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"Charter Schools"
Cincinnati’s NBC station is reporting that Willard Wilson, former head of a Cincinnati charter school, has been indicted on more charges. This time it’s theft by deception and two counts of forgery.
Wilson was previously indicted on charges of stealing tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars by “inflating the enrollment at the W. E .B. Dubois Academy in Cincinnati to receive additional state money” as well as applying to start four other magnet schools in ohio and keeping some of the state money for himself.
Does anyone still think Ohio’s charter school system doesn’t need more oversight?
Full Story... →If charter school advocates are serious about continuing with their brand of ‘school choice’ in Ohio then they better get on board with some new legislation being proposed by Sen. Tom Roberts.
SB 331 would hold community schools to the same standards for student accountability and teacher qualifications as public schools. It would also require community schools to collect and post information about pupils that enroll in public schools after leaving charter schools.
SB 332 would extend current public records and audit regulations that apply to charter schools to the entities’ sponsors and operators.
Finally, SB 333 would [...]
Full Story... →In a recent interview with the Columbus Education Association, Governor Strickland discussed his plans to improve Ohio’s educational system.
The first goal of his plan is “to strengthen our commitment to Ohio’s public schools and public education.” With this commitment comes “increased accountability measures for charters.”
But the Governor admits this won’t happen while Republicans control the legislature. Because, as I’ve mentioned many times before, for-profit charter school operators are HUGE campaign contributors.
So until we can win back control of the General Assembly, we’re going to have to suffer through more and more stories like this:
[...]
Full Story... →In Ohio, all schools receive funds from the state based on the number of enrolled students.
With the rise of charter schools in Ohio, public schools have lost many of their students and, in turn, much of their funding to these new, often for-profit charters.
While most local public school districts have rules requiring students to live within that district, charter schools often don’t have such restrictions. Students who attend Ohio’s online schools, for example, can live in any school district.
As a result public schools are put at a disadvange having to compete for students and funding with other [...]
Full Story... →In case you haven’t heard, Columbus-based Skybus Airlines shut down yesterday.
Almost immediately Matt over at Naug Blog jumped at the chance to rip on Mike Coleman and Columbus’s Democrats for helping bring the airline to town.
We shouldn’t mourn for the loss of a crappy airline service that had sloppy business model. But we should pity those abused taxpayers who will continue to be forced to hand over money to politically-connected private businesses.
The problem with his argument, and that of the Buckeye Institute as well, is that little if any tax money went to SkyBus directly. [...]
Full Story... →What the hell is up with this???
The Ohio Federation of Teachers wants the IRS to investigate charter school operator White Hat Management, contending the private company has violated the terms of the tax-free status assigned to many of its schools.
The union alleges that at least 25 Life Skills Centers and Hope Academies operated by White Hat don’t qualify for tax-exempt status because many of them share board members, trademarks and contracts.
Under IRS rules, to keep a tax exemption board members need to be unaffiliated with the management company and have authority over their own budgets, curriculum [...]
Full Story... →The Dispatch ran a well written and quite thorough opinion piece on Saturday that really sums up the situation with Ohio’s screwed up charter schools.
The piece was written by Thomas M. Stephens who is professor emeritus at OSU and the author of many books on schools, teaching and education.
Stephens points out that charter schools are promoted as a ‘panaceas for intractable education and social problems’ but the way the system is set up in Ohio pretty much guarantees their failure and leads ‘to questionable promises and practices.’
Last year Ohio’s 310 charter schools recieved $532 MILLION in [...]
Full Story... →I’m almost starting to feel bad for David Brennan- he just can’t seem to catch a break.
Even Mary Taylor, our Republican State Auditor, who received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the Brennan family, is beating on Brennan and his for-profit charter school business…
State Auditor Mary Taylor slapped 19 community schools operated by White Hat Management in Akron for abusive business practices.
A spokesman for her office said this was believed to be the first time a for-profit charter school in Ohio had been cited for abuse in an annual audit.
The audit complained [...]
Full Story... →I was out of commission yesterday, and most of the good stuff was already picked up in the rest of the Ohio ‘sphere, including this nugget, which is way too important for a Central Ohio blog to neglect to mention.
Bill Todd got 22% of his current funds for his Mayoral campaign from one David Brennan. You remember David Brennan, right? You should – we’ve talked about him quite a bit.
In case you are too lazy to look it up, Brennan is the Chairman of White Hat, the Akron-based charter school company. And [...]
Full Story... →Jill gives us the rundown over at Progress Ohio. We’ve covered a great deal about the charter school scam here at Plunderbund and the continued profiteering amidst failure after failure. Jill makes a very good point: charters are not bad in and of themselves. What they’ve been turned into is. Leave it to a bunch of wingnuts and un-checked Republican power brokers to turn something good bad.
Follow the money and understand the arrangement behind the headlines and the political rhetoric. (Graph made at Ohio Money Tree)
Pretty good report on Brennan and White Hat [...]
Full Story... →Matt uses Bill Todd’s recent “tear down that mall” comment as a jumping off point to toss veiled racism around. Aside: can we stop with the Ronnie pimpin’ already? Bill is jumping up and down and blaming Coleman for the demise of City Center and is using the blame game to score political points. Matt does as well, and tosses in a bit of veiled racism:
For those of you who haven’t had the displeasure of being inside the City Center Mall, you should be glad you haven’t wasted your time. Well over half of the stores inside are closed [...]
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