Coalition urges the sponsor of the Horizon Science Academy charter schools to pull support by Feb. 1 deadline

Several state organizations want a Columbus non-profit to pull the plug on the Horizon Science Academy charter schools that have been the subject of employee complaints and state and FBI investigations.

The Ohio PTA, the Ohio Federation of Teachers and the Policy Matters Ohio think tank were among the groups calling this morning for the Buckeye Community Hope Foundation to withdraw support for 11 Horizon and Noble Academy charter schools this week, in time for the state's Feb. 1 deadline.

"Our understanding of state law is that you must inform the schools that you are not renewing their charters by February 1," the groups said in a letter to Buckeye "We ask that you take this step immediately."

All of the schools belong to the Concept charter school network that operates in the Midwest. Concept, in turn, is one of several charter systems affiliated with the Gulen movement that has attracted scrutiny nationwide.

The groups want Buckeye, the "sponsor" or authorizer of the schools, to not renew its contract with the schools. That would force the schools to find another sponsor – a state-approved agency that allow charters to operate while providing oversight of them.

(Read more at Cleveland.com)

Kasich Says Fellow Republicans Are Lying About Common Core

Ohio Governor John Kasich went on the attack on Sunday against top Republicans who have rejected Common Core, claiming they have switched positions purely for political gain, even when they know the attacks made on the standards are false.

Common Core has been a popular punching bag for many Republicans seen as 2016 presidential contenders. Rand Paul, Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker and Mike Huckabee have all taken their turn bashing it.

The most common line of attack claims that Common Core, which began as a shared initiative between many state governments, has become a means of federal control forced upon states by the Obama administration. Jindal has been a particularly strong proponent of this argument, filing a federal lawsuit against the government claiming that Department of Education incentives such as Race to the Top amounted to an illegal effort to nationalize curriculum.

Kasich, however, said on Fox News Sunday that such attacks are bogus, and accused his fellow governors of not merely being wrong, but also of being dishonest.

(Read more at The Daily Caller.

Stiffen rules for charter schools

When Ohio legislators agreed to give charter schools a try, complete with public funding, the idea was to provide an alternative to failing public schools. But Buckeye State residents who have kept a close eye on charter schools may well be wondering whether they are getting no more than the same old, same old.

Allegations of mismanagement against some charters are nothing new. Now, state Auditor Dave Yost is wondering whether some of the institutions are guilty of precisely the same conduct that has landed public school officials in hot water.

Earlier this month, former Columbus school Superintendent Gene Harris was sentenced to community service and a $750 fine after pleading no contest to a dereliction of duty charge linked to a scandal in her district. It was found district reports to the state Department of Education were being doctored on various subjects, including school attendance. Officials in some other school systems have faced similar allegations.

Yost has revealed "unusually high" discrepancies between actual and reported attendance at about one-fourth of the 30 charter schools where unannounced checks were made by his staff. In other words, the same thing that caused a scandal in public schools may be happening in some charters.

(Read more at advertiser-tribune.com.

Taxpayers should not be paying for phantom students

After releasing his report on Charter school attendance, the Auditor appears on Captiol Insider and had this to say, according to the Dispatch

Ohio Auditor Dave Yost said he was left “speechless” by the discrepancies in attendance his investigators found during surprise visits to 30 charter schools.

Half of the schools had significantly lower attendance than they had reported to the state. Investigators found no students at one school.

Yet the former prosecutor’s 56-page report released last week said he did not determine whether the schools were cheating and couldn’t say whether they had bilked taxpayers, Dispatch Reporter Catherine Candisky notes.

It almost doesn't matter. Of course we must still demand a real investigation, and if fraud has been occurring arrests and indictments must happen, but what the Auditor truly revealed is the massive on-going over-payment to charter schools for students they are not teaching.

If Charter schools are regularly teaching <100% of the students they claim to have, they should not be receiving 100% of the state aid, transferred from local school districts

. These millions of dollars in over-payments due to lax reporting and oversight are bad for taxpayers and terrible for traditional public school students who are being deprived of funding they should be receiving if these charters were billing correctly.

The legislature needs to take a long hard look at how and when money is transferred to charter schools and ensure they are only being paid for student that are actually in their classrooms. No more payments for phantom students

Ohio charter schools may be charging taxpayers for empty seats; Akron’s White Hat among those cited

Thirty auditors fanned out across Ohio last fall to count the students sitting in 30 charter schools and compare totals with the numbers those schools claimed in order to receive taxpayer dollars.

In a school in Youngstown, they found zero students, though the school had received enough state aid to educate 152. Dropout recovery schools operated by Akron-based White Hat Management were among the worst.

“I was shocked to find that 50 percent [attendance] seems to be the average” among one particular type of school, said State Auditor Dave Yost, who launched the “old-school” investigation because of recent allegations that charter schools might be inflating enrollment figures.

Yost, a Republican, held a news conference at the statehouse Thursday to announce the findings that create yet one more blemish on Ohio’s $1 billion charter school sector.

The report follows failed proposals by minority House and Senate Democrats who want to reform charter schools. It also comes amid a Republican Senator’s efforts to rewrite Ohio’s charter school law and landed in Columbus a week before supporters descend upon the state capital to celebrate School Choice Week.

(Read more at Ohio.com)

Affluent districts pay less in school taxes by this count

If New Albany-Plain school district residents paid an average amount of their income to fund local education, in relation to all Ohio districts, the district not only could stop worrying about budget cuts, it could more than double spending.

The affluent northeastern Franklin County district could bring in an extra $70 million a year — $15,200 per pupil — if its local tax effort matched the average effort in Ohio, according to an analysis by Howard Fleeter of the Ohio Education Policy Institute.

Neither Fleeter, nor anyone else for that matter, is suggesting New Albany strive for such a goal. But as Gov. John Kasich and state lawmakers again prepare to debate school funding as part of the two-year state budget, he thinks a district’s capacity to generate local revenue should be considered.

“Capacity is a valid point,” Fleeter said. “You can’t just make judgments that your millage rate is low so you need to help yourself before we help you. There are places with low millage rates that really are trying as hard as they ought to be.”

(Read more at the Dispatch)

Fleeter analyzed the local tax-effort index, a state-developed calculation that reflects how much financial effort residents are making to fund their local school district. An index greater than 1 indicates district residents are making an above-average effort, while those less than 1 are below average.