43
Kasich: Clamp down on charter schools
By Marc Kovac
COLUMBUS
Gov. John Kasich vowed to revamp state oversight of charter schools, clamping down on those that are failing students.
“We are going to fix the lack of regulation on charter schools,” he told an audience of businesspeople near the Statehouse on Thursday. “There is no excuse for people coming in here and taking advantage of anything. We will be putting some tough new rules in our budget.”
The Republican governor offered the comments during a year-in-review speech before chamber of commerce groups, where he was joined by Senate President Keith Faber, R-Celina, and outgoing House Speaker Bill Batchelder, R-Medina.
His comments concerning charter schools were some of his strongest to date about the need for better oversight and standards for performance.
Kasich said he remains supportive of charter schools but added the state will move to ensure publicly funded charters are meeting their educational responsibilities.
“We will not tolerate people coming into this state making money at the expense of great education for our kids,” he said. “And the Legislature is going to have to help us on this.”
Faber told reporters afterward his chamber would focus next session on accountability for regular public and charter schools.
“Certainly, we want charter schools to be accountable, and we have shut down charter schools in this state,” he said. “We will continue to look to make sure that they’re as accountable as we can.”
Faber said his chamber also is eyeing a “deregulation” of public schools, allowing high-performing districts more leeway in how they operate, with more freedom from state mandates and regulations.
“We’ve tried this top-down, do-everything-that-Columbus-tells-you in education, and it hasn’t produced better results,” he said. “My question is why don’t we empower local school districts and local school boards to manage their own districts and then hold them accountable for those results? Education deregulation is going to be a big deal.”