3 Ohio Charter Schools BACK DOWN!

Ohio Education Association Applauds Attorney General's Action Against Poorly Performing Dayton Charter Schools

Posted on : 2007-09-12
Author : Ohio Education Association News
Category : PressRelease

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Sept. 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Ohio Education Association hailed the decision by Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann to seek court orders to close down three Dayton-area charter schools for failing to live up to Ohio's academic standards.

"OEA has hoped for this kind of enforcement action to reverse the state's long-term failure to monitor charter school programs. Finally, we have an Attorney General willing to target enforcement action against charter schools that have failed to meet standards of academic and fiscal accountability," said OEA President Patricia Frost-Brooks.

The Attorney General's actions followed a lawsuit filed last March by Dayton families and the Dayton Education Association, an OEA/NEA affiliate, with the support of OEA. The plaintiffs sued to force the Ohio Department of Education and the Ohio State Board of Education to hold charter schools accountable. The lawsuit asserted that charter schools that failed to comply with state law, state academic standards and provisions of their contracts with non-profit sponsors were not entitled to taxpayer support.

Yesterday, in a pending settlement with the Attorney General's office, the plaintiffs agreed to withdraw their lawsuit. The Attorney General, as part of the settlement, agreed to initiate legal action to close down charter schools that:

-- Are in academic emergency or academic watch for two of the last three school years and have performance index scores lower than scores of the school districts from which they draw the largest number of their students, -- Have not lived up to academic and financial provisions of the contracts with their non-profit sponsors, -- Have unauditable financial records or have failed to correct repeated unfavorable findings of state audits.

Under the agreement with plaintiffs, the Ohio State Board of Education has six months to develop clear standards for how sponsors of charter schools will hold their schools accountable when they are out of compliance with sponsorship contracts or are producing poor academic results.

Frost-Brooks said the settlement brings about a very practical result. "The Attorney General would rather focus on actual enforcement of Ohio's charter school laws than defend the state's lack of enforcement. We couldn't agree more," she said.

Charter schools, known as community schools in Ohio, draw more than $500 million a year away from traditional public school funding, despite a seven- year record of sub-par academic performance.

"In cases where charter schools cannot serve students effectively, state officials should close them down. Traditional public schools will welcome them back, and many of them have returned already," Frost-Brooks said.

The Ohio Education Association is the state's largest professional employee organization and represents 130,000 teachers, education support professionals and higher education faculty in Ohio's public schools, colleges and universities.