SCHOOL OFFICIALS URGE LAWMAKERS TO PASS CHARTER REFORM, ADDRESS INEQUITIES IN CHARTER SCHOOL FUNDING

COLUMBUS – As students throughout Ohio return to school this week, school officials are urging Gov. Kasich and the state legislature to get back to work on reforming Ohio’s nationally ridiculed charter schools and fixing funding inequities that cost local communities.

“Gov. Kasich and the state legislature need to come back to Columbus and get to work on passing meaningful charter reform laws that protect our students and our local tax dollars from failing charters,” said Woodridge School Superintendent Walter Davis. “Summer break is over. It’s time for lawmakers to get back to work on charter reform and to address the funding inequities that are costing local taxpayers.”

In June, a charter reform bill (House Bill 2) passed the Ohio Senate with unanimous approval, but the Ohio House failed to take action. Meanwhile, every charter school in the state received a funding increase under the most recent budget, causing local taxpayers to subsidize charter schools even more, despite the overall poor performance record of Ohio charter schools.

“State law is supposed to prevent local tax dollars from going to charter schools, but a loophole is forcing school districts to subsidize charters because they get a higher amount of state money on a per pupil basis,” said Innovation Ohio Education Policy Fellow Stephen Dyer. “It’s time to re-examine state law, particularly in light of the burden it places on local taxpayers and the poor performance of so many charter schools in Ohio.”

Woodridge has the state’s fourth-largest percentage cut in its state funding because of charters. Every child in Woodridge who isn’t in a charter school loses 36.7 percent of its state revenue to charter schools because the state pays so much more for Woodridge students to attend charters than their local schools. All told, local taxpayers in Woodridge have to either make up $481,363 to pay for the failing charters, or suffer cuts in service.

Woodridge isn’t alone. Children in Columbus lose more than 30 percent of their state revenue to charters, at a dollar loss of $1,229 per student. Local taxpayers in Columbus have to come up with more than $64 million to make up for that loss, or suffer fewer educational services.

“A wide variety of education advocates and state and local leaders from both parties have all agreed that we need meaningful charter school reform in Ohio,” said Ohio Education Association Vice-President Scott DiMauro.

In addition to the need for charter reform, Ohio Department of Education officials and lawmakers also need to develop a new charter school sponsor evaluation process because state officials recently admitted to not following the law by throwing out the current evaluation process. Editorial boards from across the state have called for an investigation into the matter, but the Department has yet to indicate how or when it will come up with a new evaluation system for charter sponsors.

“The actions of the Ohio Department of Education to illegally manipulate the sponsor evaluation scores to make some charter schools look better, and then to entirely scrap the evaluation process, is a serious problem that needs immediate attention,” said Innovation Ohio President Keary McCarthy.

The Woodridge School District, in Summit County, was one of over 25 districts throughout the state of Ohio to pass a resolution urging the state legislature to take action on reforming Ohio’s nationally ridiculed charter school laws. Joining Superintendent Davis at a press conference in Columbus was Woodridge Treasurer Deanna Levenger and Board Member Jeff McHugh.

The Ohio Charter School Accountability Project is a joint venture of the Ohio Education Association and Innovation Ohio. The Ohio Education Association represents more than 121,000 teachers, faculty members and support professionals in Ohio’s public schools, colleges and universities. Innovation Ohio is a progressive think tank headquartered in Columbus. For more information, please visit: www.KnowYourCharter.com.

SPREADSHEET: district-by-district charter school subsidies (pdf)

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Media Contact: Keary McCarthy, 614-425-9163