Ohio official who manipulated charter-school data helped win federal grant to take over public schools
A top Ohio Department of Education official who resigned in July after manipulating data to boost charter schools also participated in a successful effort to obtain $71 million in federal money that could allow the wholesale takeover of urban school districts.
The U.S. Department of Education this week announced that it is providing $249 million to six states and the District of Columbia over the next five years for the expansion of charter schools.
The single-largest grant of $71 million goes to Ohio, which ranks near the bottom nationally for charter-school academic performance and has a history of financial failures.
Records show that David Hansen, a longtime advocate for charter schools hired by State Supt. Richard Ross to run his school-choice office, was involved in the grant application that will facilitate the takeover of Youngstown city schools and other targeted urban districts.
The takeover of so-called “recovery school districts” such as Youngstown was secretly negotiated by Ross, Kasich’s then chief of staff Beth Hansen and Youngstown business officials and approved by the legislature in June in a stunning last-minute maneuver.
David and Beth Hansen are husband and wife, and she left Kasich’s staff in July to run his presidential campaign.
Records released by the Ohio Department of Education Sept. 3 in response to newspaper investigations of Hansen’s role in the data manipulation also show that he assembled the supporting documents for the federal grant.
In those supporting documents, charter schools, charter-school advocates and members of the U.S. Congress painted a positive picture of Ohio.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, in announcing the $71 million this week, cited a Stanford University report suggesting that charter schools nationwide are showing improvement.
He didn’t mention another Stanford report that says Ohio charter schools areOhio official who manipulated charter-school data helped win federal grant to take over public schools - Break News - Ohio:
