reimbursements for the now-defunct tangible personal property tax, Widener and Senate President Keith Faber said.

That reimbursement is a hot-button issue for many districts, including Solon, who have urged the state to continue the reimbursements permanently. The state ended that tax that many districts relied on in 2005 to reduce the tax burden on some businesses.

The Senate budget proposal is the latest step in the two-year budgeting process that has already had proposals from the House and from Gov. John Kasich. If the Senate version passes, leaders of the House and Senate will meet in conference committee later this month to find a compromise.

The budget that both houses of the legislature agree on will then go to Kasich for approval.

(Read more at Cleveland.com)

Nine ousted or investigated in Ohio’s largest charter school network

At least nine employees, from secretaries to school board presidents to founding executives, have been named in two separate internal investigations as family ties link taxpayer-funded jobs in Ohio’ largest chain of charter schools.

The governing board of Akron-based Summit Academy Management, one of Ohio’s oldest charter school management companies, has placed president Gerald Horak, vice president James Bostic and Horak’s son, Joseph, on paid leave, according to the board president of a local charter school that hired the company to run the operations.

Joseph Horak’s wife also works for Summit, though she has not been named in the investigation. The Beacon Journal reported in mid-May that top officers had been removed, but the company has not elaborated on who or the reasons.

And while the private company won’t disclose the nature of its investigation, a second investigation conducted by the schools’ sponsor — a public agency — has uncovered potential conflicts of interest involving school board members and family members who work for the company.

Three school board members, including Bostic’s sister-in-law, have stepped down following a review of family relationships by the Educational Service Center of Lake Erie West — which sponsors 24 of the 26 Ohio charter schools managed by Summit.

The sponsor issued letters to the three Dayton, Xenia and Akron charter schools, citing state law prohibiting nepotism and calling the family relationships “potential legal and ethical issues.”

(Read more at Ohio.com)

Charter Schools Continue To Fail Ohio Students. Where is David Hansen??

It’s a bad week to be David Hansen, who heads Ohio’s charter school accountability office.

The Columbus Dispatch tells us that the Imagine Columbus Primary Academy, a chronically failing charter, might be forced to close its doors amid concerns over an exorbitant, conflict-laden lease that leaves little money for classroom instruction.

WDTN in Dayton reports that three people were convicted of bribery and taking kickbacks at a Dayton charter.

And today the ODE sent letters to three charter schools (Imagine Cleveland, Villaview and Cleveland Community School) threatening to shut the schools down because their “performance has generally been a failure.”

While these developments are new, charter school scandals in Ohio are routine. In fact, Ohio’s charters are so famously bad that even the head of the pro-charter group, StudentsFirst, said that most Ohio charter schools “stink.”

Lest anyone think the comment was taken out of context, here is the full quote from Greg Harris, who directs StudentsFirst Ohio:

“We think a lot of them (charters) need to be closed, because they’re not doing a good job,” Harris said. “We think charters have a role in the education base, but we also think most of the charters in Ohio stink.”

Back to David Hansen, whose official title is head of the Office of Quality School Choice and Funding.

What does he do for the tax dollars we pay him? Has he taken any steps to correct the pattern of wrongdoing? Does he have a position on the charter school reform bills moving through the legislature?

Lots of other folks have positions and are not shy about giving them.

(Read more at Plunderbund)

Ohio Charter Schools' Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week (and it's not even over yet)

Talk about a rough week. Take a look at the news stories coming out about charter schools this week.

On Saturday, the Akron Beacon Journal (again) led the way on enterprise reporting on this topic by publishing an analysis of 4,263 audits done last year by the Auditor of State revealed that "No sector — not local governments, school districts, court systems, public universities or hospitals — misspends tax dollars like charter schools in Ohio."
Yikes.

Among the findings:

While charters only accounted for 400 of 5,800 audits, they accounted for 70% of the misspent money
$25 million in misspent money remains unpaid
For every $1 misspent found by private auditors, public auditors found $102
The misspending is probably worse than what the audits turned up because so many charters were next to impossible to audit, according to the Beacon Journal.

Then came a Columbus Dispatch editorial (historically, no friend of the charter critic) that called out charter school sponsors for wanting to hide their expenditures to oversee the sector, except in limited cases -- an argument not much different from one I made about the same time.

Later that same day, the Dispatch revealed that the troubled North Side Imagine charter school might be shut down because its board just up and quit. This is the same school that was found last year toy be spending an exorbitant amount of money leasing the property from a subsidiary of Imagine Schools -- a practice that was found to be illegal in Missouri. Imagine Schools, Inc. run schools in 11 states and are no stranger to controversy.

Meanwhile, the same day, the Dayton Daily News reported that three former Dayton-area charter school officials were convicted of bribery and conspiracy charges in connection with their operation of the Arise! Academy.

They all face at least 15 years in federal prison for steering lucrative contracts to each other.

(Read more at 10th Period)

State Suspends Four Northeast Ohio Charter Schools

The Ohio Department of Education sent letters to administrators from Cleveland’s Villaview Community School, Imagine Cleveland Academy, and Cleveland Community School, along with Canton’s Imagine on Superior Academy, letting them know the decision came down after state officials determined the schools weren’t meeting the required level of student performance.

“We did our own evaluations of each of those schools and determined that these four schools were not meeting student performance standards that they set down in their own contracts,” ODE spokesperson John Charlton told our partners at WKSU. “And also that there were some violations of state and federal law regarding services provided to special education students.”

The schools were each sponsored by the now-defunct Portage County Educational Service Center.

(Read more at NPR)

State puts three charter schools on notice to close -- Imagine Cleveland, Villaview and Cleveland Community

The state has put three charter schools in the city on notice that they could be shut down for poor academic performance -- Imagine Cleveland and the Villaview and Cleveland Community School partnership.

"The School's performance has generally been a failure," the Ohio Department of Education said in letters to each of the schools. "The school has completely failed to meet the student performance requirements of the contract and generally has a long history of poor academic performance."

All three are failing to manage their budgets properly, ODE also said in the letters, and the Villaview and Cleveland Community School partnership could face ethics charges.

"The Governing Authority and (Superintendent Lillian) Brown may have also violated state ethic and criminal laws related to Ms. Brown moving from the Board chairperson to the Superintendent's position at a salary," the letter to those two schools reads.

Read more at Cleveland.com