Hundreds of Ohio charter schools spent a total of at least $5.6 million of tax money on advertising last school year.

That’s almost double what traditional school districts spent, even though charters serve just 7 percent of the state’s public-school students.

And that’s only what was reported to the state. If tax money was first shifted to a private, for-profit charter management company before it was spent on ads, it wouldn’t show up publicly anywhere. It’s a private business expense.

Ohio legislators can’t agree on whether that’s a good or bad thing, but their reactions fall largely along party lines. Democrats generally say they oppose spending tax dollars on advertising, and Republicans generally accept it as a cost of doing business.

(Read more at the Dispatch).