Dive Brief:
- Some $71 million of $157 million in federal funds is earmarked for Ohio charters, but the U.S. Department of Education's concerns regarding charter accountability in the state have now prompted a warning letter mandating new restrictions.
- Among the new restrictions are a temporary “route payment” status on the funding, meaning state officials “can’t use it until certain conditions are met and they get approval from a U.S. Department of Education official,” and a demand to give the DoE seven years of Ohio charter audits.
- Critics, like the Cincinnati Educational Justice Coalition, expressed outrage that the money isn’t going to traditional public schools, given the state's spotty charter record.
Dive Insight:
In the letter, U.S. Charter Schools Program Director Stefan Huh said that additional information provided to the Department of Education led it to question the state's ability to properly administer its funding. That “additional info,” he said, was related to oversight and accountability. Charters in Ohio have long been plagued by accountability and transparency issues, and recently, two bills were proposed at the federal level in an attempt to advance oversight measures.
A particularly problematic scandal came to light earlier this year involving Ohio’s charter school chief “scrubbing bad grades from state reports on charter school performance.” The issue reached as high as Gov. John Kasich, who “refused to hand over documents to the state auditor related to the federal grant and the grade scrubbing.” The scandal cost at least one official his job. Another charter was accused of defrauding taxpayers to the tune of $1.2 million dollars. Online charters have also been especially problematic.