Bill is one of several moves by lawmakers to clamp down on poor-performing charter schools

March 5, 2015 at 12:00a.m.

COLUMBUS

Republican state Auditor Dave Yost urged lawmakers Wednesday to consider changing attendance tracking and expanding financial details reported by charter schools, among other reform measures.

Yost offered the comments during a morning hearing before the House Education Committee, where he reiterated calls to improve oversight of publicly funded charters.

“The bottom line is that half of all of the findings for recovery by my office in the last four years have been against charter schools, measured in dollars,” Yost said. “That does not mean all charter schools fail or that they’re evil or crooks. Quite to the contrary — they’re changing lives every day all over this state. ... What’s broken is our system of governance.”

Yost offered testimony to the lawmaker panel on HB 2, which would block sponsors of poor-performing charters from contracting for new locations, increase public access to information about school performance and their backers and require more standards in charter agreements, among other provisions.

The bill is one of several moves by lawmakers to clamp down on poorly performing charter schools. Gov. John Kasich has included charter reform measures in his biennial budget proposal.

Yost’s office already reviews the financial activities of charter schools in the state. Since 2001, he said, $27 million findings for recovery have been issued against 300 of the schools. Since he took office, 22 people connected to charters have been convicted of crimes.

Much of Yost’s testimony focused on ways to increase public scrutiny and ensure tax dollars directed to charters are being used effectively to educate students.

“My testimony here today is that the tools for management are incoherent and muddled and insufficient,” he said. “So it’s the sponsors and Department of Education largely that we need to bring reform for to give them the ability to better regulate and manage this.”

For example, Yost said lawmakers should change the way charter-school students are counted for attendance purposes. He cited surprise visits to charters by his office last year in which fewer students were on site than enrollment reported to the state.

“... It is possible for a student to show up for as few as 10 days of school and receive funding for an entire year,” he said. “... It couldn’t have been the intention of the General Assembly to spend an entire year’s worth of funding to attain 10 days of attendance.”

Yost also urged lawmakers to require charter schools to report their finances in the same way traditional public schools do. Current reporting by charters includes scant details to determine how public monies are being spent.

“A common model for financing community schools is that the community school acts as little more than a pass-through for state money to get to the management company, which then hires the teachers, buys the books, etc.,” Yost said in testimony. “In this model, virtually all of the money is spent by a private company and is out of sight of the public. Ohio’s only window into this activity is a narrow footnote prepared by the management company, audited by its CPA firm and given to the community school for inclusion in its financial statement.”