When it comes to facing down Ohio's well-heeled charter school lobbyists, will state lawmakers be leaders -- or lapdogs?
So atrocious are some charter schools in Ohio that children consigned to those awful places probably can't spell the one word they need to know about their state government.
Let's try to help them:
C-o-r-r-u-p-t.
Where are the Franklin County prosecutor and officials from the U.S. Justice Department when you really need them?
There's a reason why Greg Harris, the respected state director of the charter-friendly education reform group StudentsFirst, claims "most of the charters in Ohio stink."
It's because they do.
And the crime of it all is state government's failure to do much about it.
Gov. John Kasich has some legitimate bragging rights to recite for voters in his campaign for president. What you won't hear him talk about is Ohio's well-deserved national reputation as a place where money matters more than the future of a kid trapped in a dreadful charter school.
In late June, as has happened so many times in the past, the Ohio General Assembly sold out kids in favor of the lousy charter operators who fund legislators' campaigns. And in one of the first major tests of his leadership, new House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger earned an F.
After the Senate gave its unanimous blessing to a bill, supported by Kasich, that would made the taxpayer-funded schools more accountable and transparent, it was widely assumed the House would follow suit.
At the 11th hour, Rosenberger blinked, offering a pathetic excuse of needing more time to study changes made by the Senate. The House then adjourned for the summer, allowing Rosenberger and his cronies to flee Columbus and probably delaying by at least another school year the passage of a bill designed to benefit children by making charters more accountable.
Ohio has some great charter schools — places that are saving young lives. The good schools tend to support reform.
The awful ones have figured out how to sprinkle so much money around Statehouse corridors they've purchased immunity from having to care about kids.
In the past 17 years, Ohio's two largest charter school management companies — David Brennan's Akron-based White Hat Management and William Lager's Columbus-based Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) — have funneled more than $6 million to Republican candidates and causes. In the last election cycle, ECOT alone gave more than $400,000.
The payoff? About $1.76 billion in taxpayer money has flowed into charter schools run by Brennan and Lager since 1998.
If Rosenberger has come to appreciate all that generosity, it's because he learned from When it comes to facing down Ohio's well-heeled charter school lobbyists, will state lawmakers be leaders -- or lapdogs? Brent Larkin | cleveland.com: