Ohio Again Hides Rotten Record of Huge On-Line Charter School from Federal Regulators
Over the weekend, Ohio’s Plunderbund blog demanded an explanation from the Ohio Department of Education about the continued exclusion of on-line charter schools from Ohio’s reporting to the U.S. Department of Education.
Ohio had been asked by the federal government to further justify its qualifications for a $71 million federal grant to expand charter schools and to pay for the state takeover of the Youngstown Schools. The federal government had been shamed into demanding additional evidence that Ohio is capable of overseeing charter schools after David Hansen, the author of the original grant proposal, was forced to resign last summer when it was made known that he had developed a charter school accountability system that neglected to consider the performance of Ohio’s notorious on-line charters. Then last week, the press exposed thatHansen’s federal grant application had further misrepresented the performance of Ohio charter schools. While the state had identified six low performing charter schools in its application last summer, a letter sent on January 29, 2016 by Ohio’s Interim Superintendent of Public Instruction, Lonny Rivera, identifies 57 charter schools in trouble. And while last summer the state had claimed 93 charter schools as “high-performing,” the new letter puts only 59 of the state’s charter schools in that top category.
Plunderbund now points out that the Ohio Department of Education, in its recent letter of explanation to the federal government, also included this footnote: “Note: Only general and special education site-based community schools were included in the original and updated analyses of high quality/high performing and poor performing schools.”
Plunderbund wonders why the notorious Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) was again Ohio Again Hides Rotten Record of Huge On-Line Charter School from Federal Regulators | janresseger:
