Ohio's charter schools are notorious for poor pay and conditions, often treating educators as temporary help. In recent months a number of Ohio's charter school teachers had begun to either contemplate, organize or vote to unionize in order to be able to collectively bargain better conditions and benefits.

It seems the high priced lobbyists that charter operators hired to ward of any meaningful reforms have been busy with a side project to put a stop to employees being treated like professionals. Buried in the Ohio House's substitute budget bill is this little nugget

Excludes community school employees from membership in the State Teachers Retirement System and School Employees Retirement System if the employees elect to organize under federal collective bargaining laws and the community school is subject to those laws.

It is unlikely that employees would organize knowing they would lose their pension benefits - one of the few benefits charters are forced to provide. This is a pretty ugly coercive piece of legislation that serves only to enrich for-profit charter operators at the expense of educators.

If ever you needed proof of what Ohio's charter experiment is really about, this is it.