Superintendent seeks to save $71M grant

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Ohio’s schools superintendent has sent a letter to the head of the federal charter-schools program in an attempt to save the state’s $71 million federal grant for charter schools.

Superintendent Richard Ross assured regulators in the 69-page letter dated Wednesday that the state would use the grant to open high-quality public charter schools across the state, The Columbus Dispatch reported.

He was responding to concerns by the U.S. Department of Education over revelations this summer involving School Choice Director David Hansen. Hansen acknowledged that he omitted failing grades of some online charter schools from state sponsor evaluations, telling the state school board he didn’t want to “mask” successes elsewhere.

Five evaluations that contained the resulting inaccurate performance ratings were rescinded by the state, and Hansen resigned.

Hansen is the husband of Republican Gov. John Kasich’s presidential campaign manager.

After the federal Education Department became aware of issues with the evaluations, it wrote to Ross seeking assurances that Ohio could responsibly oversee the grant money and imposing restrictions on the flow of the first $32.7 million installment of its grant.

The additional grant funds are dependent on future congressional appropriations.

Charter Schools Program Director Stefan Huh instructed Ohio to refrain from drawing down funds or incurring expenses or obligations against the grant as the federal office gathers additional information from the state auditor and inspector general, among others.

Thousands of pages of documents related to Hansen’s handling of the evaluation data have been turned over to those offices.

Ross told the department in his letter that Ohio has made leadership changes in the Office of School Choice, appointed an independent three-member panel to review its evaluation process and passed a law adding reporting, transparency and accountability requirements for charter schools.

“The law gives the department greater authority to ensure that only high-quality sponsors can oversee schools and provides incentives to sponsors that have track records of success,” he wrote.

New evaluations of charter school sponsors should be completed by October 2016. That’s when the state intends to begin accepting applications for sub-grants by those seeking to open new schools.

Ross is retiring at the end of the year.