Ohio’s charter schools get much needed reality check

The courageous decision by Paolo DeMaria, state superintendent of public instruction, to forgo $22 million in federal funding for the expansion of charter schools in Ohio is significant on several levels.

The decision bolsters the opinion of critics of the state charter-school industry that oversight has been lacking for a long time.

Indeed, DeMaria acknowledged in a letter to the U.S. Department of Education that charter-school oversight organizations in Ohio are not strong enough.

“As you know, our rigorous school sponsor evaluation system has limited the number of eligible grantees in our community pipeline,” the state superintendent wrote.

DeMaria’s decision not to accept the entire $71 million federal grant for charter schools was made public last week by The Plain Dealer of Cleveland.

The newspaper quoted the Ohio Department of Education leader as saying that the $49 million the state is accepting from Washington “more accurately reflects our pool of prospective community school grantees based on our shared priorities.”

One of the main priorities is to give money to strong schools.

The Plain Dealer explained that grants are available only to those schools whose “sponsors” have one of the top two ratings of “exemplary” or “effective.”

And here’s the reality check for the charter-school industry: Only five of the more than 60 sponsors in Ohio earned “effective” ratings, and none was rated “exemplary” in the fall. The vast majority was rated as “ineffective” or worse, The Plain Dealer reported.

The decision by DeMaria not to accept the entire $71 million from the federal government is also significant because it proves that Republicans in state government have put ideology before good public policy in their support of charters.

A FAILED EXPERIMENT

As we have argued ad nauseam in this space, billions of dollars have been spent on this failed experiment in education. Republicans continue to argue that charter schools are needed to give parents who are unhappy with underperforming public schools an alternative. But widespread waste of money and the generally poor academic performance of the charters have proved the critics right.

Yet, the charter-school industry has fended off any attempt to dismantle the existing system by being inextricably tied to the Republican Party in Ohio through campaign contributions to GOP candidates.

In his letter to the U.S. Department of Education, DeMaria noted that while the vast majority of the charter-school sponsors were rated “ineffective” or worse, the state believes the “increased level of accountability will bolster the grant’s purpose of creating high-quality community schools.”

The Plain Dealer reported that the state is looking to shut down five charter-school sponsor/authorizers it rated as “poor” as part of a plan to improve charter schools across Ohio.

The significance of DeMaria’s decision not to accept the entire $71 million grant also can be seen in the reaction from Melissa Cropper, head of the Ohio Federation of Teachers.

“While we still question whether this amount of money should be used to expand Ohio’s mostly failed charter- school program, we appreciate that the state superintendent is looking at this through the lens of accountability rather than blindly taking every dollar,” Cropper told the Cleveland newspaper.

The evaluations of the charter sponsors conducted by the Ohio Department of Education are an important step in forcing the industry to adopt reforms that will result in greater accountability and transparency.

Though the General Assembly has taken steps to bring charters under control, there has been a great deal of skepticism that the private-sector operators will change their irresponsible and, in some cases, unlawful behavior.

When the $71 million federal grant for Ohio was announced in 2015 – it was the largest one in the nation – U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, and other members of the congressional delegation from the state announced a list of conditions governing its use.

DeMaria’s decision to accept just $49 million from Washington should serve as a teachable moment for Republicans in Columbus who have long shrugged off the reality that is the charter-school industry.

The state superintendent of public instruction is to be commended for his honest appraisal of the so-called community schools.