The Ohio Department of Education has a lot of explaining to do about its charter school grant: editorial
At this point, it's nearly impossible to trust anything the Ohio Department of Education has to say on charter school performance, the subject of so much chicanery last year that in November the federal government froze a giant $71 million charter school expansion grant to Ohio.
And it just gets worse.
The latest news? A Jan. 29 letter from ODE to federal regulators sent in an attempt to win back the grant reveals that Ohio has nearly 10 times as many failing charter schools as it first reported to the U.S. Department of Education in its 2015 charter-school-expansion grant application.
The letter was in response to a federal government request for more information from Ohio as it reviews the state's once-successful grant that would allow the best charter schools to expand using federal funds.
Ohio must provide the U.S. Department of Education with a lot more details about its charter school oversight programs before receiving any of $71 million in federal charter expansion grants.
The feds froze the grant because of a separate issue: David Hansen, then ODE's school choice director, failed to include the F grades of online schools, as required by state law, in a statewide evaluation of charter sponsors, organizations that are responsible for the schools.
Hansen resigned, but suspicion also fell on the state's grant application, as well it should, and on who else within ODE knew about this attempted sleight of hand The Ohio Department of Education has a lot of explaining to do about its charter school grant: editorial | cleveland.com:
