Poorly Achieving Charters Gaming the System - ODE caught napping!

Charter schools' sponsors become point of concern Dayton Daily News By Scott Elliott Staff Writer 7-30-06 DAYTON — Ohio's charter movement continues to change rapidly, with Dayton leading the way. Statewide about 15 percent of charter schools changed sponsors after just one year of a new sponsoring law, but in Dayton, nearly a quarter of all charters changed sponsors. Those shifts have created concern that poor-performing schools could evade accountability by jumping to new sponsors and the state education department is just now putting in rules to try to prevent it. "We've seen a lot of sponsor-hopping," said Lisa Zellner of the Ohio Federation of Teachers. "Bad schools fear they are going to be shut down, as they should be, leave one sponsor for another hoping their funding won't be interrupted." Todd Hanes, Ohio's executive director for community schools, said sponsor shopping is not allowed. Sponsors overseeing poor schools have an obligation to address the problems. "I don't necessarily see this as a loophole in the law," he said. "First and foremost, good monitoring is an expectation of good sponsorship. Beyond that, schools do move." Charters have newfound mobility after changes to state law last year. The education department now approves sponsors that oversee the schools. Sponsors can be school districts, universities or nonprofit groups and each can manage up to 50 charter schools. The state continues to approve new sponsors — nine since last summer — bringing the number to 67 across Ohio. In Dayton, the biggest change came when four Richard Allen charter schools switched to Kids Count of Dayton, a new sponsor group, from Cincinnati-based St. Aloysius Orphanage. Krista Allen, superintendent overseeing Kids Count's nine schools statewide, said it was founded by the board of directors for the West Park Academy, a Dayton private school. But two other local charters with past academic or management troubles also changed sponsors after one year. Academy of Dayton's contract was not renewed by the Toledo-based Ohio Council of Community Schools for poor academic performance but found a new sponsor in the Cleveland-based Ashe Cultural Center. Rhea Academy, involved in a financial disagreement with the state auditor, also changed to Educational Resource Consultants in Cincinnati from the Columbus-based Buckeye Community Hope Foundation. Hanes said his office will soon launch an evaluation process for sponsors that would keep a school on probation, suspension or termination from changing sponsors. And evaluators will be looking at how sponsors handle low-rated schools. "Without question, the expectation would be to place on probation any school failing to meet the expectations of the sponsor," he said. Sponsors that fail evaluation could see the schools they operate reduced or other sanctions. But one curve ball is that the education department may not have authority over all the sponsors. The state board of education has asked lawmakers to make it clear that it can evaluate sponsors that were operating before House Bill 364 was passed. Now just 18 sponsors are directly accountable to the department, Hanes said. Even so, evaluations will start this fall for 20 sponsors. Zellner said more oversight is needed as the state will spend half a billion dollars for charter schools this school year. "It's good to see them moving forward on these things," she said. "The question is if we are in a situation where it is already too little and too late." Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2485 or selliott@DaytonDailyNews.com.