Ohio must hire an independent monitor to oversee how it spends $71 million in federal money to create more charter schools.
The appointment of a monitor and other conditions the state must meet before it can receive the full $71 million were outlined in a letter dated Wednesday from the U.S. Department of Education to the Ohio Department of Education.
The federal department, in the letter, said it had designated the grant as “high risk,” a designation relating in part to the low academic scores of Ohio’s charter schools.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Niles, concerned about the Ohio Department of Education’s oversight of charter schools and the schools’ persistently low academic performance, have pressed federal education officials to scrutinize how state officials spend the grant money.
“Too many Ohio charter schools have a record of waste, fraud, and abuse — they take in taxpayer money and shortchange our students,” Brown said in a statement released Wednesday.
Brown said the U.S. Department of Education’s actions “will greatly increase oversight, accountability, and transparency, so students receive the education they deserve.”
The federal government last year established an initial series of restrictions concerning the grant money and froze spending of the initial $33 million allocation in federal funds.
The earlier restrictions were put in place after media reports uncovered the state’s alleged rigging of Ohio’s new charter school accountability system.
School Choice Director David Hansen, who authored the grant application, acknowledged omitting failing grades of certain online and dropout recovery schools from evaluations that were part of the new system.
Hansen resigned amid the controversy last year after being asked to step down by now-retired state education Superintendent Richard Ross.
The $71 million was the largest amount awarded to any state in that round of funding from the federal Charter Schools Program. The program is designed to create new “high quality” charter schools and help successful charter schools expand.
Ohio’s grant application was successful despite $30 million awarded in earlier rounds of the federal program going to now-defunct charter schools.
In its Wednesday letter to the state department, the U.S. Department of Education labeled the grant as “high risk,” and said that designation means the state must hire an independent monitor, as well as form a grant implementation advisory committee.
The monitor may be paid out of the grant funds, the federal department said, and the salary must not exceed $250,000 per year.
Additionally, the letter says the state must submit semiannual reports to the federal education department detailing how the grant money is spent.
The state, working with the federal department, also must update annually a public database providing financial and school performance information
Federal officials said their review “did not identify any significant inaccuracies in the state’s grant application.”
However, the U.S. Department of Education said, “We determined there was a need for a higher level of public transparency, public accountability, and public engagement regarding ODE’s oversight of Ohio’s charter school sector.”
Additionally, the federal department reminded state officials that online schools are not eligible to receive the grant money.
Chad L. Aldis, an official with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a national proponent of school choice, said his group is pleased that after “a careful federal review of Ohio’s charter school oversight and the many improvements that have been made to it,” the federal government will continue to disburse the grant money.
“The burden now shifts to Ohio’s Department of Education to design a rigorous grant process that awards funding to those charter schools with the highest likelihood of increasing student achievement,” Aldis said.
Ryan, the U.S. representative, said the new conditions “will add more stringent oversight to make sure these funds are used appropriately. Our children are tomorrow’s doctors, entrepreneurs, builders, leaders here in Ohio, and it is our duty to give them the resources and education they deserve.”
Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @ABJDoug.