White Hat Management's Ohio charter schools in the midst of upheaval | cleveland.com

White Hat Management's Ohio charter schools in the midst of upheaval | cleveland.com:

White Hat Management's Ohio charter schools in the midst of upheaval

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By Edith Starzyk, The Plain Dealer 
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on July 06, 2013 at 4:00 PM, updated July 06, 2013 at 7:33 PM

CHARTER CHANGES

• Split of White Hat, charter school boards may cause confusion
• Policy Matters Ohio says White Hat state law on closing charter schools
• White Hat Management's Ohio charter schools in the midst of upheaval

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- David Brennan’s White Hat Management has been the most powerful and influential of Ohio’s charter school operators since state money started flowing to the privately run public schools 15 years ago.
In the last school year alone, the 31 schools it operates in Ohio used more than $67 million from taxpayers to educate more than 9,000 children.
But in May 2010, the Akron-based company founded by Brennan — an industrialist and major Republican contributor — was challenged in court by 10 of the school boards it had assembled in Cleveland and Akron. The case has dragged on since then and is now before the Ohio Supreme Court, despite rulings that White Hat must give the boards the financial